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 [...]

As we watch the demise of the newspaper in America amid the rise of blogs, it should be noted that the first newspaper published in America, “Publick Occurrences” in the year 1690, WAS BOTH A NEWSPAPER AND A BLOG. Publick Occurrences consisted of 3 pages of print articles with a blank back page for readers [...]

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 [...]

Can a woman’s handbag be a Killer Brand?  Of course.  Anything can become a Killer Brand.  The Chanel Bag, known as the 2-55 bag because it was first designed in February, 1955, is a true Killer Brand. It was built on the expecation that if you owned one and used it, you distinguished yourself as [...]

I am no fan of political advertising, and I am not taking sides, but today I was forwarded a link which represents one of the greatest examples of marketing mechanics I have ever seen.  The link was to a CNNBC (sic) video entitled, “Obama’s loss traced to Frank Lane.”  You clicked on the link and [...]

As a people we are not just ethnocentric we are chronocentric.  We actually think that technological disintermediation is a thing of our times.  Long distance being replaced by cell phones, etc.  Well think about this. The Pony Express, an American Icon, a true Killer Brand in its time, was introduced in April of 1860.   It [...]

Every business and every brand can be innovated.  Innovation usually benefits the innovator, and sometimes costs not only the competition but other businesses down the line. The Atlanta airport has innovated its baggage department.  The baggage carrousels that used to be so noisy when they started up and ran are now silent.  All the metal [...]

I am constantly amazed by things we dreamed about as boys that are now available on the market.  I have already talked about tin can walkie talkies morphing into today’s cell phones. How about a backpack that collects solar energy to charge your computer, and all devices carried therein?  Here it is: I don’t really [...]

When I was a kid, we begged for empty tin cans and binder’s twine.  We threaded the binder’s twine through holes in the bottom of two cans, tied knots in each end to hold the cans, waxed the twine (sometimes 100 feet of it) with beeswax, stretched it tight and talked to each other from [...]