The American Dream may be born in the fact that to create a Killer Brand here does not require the resources of a giant, just the talent of a giant. Consider.  Delta with giant resources starts a new airline named Song.  Millions later Song is gone. While during the same years, in the very toughest [...]

I saw this today in Fortune Cookies, a compilation of advice from Fortune magazine over the years. “Avoid wasting too much time and money on ‘trombone oil projects.’  You may turn out the best slide oil in the world, but the entire world needs only a pint of the stuff in a year.” I was [...]

Here is a new and very definite KILLER BRAND that I recently discovered.  How can one company own a 62% share of a highly fragmented category? Meet Vic Firth.  Every heard of him or his company?  If you play the drums you probably have. Vic Firth drumsticks are the undisputed Killer Brand in the drumstick [...]

This is a day late but the Macintosh computer was born yesterday, 25 years ago with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch">the famous "George Orwell, 1984" TV advertising</a>. I was thinking that we ran Bullfrog on an Apple II, and we ran my first consulting company on an Apple III, both of which preceeded the Macintosh.  Seems like just [...]

This links to one of the most creative pieces of advertising I have ever seen, but it fails in my opinion to make the sale when the time comes.  It is for the Diamond department at Penny’s.  What this piece fails to do is to establish and use the principle of Ethos.  The Pathos and [...]

The new Bud Light campaign using the non-consumer term, “drinkability” is very interesting for several reasons. First, drinkability is a term used internally maybe by all beer companies (I have worked with Coors and Miller and it was used both places).  But everyone knows it is not a consumer word.  No consumer ever says, “This [...]

You can brand anything.  Over 50 years ago, the Butterball turkey was introduced, and for 40 of those years once it achieved broad geographical distribution, it has been the number one brand of turkey, even though it has been owned by different companies. Number one for 40 years.  No Thanksgiving should ever pass without brand-interested [...]

The Chicago Lyric Opera House has been home to Jenny Lind, Enrico Caruso, and other great voices thru history. It also enjoys one of the truly great slogans or copy lines that I have ever heard.  “If these walls could talk, they would sing.”

A restaurant in Chandler, Arizona, represents virtually every principle of Killer Branding.  Called the Heart Attack Grill, it features really good tasing food, that is absolutely bad for your arteries.  The alignment is awesome from the Single Bypass Burger (one patty) to the Quadruple Bypass burger (four patties).  Burgers don’t even have lettuce.  In fact, [...]

In the book, KILLER BRANDS, I am critical of the Traveler’s Insurance advertising that featured the medieval man jumping off of the bridge wearing wings.  Today, I want to give Kudo’s to their new advertising which shows a mnemonic unbrella hovering over houses and cars and such.  This is not perfect.  It stills tells the [...]