Brand Matters. A blog by Monaco Lange.

When speaking with a friend recently, our discussion turned to the term “brand new.” I wondered what its etymology was.  “The term was originally ‘bran new,’ ” my friend said. “And that’s because, back in the day, bran—the pieces of grain husk separated from flour—was used to pack glasses, flatware, and fragile items that where shipped.  So when you opened a package, there’d be bran on the new items. Hence,” he said, “bran new.” 

Products are easy to identify.  You touch them, buy, and use them. They’re everywhere, in your garage, shower, and kitchen cabinets.

Services are a bit different, a benefit provided by people like real estate brokers, travel agents, or doctors. Intangible, services aren’t something you pull off a shelf (though a carpenter building that shelf is providing a service).  Still, services have tangible results. 

We’re lucky to work with interesting clients who are passionate about their brands. Trickle Up is one such client.  Committed to helping extremely impoverished women ignite their opportunities—opportunities that can pave a way out of poverty—Trickle Up turned to us to clarify their brand message and refresh their website. 

This is a fascinating article on how you can be treading on dangerous territory with Word of Mouth Marketing. 

Here is a great example of taking extra stuff off the ad to make a clear, compelling suggestion to viewers. Its even logoless. The background color alone should give you enough to work from in the grocery aisle. Very very nicely done. 

Here's an interesting article from Ad Age that reports on how social media can be effective in nearly any category, including oil! Nice stuff. 

Remember that book you refused to close? That movie you didn’t want to end? Or that Great Uncle you could listen to all night? Good storytelling is an undeniable art. It’s how we relate to each other as human beings. It colors our experiences. It grabs us, moves us, stays with us. We’ve been telling stories to each other since the days of cave drawings. Who doesn’t love a good story? 

We’ve all come across a product that give us pause. Occasionally, it makes one think, “Damn, that’s brilliant.” 

According to Nielsen, Americans spend 17 percent their time online at social networking sites, an increase of 11 percent from a year ago. For media savvy users, that figure is undoubtedly higher. Most of us take our interactions with social media for granted. I rarely question why I log into Facebook to see friends' status updates. Nor do I ponder why I obsessively collect followers on Twitter. However, as marketers, we must question the why behind social media behaviors to understand how social media can be best used to spread messages, build brands, raise awareness, and influence change. In this post, I'll incorporate social psychology theories to explore why social media has become an important tool in our lives. 

Type “front yard light bulbs” into Google search and you’ll be shown a page of results with everything from Christmas lights to Christian light bulb jokes to landscaping.