Yahoo Deathwatch:
Yahoo bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion, a sum that - taking into account a one percent interest rate and current Tumblr revenues - would take about 500 years to pay out for Yahoo (but then everything will be gravy after that.)
Publishing:
The Ad Council launched a new central site for distributing public service ads.
Digiday reports [...]
The world is now focused on Brazil who will host the World Cup in 2014 and the summer Olympics in 2016. Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world with over 193 million people. In addition to a large immigrant population from Portugal, there are large numbers of people from Germany, Italy and Japan. All these groups have kept their culture. There is a very high literacy rate in Brazil and the middle class is growing.
Several years ago I was calling on a well-known local hotel, with a popular nightclub attached. I had already sold the manager wine glasses, etched with the establishment’s well-designed logo for the club area only a few weeks before. Surprisingly the supply had already depleted. Thinking there had been some sort of colossal accident in the back room, I asked how he had managed to go through 200 glasses in only two weekends.
I have positioned five wealth management brands and over a dozen other financial service brands. Most people, when thinking about wealth management brands, think the target customer is fairly straightforward – anyone who has more than $250,000 or $500,000 of investable assets – individuals or institutions. And while most wealth management firms’ customers would meet this criterion, this is not the bulls-eye of the target.
Brands make promises and then they must keep those promises. Making the promise is easy. Keeping it is the hard part. One can make a promise with words. But it can only be kept through actions. Consider BP repositioning itself as an environmentally friendly brand with the “Beyond Petroleum” slogan and the bright yellow and green sunburst icon. BP supported this with a $200 million public relations advertising campaign designed by Ogilvy & Mather. It worked well until the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010. Then other actions came to light, like the environmentally controversial oil sands project in Alberta, Canada.
As branders, it is useful to understand the basic needs that drive human emotions and behaviors. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs addresses this, as does Artur Manfred Max Neef’s classification of fundamental human needs. Albert T. Poffenberger, Ph.D. devotes an entire chapter to “An Inventory of Human Desires” in his book, Psychology in Advertising, published in 1925.
If you want to attend the 2013 Presidential Inauguration there is still a small chance you can get tickets. Most of the balls and galas are by invitation only. These would have gone out to anyone who has given a significant donation to the campaign. Many invitations will also go out to certain campaign workers. The next invitations go out to several people who will be honored at one of the balls.
A great master in the field of etiquette and protocol has passed away. When I first considered becoming an etiquette consultant, I began reading biographies of other woman who made etiquette their career. One of the first books I read was Letitia Baldrige’s “The Complete Guide to Executive Manners”. Letitia got her reputation, the hard way, she earned it. She worked in US embassies in France and Italy and later at Tiffany’s. The job she was the most famous for was being Chief of Staff to Jackie Kennedy. After the White House, she ran her own public relations firms and continued to work with diplomats and business men and women. She showed them how they could succeed by knowing business and social etiquette skills.
In branding themselves, municipalities should always play off of their strengths. In a recent online survey of 452 Rochester area residents, we discovered that Rochester has many strengths that can be used to develop a powerful brand position.
We have all been in the position to receive health care from getting a flu shot, to having surgery to facing hospice for someone in our family. I have found health care workers to be a unique group of people who show respect and compassion for their patients. Most of us want to find a physician or rehabilitation center that cares about us and our families. Now more than ever before offices and hospitals are becoming more patient centered.
