So you want to get in the restaurant business? What an awful time to do it. And you want to open a restaurant without capital? And you are unemployed? Your inner negative “no” says no, and people will laugh at you. You dare not tell that to the bank, orMORE HERE
An Ad Age piece by Al Ries on value pricing reminds us how crummy and proletarian the airline business has become, and how un-important branding is to particularly our American airlines. The story is called Variable Pricing is the Ultimate Brand-Destroyer. Reis’ point is that because of value pricing, consumersMORE HERE
PARIS – Yes, we all love the independent bookstore. And amazingly, it is still around. Here in Sarasota, Florida we have any number of them, some small with just paperbacks, others larger with antique and collectible books. What got me thinking about them was the closure of Brentano’s in Paris,MORE HERE
SARASOTA – Out on the Siesta Key beach yesterday, employees of Sarasota County’s Parks and Recreation Department were handing out race pennants that they were keeping in a Votomatic ballot box. The Votomatic became famous after the 2000 Presidential election in Florida, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American HistoryMORE HERE
SAVANNAH – So you want to start a business, and you need a name and an idea. How about looking back, and seeing what companies were prominent in your community, and re-starting the brand? That was the route of Savannah, Georgia based Leopold’s Ice Cream, which was restarted by StrattonMORE HERE
CHICAGO – The recent addition of the storied Cannon brand to Sears, Roebuck (NYSE: SHLD) is further evidence that the chain has a smart brand strategy. Cannon is now appearing in revamped home decorating sections in Sears, and they are making full use of the power of the brand toMORE HERE
We found a bit of McCormick-Deering history in Palmetto, Florida at their Manatee County agricultural museum. Here, a Farmall tractor. BrandlandUSA.com is the website of business and travel writer and editor Garland Pollard. Contact him at GarlandPollard.comMORE HERE
Bob Seelert, the author of Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders gives some advice to BrandlandUSA readers with an excerpt from his new book. We are glad to reprint it, as there is some good stuff there and they were gracious enough to let us haveMORE HERE
Reader Gary Dee sent a link for the site of Not a Cushman Scooter, simply titled notacushman.com. It followed a short history of the Cushman scooter published last spring. It is the site of a man who has done his own version of the Cushman, not only for himself, butMORE HERE
Kraft ditching Nabisco? Frankly, that’s a bit of a scary headline for us brand fiends here at BrandlandUSA. But it is certainly worrisome that the company was selling this bag of Wheat Thins without Nabisco in the corner. Is Kraft (NYSE: KFT) dropping the Nabisco brand, just like they ditchedMORE HERE