5/30 - Design and Innovation by Temple University Design Department
5/29 – Confluence by Bob Duffey
I wrote an original byline for AdAge this week. It came from my experience researching Accidental Branding - specifically from a piece of advice I received from Gary Erickson of Clif Bar. Thanks to AdAge editor Jennifer Rooney for helping make this happen.
Yesterday was my fourth appearance on Fox Business, the second time with the impressive Alexis Glick on Money for Breakfast. I was there to talk about the rumored InBev takeover of Anheuser-Busch. The interview is here: Part I and Part II .
5/28 - Conversation Marketing by Ian Lurie
5/27 - Money for Breakfast pt. 2 on Fox with Alexis Glick
5/27 - Money for Breakfast on Fox with Alexis Glick
5/26 - Advertising Age by David Vinjamuri
5/22 - Savvy Auntie by Melanie Notkin
This is me, John Peterman, Craig Newmark and Roxanne Quimby at the Accidental Branding Launch which was April 9th at the Kimmel Center at NYU in Manhattan. Courtesy of Vineet Gupta.
5/15 - 800-CEO-READ Blog by Dylan Schleicher
5/13 - Knights on the Road by Reg Norman
5/13 - GuruGilbert by Adam Gilbert
5/12 - Shotgun Marketing Blog by Chris Houchens
5/12 - Bookworm Sez by Terry Schlichenmeyer
I had a very odd synchronicity over the past two weeks: I was called on a couple of days notice to appear on Fox Business News’ Money for Breakfast show hosted by the very charming Alexis Glick. The appearance was for their Brand X segment (see it here) to talk about a Heinz Ketchup consumer generated ad contest. That same day I wrote about the Heinz contest for the ThirdWay Advertising Blog. Then this week I fulfilled a long-standing promise to travel to Pittsburgh and speak to the American Marketing Association chapter there. It turns out that Heinz is a sponsor and David Ciesinski, VP of Ketchup for Heinz who was on the Fox Business Segment with me (but whom I never met as he was brought in via satellite from Pittburgh while I was in the studio in New York) had actually kicked off the speaker series for the year that I was ending. Unfortunately my stay in Pittsburgh was too short to stop off at Heinz and meet David.
Small world.
There have actually been over 60 reviews of Accidental Branding online, and I’ve been so busy with travel for the book launch over the past four weeks that I have not linked to most of them. I’m going to ensure they all get posted next week, but here’s the most recent from Tony Zambito at Persona Insights blog.
Bob Hoffman at The Ad Contrarian has an excellent observation in a post about Accidental Branding. He suggests that a great brand is the result of doing a bunch of doing a lot of good things, not the process of doing them. I think it’s a very good way to think about brands. Paying attention to details, choreographing the customer experience, being faithful to your core customers all result in a strong brand. Here’s Bob’s observation (reprinted with his permission):
You want to have a strong brand? Quit “branding”. A strong brand is a byproduct. It comes from doing other things right. Make sure your product is excellent. Make sure you’re taking good care of your customers. Make sure your ads differentiate you. That’s what builds brands…
The thousands of companies in America who think they’re going to be successful if they just get their “brand” right are nuts. You’ve got to get a whole lot of other things right first.
If you do, the brand will take care of itself. If you don’t, all the “branding” in the world won’t help.
This is where Burt Shavitz of Burt’s Bees fame lives. No running water or electricity. Look carefully at the door size and chair on the porch to get an idea of its size. That is Burt walking towards it.

5/07 - Persona Insights by Tony Zambito
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