Financial Advice for Graduates
Today is Kellogg’s commencement ceremony. Hundreds of students will shortly walk across the stage and receive their degrees. I’m here at Ryan Field in Evanston getting ready to march in with the faculty. The graduates will then celebrate. And in the coming weeks they will begin their careers as business leaders. It is a time […]
Does Twitter Build a Brand?
Many branding executives ask me about Twitter. Is it an important branding tool? Is it worth the effort to have a Twitter presence and monitor the discussion? I’ve been a bit skeptical of Twitter for many years. It feels a bit promotional and fleeting. Does anyone really use it? Can it really help brands? I now […]
The Trump Sign Controversy
Donald Trump is generating a lot of controversy in Chicago this week with his new sign. Several years back he built a huge building along the Chicago River. He finished it in 2008. It is one of the tallest and most recognizable buildings in the city. This week he is putting a big sign on […]
Brands in the News, Career Advice
What HomeMade Pizza Can Teach Us About Success
This week HomeMade Pizza abruptly shut down. The Chicago-based company sold fresh pizzas through retail outlets. People stopped by the store, picked up a fresh pizza and then baked it at home. My wife loved the product so we had it a lot. The pizza was delicious; the cheese bubbled in a highly satisfying manner […]
Physicians, Insurance Companies and Incentives
Incentives motivate everyone. When someone rewards us for something, we tend to do more of it. Carrots really work. Insurance giant WellPoint is taking the idea to heart. According to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, the company will soon start offering oncologists $350 a month for every patient on one of the insurer’s recommended […]
Three Questions about Amazon
Amazon recently released its quarterly results. The company grew revenue sharply, exceeding $16 billion for the quarter. Profit, well, there wasn’t much of that. The company made just $82 million, a margin of 0.5%. Amazon is a very strange operation. Here are three questions to think about. Question #1: Where is the profit? Amazon is […]
The LA Clippers, Donald Sterling and Branding
The LA Clippers are in the news today and not just for their playoff performance. A series of brands are dropping sponsorship deals with the team. It is an all-star list of companies including State Farm, CarMax, Kia and Virgin America. The commotion began when TMZ released a taped phone call between Clippers owner Donald Sterling and […]
Kraft’s Disappointing Annual Report
It is annual report season, the time of year when companies send out proxy information and annual reports to investors. I own a few shares in several companies so my mailbox fills up with these documents. It is interesting to see what the firms choose to send. An annual report is an important branding tool. […]
The Great Breakfast Battle
Every once in a while you see two strong brands crash into each other in a desperate struggle for market share and customer loyalty. These Great Competitive Battles are always fascinating to watch and you can usually get some pretty good deals as the fight goes on. In the United States, April will feature a GCB between […]
Brands, Baseball and Missing the Call
Brayden King, one of my colleagues at Kellogg, is in the news this week with a new study about baseball. It is a fascinating bit of research and highlights why brands matter so much. King worked with Jerry Kim from Columbia Business School on the study. They looked at umpire accuracy, comparing the umpire’s call […]
A Surprising (and Savvy) Move by Emirates
Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airline, was in the news recently when he said Emirates would prefer not to have a U.S. Customs and Border Protection post in Dubai. On the surface, this seems like a surprising announcement. A bit of background is in order. The U.S. has established customs posts in several countries including […]
GM’s Branding Disaster
General Motors is in the headlines today. Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are reporting that a House committee is investigating how the company responded to issues with faulty ignition switches. The story is astonishing. Apparently in 2004 GM learned that several of its car models had a faulty ignition switch that […]