02-Brandspace

“If you’re chasing your audience, you’re chasing yourself around in circles. You’re much better off with an aesthetic and a vision-following it and explaining to people what you’re doing”. Graham Vintner, Bonny Doon Vineyards | Inc Magazine, July 2008

“For a while, we had various MBA class studies of Bonny Doon. One class report said, ‘You guys don’t realize it but the image you project resonates 100% with young, Internet-savvy experimenters who don’t trust authority, are irreverent of everything, and don’t want to be marketed to. We accidentally ran into 25 million people.‘” Graham Vintner, Bonny Doon Vineyards | Inc Magazine, July 2008

“One of the best tools for a company competing in a category where there is one ubiquitous dominant force is to become the exact opposite of the competition. In the case of Peet’s, it has become the anti-Starbucks, and that’s a good position to be in. The worst place to be in is on top, because it tends to breed complacency and the fear of innovation.“ Steven Addis, CEO, Addis Creson, a business, brand, and design consulting firm in Berkeley, CA | East Bay Business Times, 6-12 June 2008

“The most precious thing that a brand has with its target audience is trust…If you do some of these things where the clear intent is to deceive-whether it’s through the spokesperson or the facts or the relationship to the company-then people feel abused.” Jim Nail, co-chairman of the ethics committee at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association | Wall St. Journal, 20 June 2008

“The worst-case scenario is that few people might watch it and it might quietly disappear…If we did something that had a high shock value we’d have to be prepared for tremendous upside but also a huge downside. Tom Julian, President, The Julian Group | Brandweek, 19 May 2008

“Men of all ages have embraced online experiences, but the younger consumer is more astute.” Tom Julian, President, The Julian Group | Brandweek, 19 May 2008

“(Jumpin’ In) was supposed to be a small seeding activity…We didn’t know it was going to blow up. So we’re meeting with BBH on how to chase this. What do we do to adjust the strategy and ride the wave?” Robert Cameron, VP of Marketing, Levi Strauss | Brandweek, 19 May 2008

“The future of any brand requires relevance to that target…We’ve introduced so many products-skinny jeans, baggy jeans-we haven’t supported 501s properly. It’s time to talk about them as the mack daddy of jeans.” Robert Cameron, VP of Marketing, Levi Strauss | Brandweek, 19 May 2008

“If your imagined audience is connoisseurs of Prada bags. They will know your Prada bags, and whether it says Prada on it or not. In the case of these brands, they are communicating in something like a secret language. The whole point is who gets it and who doesn’t. I think it has more to do with the person wearing it feeling like they are in on something. In the case of the Prada bag, they may feel like they are part of the traditional upper-class construction.” Rob Walker, Journalist and author, Buying In | San Francisco Chronicle, 8 June 2008

“Whether their idea is connected to reality, like in the case of CBGB, is probably debatable. But they understand the message that it’s sending, whether it be to other people or themselves. Your audience for a lot of this stuff is yourself.” Rob Walker, Journalist and author, Buying In | San Francisco Chronicle, 8 June 2008

“I think the interesting thing about the adoption of sneakers as quasi-art objects is that it was kind of a ground-up phenomenon that came from consumers. It started as a style and then the element of scarcity, just like in the luxury market, became important. People began painting their Nikes and customizing them before the company got involved and began manufacturing the scarcity. Nike then commissioned artists to create a limited number of super-special sneakers and there would be near riots when the shoes came out. In that case, the answer is the consumers decided that this was worth being treated as something close to an art object.” Rob Walker, Journalist and author, Buying In | San Francisco Chronicle, 8 June 2008

“Pabst Blue Ribbon became a consumer-created anti-brand, brand. It became an authentic rejection of mainstream branded culture just by virtue of the kind of people who were drinking it.” Rob Walker, Journalist and author, Buying In | San Francisco Chronicle, 8 June 2008

“The iPod is the default product, the default brand. It’s an acceptable thing almost to the point that you have to explain yourself if you have any other MP3 player.” Rob Walker, Journalist and author, Buying In | San Francisco Chronicle, 8 June 2008

“Well, there’s the superiority theory that jokes express scorn for your inferiors—cripples and cuckolds and foreigners and the like. Plato said we laugh at vice. Then there’s the Freudian interpretation, that it’s all about sexual repression. Finally, there’s the seduction theory, based on the observation that men do the joking while women do most of the laughing. Christopher Hitchens wrote a piece in Vanity Fair, arguing that the only way most guys can impress women is to make them laugh. Kant said that the essence of humor is a strained expectation, dissolved into nothing.” Jim Holt, author of “Stop Me If you’ve Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes” | Wired, July, 2008

“You have to work on your identity today. If styles are enormously diverse, we have to choose who it is we’re going to be.” Anthony Giddens, Distinguished Sociologist, in the symposium, “Humanizing Work”, held at the Lehman Brothers Center for Women in Business | Financial Times, 17 June 2008

“In the past, it was about product quality. Now it is about brand provenance.”  - Rupert Younger, Director, Centre for Corporate Reputation, Said Business School, Oxford University | Financial Times 30 June 2008

“How a corporation behaves will determine its reputation.” - Bob Wigley, Chairman, EMEA, Merrill Lynch International | Financial Times 30 June 2008

“The way in which a company is perceived has a big impact on the recruitment and retention of staff.” Rober Perry, Chairman, Johnstone Press UK | Financial Times 30 June 2008

“Today’s marketplace is a very competitive one in terms of talent. A company’s employees are its most important stakeholders, its only real asset” - Bob Wigley, Chairman, EMEA, Merrill Lynch International | Financial Times 30 June 2008

“There is only one purpose of the firm: to FIND and SERVE customers. Only two capabilities create wealth: marketing and innovation. All else is cost.” Peter Drucker, management guru and theorist

“I say that today INNOVATION and MARKETING have converged. This means that IT leaders must develop and launch digital brands and that marketing leaders must master the art and science of provisioning breakthrough self-service applications.” Michael Moon, CEO, GISTICS, a marketing think tank

“If you accept that innovation and marketing have converged (or will soon converge) into one operational capability, then the chief innovation-marketing officers and her engagement planners must start with the Brandspace of their IDEAL customers or clients, and work backwards.”  Michael Moon, CEO, GISTICS, a marketing think tank

“In practical terms, this defines a new core competency: a strong Voice of the Customer program. Engagement planners need to go beyond mere “user experience” and investigate how their featured brand enhances the productivity or quality of life of a particular class of brand-use stakeholder.” Michael Moon, CEO, GISTICS, a marketing think tank