In my last post, I said I would discuss some of the key elements of Branding. Here they are, in order: First, the Customer. In many cases, the customer is the brand. That is, when you are designing your product, it should be with a specific target customer in mind. What unfulfilled need do they [...]

Several marketing pundits have been writing lately about the death of branding. Geoffrey James of the Sales Machine blog at BNet declared Branding to be dead and that the only thing that mattered was product quality. It seems as though Mr. James is like John Cleese in this excerpt of “Monty Python and the Holy [...]

Domino’s, the once-proud leader of delivery pizza chains, is now introducing a line of toasted submarine sandwiches.  McDonald’s now offers McCafe drinks in vanilla latte, cappuccino and mocha.  What’s next?  Will Quizno’s add pizza to their menu?  Will Starbucks start serving burgers? This happens all too often. Far be it for me to question the wisdom of the high-paid executives [...]