Opinion - Experience - Therapy

“Chevy” faithful own GM’s brand

By: Ed Foster Friday, June 11, 2010

In less than 24 hours, GM is back peddling from a position they took yesterday to get rid of the name Chevy in all corporate communications -- siting that
"Chevy" didn’t translate in the international market.

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BP’s brand: A veil or transparent window?

By: Ed Foster Tuesday, June 01, 2010

In 2002 BP launched a new "Beyond Petroleum" brand message. It involved, among other things, a new corporate logo - modeled after "Helios", the Greek sun god. It had the right feel: a burst of energy in its many forms, with all the right colors, it sent a strong environmental message. We saw smiling people and bright blue skies filling our television screens. In 2005 they spent $150 million US dollars to advertise they are the "environmental" big oil company.

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Giving Thanks

By: Ed Foster Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The last thing any of us wants to do is work for free, especially in this market.

But here I am, sitting down to do a pro bono annual report. It's for an inner city school that accepts any student who wants to work harder, better themselves, and act responsibly. At 20 pages plus cover, I can't help thinking: "I don't have time for this. I've got to get out there and find that next great job!"

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omg! do u text 2?

By: Christine King Monday, September 28, 2009

http://tinyurl.com/yd63m8b

We have a lot to be proud of when it comes to one of our newest clients. Not only was our involvement with the iZUP project one of the most in-depth and fast-paced web assignments we’ve ever worked on, but the product itself is literally going to save lives – one text at a time.

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Tropic Thunder: Tropicana’s Juicy Branding Blunder

By: Ed Foster Monday, April 13, 2009

If you have been in the juice aisle lately, you’ve most likely noticed a quick change operation going on at the Tropicana shelves. The company introduced a new packaging concept designed by a very well respected New York-based branding ‘expert’ whose firm charges over a million dollars to conduct branding and rebranding efforts. Unfortunately rather than helping revive sales, the effort made sales plummet. This is the perfect Harvard Business Review type case study on the lack of communication to a company’s own brand loyalist community. Here is arrogance at its greatest…and its worst…a company and a branding expert who thought it was in control of its brand, rather than the customer. Read the complete post here.

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Branding: Why It Matters to Your Company

By: Ed Foster and Steve Herskovitz Friday, March 06, 2009

In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker entered Alaska’s pristine Prince William Sound, ran aground, and began spilling what eventually became a 12-square mile slick of oil. Instead of rushing to contain the spill, apologize, and communicate its actions, Exxon stalled and stonewalled. The disaster was expensive for the company as well as for the environment. The spill cost $7 billion, punitive fines were $5 billion, and the company slipped from being first among the world’s oil companies to third.

In 1990, Perrier, then the number one brand of bottled water in the US and virtually synonymous with purity, was found to have benzene contamination in one of its springs. Through one botched communication after another, the company lost so much market share that within a few years it had virtually killed its business.

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