The news that Chinese automaker CAIC will restart production of the MG signals a new era, and a good one. For the last 20 years, Western countries have suffered as production has moved offshore and once-great American brand names and manufacturing companies and divisions have been either shut down (Oldsmobile)MORE HERE
The question for companies with long established brands is always how to keep a brand fresh for new consumers all the while keeping old consumers happy. That question is sometimes asked wrongly; sometimes it is better to keep a product fresh for current consumers who have grown tired of aMORE HERE
QUEENS – Egad. This is weird territory, but kind of fascinating. There was an elderly Brooklyn man who, in the 1980s, driving in a Mercedes coupe on the Grand Central Parkway, crashed and turned upside down. His distraction? He spied the Unisphere of the Queens World’s Fair, and was soMORE HERE
If it’s Lego’s 50th birthday, there is a reason. They came up with a good thing. They stick to it. Oh, they might add a Star Wars line. But the basic product remains. BrandlandUSA Rule: If it’s good, stick with it. Add some new things, but don’t muck with theMORE HERE
There have been rumblings from anonymous BrandlandUSA readers that Kraft Pizza Dinners from Canada are being smuggled across the border to the U.S. The apparent reason? They are no longer sold in the U.S. Sorry for the crummy lo-res jpeg at right but its all there was. There is oneMORE HERE
Reader (and Quebec native) Mark Shainblum has alerted us to some revivals in the comic book field, and other dead comic book brands that need to be revived. Thrilling Wonder Stories was one of the first science fiction pulp magazines, founded in 1930 by Hugo Gernsback. Gernsback originally created theMORE HERE
Richmond,Va.-based branding guru Kelly O’Keefe has put together his Hall of Shame for 2007. Many of the shamed brands were picked by his students in the Virginia Commonwealth University Adcenter program. On the list were jetBlue, Nordstrom and Facebook, all kind of “hot” brands that didn’t do everything right. HereMORE HERE
While its a smidge too late to affect the decision now, Northrup Grumman ought to use the Grumman name to sell its new tanker program to the Pentagon. Here is the issue in a nutshell. Boeing and the Pentagon got together to put together a deal to refit the BoeingMORE HERE
CHATTANOOGA – Got an itch for Gold Bond? Jim Cramer does. CNBC Mad Money host Cramer likes the maker of Gold Bond powder, the ever-growing consumer products company Chattem, or CHTT. Chattem, founded in 1879 by Zeboim Cartter Patten, takes nearly dead brands or declining brands and rebuilds them. ChattemMORE HERE
Perhaps the most famous revived brand in the U.S. is Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF). The company was once an old-line sporting goods company selling guns and tents to presidents and such. Today, American mall-goers are so mesmerized by the half-naked teens of today’s Abercrombie that we forget that it wasMORE HERE