THINKing

LinkedIn – Branding

We’ve been talking recently about LinkedIn and the numerous ways you can utilize the platform for yourself and your organization. We see at least six business functions (see list below) in which LinkedIn can assist your company. We have already addressed #1. Today, we take a look at branding.

Branding The Fortune 500 Way

Today’s Fortune 500 Friday is about Nucor, #206 on this year’s Fortune 500 list, & one of my clients. I have been in marketing since 1983, and in my experience, Nucor does a better job of branding than any other company I’ve ever been around. It doesn’t waste time or money on promoting itself outside its niche. The people who need to know about them, know who they are.

Forgotten Gems

Through no fault of their own, sometimes really good posts just get overlooked. Here are a few forgotten gems you may have missed.

Grandma Says -  Southern grandmothers have often said, “there are only three times a respectable person’s name should be in the paper: when you are born, when you are married, and when you die.” This is the one area in which I part company with my grandmothers.

Dead Brands

2008 was the 100th anniversary of Hydrox, a creme-filled chocolate cookie whose name sounded like bad-tasting medicine. We wrote about the cookie back then because its latest owner, Kellogg’s, was using the anniversary in an attempt to resuscitate the brand. Bring on the CPR!

Plan? We Don’t Need No Stinking Plan!

Now that technology has rendered every moment a marketing moment, how do you develop a plan in which you can have any confidence? That’s the question posited by colleague Scott Hepburn recently and I thought it was a good subject for this blog to tackle.

We Care. No, Really!

Listening to the radio today I heard an ad that actually said “because we care.” That was their brand promise. I hear or see lame marketing statements like this too often.

Truth is that company on the radio does not care. If it really cared, they’d spend enough time thinking about why people should do business with them and then develop a brand promise around that.

Listen Up

Last week digital colleague Jay Ehret asked me to participate in his weekly Marketers  Roundtable podcast along with Bill Schley and Denise Lee Yohn.  We batted around integration, messaging in social media, brand leverage and listening to customers. So, give us a listen here. 

Top Content 2009 Edition

In case you missed some of our most read content this year, below is a sample of the top posts of 2009. Is your favorite here?

Twittering Journalists

Customer Retention Strategies

When Billboards Go Bad

Twitter: Time Waster Or Cool Tool?

Branding Lessons From Santa

Of Spokesmen & Sluts

I would never recommend that a client select a celebrity to be a spokesman for its products. Period. End of story. I know the potential benefits of using the right celebrity to draw attention to your company, product or service. I just don’t think it is worth the possible problems.

Be Relevant

It comes as no surprise to me that Americans are trying harder than ever to avoid advertising. According to a new study by Synovate,

More than four in 10 US consumers said they were skipping ads on TV and the radio as well as avoiding Websites with intrusive ads more in 2009 than they were the year before.