Launch for Accidental Branding w. Peterman, Newmark, Quimby
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.
Heinz, Fox and the AMA Pittsburgh
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.
Book Review from Tony Zambito
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.
Is Branding a Process or a Byproduct?
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.
Book Excerpt: ToddAnd by Todd Andrlik
Todd Andrlik was extremely generous to offer me the lead-off spot in a new feature he is running on his excellent blog ToddAnd. Starting with Accidental Branding, he is now publishing short excerpts from marketing and branding books as well as pictures and bios. The excerpt of Accidental Branding is from the craigslist chapter. Thanks Todd!
Interview: WBIX-AM (Boston) Stu Taylor on Business
This morning I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Stu Taylor, on the #1 drive time business talk show in Boston and New England. Stu is a longtime radio personality and also has a nationally syndicated radio talk show called “Equity Strategies.” He has interviewed luminaries like Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric. It was a great conversation that spanned two segments and I’ll link to it as soon as it’s up on his website.
