In an earlier blog post, I touched on how important it is for all cities to develop a sense of identity people can relate to - a brand - in order to compete for its share of consumers, businesses, travelers and capital. And with recent debate about how miserable the city of Memphis is (or isn't, I should say), this topic couldn't be more relevant.

As I mentioned before, identifying a brand for a city is not an easy process, as a city can appeal to a variety of different audiences for a number of reasons. Therefore, defining the objective of a brand - the strategy - is a critical element of city branding.

Look at the way CEOs for Cities' report "Branding Your City" puts it....read the rest of this post»

Picture this: You own a restaurant, and people literally compete to see who can spend the most time in your establishment. They are recommending your best menu items to friends, and telling the world via Twitter and Facebook every time they walk through your door.  And, you can track where they are coming from, where else they’ve been and what time of day they like to visit.

Dreaming? Nope. All of this and more is possible through Foursquare, just one of several geo-tagging applications that are attracting mobile users by the thousands, and filling bars, restaurants, hotels and coffee shops around the country.

So how do you tap into this community of potential customers for your business? First, let’s go over what Foursquare is.

What is Foursquare?...read the rest of this post»

It seems that there are so many terms we as agencies use to describe our relationship with clients.  Are we a client’s partner?  A vendor?  Those have been the front runners for years.

However, since my early days at Thompson & Company, we used another term to describe the relationship we have with clients.  Marketing and communications firms are more like an "extension" of a company’s marketing team.  The key word is extension.  To explain why this term is most accurate, it's easier to look at the other two terms.  ...read the rest of this post»

    A lot has been made about the idea of expanding the NCAA men's basketball tournament over the past few weeks.  The proposal will supposedly expand the number of teams from 65 to 96 and add an extra week to the tournament with the top 32 teams receiving a bye.
   
    The spark for this controversy comes from the NCAA's ability to opt-out of their contract with CBS after this season and give the television rights to the highest bidder. 
   
    The NCAA men's basketball tournament is arguably the best brand of sporting tournaments in the country and is no doubt the most popular tournament in college sports (since football doesn't have one). If the NCAA decides to move forward with this expansion, it is hard to say what impact it would have on the brand. 
   ...read the rest of this post»

When I set up my profile on brainwoo.com, one of the questions that we had to answer was, "What is the most interesting thing that I have learned lately?"

Day to day we learn a lot of things; some we remember and some we don't. One thing that stuck with me in late 2009 was hearing that Frito Lay's Sun Chips brand was on the forefront of introducing a fully compostable bag. It seems that nowadays many companies try to proclaim some type of "green" message, but what companies really follow through with their initiatives? Frito Lay's Sun Chips has made it their quest to prove that they are truly following through with their claims about being green. They developed and designed a product that has a 360-degree life cycle....read the rest of this post»

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”

Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss!

Writer, illustrator, educator,….marketer? Dr. Seuss – a.k.a. Theodor Seuss Geisel, actually started his career as an advertising illustrator. Check out some of his work below. Look familiar?

Geisel’s story is an interesting one. He was a lifetime proponent of reading, and the positive effects it could have on children. In fact, his most famous book, The Cat in the Hat, was the result of a challenge to give children something interesting to read....read the rest of this post»

In our office, hockey is a topic of discussion about as often as ice fishing.  Probably less.  Even though Memphis has a minor league hockey team, seldom does the subject come up. But today, hockey, along with the closing ceremony at the Olympics, was just about all anyone could talk about.  Most likely, this was pretty much the case in offices and coffee shops everywhere in the country.   ...read the rest of this post»