The employment picture is a fright, no matter how nicely the people at Bureau of Labor Statistics spin it. In the last year, my adopted home state of Florida lost nearly one million jobs, and we won’t get them back for years, even if the recession fades. The question IMORE HERE
Westport, Conn – The New England Consulting Group has made Debra Schumacher managing associate. Schumacher has held positions of increasing responsibility at Quaker Oats and SC Johnson, managing brands like Gatorade, Edge, Ziploc, Windex and Glade. She was also a consultant to Daymon Worldwide, focused principally on store brands/private labels.MORE HERE
There appears to be no logic to what happens to brands when airlines merge. In the airline world, if the company is bigger, it keeps its name, and the smaller company name disappears. There can be a discussion, but the answer is always the same. The United-Continental merger appears toMORE HERE
NEW YORK – In 2004, urban theorist Jane Jacobs not only predicted the burst in the real estate bubble, but talked about how it could unwind. In her book Dark Age Ahead, the late Jacobs (best known for her treatise The Death and Life of Great American Cities) took aMORE HERE
The drug Vinol often appears in old pictures. But what was Vinol? It was a drug for anemia and general weakness. It was part of the companies Chester Kent and also Drug Inc. Vinol had exclusive relationships with retailers; hence the large signs in places like New York. Main ingredientsMORE HERE
Elizabethville, Penn. – Carriage brands that might have been around during, say, the time of Little House on the Prairie would be gone. Perhaps most are, but one wagon brand is still around. It’s the company Swab Wagon Co., makers of fire and rescue trucks, pumpers and animal transports. SwabMORE HERE
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 areMORE HERE
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 oneMORE HERE
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 skiMORE HERE
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.MORE HERE