What surprised me even more so was that (albeit I don’t know much about sewing yet), Singer® was a company I was well aware of and mainly because of their brand. This book from 60+ years ago was an older but still VERY similar image of the Singer® brand, and it got me thinking again about just what is the difference between a brand and an image?

To be precise, wikipedia defines a brand as “…labels of ownership: name, term, design, symbol…Powerful brands can drive success in competitive and financial markets, and indeed become the organization’s most valuable assets.” Using Singer® as an example, this is their brand:

An image, often less permanent, is how a company chooses to represent themselves. For Singer®, their image is shown in their store fronts, literature (such as catalogs, direct mail, instruction sheets, etc.) and even their website. What I love about Singer’s® brand (as shown in the images of the manual and their current logo) is that they have stayed true to the brand they had set in place over 150 years ago and yet have updated it to keep current with their target audience.

As a result, their brand displays company integrity, quality, loyalty, experience and positions Singer® as a leader in their industry. What does your brand do for you?

Well, here is how they describe the show on MOJO’s Web site:

“No online, no cell phone, and no wireless…anything. You either just walked into 21st century hell or you’re the newest victim of Technology Jones. Gadget dependent addicts get unplugged and reconnected to the simple life when this new series brings them to the past and strips them of everything that makes modern life…modern. An easy task at first but the “electronically reliant” begin to buckle under the pressure of a life off easy street and without GPS dependency. Living in the past isn’t so easy in this series that has relapse written all over it.”

How long can one survive today without the internet, cell phones, email, gps and everything else that we depend on in our daily lives in the year 2008? It’s an interesting question. Unless you are stranded on an island, I doubt our survival lies in the hands of these gadgets. In episodes of Technology Jones, the biggest issue that arises is frustration on the person who has their gadgets taken away. Realtor’s having to use pay phones to reach clients when they are on the road, business people getting lost on their way to meetings, mom’s wanting to turn on a movie for their kids when there is no cable and only a Betamax in the house.

I challenge all of us to take a gadget free day. Not a Saturday or a Sunday. A weekday where we call our clients to catch up, spend some quality time with our children with no interruptions and spend the time we usually spend on the internet in brainstorming meetings and talks on how we can become better gadget users.

I think we all need to step back and go into “gadget rehab”. You may find out something about yourself that has been lost all of these years. Why not?

With the advent of mp3s and digital music, I find myself purchasing fewer and fewer CDs in favor of going directly to an online source of music like artist websites, iTunes or the occasional file sharing with friends (a-la the old cassette exchanges from the ’80s).  The potential to discover new music has increased exponentially in the last few years.

What’s remarkable about today’s music industry is how many more artists are becoming less dependent on major labels in favor of lesser known labels like Anti (Tom Waits, Man Man and Neko Case) and Nonesuch (The Black Keys & Gypsy Kings).  In doing so, they are being allowed greater creative freedom.  Less emphasis is placed on where the recording will end up on the Billboard charts and more energy is focused on capturing the sound and emotion each artist really wants to portray.

Nine Inch Nails recently released a 2 disc instrumental album entitled “Ghosts I-IV” free of any label support through the NIN website under a Creative Commons License and made the release available in a wide variety of formats ranging from digital download to a a $300 Ultra-Deluxe limited edition package, which sold out all 2500 copies.  Obviously this is harder to do successfully if you are a band without 20 years of experience under your belt.  Within hours of the pre-release sale being announced, I had purchased my very own digital copy of the album complete with intriguing imagery, (a unique photo for each of the 36 tracks displays on my iPod), superb sound quality, and the anticipation of receiving the 2-disc set directly from the band a few weeks later.  Money well spent, I’d say.

Stay tuned for more music ramblings. In the mean time, feel free to check out what music has been driving my work days by visiting my profile at LastFM.

-AB

Awhile back I was contracted to do some Podcasting for the Goodwill/Dell Reconnect Program. Dell teamed up with Goodwill to provide a recycling program for all types of office equipment. As I did research for the Podcast I found it extremely interesting how the Reconnect Program was going to save thousands of electronics from going into landfills.

