ExxonMobil’s new, weekly 30-minute television series devoted to motorsports will debut on SPEED at 1 a.m. ET on Friday, March 27. It is named after Mobil 1, the world’s leading synthetic motor oil.

Developed in partnership with Sunset & Vine, a sports television distribution and production company, Mobil 1 The Grid includes features, personality profiles and the latest news from motorsports circuits around the globe, including American LeMans Series, Mobil 1 Porsche SuperCup, Indy Racing League, NASCAR and Formula One.

“As the world’s leading synthetic motor oil, the Mobil 1 brand has long enjoyed a major presence in the world of motorsports and has been the lubricant of choice for many successful racing teams around the globe,” said Lawrence Kearns, Global Automotive Marketing Manager, ExxonMobil Lubricants & Petroleum Specialties Company, in a press release.

Mobil1 is the “Official Motor Oil of NASCAR,”  and used by the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes’ F1 team and Penske Racing’s IRL and NASCAR teams. Mobil 1 branded motor oils are the only lubricants used in the Mercedes-Benz engine of the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes MP4-22, driven by Lewis Hamilton.

Future episodes of “Mobil 1 The Grid” will run on SPEED: Saturday, March 28, 12:30 a.m.; Friday, April 3, 12 a.m. and 4:00 a.m.; Saturday, April 4, 1:00 a.m.; Friday, April 10, 4 a.m.; Sunday, April 12, 10:30 a.m.; and Friday, April 17, 1 a.m.

See www.mobil1.com.

Anyone who values American culture appreciates Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch. Even if they were not critical successes when they first aired, because they have endured, you have to begin to wonder why. Here at BrandlandUSA, we are also curious about their perfection and classic status. What makes a classic? Is it chance? How do you make the chance happen? How do you recognize what will work?

Schwartz appeared on Mark Simone’s 77 WABC radio show Saturday Night Oldies. Schwartz gave some insight into his work, and explained a few things. We gathered up the best; we think they are very good life lessons.

1. The obvious is often ignored. The eternal question of Gilligan’s Island is why the Professor could devise all these crazy ways to get off the island, but he could never do the obvious, namely repair the boat. The usual, intellectual English lit answer is that it was a sitcom, and you are supposed to have a willing suspension of disbelief. But Schwartz says it actually did make complete sense: “That’s true of mankind. They can do except what they cannot do.”
2. Bad stuff turns good. Somebody can screw up something good for no reason. Gilligan’s Island was set for another year, but William Paley, chairman of CBS, had a wife, Babe Paley, who liked Gunsmoke. There is probably alot more to the story. But only two years later, Schwartz had the time to create The Brady Bunch, a show that has arguably been therapy to millions of kids around the world.
3. Ignore critics. The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island were successful, but never a critical success. That’s true much of the time: “People got the message before the critics got the message.”
4. You can do things. Overnight. Schwartz wrote the Brady and Gilligan themes, though he wasn’t a composer. The problem was that CBS had to set up the premise, but they didn’t have time in the show to actually tell the story, so they did it in the theme song. Schwartz had to write it overnight; he was told by CBS that “tomorrow, you better have the song.” So he went home, sat down at the piano, and wrote it.
5. Mix up the same pieces and make something new each week. The secret of both of the shows was to “use the same pieces of material” over and over again, but keep “readjusting those pieces” to make something different. It allowed the cast to have the time to relax, be funny, and practice lines.
6. Use what you have. Take the total of your experiences in life, and make them work for you. “You only know life from the way you experience life.”

Thanks to Mark Simone for getting Schwartz on the show. If you want to read more about Sherwood, go to his website at www.SherwoodSchwartz.com  

Almost 90, he has a wife of 67 years and grace to say that he’s been terribly lucky, when it is plainly obvious that he has made his luck, all along the way.

He said on the show that he gets letters daily from folks who enjoyed the show. If you did, write him.

Sherwood

So Circuit City is gone, and it’s Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) and Radio Shack (NYSE: RSH). How opportune for Radio Shack, whose stock seems to be in miracle zone, namely above $10 a share.

