STRONGBRANDS    Professor Tim Calkins, Kellogg School of Management

Colleges are announcing tuition and other costs for the 2024-25 academic year. Washington University in St. Louis is increasing tuition and fees by 4.5%, bringing the cost of attending to $87,644 (including tuition, housing, meals, student health, and activity fee). Yale is increasing tuition and fees by 3.9% to $87,150. Bucknell’s is up 4.75% to […]

The golden company Tesla is in the news for disappointing results. The stock price is down, and people are wondering about the company’s prospects. Tesla is facing many different issues, ranging from competition to the erratic behavior of Elon Musk. One of the most interesting problems is Tesla’s brand. The Tesla Brand Tesla has soared […]

To make good strategic decisions, it is important to identify the potential options and then think deeply about which one is best. Not thinking through the implications can lead to bad choices. The simple, obvious answers that seem right often aren’t. Chicago’s City Council provides a good example. The group recently passed a series of rules […]

Each year I highlight some brands to watch. These are brands facing unique situations as the year begins. You can see my 2023 list here, along with a look back at what actually happened here. Below are my 2024 picks. Harvard It has been a rough stretch for Harvard. The university has been attacked on […]

Recently I’ve started off the new year by highlighting some Brands to Watch. These aren’t necessarily the best or worst brands, they are simply brands that I project will be heading into an interesting stretch. As we begin 2024, it is time to look back at my 2023 Brands to Watch and see how I […]

Last week McDonalds opened the first CosMc’s, a new restaurant concept built around drinks and snacks, in Bolingbrook, Illinois. CosMc’s serves items including coffees, lemonades, cookies, pretzel bites and ice cream. This is a huge move from McDonalds, and it makes a lot of strategic sense. You can learn a lot about brand portfolio strategy […]

There is a strange situation developing in the world of electric vehicles. As companies ramp up production and the government showers the market with incentives, demand isn’t expanding as fast as expected. This all seems strange. Tesla managed to sell a lot of cars, at high prices. As EV prices decline, demand should expand dramatically. […]

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 […]