Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jan 19, 2012, 1:04 pm
My latest post is out on MarketingDaily. In it, I talk about the power of packaging to influence taste. Research has show that people are highly sensitive to non-taste cues when they are evaluating the taste of something. As I say in the post: "It’s not just about the product in...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Dec 14, 2011, 10:28 am
Here's my holiday gift to my readers. To be honest, it's a regift, since these social media tips were originally published (in longer form) in the MarketingDaily. There are five tips on basic social media principles and approach and ten tips on criteria for planning social media programs. Principle...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Nov 21, 2011, 11:50 am
Lululemon has ridden the wave of yoga's popularity with great success, selling high end yoga clothes and promoting healthy living. So deciding to associate with a philosophy that's the antithesis of what yoga is all about seems a little odd, to say the least.  As reported o...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Nov 14, 2011, 11:06 am
Australia has become the first country in the world to ban the branding of cigarette packages. From next July, all packs will look like the one in the picture--they will be a deliberately unappealing olive green color, the brand of the manufacturer will be printed in a tiny, generic font...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Oct 25, 2011, 3:20 pm
Committing social media suicide by upsetting your most loyal fans is something of a trend. Netflix blazed a trail. And now it's Moleskine, maker of the "legendary" notebooks so beloved by the designers, following along. With apparently no sense of a design community hot butt...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Oct 24, 2011, 1:44 pm
Shameless self-promotion alert!  I'm going to be the presenter on the next Landor Brandfeed, talking about different ways CPG marketers can be successful in social media. Sign-up here to listen live (October 27th at 1pm Pacific) or go to landor.com/brandfeed sometime the following week...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Oct 17, 2011, 1:38 pm
When it comes to aligning yourself with causes, how far is too far? And how far can individual brands of a product portfolio stray from the corporate family consensus? Ben & Jerry's is testing the boundaries of both these questions with its support of the Occupy Wall Street m...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Oct 10, 2011, 11:59 am
Perhaps it's a new kind of market research? You float an idea out there and see how customers and the punditry react. If, as in the case of the announcement of the breaking up of Netflix into two parts, the reaction is almost universally negative, you simply announce that you've changed your m...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Oct 7, 2011, 12:11 pm
My first post on MarketingDaily covers the perhaps surprising success of Reese's, Hershey's top-selling candy brand. Reese's made it onto Landor's 2011 list of Breakaway Brands, taking its place alongside Apple and Facebook and some other brands you'd more expect to be there.
...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Oct 3, 2011, 11:31 am
So many brands jump in to social media without any idea of what they are going to say or how they're going to say it. The results aren't pretty--many companies give up and leave their accounts abandoned, others keep on going but you wish they would give up becaus...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Sep 26, 2011, 10:51 am
If you start from the premise that no-one wants a relationship with a bar of soap and that social media is all about relationships, then how can CPG brands ever hope to effectively participate? That's the question I explored in an article just published in The Hub (Here's th...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Sep 20, 2011, 11:00 am
"Fun" M&Ms at Kimpton Hotels Hotel mini-bars have always been a flashpoint of confrontation between hotels and their guests. Guests hate the egregiously high prices and being charged for things they never ate. Hotels have to deal with their guests substituting tap water for bottled water (and v...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Sep 19, 2011, 12:00 pm
Sooner or later, DVDs will be outdated as cassette tapes, typewriters and buggy whips. The mistake that most companies make when faced with the decline of their core business is to be in denial and to try and hang on too long. They focus all their energies trying to maintain revenu...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Sep 2, 2011, 1:20 pm
A great article on the perils of bad strategy, forwarded to me by a Landor colleague. Written by UCLA management professor Richard Rumelt, the article (free registration required) covers some typical mistakes. These include: Mistaking goals for strategy, a "dog's dinner" of objectives and a "flurry ...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Aug 2, 2011, 4:29 pm
On the one hand, now that I've seen that Walgreens is selling fresh food, my impression of the brand improves somewhat. On the other, I don't feel remotely inclined to buy fresh food at Walgreens. Verdict?
