BrandlandUSA™

There was a time when Sears ruled the world of sporting goods, and brands like Ted Williams and Sears Yachtsman were seen as prestige brands. At right, a Sears Yachtsman logo and shield sewn onto a Sears life vest. We found it in the attic, and it looked cool and stylish as ever, even though [...]

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We totally don’t get this one. What happens when you have a 200-year-old insurance brand name and some smartsy fartsy “branding” and “marketing” people get involved? The brand dies in favor of a name that would be better as a diet pill. Believe it or not, it happened recently with the U.K. insurance company Aviva, [...]

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The dashing Forbes columnist Jerry Flint wrote a great column June 17, 2008 on the future of Ford Motor Company’s Mercury brand, and whether the sorta-dashing Ford President Mark Fields really wants to keep the brand. We love to read Flint because he loves great American companies and believes that Americans can and should make [...]

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Ethiopian Airlines. One of the last surviving pieces of Trans World Airlines (it was once run by TWA), the African airline has survived Civil War, famine and economic crisis. But how could anything so great and so cool survive so long? The question should how could it not, with its founding by Emperor Haile Selassie, [...]

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In all this business of branding and nostalgia, the question is whether it is relevant to today. How does one live in the present while seeking to turn back to the past? How much nostalgia is too much nostalgia? We found an answer on the blog Notes from the Lilypad of London vicar Frog Orr-Ewing [...]

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The Baumanometer. The blood pressure icon that decorates just about every medical exam room. Founded by William A. Baum in 1916, the product is still around, with parent company W.A. Baum located in Copiague, New York. The Baumanometer is proof that American manufacturing can make a great brand, a brand and product that does not [...]

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What a waste! This once-great American grocery company is now a shadow of its former self. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company still lives on in the Northeast, thankfully. It’s really a group of grocery store brands, including Waldbaum’s, Food Emporium, Super Fresh, Pathmark and A&P. Yes, it’s still publicly traded, and the stock, [...]

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Since the advent of hormone free milk, new national brands of milk have been established. That’s great. And it proves there is a market for national brands. But there are some great milk brands that should have survived. Brands that would be PERFECT for marketing this new wave of milk. Like Sealtest. Sealtest was such [...]

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One of the great losses of an American brand was the White Tower chain, which was shut down mostly in the 1980s by its owner, Tombrock Corporation of Connecticut. Many of the original White Tower restaurants still operate as other restaurants, including a number in Richmond, Virginia. But the glory of the gleaming white chain [...]

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The Children’s Museum of Manhattan is holding an exhibition on artwork from one of the great American publishing brands, the Golden Book. We all know the Golden Books for their gold leaf bindings and illustrations, and titles like The Little Red Hen. Every American family has Golden Books. Over 15 million of The Poky Little [...]

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