STRONGBRANDS    Professor Tim Calkins, Kellogg School of Management

I am back from a trip to Hawaii; I flew back last Sunday, just in time for my Monday class. That isn’t a best practice but it all worked out ok. I was in Hawaii to see my daughter Claire compete in the Ironman World Championships in Kona. She did great, surviving (the most important thing) […]

I’ve had an old Tommy Hilfiger shirt hanging in my closet for about 10 years. I could never figure out when to wear the shirt; it had a bold pattern and didn’t go with anything. Then it started to get dusty, which is always a bad sign. Last weekend I gave up and donated it […]

A couple years back I was walking around my neighborhood in Chicago and noticed a group of people wearing Hawaiian shirts and carrying stuffed parrots. It was an unusual sight. A block further along, I came across a similar group. And then another group. It was a bizarre situation; in my part of Chicago, you […]

Rolex is in the news today; the brand is buying Bucherer, one of the most important watch retailers in the world. This is a dramatic move which will have implications for Rolex and the broader watch industry. It also reflects an important trend in the world of branding. Rolex Across the globe, Rolex is one […]

It has been a remarkable week in the world of branding, as Twitter rolls out one of the strangest rebranding efforts that I have ever seen. I suspect it will go down in history as an example of poor strategic brand management. The Announcement On Sunday, Elon Musk announced that the Twitter brand was going […]

The main reason to study marketing efforts is to learn. If we can understand what is happening, we can identify things that seem to work and capitalize on those. We can also see mistakes and try to avoid making the same ones again. All of this brings us to two brands in the news: Bud […]

I write about different companies in my blog and newsletter, and it is always interesting to watch how things develop. This week is a good time to check in on Tyson. Tyson’s Big Move In early October, Tyson announced that it was closing its Chicago office and consolidating operations in Springdale, Arkansas. This was a […]

If you spend time on Tik Tok, you’ve probably heard the new song Cupid from K-Pop group Fifty Fifty. The new group is rocketing, climbing the charts and becoming a global brand in a stunningly short amount of time. With success comes challenges, so here is some branding advice for the group. The Fifty Fifty […]

Two brands are getting a lot of attention this week: Bud Light and HBO Max. Here is my take on what’s happening. Bud Light You’ve probably read about the Bud Light situation. The brand sent custom cans to Dylan Mulvaney an outspoken trans influencer. This resulted in backlash from Kid Rock, Travis Tritt and others. […]

There were big legal stories last week featuring two celebrities: Donald Trump and Gwyneth Paltrow. Both stories are a curious mix of legal issues and branding. Today I am going to focus on the Paltrow trial and highlight why it was such a branding triumph. Gwyneth Paltrow walks away from the case the victor with a […]

This week Google released a new A.I. chat bot called Bard. The move is part of an epic competitive battle between technology giants. There seems to be a general consensus that A.I. will be a major part of life going forward, and the big players are fighting for leadership in the space. My friend and […]

Last week in my Marketing Strategy course we discussed new business strategy. There are different strategies for entering an established category. Perhaps the most difficult one is the attack the core. This approach rarely works but that doesn’t stop people from giving it a try, as Goldman Sachs reminded us last week. Attack the Core An attack […]