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jul 26, 2011, 11:23 am
The phone hacking scandal at News Corp.'s The News of the World is testing the effectiveness of brand architecture as a way to protect a company from conflagration when one of its units burns to the ground. The protective possibilities of brand architecture is an argument in favor of a "house ...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jul 19, 2011, 10:52 am
Even when you are a leader with a seemingly unassailable hold on your market, things can go horribly wrong, horribly fast if you ignore your customers or take your leadership for granted. Currently, three strong category leaders are suffering the consequences of certain amount of leadership ar...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jul 12, 2011, 11:25 am
As I have crawled along the jammed-up freeway in Marin, watching hybrid after hybrid fly by me in the car pool lane (a privilege that's just ended), I would never have guessed that cars with green technology still only represent 2% of the U.S. market. It may take a while for the rest of Ameri...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jul 6, 2011, 12:15 pm
According to Mashable, Google is going to rebrand Blogger and Picasa, two of its popular products. Blogger will be renamed Google Blogs and Picasa will be Google Photos. This is all part of an initiative to unify the brand portfolio ahead of the public launch of Google+, the company's latest a...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jun 23, 2011, 5:36 pm
You might think that, by now, every millimeter of packaging would have been exploited for its design and communication potential. But you'd be wrong--new opportunities still emerge. In this case, it's the barcode, described by the Wall Street Journal as "the style runt of product labeling" which is ...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jun 15, 2011, 3:39 pm
People love their Whole Foods and Trader Joe's even though (or maybe because) they're not perfect. These fantastic consumer-made videos show the love even as they share the frustrations of the shopping experience 1) Whole Foods Parking Lot Frustrations: Too few parking spaces, high prices ("...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jun 13, 2011, 11:00 am
Photo by Stefan Gara on Flickr There are some brands we are stuck on, others we're stuck with. Brands we're stuck on are those where we've developed a relationship out of our own free will (Apple, Starbucks, Zappos). Brands we're stuck with are those where we've become enslaved through contracts (ph...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jun 9, 2011, 12:20 pm
Photo by Ninja M. on Flickr Is the secret of Apple's success a lot more simple and verbal than we think? Forget about design, innovation, Steve Jobs. Is it all to do with the "I"? Hits: iPod, iPad, iPhone, iTunes, iMac, iOS Misses: MobileMe, Power Mac G4 Cube, Apple TV, MacBook Air, Apple Lis...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jun 6, 2011, 10:40 am
People have compared companies to living organisms before. People like Arie de Geus have argued that, just like organisms, companies learn, evolve, and eventually die. Now there's data to suggest this comparison is not just New Age and metaphorical. It's scientific and mathematical. Ge...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jun 2, 2011, 12:04 pm
When Grand Rapids Michigan saw that it was listed on Newsweek's America's Dying Cities list, it decided to do something about it. So they produced this incredible single-shot LipDub featuring hundreds of very-much-alive Grand Rapidians that Roger Ebert has called the Greatest Music Video Ever ...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - May 31, 2011, 11:12 am
Photo by buckofive on FlickrAre your once innovative products becoming commoditized? Are you getting pulled down into a cesspool of cost cutting as you try and stay price competitive? HBS Professor Ranjay Gulati says, if that's happening to you, you may be spending too much time on the toilet ...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - May 24, 2011, 10:36 am
In his famous 1997 Fast Company article: The Brand Called You, Tom Peters told us that we all should become brands. "To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You," he said. How about the other way around? From personal branding to brandi...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - May 20, 2011, 1:11 pm
Photo by Alex Do of sweater purchased at Marc by Marc Jacobs Marc, If you're joking, ha ha! If not, call me. I'm a brand architect. I can help Regards, Martin
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - May 2, 2011, 11:32 am
Nielsen data on smartphone share (recent acquirers) as reported in FortuneWhen Android first started outselling the iPhone about a year ago, PCWorld said it was no big surprise because: "Two models of the iPhone (the 3GS and 3G) are doing battle with scads of Android handsets in an array of shapes a...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Apr 28, 2011, 11:20 am
Where the famous line "We have ways of making you talk" actually came from (This Day in Quotes) This week's hoo-hah about the Apple's iPhone's file that logs your historical whereabouts shows the fine line between our love and hate of what our smartphones can do for us and with us. We love applicati...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Apr 26, 2011, 10:16 am
Southwest has tapped into consumer resentment over the fees that other airlines have started to charge for services that used to be free with a commitment not to charge for those same services (e.g. "Bags Fly Free," "No Change Fee") and promotion of that commitment with ads like the one above....