Dell was generous to allow any make or model of computer, monitor, mouse, keyboard, copy machine, printer, fax machine, etc. that could be dropped off at any Goodwill location to be recycled! How exciting is that? Goodwill Employees have been trained to sort, refurbish and de-manufacture the computers as well as the computer components for shipping to other recycling centers.

The buzz word for 2008 is “Green “and everyone is trying to do their part to be Green by recycling in some way or another. Computer sales are skyrocketing so that people can have the latest technology but many don’t think about what they will do with their old computers. Sometimes you can pass them along to a relative or friend but when that isn’t an option, take your old computer to Goodwill where you know it will be properly taken care of.

We all need to do our part with recycling and the Goodwill/Dell Reconnect Program has made things very easy for us. If you would like to learn more about the program you can go to their website: www.reconnectpartnership.com

Note: Some of you have been wondering if I have gotten my IPhone yet for my birthday………………….well it’s only hours away (as of 4-9-2008) and still no sign of getting one

From Ikea to Cabela’s to Disney World the buying experience is often times bigger than the products a business is selling.

Let’s relate that to terms the average business owner can understand. The experience of doing business the right way is no better exemplified then with “The Cheese Lady“. Kathleen Fagan Riegler has created a brand for herself and made an art form out of selling cheese.

Kathleen reinvented herself as “The Cheese Lady” by selling high end, gourmet cheeses at the Muskegon Farmer’s Market. She built on that persona and opened a charming cheese shop in Downtown Muskegon. Now she has parlayed that persona into “The Cheese Lady Experience”.

What makes that experience something for all businesses to aspire for is not so much the cheese Kathleen sells, although it is delicious, it’s the way she sells it. It’s the samples coupled with her enthusiasm, presentation and of course the beret that’s makes The Cheese Lady a required stop when shopping in Downtown Muskegon.

Create an exceptional experience with each transaction, and you’ll keep customers coming back for more. Because of that experience, I stop into The Cheese Lady shop at least once every two weeks. That’s a whole lot more cheese than I was eating before I met Kathleen.

What’s all this mean for your business? Enthusiastic fans are the best kind of advertising. Win them over with an exceptional experience and you’ll be rolling in the cheddar.

PS - Anyone’s who has been to the The Cheese Lady Shop knows she doesn’t do it alone. Here’s a shout out to her husband, John, “The Cheese Dude”.

When I was young, I used to have a semi unhealthy obsession with them. I never quite grew out of it. Seriously, they are huge, made of metal, and covered in blinking lights. Sometimes their hands are clamps, other times they are reasonably hand like. Sometimes they turn into other things. Sometimes they fight other giant robots. Always, they are awesome.

Behold, Boston Dynamics’ alpha robot Big Dog. This robot can walk through almost any terrain, carry huge amounts of weight, and can even recover from stumbling. Pretty amazing.

Robots are great as-is, but what is the use of a robot that does not have an opinion on stuff? Enter Rascal, the first AI (Artificial Intelligence) that is expected to pass the Turing test. Basically, this means that a computer can pass for a human.

What is my point? I will sum it up by quoting one of the greatest movies of my generation, Terminator 2, Judgement Day:

The Terminator: The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
Sarah Connor: And Skynet fights back.

I for one welcome our new robot overlords.

How does one go about branding a person? Fast Company explored that topic in an article titled “The Brand Called Obama“. According to Keith Reinhard, DDB Worldwide:

“Barack Obama is three things you want in a brand: New, different, and attractive. That’s as good as it gets.”

One fascinating component of the Obama campaign is social networking:

The (Obama) campaign’s secret weapon: a fresh-faced 24-year-old named Chris Hughes. Four years ago, he was at Harvard, helping launch Facebook with his roommates, kids named Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz. Just over a year ago, Hughes took a leave from Facebook to do online organizing for Obama.

Social networking poses challenges for marketers, no matter what — or whom — they’re selling. Traditional top-down messages don’t often work in an ecosystem where the masses are in charge. Marketers must cede a certain degree of control over their brands. And that can be terrifying.

Regardless of your political affiliation, the Obama campaign presents a facinating study in branding. It’s one that US voters will be tuned into for the months to come.

 Adobe is trendy. I like pie.

Keeping me up till 2am: http://pixeloo.blogspot.com/

 *note: these are kind of disturbing because of how real the characters appear to be - yay