In August 2007, we wrote on BrandlandUSA some of our ideas for improving Radio Shack. They included bringing back some of its store brands like Archer, concentrating on the male electronics enthusiast and offering education for everyone in how to use new electronics, much as Home Depot (NYSE: HD) and Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW) offer Saturday “How to install tile” classes led by sales associates. The idea was to find out the sorts of things that spurred small sales and neighborhood store traffic, and differentiate Radio Shack from the big boxes.

There was one other aspect of the brand that was also being ignored that we mentioned. Namely, Radio Shack’s status as a place where the electronics enthusiast could not only buy parts and pieces, but average folk could go in with their questions about AC/DC adapters, and not only get an answer, but plunk down $5 for a part that might cost them $1. The stores would go from being over-merchandised and designed, to a solution-oriented place with lots of plastic-baggie parts and batteries hanging on pegboards, essentially how the store was merchandised (or un-merchandised) in the the era when the company was Tandy.

We got a new comment today on another Radio Shack article from a fellow named Will. I thought it showed perfectly not only the opportunity for Radio Shack, but that they still have a ways to go:

Will: There was a time not so long ago when I spent over $1,200 in a year at Radio Shack and most components were under $2. I do not go there at all now.

This business model was confirmed by no less than Martha Stewart of (NYSE: MSO), though not mentioning Radio Shack by name. I wish I could remember where I read the story, but it bears repeating and is a good example nonetheless. Apparently after hearing Sony (NYSE: SNE) CEO Howard Stringer speak, Martha Stewart raised her hand, with a big tangle of power cords and converters for all of her personal electronics, and said “What can you do about THIS?!” Well, “This” is still around, and Radio Shack can help consumers sort the proverbial cords out. Interestingly, one of the busiest retail stores I have seen lately was a Florida franchisee of Batteries Plus, based in Hartland, Wisconsin.

A look at Radio Shack’s website www.radioshack.com mentions all of these points, including that they sell 200,000 items and are the perfect place to buy HDTV adapters. Radio Shack has also moved in the direction of the enthusiast with an Invention Lab where customers win a prize for the most interesting gadget made from all the funky parts found at Radio Shack. And they now offer an online Learning Center where consumers can register for online classes and learn how to set up home wireless networks. This is good, but I don’t see evidence of it at stores, which have many square feet of floor space, floor space that could be occasionally occupied by folding chairs for PDA classes and an increased number of racks full of new SKUs.

Radio Shack can still differentiate through product innovation. In the 1970s, its candy colored Flavoradio was almost certainly the inspiration for the original multicolor versions of the iMac. One of my personal favorite products (and one that was in every household with a boat) was the Deskube Weatheradio, a little wood-grained box with piano-key on/off and an antenna on top; it received National Weather Service forecasts. These items were designed by Radio Shack, and were essentially low-tech items. But they were useful, and consumers loved them.

We all know what Best Buy and Wal-Mart are going to do with the closing of Circuit City; sell lots more electronics. But with HD radio and television conversion on the immediate horizon, and radio stations struggling, Radio Shack could have a golden moment. Actual radio station groups including Clear Channel (NYSE: CCO) and CBS (NYSE: CBS), themselves slightly struggling, could partner with Radio Shack to push HD radio. In a time when consumers are cutting back, spending a few bucks for a converter for radios and TVs can free consumers from cable bills.

Radio Shack has one other advantage that it can exploit, even if times get REALLY tough. It can sell stores to managers; many Radio Shack stores are already franchises, some located within other stores.

So there is the opportunity. Radio Shack will just have to seize it in order to get Will, and his $1,200, back.

Imagine your city without a daily paper. Newspaper publishers, editors, managers and owners are worrying, not only about having to lay off staff, but who will cover the community in a meaningful way.

In Economics 101, it’s the classic “free rider” problem. Who will attend planning meetings and the statehouse? Who will investigate police and crime? Will news only get covered when there is an outburst, and it somehow gets posted by some unwashed blogger? Let’s call it the era of “Don’t Taze Me Bro” journalism.

But it does not have to be that way. There is a role for your the local paper, because in some cases, these local franchises have been the leading local brands in their markets.

