Brand Advertising

What is the first thing you do when you get in a restaurant and sit at the table? No… Except putting the napkin on your legs… Well? You look at the… Menu! That’s right! The menu is the first thing people look at when they visit a restaurant, sometimes, before they even take a sit. This is the face of the business. Now if you’re menu looks like crap, doesn’t matter if you serve the best food in the entire metropolitan area because people will choose another place to eat in. Same goes with... Read Full Story

Garrett Popcorn is opening its 9th store in Chicago tomorrow at 625 Michigan Avenue. Starting as a small popcorn store on 10 West Madison Street in 1949, Garrett Popcorn has since built 8 stores in Chicago, making them a city landmark. Ask anyone who is from Chicago and they will tell you they love Garrett Popcorn (believe me I have). So in a troubling economy with an unemployment rate near 10%, how does Garrett Popcorn increase its sales and open its 9th store in Chicago? One word, branding... Read Full Story

By Michael Mark, Creative Director/CEO @ NYCA  Frigging Manny Ramirez got me thinking. Well, actually it’s the people who are buying his jersey now, since he’s been suspended from baseball for steroids, who’ve got me scratching my head. Why would they want to wear his shirt, his name, his dreadlocks, now? If they want to align with a profe ssional ball player with equally impressive stats, they can choose others. I guess they like being associated with a bad boy. And that got me... Read Full Story

Background Just recently I had read the book Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell which occupies the top spot for hardcover non-fiction on the New York Times Best Sellers List . Reading this book prompted me to think about branding and outliers. Today’s blog will focus on the key points I found form this book and how they relate to your brand. What Are Outliers? In layman’s terms an outlier is a scientific term that describes something that is outside of a normal group... Read Full Story

When the 2009-2010 NBA season ends, super star LeBron James will be a free agent. King James, as he is affectionately called, has been a member of the Cleveland Caveliers since he jumbed from high school to the pros six years ago. He has brought a lot of excitement to the city of Cleveland, including leading the Cavs to the Eastern Conference Finals last year against the Orlando Magic. Fans of the NBA are curious what will happen when LeBron becomes a free agent. His agent will have the... Read Full Story

By Lynne Roswall, VP and Director of Production @ NYCA   Producers are a unique bunch.  We are, by nature, PROblemsolvers, PROactive and we PROmote the importance of executing work efficiently for our clients.  Producers who grew up in advertising are most likely focused within an isolated medium; Print Producer, Broadcast Producer, Online Producer.  Yesterday, that worked well because the world of advertising was also categorized into specific mediums and we found ourselves categorizing... Read Full Story

Corn Brand wars (1340) proof Choosing a name for your business, domain and brand is often the single, most critical decision you will ever make. Today it’s very easy to asses a solid, long-lasting, and highly profitable name. Can your brand name hook the brains in your niche? Yes, we all know that it should be intuitive, suggestive, benefit based, semantically short, easy spelled, memorable, sweet sounding, scalable and search-engine-friendly, so you will have a chance to hook them on... Read Full Story

I just read an outstanding piece by Olivier Blanchard, principal at BrandBuilder Marketing, on the mistreatment of brands by lousy CEOs. See Blanchard’s blog post: Killing America’s brands, one lousy CEO at a time  (It’s a bit lengthy, but worth the read). In this piece, he rants against ineffective leadership at Chrysler and GM, whose CEOs, he says, have focused to their detriment on aggressive cost-cutting, efficiency and short-term results in favor of rebuilding the brands that once... Read Full Story

World Hero 3000 is a Toronto, Canada based specialty sports product manufacturer who wanted to showcase their innovative sports products by creating an exciting energy packed website. After initial client briefings, the Web Success Team went to work — first on branding. Because they were a relati ve newcomer in the world of sports product marketing, the Team needed to give them a strong brand positioning to penetrate an already cluttered marketplace. First we wanted to change the perception... Read Full Story

By Michelle Edelman, President @ NYCA Many an ad agency and marketer have spent their research dollars trying to determine the factors that cause consumers to fall in love with auto brands. With US auto makers in real trouble, and consumers squirreling away their dollars, this insight is perhaps more valuable than ever.   That’s why it’s so interesting that last week, a study quoted in Business Week indicated that a single action caused survey respondents to increase their consideration... Read Full Story