I  love this business.  Yes, I must suffer through the Gatorade fiascos, and the Tropicana near disasters, but every now and then, you stumble across something wonderful,  Today, I discovered Whistle Creek walking sticks and canes out in Estes Park, Colorado. I have a heath nuisance that might force me use a cane, and I [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

This week I saw an ad at the movies that got it all right, the medium, the target, the message, the delivery. It was a :120-180 sec spot for the National Guard built around the idea of the Citizen Soldier.  It mixed the history of the National Guard, America’s first organized militia which I learn [...]

I discovered STOK today in a service station on Cobb Mountain in California north of the Napa Valley.  The merchandising on the gas pump alerted me to it.  “After long nights or even longer days.”  Since I was awakened last night in my cabin by an earthquake, I was a sitting duck target for this [...]

Engineering a Killer Brand can certainly be a puzzle, but Stave, a company in Vermont has proved that a “puzzle can be a Killer Brand.” Stave Puzzles are known within their target audience of puzzle junkies as the highest quality, most interesting and most difficult puzzles of all times. In this case, Stave Puzzles represent [...]

As you know, the investment category, stocks, bonds, funds, etc., is about as fragmented a category as one can find. My book, KILLER BRANDS, notes that there are more mutual funds traded than there are even individual stocks. How do you differentiate in such a crowded category? If you drive up I95 between Ft. Lauderdale [...]

There is no way of estimating how many of New York’s sidewalk hot dog stands I have frequented in my career, but they are certainly a good deal. A hot dog on a fresh bun plus a soft drink for only two dollars in one of the World’s most expensive cities. You have probably done [...]