Marketing Joint

Most Valuable Brands

Interbrand published their "Best Global Brands" report for 2008 last month ((Downloadable PDF Here). I won't get into the exact methodology here but they basically assign a monetary value to a company's brand asset.

I actully read this kind of stuff with excitement but you can skip to the last page since it contains the full list of top brands. How many of these brands make their way to your home or wallet?

I counted 43 brands for our family. Now, I'm beginning to wonder how much in brand premiums I paid over the years.

- John

Trusted Brands

Google CEO talks about how false information is flourishing on the net in this AdAge article.

Why the Phones Never Ring

I once knew a CEO who asked me why the phones weren't ringing off the hook. He said that the sales efforts were costing too much money. "We need to make our phones ring!"

Intuit Gets New Stickmen Logo

I was pretty surprised to see Intuit change its corporate logo. In the past, I've used both Intuit's TurboTax and H&R Block's TaxCut. For my own reasons, I like TurboTax better. Recently, I went to their site and almost thought I misclicked on my bookmark. The Intuit logo is never really prominent on its boxes. Whether for Turbo Tax or Quicken, the packaging always blaringly screamed out the product name(and still does). Also, the company's TurboTax headquarters building in Southern California doesn't even sport the corporate logo (Turbo Tax signage sits in its place).

So, I really wonder why they changed their well recognized logo. Unlike companies that are currently undergoing a logo change (such as Ford or Xerox) as part of on overall image makeover to actually distance themselves from their recent stumbles and fumbles, Intuit is a very solid company with a pretty loyal customer base.

Marketing According to Seth

This week, Seth Godin suggests that great marketing can be defined by four words. "Make big promises; overdeliver." It reminded me of the blog I wrote a couple months ago on branding being defined by repeatedly kept promises (You Promise? Absolut-ly!).

Seth uses the definition in context of word of mouth. I used it in context of brand building in general. But, I think both are striking at the same concept overall ...

- John

What's in a Name?

I was reading a page on company name orgins in Wikipedia and wanted to point you to it HERE.

I'm amazed at how many corporate names are either derived from the names of its founders or cryptic acronyms of a descriptive phrase. It's a good approach since a lot of companies end up doing something entirely different than what it first set out to do. It's a lot better than a new "Web 2.0" startup calling itself iStorage or SmartShopper only to change its business, change its name, and waste a lot of brand equity (ie., mony, time, goodwill) in the process. Well, I guess there would be very little brand equity to begin with and these companies - or "products" - won't last long enough to go through such a change anyway since too many of these endeavors are outfitted to sell "features" to Google ... fair enough.

Corporate Logo Stinks? You're Not Alone

If you’re a startup spending way too much time on getting the perfect corporate logo, put your time to better use. Just take a look at how some of today’s biggest tech companies evolved their logos over time.

It’s interesting to see that giant IBM stuck with their current logo for quite some time (since 1972!) while others like Xerox changed their logo a few years ago. I actually like the red Xerox logo.

- John

You Promise? Absolut-ly!

I’ve been asked countless times about what branding means. It’s usually an innocent question posed by a genuinely interested individual. But, quite a few times, I’ve been asked by someone who simply wanted to see if I knew the answer. I’m not sure if there is a single, unanimously agreed upon answer but I’d always make my attempt to describe what I think branding represents. My reason for doing so is quite simple. For a marketing professional, branding is critical to fueling and supporting high trajectory growth.

Branding represents a promise. When promises are kept, the brand gets stronger. Before a brand can propel itself, it needs to be constantly fed or nourished. A brand gets automatically reinforced through what I like to term ‘the repetition of making promises and keeping them.

Marketing Joint Off-And-Running!

Here's how we came up with the name of our blog. Raj came to me and said that the new realities of business is all about sharing. In the past, businesses (and, by extension, business people) hoarded information and protected intellectual capital. Today, those who thrive in our ever competitive environment do the exact opposite ... they share intelligence and information. Sharing in the context of businesses usually involves the JOINT use of resources. Our blog is about all of the practical lessons learned in technology marketing and thus, an appropriate name for our cyber resting place seemed to be ... (drum roll please) ... Marketing Joint. There you have it.

- John