That being said, there is a problem for newspapers. The incredible 30 percent margins, unbelievable power and unassailable position of your regional paper in past years have all made it hard for you to know what to do, and unable to act like the underdog. So far, your paper has redesigned pages, shortened articles, cut staff, eliminated bureaus, reduced paper size and redesigned your website now about, oh, 10 times. What the industry has done is put the newspaper in a severely reduced competitive position at a time when you need your scale and power more than ever.

Newspapers are the point where radio was after the advent of television. For years after television arrived, radio networks ran Hoover-era schedules of soap operas, dramas and westerns, even as television encroached on its audience. Radio’s audience declined. But one day, clever station managers realized that if radio was to survive, new leadership would have to remake it completely. Somewhere in the 1950s, the proper mix of news, d.j.s, traffic, weather, music and talk radio was invented, and the great radio stations survived. Rock music arrived. FM took off. And radio’s KDKA, WABC, KYW and the like thrived again.

The Greatest Regional Brands

Like the great radio stations, newspapers are important regional brands that need not go the way of the regional department store. The regional newspaper brand names mean something to the community. They evoke a region like no other. Use that legacy.

The Hartford-Courant. The Virginian-Pilot. The Richmond Times-Dispatch. The Los Angeles Times. Louisville Courier-Journal. Newark Star-Ledger. The Baltimore Sun. The Miami Herald. The New York Post.

These franchises have legs, and the public trusts them, even though they curse the editorials. Use that legacy and history. People like the idea of reading a newspaper. Do not let your brand go the way of the regional department store. Unless you act, The New York Times will do to regional daily papers what Macy’s did to Burdine’s, Marshall Field and the rest.

Pronounced Dead Many Times

The newspaper has been pronounced dead many times, as have other media. A timeline:

• 1910: Recorded music will kill the orchestra.
• 1930: Radio will kill the newspaper, and the music industry.
• 1950: Television will kill the newspaper, and movies.
• 1982: Cable will kill the newspaper and the network news.
• 1995: The Internet will kill the newspaper and the music industry.
• 2002: The Internet will save the newspaper and kill the movie industry.
• 2009: Kindle kills the newspaper, and bloggers instead scoop the greatest story of all time, the Second Coming!

Let’s get serious. Newspapers can reinvent their century old brands.

What to do?

First, believe that there are solutions. The important point is not to give the pessimism an inch. Instead, realize that there is a changed environment, and you need to establish a process for coming up with, and implementing, ideas. New ideas. And you have to completely commit to killing sacred cows. Your staff might be smaller, and have to work differently. Radio killed off Dark Shadows. CBS took the risk of moving Edward R. Murrow from radio to television.

BrandlandUSA.com put together a FREE 10-page PDF report called 20 Ways to Re-Invent the Local Paper. A link is below and here 20 Ways to Save Your Newspaper. The sheet includes the following ideas, each with descriptions.

To start, we suggest that newspapers:

1. Change the percent of R.O.P. advertising vs. insert advertising
2. Greatly upgrade the status of carriers
3. Selectively use bureaus for promotional purposes
4. Make the newspaper unique, even at higher cost
5. Drop online partners that don’t help you
6. Force the web staff and print staff to compete
7. Cut back on zoned editions
8. Stress the local brand, not wire copy
9. Ditch ombudsmen
10. Move sports reporters to city desk
11. Go on old-style crusades
12. Emphasize news side balance
13. Re-hire retired staffers part-time
14. Make the design stodgy
15. Decrease photo size
16. Reorganize classifieds
17. Make weddings and obits free
18. Change minority recruiting practices
19. Don’t rest on old ad rates
20. Bring humor back into the paper

Want to find out more? Download a free PDF copy of the document here at BrandlandUSA’s 20 Ways to Save Your Newspaper.

Riley founded his own retail store Concepts and held an executive position at Burton Snowboards. Today his independent brand development and design shop, founded in 2002, has worked with companies including the sports equipment maker Maverik Lacrosse, raingear company Helly Hansen, the Boston area retailers Achilles and The Tannery, the defense and tactical outfitting company Otte Gear and the Foster Grant sub-brands Angel and Gargolye eyewear. It’s an action oriented and hip list; other brands include BSC, EESA, Karmaloop, Lemelson MIT, Raw, Merrell and Surething.

