BrandlandUSA™

Today, we explore brand names that are still around, but ignored or underutilized by their owners. In some ways having an underestimated brand is good, as too much of exploiting a brand makes it vulnerable to overexposure. Nevertheless, there is a vast difference between overexposure and prudent exposure. We are instead for prudent exposure; we [...]

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BOSTON – A CBS News report today talked about the idea that people have too many decisions, and at a certain point, they just shut down. They were reporting on work from the Harvard Decision Science Lab. The story mentioned consumers, and the frustration that we all feel. In one display, she put out six [...]

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LAKE BUENA VISTA – If customers want it, then bring it back. That’s the lesson of Walt Disney World’s groovin’ treehouse cabins, which opened in 1975, and were demolished in 2002. They were simple structures, up one story in the trees, and were cousins to the raised treehouses at ski resorts of the 1970s. They [...]

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ST. PETERSBURG – Across the U.S., you can sometimes find a one-off restaurant that was once a larger chain. Call them the broken chain retailers. When a retail or restaurant chain falls apart, the company infrastructure that at one time enforced the rules and helped promote the chain goes away. Very often, there are leftover [...]

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A good strategy when you have an older company with many different iterations is to periodically put out commemorative products and packaging using old versions of the company’s logo and brand identity. Here, a 60th anniversary box from Dunkin’ Donuts. A few reasons why it is a good thing to do: It helps your staff [...]

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Brand managers and marketers like to think they do it all. But the reality is that adept brand manager of a legacy brand sees forces out there, and takes advantage of the goodwill. It is not always necessary to create demand; instead the best practice for an older product is to see what consumers are [...]

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The television remote is a generic thing, but at one time, it was exclusively connected to one brand, Zenith, now part of Korea’s LG. Zenith had Space Command, attributed to Robert Adler (1913-2007) and introduced in 1956. Later, the remote became ubiquitous for all TVs, but the Space Command for years was the leader. There [...]

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LOS ANGELES – What guy doesn’t want to be Jim Rockford? Well, perhaps living in the trailer was a bit tiresome (how come they let him keep it in the parking lot?), but the rest of the life as L.A. private eye is way cool. It would be fun to drive about L.A. in a [...]

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The 1970s cassette brands Memorex and TDK are back as electronics brands. Business Week reports that the brands have been revived by Imation (IMN), which itself was a spin-off of 3M. For the revival, Imation hired Ziba Design of Portland, Ore., to create electronics relating to audio products. The company sells Memorex-branded iPod accessories, digital [...]

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We ran across an old ad for Stanley Warner, the film company and conglomerate. S.H. Fabian was President of the company in 1964; they had offices at 1585 Broadway in New York. They are a great example of the conglomerate era, where disparate businesses were assembled for no particular reason other than the whims of [...]

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