Bible marketing

On my way home the other day, I was at the Metro station in Stockholm and I saw an advert that had a tagline, “Alternative sources of energy”. My first association was related to an energy company promoting solar energy or a company with alternative sources of fuel. Upon closer examination, the advert was for The Bible – yes, as in the story of creation, human free will, the fallen angel, etc. The marketing devil in me thought that this was a catchy tagline. Then I started to think, who is the marketing director for The Bible? What kind of marketing budget would you spend – what marketing channels would be most appropriate? How would you attract new target groups? Who has exclusive rights to The Bible? Is The Bible a registered trademark or brand? What is the copyright? Looking forward to your comments.

Nonprofit Branding – what’s in it?

The notion that nonprofit organisations have a brand value is an interesting thought. How do you measure in commercial terms the networth of a brand that doesn’t sell anything? To answer this question, the natural step is Google. I found many interesting articles about the subject and I can highly recommend brandchannel.com if you are looking for some thought provoking articles. One of the articles on this subject reads “Why would a nonprofit go through the trouble of valuing its brand? Establishing the value of a nonprofit brand can open the door to co-branding, licensing, and partnering opportunities. Additionally, it allows one to determine reasonable spend on marketing and offers a point from which to explain the power of the brand. ... The idea of valuing a nonprofit brand is still quite new to the charitable community. However, some organizations have started to establish a monetary figure for their brand with a view of helping them grow the value further. Habitat for Humanity International's brand placed at nearly US$ 2 billion in 2001 (brand value by Interbrand). “ More to come in this interesting subject.

Going lunar

If you ever had ambitions or dreams about going to the moon and you have the money to finance it, here is the thing for you, the Google Lunar X prize.

Here is what it is all about, “The Google Lunar X PRIZE seeks to create a global private race to the Moon that excites and involves people around the world and, accelerates space exploration for the benefit of all humanity... To win the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a team must successfully land a privately funded craft on the lunar surface and survive long enough to complete the mission goals of roaming about the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending a defined data package, called a “Mooncast”, back to Earth. PRIZES: The total purse of the Google Lunar X PRIZE is $30 million (USD).”

It’s a really cool branding idea and this prize has now coined the phrase, Moon 2.0.

Gwen Stefani – a living brand

I was at the Gwen Stefani concert in Stockholm last night and it was one of the best concerts that I have been to. The whole concert was a well thought out from the stage, lighting, videos, dancers, clothes to Gwen’s logo. Gwen is excellent example of a living brand and I am sure that many women are interested in buying her clothes which is now available under the LAMB label. You go girl!

Ugly marketing trolls

One of the major companies in Sweden named Eniro uses ugly trolls as a mascot to market their brand. These trolls are so annoyingly ugly that the consumer starts to think they are cute. I personally think that these marketing trolls weaken the brand image and belittle the company’s brand personality.

Innovative virtual advertising

A new and innovative way of advertising is through virtual gaming. An example of this is the Virtual Grand Prix where anyone can download the game and race cars in “real life” race tracks and qualify for the Grand Prix. The cars and track are branded and the end user is highly engaged in the game itself. This is an untapped market and the possibilities are unlimited.

Heroic brands

I did a search on heroic brands because I think this an interesting idea of having brands as heroes and I am still exploring my own ideas about this. But I found an interesting blog writing about the same subject. "Like heroic individuals, Heroic Brands are motivated by something bigger than themselves. They believe it just might be possible to change the world." More to come...

Underdog branding

I admire underdog brands that dare to challenge top dog brands. There are several examples of underdog brands – the classic example is Avis –We try harder. I have recently seen a Swedish example, Swedbank. In their recent marketing campaigns, the ad read: “Other banks are open (referring to open hours), we are more open.” (in Swedish, “Andra bank har öppet, vi har öppnare”). These underdog brands evoke empathy and a bit of humor, the end consumer might be willing to go from the topdog to the underdog. I am routing for the underdog. woof! woof!