You Say Brandwashed Like It’s a Bad Thing: A Skeptic’s Look at Martin Lindstrom’s Latest Book
This Christmas, my mother-in-law gave me a copy of Martin Lindstrom’s book, Brandwashed, 
“I want to read it when you’re done.”
My family rarely shares my love of marketing books. And I loved Martin Lindstrom’s last book, Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy
And I did, at first. Lindstrom starts by describing a year-long challenge he undertook to avoid branded products. No McDonalds. No Gillette shaving cream. Even branded fruits like Adirondack tomatoes were out of the question. He called it “brand rehab.”
Not surprisingly, brand rehab failed. Brandwashed documents why.
The Skinny on Brandwashed
Like Buyology, Brandwashed is chock full of research on our relationship with brands, from social experiments to surveys to fMRI brain scans. But unlike Buyology, Brandwashed borders on sensationalist. Continue reading
Morgan Spurlock Gets A Lesson In Personal Branding
You may have heard of Morgan Spurlock’s latest project, “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.” In it, he takes a first-person look at branding, advertising and product placement in movies.
I was watching Spurlock’s TED Talk this morning and discovered it contained a number of branding tips for small business owners. My favorite part is the man-on-the-street interviews where he asks people about their personal brands. The responses, as you can imagine, are pretty funny.
If you’re not interested in the movie itself, skip ahead to the 8:48 mark. But I do recommend watching the whole thing if you have time. It’s a little under 20 minutes long.
On a related note – what’s with Spurlock’s porn star mustache?
Groupon CEO Says: “You Can’t Rely On Anyone Else To Control Your Brand”
If you watched any of this year’s SuperBowl commercials, you probably remember the Groupon spots parodying various social causes. (A video of the Tibet Groupon ad is above.)
While the commercials were meant to poke fun at Groupon by highlighting the triviality of its coupons, they came off as dismissive of serious world issues– and offended viewers in the process.
Groupon CEO Learns Valuable Lesson
Advertising Age Magazine recently featured an interview with Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, who blamed himself for placing too much trust in the company’s advertising agency. Continue reading
“Historically Hardcore,” Or Just Stuck In The Past?
You’ve probably seen these “Historically Hardcore” ads making their way across the interwebs recently. This viral ad campaign caught my attention because of their great copywriting. But it kept my attention because of the controversy surrounding it: once attributed to the Smithsonian Museum, the ads were later revealed to be the work of students Jenny Burrows and Matt Kappler.
Creating student comps for major brands is nothing new. But the Smithsonian Museum’s reaction to the ads was interesting, to say the least. It got me thinking: Who really owns a brand in the 21st century? Is it the business, its users, or the public at large?
Excited, I put on my journalist cap and got in touch with both the students and the Smithsonian, hoping to get more details. You can read what came of those interviews – and my thoughts on brand ownership in a digital world – on the JPL “Converge” blog.
So … who owns YOUR brand?
