BrandlandUSA

Catching the film Escape from the Planet of the Apes on Planet of the Apes weekend on Fox Movie channel, we could not help but notice a few cool brands. I am sure there are more, but these were the ones I noticed immediately, just after Zira and Cornelius, previously confined to a zoo, head [...]

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That there can be small companies that make just a few products and stay independent is evidenced by Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing. The company was born in the 1880s, when a traveling salesman name Al Stewart carried around a family concoction.  He sold the rights to a fellow named Luther Ford in 1883, or thereabouts, and [...]

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RESTON – So we haven’t been in a Safeway in years, but go in to grab some things while traveling. And I am curious about brands, and I look to see what has happened to some of the valuable private labels that Safeway was known for. They all seemed to be gone; sadly, the store [...]

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Editor’s Note: In our study of American brands, we talked to Roanoke, Virginia writer Elizabeth Barbour, who is the model for the Palmolive hand. While she is not as famous as Madge, her hands do look like the famous ones on the Colgate-Palmolive package. BrandlandUSA: When did you first become a hand model? Barbour: My [...]

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The new Land’s End catalog features one of the great American cars, a car brand with great enduring appeal. The Grand Wagoneer. It still holds as an icon, or so the happy scene to the right shows. The car helps sell clothes, and connotes a lifestyle. The branding question is this: If Jeep is a [...]

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One of our favorite Partridge Family episodes was when Shirley Partridge met up with a millionare man who had made a fortune in Melba toast. Lucky for us, you can read about the episode, which starred John Astin, on IMDB. Forever and forever, Melba toast has been amusing. I think at one time in the [...]

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BEIJING – Do the Chinese understand brands better than the U.S.? In some ways, yes. The Chinese interest in American brands, we hope, will help preserve a few. They even rescued Hummer, one not-so-old brand that even I, lover of old brands, would rescue. But one good thing; it is China that helped save Buick. [...]

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FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Home to numerous micro-breweries and a Budweiser plant, the visitor’s bureau here has come up with a tour of locally made beer brands, from Budweiser to regional craft brews. Located 50 miles north of Denver, Fort Collins has been called the Napa Valley of Beer. There are five microbreweries there. Many [...]

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We still get confused by the nomenclature of Nescafe Taster’s Choice. There are really two products, Nescafe and Taster’s Choice and they should only be next to each other in the aisle, not in the same jar. Today, there is Nescafe Taster’s Choice, and it doesn’t seem right. Nescafe pleases the “whole wide world” while [...]

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McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) knows what it is doing. How do I know? I saw Ronald McDonald in action, first hand, when Ronald McDonald made a visit to our local Sarasota McDonald’s. It made me again see how a great company controls its brand. And it made me realize how McDonald’s should never be underestimated in [...]

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