BrandlandUSA

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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He was the hot tomato of the 1970s brunch, Snap E Tom. But when did this tomato juice mascot disappear from grocery shelves? Snap E was a product of the Pioneer Ortega Chili Company, and later Heublein, from what I can find. Made with chile peppers, onions and tomatoes, it was a Bloody Mary mix [...]

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There is one person we need to know more about; it is Richard Whorf (1906-1966), the sometime actor who was director of the Beverly Hillbillies. Whorf was also a dancer, a designer, a producer and a writer. Whorf has a whole world view that we rather appreciate; traditional with a warped view of the world. [...]

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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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LOS ANGELES – One of the great modern hotels, The Century Plaza, is potentially going to be demolished. I say potentially because the owner, developer Michael Rosenfeld, is only applying for permission to tear it down for another real estate development. The Hyatt Regency Century Plaza (click on the pool image above to make reservations! [...]

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SARASOTA – Many of us can recall when IHOP wasn’t cool. Somewhere between 1980 and 1990, the chain got into the category of undesirable. It was so much so that the chain became a joke; comedienne Paula Poundstone’s “IHOP: It was a dream, I made it happen” routine about working at an IHOP came to [...]

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PALM SPRINGS – Any person who owns a silly little motel by the side of the road ought to look at Hope Springs Motel Resort in Palm Springs, California. It’s an utterly nondescript motel that has turned into a Travel & Leisure favorite. The recipe? A hip approach, minimalist design and ultra clean rooms. While [...]

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Great ads have one thing in common. They sell things. Things like products, services, ideas or lifestyles. If they don’t do this directly, they are memorable enough to influence a consumer at the time he or she makes a purchase.Bad ads are brand poison. If you go public with a half-baked concept, a forgettable headline, [...]

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We think of all the crashed financial empires of today, and remember crashed empires of yesteryear. Each generation leaves its famed financiers. We wondered what happened to Lytton Financial, which was a high flying savings and loan company, and its founder, Bart Lytton. He looks right out of the “Mr. Drysdale” California of the 1960s, [...]

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