Weber Shandwick stakes out content creation territory as its own

Jason Wellcome, EVP Digital
Weber Shandwick

PRNewser followed up on March 28 its previous reporting on PR firms grabbing hard and fast onto the content creation model for a reconfigured agency services biz model. Weber Shandwick's digital EVP, Jason Wellcome, makes the agency's own brand claim -- 'every agency client becomes a media company /publisher, and the new Weber Shandwick divison, Mediaco, has assembled the talent and skills to deliver the new model.'

AdAge positions it a bit differently: "Weber Shandwick Sets Up New Unit to  Capitalize on Content Creation Craze."

Branding + integrated communications business models at the big agencies

PRNewser reported today about how major agencies (McCann, WeberShandwick, Edelman) are adapting their business models to provide professional services that straddle the ad-PR divide and the traditional-digital media divides. The topic, of course, isn't new; it just gets reformulated as the technologies continue to reconfigure how consumers gain information, form opinion, and fulfill transactions.

These are the kinds of enterprises at which our future BIC graduates will build their careers.

2013 best retail brands

Interbrand has released its 2013 report on Best Retail Brands.  Biggest gains in reputation this year are shown by Macy's and Amazon -- each in its own way demonstrating it is "best in class" with consumers.  Perhaps significant, brands with more specific positioning -- in some ways more distinctive in product offering -- fared much worse: examples are Abercrombie & Fitch and Toys R Us.  Forbes magazine coverage, here.

Inside the FutureBrand - American Airline rebranding

PRNewser posted today an outline of the decision making process that led American Airlines and FutureBrand to the new logo and airplane design.

IBM: brand as -- only as -- corporate character

Jon Iwata, SVP Marketing and Communications (left)
with Harris Diamond, Chairman and CEO, McCann Worldgroup
at the 2012 Global PR Summit

Jon Iwata, IBM Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, narrates a new  2 1/2-minute video, "IBM on Brand."

Jon makes the assertion that IBM has never defined its brand -- and it certainly has never defined its brand by products it has made (otherwise, we would have our minds cluttered up with associations to IBM of things like punch-cards, Selectric typewriters and ThinkPads. Which they don't make anymore. Which are not IBM).

Jon says: "We do't try to manage the IBM brand, we try to manage our character as a business."  If we're not going to define our brand by what we make, what defines us? ... and it comes back to this notion of our corporate character, our belief system, and our purpose and our mission. And what makes us "Us."  If we take care of that, the brand takes care of itself."

CCNY MCA's new Master's program featured in Ad Age

Belle Frank, EVP-Global Director
Young & Rubicam
and BIC Adviser

A new Ad Age feature on the necessity for aspiring advertising professionals to hone their data analytic skills cites the creation of CCNY MCA's new Branding + Integrated Communications Master's program, and quotes our adviser, Belle Frank, EVP-Global Director, Strategy & Research, at Y&R.

What's that advertising professional of the future going to be like? "The next-generation advertising exec will be a data geek with the soul of an artist, the business acumen of Warren Buffet and the storytelling skills of Don Draper "

News on the hipster branding front

Just in case you're not following it -- PRNewser is keeping us posted on developments in hipster branding.

Harris Poll 2013 Reputation Quotient puts Amazon on top

Online pollster Harris Interactive released in February  its 2013 Harris Poll Reputation Quotient for corporate America in February showing the public taking a more pragmatic and positive view of corporate reputation -- generally rating corporate America more positively. The top five companies in America are Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google, and J&J.  The bottom of the list?  Financial services giants, Halliburton, and American Airlines.

Tech companies have an edge in getting the good reputation scores from Harris.  The research company also asserts that to "play a valuable social role" is a key driver of reputation -- a theme reported widely, such as here by PRMediaBlog.

Google discusses Art, Copy & Code -- a partnership with brands to develop state-of-the-art digital ads

Google, one of the most powerful channels for advertising today, is also maneuvering its way into creating ads. Last week, the Google | Official Blog posted about its new project, Art, Copy & Code -- "a program to partner with advertisers and agencies to re-imagine how brands tell stories in a connected world. . . . a series of projects and experiments to show how creativity and technology can work hand in hand . . . through a whole range of digital tools."

The project (wouldn't you know) even has its own trademarked slogan: Advertising Re-imagined.

The post goes on to give a preview into its first project for Volkswagen.

Art, Copy & Code was presented at SXSW yesterday by a panel consisting of Aman Govil, Product Marketing Manager, and Ben Malbon, Managing Director of the Creative Lab at Google, along with Kevin Mayer, VP Marketing from Volkswagen and Winston Binch, Chief Digital Officer at Deutsch Advertising.  Engadget, among many others, announced over the past few days.

You can subscribe for updates on Art, Copy & Code, here.  Facebook page, here.

Bad news for Detroit brands

Consumer Reports' auto top picks for 2013 have the Japanese brands leaving Detroit in the dust.

This, from Automotive News, says it all: "For the first time in several years, Detroit automakers did not claim the top spot in any vehicle segment, continuing their longstanding struggles in the magazine's rankings.

"Consumer Reports, an influential shopping guide with 8 million magazine subscribers, said the six lowest-rated brands were Buick, Chrysler, Ford, Lincoln, Jeep and Dodge."

GfK on tech trends of 2013

Global market research firm, GfK, has published "Tech Trends 2013" which explores several ways in which technology is helping brands know consumers (and vice versa) in more powerful ways. A PDF can be downloaded here, and a short video on "The brand of me" provides an intro.

GfK has a suite of brand research offerings packaged as Brand Value Optimization.

Supply chain and waste stream as fashion brand attributes

Do you know where your leather comes from?

Lucy Siegle reports in The Observer about how Gucci and other fashion brands are beginning to acknowledge their responsibility and influence over the whole supply chain -- in her example, particularly, about how quality leathers and other materials are sourced and processed sustainably and safely. On their own initiatives and in cooperation with NGOs such as the Green Carpet Challenge (GCC), brands are working "to raise the profile of ethics in the global fashion industry."

Willie Nelson and Emmy Rossum help launch
H&M's global recycling program
at Global Green's 10th annual Pre-Oscar party.
Photo: EnergyDigital

In a related story, H&M announced on February 21 a new garment recycling program which includes in-store discounts for consumers who bring in a bag of garments to be recycled.

So God made a designer

David Brier,
Chief Gravity Defyer, DBD International

Fun -- and insightful -- video, ripping off the Dodge Ram Superbowl ad. DBD International's brand identity specialist, David Brier, produced the video and blogged about it at Fast Company.