Swedish home furnishings mega-presence IKEA translated the pop culture DIY theme into the furniture industry, with light, easy-to-assemble furniture and modern, playful designs affordable for someone on any budget. Leave it to them to introduce Do-it-yourself concepts to the green movement. Recently, IKEA launched their own GreenTech fund, with plans to invest $77 million into [...]
strip for clothes
The last Virgin campaign “Virgin Mobile” raises skepticism on the adequacy between the product of a company and its messaging. The product, nothing but Virgin cellphones, its cause marketing messaging “Someone out there needs clothes more than you.” In its original campaign “Strip2Clothe”, Virgin challenged anyone to undress front of a video camera and to [...]
Authentic Marketing: Continuing the Conversation Through Social Media
Everywhere you turn, the topic of Social Media Marketing dominates the blogosphere. Conversation marketing, authentic connections between brands and customers and relationship building. Today, Sustainable Life Media published on their blog 5 really good tips on How to Make Green Social Networks Work for Your Brand. Highlights include: 1. Create branded profiles and start groups [...]
budweiser-stella artois, the impossible fermentation?
From 6th millennium BC until forever, Ninkasi (the ancient Summerian goddess of beer) will inspire hymns to her honor. Composed originally with bappir (baked barley bread), malt, honey and dates, the recipe barely changed. If I invoke today the matron of beer it is to turn a historic page in the American fermentation industry. Traditionally [...]
eat or tattoo your logo?
We’re all used to peeling the stickers off our bananas and apples. The blue Chiquita logo is as much a recognizable part of my childhood as the banana itself. I wasn’t a huge fan of the fruit, but I sure did like the free stickers. Stickers are fun, but what if the logo couldn’t be [...]
one guy’s experience with cigs
After reading an article by James Chartrand entitled “What (bad) Cigarettes Can Teach You About (good) Branding.” As a former smoker born in 1978, I can attest that I loved Marlboros. Of all the tar, chemicals and tobacco junk permanently scarified into my lung tissue, I’d say Marlboro cigarettes contributed to most of it. Why [...]
Iproblems
Amidst the epidemic of Apple-worship and worldwide infatuation with I-products, it seems Apple can do no wrong and Steve Jobs is a modern-day prophet. The masses, so thoroughly brainwashed by shrewd advertising and trendy gadgets, have failed to notice Apple has monopolized a very important aspect of our lives—music. Never before have music consumers been [...]
is it rum or sex for sale?
There’s the saying, “sex sells”. It’s true, advertisers pick beautiful bodies to drape across their products, or drape their products across. They put beautiful faces with sly smiles on brochures to sell anything from health insurance to copper plumbing, industries where the quality of the service is in no way actually affected by the provider’s [...]
i made you a muxtape
It never happened to me, as home-schoolers don’t usually have boyfriends in junior high, (ok, not until college for some of us). But I’ve seen it happen plenty of times in movies, and I think it’s pretty much the most romantic thing ever. As a sign of affection, 14 year-old Jimmy spends six hours alone [...]
brand tags
Stumbled upon this interesting site, brand research really called brand tags. The idea is, that a brand exists entirely in people’s heads, their idea of the brand, their relationship with the brand. What a better way of gaging what people think than asking them? So far, they have 940,000+ tags and counting. The site displays [...]