It’s quite amazing that Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben and the Cream of Wheat man still exist on the shelves of America. We call them the Plantation Brand Trio. Somehow these characters have managed to survive the politically correct witch hunts of the latter 20th century. Having grown up in VirginiaMORE HERE
Our reader Pat Seger writes BrandlandUSA to ask the important question. When will they re-release the Carnation Breakfast Bar? She pointed us to the blog of pop culture archaeologist and archivist Dan Goodsell, who posted a few images of the snacks on his blog last year. Not so hot onMORE HERE
At the Kennedy Space Center’s U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, the Rockwell International brand is omnipresent. Rockwell, of course, built the Apollo capsule and has a long list of aviation achievements. For NASA, it built control panels, as well. While many pieces of Rockwell are now part of Boeing. RockwellMORE HERE
Some brands have survived the conglomerate era and have kept their independence amongst overwrought graphics, market research and such. One of those brands? Joy ice cream cones. Sixty to a box, still. The company’s founder was Lebanese immigrant Albert George, along with other family members. They got some second-hand cone-bakingMORE HERE
So much attention is focused on the fate of the Barbie brand that we forget the other great toy lines owned by Mattel including View-Master, Magic 8 Ball, ello, Polly Pocket and Fisher-Price. Mattel’s boys’ toy car line is composed of Hot Wheels, Tyco and Matchbox. Of the three, HotMORE HERE
Missing the old dome liners that ran from Los Angeles to Chicago on the Santa Fe? Here is one in Santa Fe, New Mexico, just off downtown, back in 2005. Happily, the Santa Fe brand is still alive. The Santa Fe Southern Railroad operates the old Super Chief dome carsMORE HERE
At left, a great logo from Intelsat and Hughes, seen on the Space Shuttle mock up walk through at Kennedy Space Center. Hughes once built satellites for Intelsat. The company is now morphed. Sadly, there are fewer Hughes companies than there were. Thankfully, there is still a Hughes Satellite, andMORE HERE
Missing your old friends in the fridge, or at the beer cooler? It could be that your favorite beer brand is gone. While some brands are making a comeback, other brands are still in the tank, as of 2008. Fortune magazine’s Beth Kowitt surveyed the top 99 oldest beers inMORE HERE
The online magazine Brandchannel has a useful paper on dead brands by Sunil Thomas and Chiranjeev Kohli, both marketing professors. The paper is called “Reviving Weak and Dead Brands: Insights from Theory and Practice” and addresses cases that include Oldsmobile, PanAm, and Woolworth. Their first recommendation is to increase theMORE HERE
As a brand updates its look, and signage, the previous incarnations of the design can be interior motifs. This serves two purposes. It helps the consumer know the story of the brand, and it helps the company tell the story of design in a different way. If company rebrands, andMORE HERE