Authenticity and Passion

What’s lacking in most brands? A sense of raw enthusiasm. While everyone talks about being true to the brand, and authentic, Riley feels that the key to pulling off the “brand thing” is that you have to be “highly passionate.” It seems intuitively obvious, but many brands miss the mark. Why? Because for any brand, there must be a “noble pursuit” about it.

Riley did not come to brand management through advertising and marketing agencies. Instead, he came through the product side, which allowed him to “see what worked right away.”

20th Century Branding

In an industrial era when brands were about commodities and manufacturing, a brand was the sum of the decisions about its raw materials. While the process has changed, and many products are made abroad, Riley believes a brand is still about managing the “unique sum of impressions, whether it’s few or many.”

To organize the process for companies, Riley has developed a process that he calls Brand Seeking. He believes that when charting a brand’s future for a company, it is important to channel and create structure in order to find the “true brand.” Many entrepreneurs are creative and good at what they do, but sometimes, with entrepreneurial tendencies, focus is needed. To “manage decision makers” he goes through a series of exercises, creating a one page document, what he calls an Action Intent Guide. Everyone agrees upon it.

“You quite literally have to get everyone on the same page,” says Riley, and not let them get to “wrapped up” in details. After the internal consensus, you let the outside in. To ensure that the changes happen properly, an internal working group, selected from different departments, keeps an eye on the branding strategy.

Some case studies:

• A sports equipment manufacturer: One of his major clients is the Maverik brand of lacrosse equipment. Founded in 2004, the company markets itself as a by lacrosse players, for lacrosse players. Founder John Gagliardi, himself a player, successfully challenged longtime (and iconic) brands STX and Brine. Their success? Authenticity and pure intent. Says Riley, “All the kids are about who’s legit.” But the brand is not just about having a cool lacrosse star own the company and show up in the marketing. In the case of Maverik, every step of production becomes part of the experience. “They make it, they pack it, they ship it,” says Riley. “You are showing them a trajectory that is very captivating.”
• Local Start Up Retailers: Brand leadership is not only available to manufactured consumer brands, but can also be applied to regional retailers. For retailers Achilles and The Tannery, Soldier utilized the highest design elements, the smartest store design and most creative approach. Says Riley, “We can make people look a lot bigger than they are.” (BrandlandUSA note: Foot Locker and Athlete’s Foot would do well by looking at these concepts.)
• Established Brands: The case of Helly Hansen was a bit different. In this case, the venerable Norwegian company came to Soldier in 2004. They had a long corporate story, with Helly Juell Hansen founding the company in 1877 to make oilcloth raingear. Over the 20th century, the company produced a steady stream of product innovations that made the company even have a following on North Sea oil platforms. Helly Hansen wanted to “talk to youth culture.” One solution was to develop a panel of opinion leaders who wore the clothes. It worked. With a brand as well-known and luxury as Helly Hansen, it would have worked to simply license the name, but Riley felt that it was a dis-service to the brand to just “slap a logo on a hat.” Soldier was able to build its “brand bonds” through mystery, intimacy, performance and trust.
• Spin offs and brand extensions: Soldier’s most interesting “brand” development is Northwestern, named after Capt. Sig Hansen’s fishing boat. Soldier branded the boat FV Northwestern, which appears in the Discovery documentary show Deadliest Catch.

“They got a take on this. It is so friggin’ cool,” The Hoff told WABC radio’s Mark Simone. Hasselhoff was interviewed July 26, 2008 on Simone’s nostalgic “Saturday Night Oldies” radio show on WABC 77 AM.

Apparently, the show has some new twists. “It’s a new take on it…it’s just fun,” said Hasslehoff. Hasselhoff told Simone that he was interested in working on the project, but he wanted to have something else on television so that he if he took the position, he would not become typecast a game show host.

The old version was a New York classic. The premise was exceedingly elegant. Celebrity panelists would ask yes or no questions to determine the occupation of the guest. What’s My Line? was the longest running game show in the history of prime time, and it ran on CBS from 1950 to 1967, with just about every famous star and politician of the time appearing on the show. Thousands of guests appeared.

Regular panelists included gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, Random House editor Bennet Cerf and comedian Steve Allen, with bow-tied John Daly as moderator. The first contestant, according to The Complete Directory To Prime Time Network TV Shows, was a hat check girl from The Stork Club.

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