The sum total of images, words, style, body language, tone of voice, gestures, strengths, and weaknesses will be what people will buy, or not, when deciding on the Obama and McCain brand for the White House.
Arguably from a branding perspective, President Bush’s advisors could have come up with clearer message of intent. Reportedly many branding experts such as Andrew Bennett, CEO of Euro RSCG, suggested that the White House should have simplified the President’s message.
PR piece in Tuesday’s Telegraph,
Building a client base with three Ts - tenacity, truth and trust by Philiip Smith:
Rhea Duttagupta was on the road to becoming a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers when she had one of those “now or never” moments - and decided to form Corporate DNA Consulting.
I’ve been thinking about the whole
transparency issue since mid-September, focusing on the strengths of open and honest collaboration and the overall benefits to both client and agency.
We use an engaging process to differentiate Vision and Value from the basic core rights to be in business — i.e. professionalism, honesty, integrity etc.. Yet still, the basic foundations that every professional business should have are all too frequently ignored, and at times, never even considered from the outset.
In the current marketplace — as branding and marketing budgets are scrutinised more and more — openness, truthfulness and transparency really does pave the way to cost effective and rewarding solution.
White labelling can only lead to the creation of an unbalanced and untruthful client/agency relationship. More to follow. [
DD]
Strong brands are created inside organisations and built out from that. You must make the brand the centre of the business as an ongoing principle – it informs how you recruit, sell, manufacture. Get the internal team informed and educated about the brand.
The global economic crisis has wiped $50 billion (£27.4bn) off the value of the top global brands in the first weeks of September, according to a new report from Brand Finance. The Global 500 report reveals that in the eight months to the end of August a total of $67 billion (£36.3bn) had been stripped off the brand value of the top 100 brands. Of the brands affected in the September fallout, 80 per cent were financial brands. They included Citibank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, UBS, AIG, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse.
Small business confidence remained stable over the last two quarters, as business owners believe they have now felt the worst effects of the credit crunch, research has shown.
Shows such as The Apprentice and Operatunity are reality shows for posh people. If they really were business programmes or arts programmes, they wouldn’t be hits.
— Tim Hincks, CEO, Endemol

This is hilarious*, and a whole new level in online dating…click here to…
“…create a profile and find your perfect match onboard the hottest dance-floor on the Baltic Sea”…or not!
The site was created by Swedish creative agency Akestam Holst. [DD]
*a subjective term