Getting customer-intimate in the 21st Century “Branding needs to be less about broadcasting (one-way communication of adverts, jingles, billboards, packaging) and more about conversation (two-way communication with the people that use the brand).” – Nicholas Runnalls These words come from an article that appeared in last year’s edition “But Can Your Brand Hold a Conversation?” [...]
It is apparent that the judgement of the Constitutional Court in the Laugh-it-off case might have raised more questions than it has answered. Recent news events have placed the spotlight on the use of religious figures in cartoons, and the relevance of freedom of speech. This issue can also feature in the context of trade [...]
At the most senior level of the business brand integration needs to be a priority one KPA for all senior executives, no exceptions. AdFocus 2006 revealed that South Africa’s top 100 advertisers spent in excess of R6.5 billion on positioning and building their brands in 2005. Moreover, some individual companies spent upwards of R200 million [...]
Stakeholders in every alternative communication industry from online and experiential marketing through to SMS marketing and CRM are competing for their space under the sun. Marketers are faced with many challenges in the modern world; consumer segments and tastes are fragmenting faster than ever before, there is product, channel and communication clutter and to top [...]
Dictionary.com defines music as “the art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified and evocative composition…” Evocative: that’s the key word. Because music may be many things, but above all, it is about connection and memories. And that’s precisely why it is so powerful. That’s something heeded by an increasing [...]
As the accounting standards develop and brand values become part of the way business is done, the brand values that appear in balance sheets will come under increasing scrutiny. If I were Absa top management, I would be gnashing my teeth. Well I would if I hadn’t made as much money out of the Barclay’s [...]
How a Company Can Grow Through Acquisition without losing its identity. In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, many companies are challenged to achieve expeditious growth. With stockholders demanding swift returns on their investment, many aggressive management teams bypass the long, slow path to growth and instead buy a smaller business that already has achieved success [...]
Cast a ‘semiotic eye’ over your creative executions, packaging and product placement proposals, and other marketing materials, to fully understand the underlying emotional and cultural connotations therein. Semiotics, or semiotic analysis, is defined as “the systematic study of signs and signification”. Known as “semiology” in Europe, the methodology’s name is derived from the Greek word [...]
The purpose of brand contact management is to achieve an integrated brand identity, a state in which all of the points of contact between a brand and its target audiences communicate what the brand stands for. The integration of a brand’s points of contact ensures that the brand acts meaningfully, that it is consistent in [...]
“Darwin was wrong: it is not the fittest who survive, it is the fit-ins” – Anita Gordon and David Suzuki Indeed. It’s not the fittest or the strongest who survive, but those organisms built to adapt, acclimatise and fit in. And it’s those organisations that take cognisance of the subtleties, nuances and not-so-subtle particulars of [...]
Latest Brand Museum Update