The history of advertising and marketing is probably littered with scores of cases of companies and brands that began with a brilliant invention, but then petered out somewhere along the way. I have myself written about brands like Kodak, Nokia and Philips CDs in my older blog posts, and I am sure there are many… Continue reading Is Being a Pioneer Brand Good Enough?
Even in today’s fast-changing, tech driven world, we have several brands that are over a hundred years old in our midst. Often, we may not even realise they are that old. Brands age just like we do. Some manage to stay up-to-date and relevant to today’s consumers, while many others fade away or disappear from… Continue reading Reviving Hundred-Year-Old Brands and Making Them Relevant
Since I have written about luxury car brands – Jaguar, Land Rover, JLR corporate brand and Porsche - on my blog before, I thought I’d turn my attention to mass-market popular car brands this time. Mass market and premium cars ought to constitute the most crowded of car segments in any country, I would reckon.… Continue reading How Popular Car Brands Can Maintain Their Edge
In the old days when I was still a cub copywriter in the advertising industry in India – which is around 35-40 years ago – the prevailing marketing wisdom was that the consumer or customer is the one who makes the biggest decisions on brands. “Customer is King” was always heard at meetings, in conference… Continue reading Have Consumers Changed the Way They Make Brand Decisions?
In my previous blog post, I had written about airlines as world connectors, providing an important economic and cultural link between countries and their people. And in it, I tried to create and recommend a new brand strategy for British Airways, already an image-builder for Britain as well as a world connector. I had envisaged… Continue reading Airlines as Image-Builders of Countries
We think of airlines as transportation, and also in the context of tourism, but rarely as providers of international connectivity, as vital as telecommunications and the internet. And even more rarely do we think of them as performing an important economic function, not even in today’s globalized and highly connected world. They are critical not… Continue reading Airlines as Connectors of the World
With all the excessive focus on technology in the times that we live in, it’s easy for companies to lose sight of brands, and consumer connection. These days particularly AI is the focus of so much attention, that I fear at least my industry of advertising and brand communications is getting carried away by all… Continue reading Technology or Brand, Which Comes First?
We have all seen many businesses scale up and grow in their early years and become market leaders. That is to say they acquire the largest market share in the industry. That continues for a few years, or perhaps even decades, until they hit some kind of roadblock. The roadblock could be of many kinds,… Continue reading How Market Leaders Can Sustain Growth Against New Headwinds
These days, there is a lot of discussion on rebranding, brand refresh and brand rethink in the advertising and brand communications industry. Not sure that is a good sign, because ideally brands ought to be consistent in their product offerings as well as in the way they relate to consumers. In fact, an article shared… Continue reading Rebrand, Refresh, Rethink – the What and Why of Change
I have observed many new conscious biases and prejudices in the world of work for so many years now, that I wonder if this is just a trend or something more enduring. If it’s the latter, we ought to have reasons to be seriously concerned. It is recent, irrational and to that extent speaks of… Continue reading Colour-conscious, Are We?
Peripatetic Perch 