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 [...]

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 [...]

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about Wilson’s, the Leather People, beginning to show non-leather goods in their stores.  A reader has informed me that Wilson’s is changing all of their stores over to Studio branded stores and will carry a range of non-leather products. Regardless of the business need to move away [...]

On Ventura Blvd in the LA area, one can experience two different burger concepts in a few blocks that are worth examining. One is Fat Burger. The other is Habit. The Fat Burger unit is minimal and dated. The food is good. Once you stop in, the marketing is clear, the concept makes sense. They [...]

Prudential has a new campaign that follows the principles of Killer Branding pretty closely. Prudential always had good Linkage with “Own a piece of the Rock,” but the story was a little generic, not that differentiating or compelling.  I have always liked the mnemonic device of the Rock of Gilbralta.  It shows how a brand [...]

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 [...]

On the last calendar day of 2007, I would like to give kudos to a KILLER BRAND. It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno. Market research probably showed that consumers thought that fresh delivered pizza, no matter the brand, was better than any brand of frozen pizza from the grocery store. So instead of focusing on an [...]

I discovered this store in Barcelona, Spain. It was a very well explained and merchandised homeopathic medicine store. Happy Pills Stores are a great example of focus, alignment and linkage. Every one who has seen this store has probably walked into it at least once. I did.