Why America Is Addicted to Olive Garden

Fast Company, July 1, 2009 — On a Tuesday morning in April, the presidents of three of the largest restaurant chains in the country slip into an unmarked white van in Orlando, Florida, and embark on an unprecedented mission — sharing their latest trade secrets.

You know their brands: $3 billion — plus Olive Garden, with its heaping bowls of pasta and all-you-can-eat breadsticks; $2 billion — plus Red Lobster, which introduced middle America to the wonders of fried shrimp; and nearly $1 billion LongHorn Steakhouse, whose variations on a theme include steak stuffed with fontina cheese and wild mushrooms.

You probably don't know they're part of the same company, Darden Restaurants. It's the country's largest full-service restaurant operation, the 29th-largest employer in the United... continue reading

Six Rules for Brand Revitalization†

McDonald's Did It, and You Can Too

Advertising Age, June 29, 2009 — Brands do not die natural deaths. However, brands can be murdered through mismanagement. Some brands are beyond hope — but others can be revitalized.

Of course, it's not easy. But it is well worth the effort.

Bada-Bing: WPP Teams With Microsoft To Research How Search Builds Brands

MediaPost Publications, June 24, 2009 — WPP Group this morning unveiled plans for a research initiative with Microsoft to benchmark the "dynamics between search engine marketing and brand building." The effort, which is being spearheaded by WPP's Wunderman unit, will utilize proprietary research from Y&R's Brand Asset Valuator studies, as well as Wunderman's ZAAZ analytics and planning system.

"Marketers are spending billions on search engine marketing, primarily as a direct response mechanism," David Sable, vice chairman-COO of Wunderman, stated, adding, "We think it's time to better understand how search builds brands differently than traditional media.

Ford's Mulally Sees a Taurus in His Future†

CEO Hopes to Revive Sedan That Once Was Best-Seller; High Price, Large Size Are Obstacles

Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2009 — Ford Motor Co. is launching a revamped Taurus this summer, a big bet by Chief Executive Alan Mulally that he can revive an ailing model that once defined the American family sedan.

In late 2006, Mr. Mulally took Ford's helm in part because of his respect for the onetime success of the Taurus. But Mr. Mulally was shocked, he said, that the company had decided to pull the plug on the brand by the time he arrived, and he quickly reversed the move.

Netflix Boss Plots Life After the DVD†

Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2009 — Netflix Inc. is a standout in the recession. The DVD-rental company added more subscribers than ever during the first three months of the year. Its stock has more than doubled since October.

But Netflix's chief executive officer, Reed Hastings, thinks his core business is doomed. As soon as four years from now, he predicts, the business that generates most of Netflix's revenue today will begin to decline, as DVDs delivered by mail steadily lose ground to movies sent straight over the Internet. So Mr. Hastings, who co-founded the company, is quickly trying to shift Netflix's business — seeking to make more videos available online and cutting deals with electronics makers so consumers can play those movies on television sets.

Insight -Out Design

Hub, June 22, 2009 — The Tropicana “orange and straw” debacle is well on its way to becoming a classic example of redesign gone wrong. The lesson is simple but profound: Good designers always remember that they are designing for real people, not for their firms, themselves, or even their clients. This means that design and consumer research are inextricably linked.

Package-Goods Brands Lose Loyalists in Recession†

Study: More Than a Third of Formerly Faithful Consumers Abandoned Crest, Hunt's, PineSol, Tylenol

Advertising Age, June 22, 2009 — Brand loyalty appears to have taken a beating in the recession, at least in package goods. A study from Catalina Marketing and the CMO Council finds that for the average brand, more than half of consumers — 52% — who were highly loyal to certain package-goods brands in 2007 became markedly less so last year.

Your customers may not know what your product is - and they may not care

Google discovers that less than 8% of those polled have an understanding of the term "browser"

Three Minds -- Organic, June 21, 2009 — This video by Google illustrates several issues that have been plaguing product and brand managers, UxDs (user-experience designers) and IAs (information architects) and most obviously, the general public. Google asks "What is a browser," only to find that less than 8% of those polled have an understanding of the term. (It is, by the way, "a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web" - Wikipedia; e.g. Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft's Internet Explorer (The big blue 'E'))

A Cheap Date, With Child Care by Ikea

New York Times, June 11, 2009 — IKEA’S inexpensive, contemporary furniture has attracted frugal shoppers for years, but a different kind of bargain is luring deal hunters to the Swedish retailer as the economy struggles to recover. And this offer doesn’t even require you to use an Allen wrench.

Over-stretched, money-conscious parents are using the store’s supervised play area as their personal baby-sitting service.

M&M’s, Hershey’s Find Brand-Equity Sweetness

Marketing Charts, June 11, 2009 — Plain M&M’s and Hershey’s Kisses scored highest in a ranking of 1,000 US consumer brands with the most brand equity, while a number of financial brands plummeted to the bottom of the list because of the economic crisis, according to (pdf) results from Harris Interactive’s 2009 EquiTrend study.

The annual study, which rated 1,000 high-profile brands based on seven base measures, found that trusted, non-volatile brands are holding steady in the face of economic turmoil. Food brands - particularly comfort foods such as candy, continue to dominate the top-10 list. Candy brands accounted for four of the top five and five of the top 10, while another feel-good food, Campbell’s soup, made the list at #7.... continue reading