Saturday Night Live and British Airways’ new LCY-JFK flight one are two different business ideas illustrating an important idea, namely adaptive reuse. Traditionally, adaptive reuse is applied to historic preservation of buildings. It is a very specific idea; to properly understand it you need to go and read James MarstonMORE HERE
Catching the film Escape from the Planet of the Apes on Planet of the Apes weekend, the movie was packed with brands. Surely there are more, but these were the ones that are highlighted, just after Zira and Cornelius, previously confined to a zoo, head out of their international pressMORE HERE
Hey Mark Mothersbaugh. Bring out the Minimoog, and start out the set by flashing a Warner Records logo behind the stage. Whip it. Step on a crack. Devo, that red-topped de-evolutionary band from the 1980s New Wave era is back, thanks to Warner Brothers Records, their original label. Devo fansMORE HERE
20 years ago, Gillette introduced a campaign that completely re-energized its brand and company. It was “The Best A Man Can Get” and its zippy song, sung by the nation’s top jingle-writer and singer Jake Holmes, talked about “looking sharp” and showed a succession of non-celebrity, clean-shaven normal men goingMORE HERE
Ripplewood Holdings had sent an American classic into bankruptcy. Read BrandlandUSA’s stories about how to save this American icon: The potential of Reader’s Digest in a Web 2.0 World. What to do about the magazine (and company) now that it is in bankruptcy. Hint: They need to channel the Wallaces.MORE HERE
PLEASANTVILLE, NY. – That private capital has been unsuccessful in a leveraged buyout of Reader’s Digest Association Inc. should be no surprise. Private capital like Ripplewood Holdings has failed in all manner of media plays. The reality is that during a downturn, a company can’t be expected to be payingMORE HERE
PLEASANTVILLE – So I am reading Peter Canning’s biography of Dewitt and Lila Acheson Wallace, American Dreamers, and seeing how the Wallaces affected so many lives positively, not only with what they accomplished in their philanthropy, but how their philosophy helped shape America at a critical time. I also wasMORE HERE
GOOCHLAND, VA – There aren’t too many drive-ins left, but some thrive. We can think specifically of Hull’s Drive In of Lexington, Virginia, where a community comes together summer nights to watch movies in their car. Hull’s almost closed, but the community rallied round, and saved the theater. There areMORE HERE
Magazine Publishers Need to Encourage Keep-able Magazines As a magazine lover, I want to keep magazines. I hate to throw them away, even when reality hits and I realize that I can’t save them any longer. I cringe when I see libraries de-accession precious bound volumes of magazines, though IMORE HERE
Clicks are not only destructive of the brand, all they do is help advertisers to beat down the price of advertising. In addition, it causes content to go for the lowest common denominator. “We are telling advertisers,” he said, “the worse content, the more you should pay.” MORE HERE