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Brad VanAuken

Articles by Brad VanAuken

brad vanauken has written 515 articles for AdTalk

Brad VanAuken

Pivoting Your Business During COVID

by Brad VanAuken

Some businesses have been the beneficiaries of the COVID-19 pandemic. They were either in the right place at the right time or they seized an opportunity created by the pandemic. Disinfectant product sales were up 230% in March and April of 2020. Clorox has enjoyed great success in 2020. Zoom has become a household word […]

The Evolution of the Trump Brand

by Brad VanAuken

I have been following the Trump brand since I encountered Donald Trump at Studio 54 in the early 1980s. Back then, he had a reputation in New York social circles. He was viewed as an outsider to polite society. He was seen as a nouveau riche playboy and real estate developer who was aggressive but […]

Trump Brand

by Brad VanAuken

I need your help. I am conducting a survey on the Donald Trump brand. I first conducted this survey in June of 2016. I repeated it in January of 2019. I want to compare earlier perceptions to today’s perceptions of the Trump brand. I am looking for diverse responses so please share this link with […]

Pretend Your Brand Has Died…

by Brad VanAuken

 People periodically go through the exercise of revising their brand’s essence, promise, personality, unique value proposition and other brand positioning elements. A fun approach to this is to pretend that your brand has died. Now you need to write its obituary, its epitaph, and its eulogy. It’s obituary is akin to its elevator speech, while its […]

The Importance of Color in Brand Identity

by Brad VanAuken

Choice of color is more important than you may think for brands and their identities. I have created an online course that covers color in great detail including the associations and emotional responses to a wide variety of colors including in different cultures.Other topics covered in the course include:The most and least popular colors by genderThe […]

Developing the Brand Plan

by Brad VanAuken

 I have created a course that will teach you how to create a strategic and actionable brand plan. It includes a brand plan template, and possible brand objectives, strategies, and tactics. It is organized by the five drivers of customer brand insistence – awareness, relevant differentiation, value, accessibility, and emotional connection. It includes a SWOT […]

Affluence & Frequency of Purchase

by Brad VanAuken

This may seem intuitively obvious, but one way to gauge a household’s level of wealth is by determining its frequency of purchase of various products and services. While some less affluent households may be deceptive due to debt spending, and while other more affluent households may be deceptive due to frugality or a focus on […]

Out-of-the-Box Marketing Techniques

by Brad VanAuken

I recently created a new online course on out-of-the-box marketing techniques.  It highlights many ways in which marketers can be creative in achieving their goals. Creativity has always been an important part of marketing and the best marketers generally have high creativity quotients. In this highly entertaining course, we will review dozens of creative marketing campaigns […]

Brand Benefit Cues

by Brad VanAuken

Several years ago, I was helping a health care system reposition its brand. After rigorous research, we discovered that their unique presence of a level one trauma center in the rural communities that they served signaled that they were uniquely set up to handle the toughest and most complex medical situations. This together with some […]

Retro Brand Imagery with Sexual Overtones

by Brad VanAuken

 I was spending time at my Adirondack home last week and stopped by this Lake Placid wine and spirit shop to pick up some wine for the week. That’s when I noticed their shop sign. It immediately took me back to vintage ads with sexual overtones that are now unacceptable. The sign depicts a woman […]

Brand Research

by Brad VanAuken

 Introducing our online brand research course. This comprehensive introductory course focuses on how to use marketing research to build, manage and grow successful brands and it highlights the most important marketing research issues and considerations. Further, you will learn about more than 40 different qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and techniques and when it is appropriate […]

Tapping Into Human Needs

by Brad VanAuken

 I am excited to announce that I have developed a new inexpensive online course entitled “Tapping into Human Needs.” This one-hour seminar will help you better understand human needs and motivations. This understanding should inform brand positioning, marketing copy, selling scripts, and unique value propositions. We will cover Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, The Triune Brain, the […]

Marketing Needs Assessment

by Brad VanAuken

We have been running a continuous marketing needs assessment survey since April of 2017. Here are the latest findings. Organizational role:CEO – 19%CMO – 12%Marketing director – 12%Product manager – 12%Marketing manager – 10%Marketing vice president – 7%Brand manager – 5%Research analyst – 5%Marketing analyst – 3%Media planner – 3%Creative director – 3%Graphic designer – 2%Account […]

Transitioning to e-Commerce

by Brad VanAuken

I am conducting a free two-hour workshop on transitioning to e-commerce for artists on Sunday, September 27 from 4 pm until 6 pm. You are invited to attend.This workshop will teach artists how to develop, host and promote websites for e-commerce including becoming familiar with different web development and hosting services, e-commerce platforms and payment […]

Comprehensive Brand Positioning Course

by Brad VanAuken

This course will provide you with everything you need to position your brand to win. It is based on a proprietary process and set of tools that have been used to successfully position hundreds of brands throughout the world. This unparalleled brand positioning process was refined over 30 years and has been used by more than […]

Marketing and Marketing Communication Are Not the Same

by Brad VanAuken

Frequently, I encounter organizations whose marketing departments consist solely of marketing communications professionals. Those organizations view marketing solely as marketing communications. The department is tasked with writing marketing copy, providing content to websites, running social media campaigns, creating brochures, crafting event announcements and the like.But who is developing the brand’s unique value proposition? Who is […]

Marketing to Human Needs

by Brad VanAuken

If one is not marketing to human needs, that person should not be considered a marketer. Marketers, and especially those who craft brand strategy and marketing communications, must deeply understand human needs to perform their jobs well. I have written a number of blog posts over time that speak to addressing human needs. I have […]

Brands & Storytelling

by Brad VanAuken

Stories are the glue that holds societies together. Consider the stories of Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims, the Boston Tea Party, the Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence, the Civil War, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. These are the basis of our American Heritage. They provide us with a sense of history and […]

Marketing Needs Survey

by Brad VanAuken

If you are responsible for marketing in your organization, please share your marketing needs with us for a chance to win a Brand Aid book, two hours of free marketing consulting or an Amazon gift card. The survey will take less than 8 minutes of your time. I will post our findings in this blog […]

Brand Research Topics

by Brad VanAuken

These are some of the areas of customer, brand and marketing research that I think could better inform brand management and marketing activities and decisions:Understand how well this generic four part segmentation scheme applies to a wide variety of product and service categories: (a) price conscious customers, (b) convenience oriented customers, (c) brand loyal customers, […]

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