There are few foods more indicative of a place, and amenable to high margins, than food sauces. Sauces are the ultimate example of a profit-making brand of food. They keep for a long time. They can be cheaply made. Secret recipes can give a certain allure. They also cannot beMORE HERE
For brands in 2013, change it up, but don’t change it at all. Keep your brand the same, but switch it up a bit to keep it fresh. That is easier said than done, as to one person, “change” is good and to another, you ruin the product by changingMORE HERE
LONDON – “That’s Spandau Ballet, Man!” Or so said the guy on the Chevy Malibu commercial, part of the long pop legacy of that quintessentially 1980s band Spandau Ballet. This month, the British band launched a “Fan Archive Appeal” to dig into attics and closets for historic audio and visualMORE HERE
LONDON – The UK seems to have been a holdout in the brand-washing category, namely dumping old brands in favor of invented ones. But this is no longer the case. We heard about the news that the Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley brands are to be scrappedMORE HERE
DUBLIN – The Irish-based owners of Wedgwood, Waterford, Royal Doulton and Rosenthal have put the company into receivership, the British word for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It’s a real tragedy, as both companies have long histories. The 1986 merger of the two into Waterford Wedgwood PLC, with ticker WTFU, was aMORE HERE
NOTTING HILL – Those visiting the famed Portobello Road market in London ought to take time and visit the nearby Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising. This museum tells the story of brand names in the U.K. with a collection of half a million items, including candy, appliances, food andMORE HERE
What happens when you have a 200-year-old insurance brand name and some smartsy fartsy “branding” and “marketing” people get involved? The brand dies in favor of a name that would be better as a diet pill. Believe it or not, it happened recently with the U.K. insurance company Aviva, whichMORE HERE
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
On perusing the excellent children’s book This is London by M. Sasek, readers encounter on page 38 a mention that there “is always time for a cup of tea.” The next page then shows a drawing of a London street scene with the J. Lyons Tea Room featured. First, aMORE HERE