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Apr 13, 2011, 10:25 am
There may be a good reason for this. But I don't know what it is: eBay account update: Action needed Dear Martin Bishop, We noticed that you haven't signed in to your eBay account for quite some time, and we'd like to invite you back to buy and sell again. eBay's a great place to buy what you...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Apr 12, 2011, 11:00 am
So, for all those who you for whom "brand is not a logo" is a mantra, ponder this.  As reported by The Economist, what counts on designer clothing is the label, not the design. Rob Nelissen and Marijn Meijers of Tilburg University in the Netherlands conducted a series of experiments taking a ...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Apr 1, 2011, 10:55 am
Dairy Cow With Problems (via Awkward Stock Photos)So, nine times out of ten, while I write a blog post, I'll open up Flickr and see what Creative Commons photograph I can use to illustrate it with. But how about the other way around? How about starting with the photo? @fritinancy pointed me towards ...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Mar 30, 2011, 6:51 pm
Mercado de San Miguel, Madrid Short answer: No. USA Today reported earlier this week that Whole Foods is opening bars that will serve craft beer and local wine at its stores in a test before a wider roll-out.  It seems to me like a perfect fit and something that will only help to build up ...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Mar 19, 2011, 11:31 am
SOTB is back, finally. So much going on in the world and my world that it's been hard to find the space and time: 1) Understanding Japan's Nuclear Crisis: Wired Science The definitive guide to what's been going on at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors in Japan. Meanwhile, wear red f...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Mar 10, 2011, 8:04 pm
The W Mexico City (An Instagram photo) While I'm in a change-is-happening-faster-and-faster way of thinking after my chat with Daniel Burrus earlier this week, here's a quick example. I've been enjoying using Instagram. It's a photo sharing iPhone app that includes some filters for you to jazz...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Mar 9, 2011, 11:00 am
whirling people machine by joiseyshowaa (Flickr)Change used to happen slowly enough that companies could do without effective forward planning and react to changes as they happened. But change is now happening so fast that this type of reactive approach is starting to fail. We have now entered an er...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Mar 5, 2011, 1:07 pm
The Post2Post Virtual Book Tour returns to Brand Mix on Wednesday, March 9th. The author on this visit will be Daniel Burrus who will be talking about his new book: Flash Foresight. Subtitled "How To See The Invisible and Do The Impossible" (who wouldn't like to be able to do that?), Flash Fo...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Mar 1, 2011, 10:00 am
I've been a big fan of the work that the Sun Chips brand team to build its green credentials and take advantage of its eco-friendly name. Back in 2009, I commended the team for a series of initiatives it had taken to build the brand's green credentials. These went way beyond a single promotion...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Feb 5, 2011, 12:00 pm
Super Bowl XLV: An iconic symbol for a world-class event (Landor) Time to watch some ads. While two teams I dislike equally battle it out on the field; cars, beers, movies, sodas and GoDaddy will be competing for attention and praise. This year, some companies have decided to jump the gun and ...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Feb 4, 2011, 12:13 pm
Oh, Kenneth! It must have seemed so drole and au courant in those few seconds it took to compose and send your tweet connecting the turmoil in Egypt with your new spring collection. Perhaps a few more seconds thought might have led to second thoughts. But the cat was out of the bag and the Twi...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Feb 3, 2011, 10:56 am
Good Idea/Bad Idea by Fredo Alvarez (Flickr)Mr. Skullhead is a character from the animated television series Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs. He would feature in a short segment called "Good Idea/Bad Idea." He would first perform a mundane task uneventfully and then be asked to perform a similar...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jan 31, 2011, 11:30 am
"JUST GOT TO LONDON!!! YOU KNOW I HAD TO PUT MY CAPS LOCK ON! I DON'T TYPE IN CAPS CAUSE I'M MAD I TYPE IN CAPS CAUSE I'M LAZY!!!" Kanye West tweet Kanye's Kanye so if he wants to type in ALL CAPS no-one is going to stop him. But collective opinion is very much against it. It's the written equ...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jan 19, 2011, 12:27 pm
Following my post: What can brands learn from the Mathematics of Beauty, lets continue our tour of the sciences, watching Dan Cobley from Google describe what physics has taught him about marketing: 1) Newton's Law (Acceleration = Force/Mass): Larger mass requires more force to change i...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jan 15, 2011, 11:30 am
astronomical clock by mararie (Flickr)There are some things that should not be subject to the scrutiny of science or comedy. Things like the signs of the zodiac, the importance of design and advertising, and Ken being unbeatable on Jeopardy. 1) Your Zodiac Sign May Have Changed: Gawker A...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jan 13, 2011, 11:44 am
Marginal Revolution (MR) pointed me to Ok Trends which develops insights based on the data from OkCupid, self-described "best dating site on earth." In its latest post, Ok Trends explores the mathematics of beauty and comes to surprising conclusions. By comparing the number of messages t...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jan 12, 2011, 10:45 am
When I saw the new Video Only store open up in Marin, I wondered how much business it has lost over the years because of its name. It doesn't sell only videos. It mainly sells TVs. Until I decided to write this post, I'd never visited the store because the name was enough of a barrier to keep me out...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jan 10, 2011, 11:00 am
The Diamond Foods portfolio In my new article on brand architecture, I make the case that a solid brand architecture plan can significantly improve the odds of acquisition success. Given that the odds are no better than 50/50 (based on analysis of how many past acquisitions increased shareholder val...
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Martin Bishop posted an article on Brand Mix - Jan 7, 2011, 11:00 am
It's been quite a week for Ted Williams. As this summary from The New York Times reports, after being discovered on the streets of Cleveland, he's been inundated with job offers (Cleveland Cavaliers and Kraft Mac and Cheese) and media requests including appearances on The Today Show and Jimmy ...
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