123 eGuides

1 Minute Advice: The New Digital Landscape for Brands

Brands need to compete in the new digital landscape, and sometimes that means pushing the boundaries beyond the ordinary. It isn't enough to simply utilize digital media, brands need to authentically connect with a consumer's digital life. In an insightful commentary for Forbes, Shannon Andrick details three novel, creative ways for brands to navigate the digital landscape:

1. "Reinventing the app as the new brand hub" - Shannon writes that "brands are designing the app experience around the needs of their best customers, increasing functionality and making the experience more personal and intuitive."
2. "Virtual personification helps reach the aspirational customer" - Shannon shares the fascinating example of Gucci, who recognized that younger consumers may not be able to afford Gucci clothing, so the company created a "digital clone" that can be "dressed" in Gucci instead.
3. "Gaming provides a new platform for advertising and marketing" - According to Shannon, "While game development may not be the best fit for most brands, you can capitalize on this trend through advertising, sponsorships and other partnership opportunities."

Read more here. 

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Check out the new book featuring 156 best and worst brands of the 50s and 60s!

1 Minute Advice: Consumer as "Prosumer"

What has the sharing economy done to marketers? It has turned the consumer into something entirely different, according to  Wharton marketing professor Cait Lamberton: "Traditionally, you have a firm that provides a good or a service, and the consumer acquires it. In the sharing economy, the consumer is also a producer. There is this new term now in the lexicon, being a 'prosumer.' ... There is a balancing act between the different identities of the consumer in this space."

How do marketers deal with this new reality? Lamberton says, "...in some ways, we have to get out of our own way and listen to consumers talk about their experience instead of trying to impose the roles that we expect should govern their behavior."

Read more from Lamberton, or listen to her being interviewed on Knowledge@Wharton's podcast: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/sharing-economy-marketing-strategy/?

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.

Check out the new book featuring 156 best and worst brands of the 50s and 60s!

1 Minute Advice: Most Valuable Brands in the U.S.

BrandZ has issued its annual report on the Top 100 Most Valuable Brands in the U.S. These are the top ten, according to the report:

1. Amazon
2. Apple
3. Google
4. Microsoft
5. VISA
6. Facebook
7. McDonald's
8. MasterCard
9. AT&T
10. Verizon

The top ten account for almost $2 trillion in brand value -- slightly more than half the total value of the top 100 most valuable brands.

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.

Check out the new book featuring 156 best and worst brands of the 50s and 60s!

1 Minute Advice: The Revival of Defunct Retail Brands

It's an interesting phenomenon: A retail brand goes bankrupt and disappears for a while -- only to be resurrected anew at a later date. "What's old is new again." Here are four interesting examples, as reported by Tucson.com:

Children's clothing brand Gymboree went bankrupt and was purchased by its former rival, The Children's Place, in March 2019. The Children's Place plans to reinstate the Gymboree brand as a "shop-in-a-shop" in more than 200 of its stores, as well as bring the brand back online.

The ill-fated Toys R Us is being revived by Tru Kids Brands as a more contemporary, smaller experience-oriented venue. Two new stores, in New Jersey and Texas, will pilot the concept in stores that will be a mere 6,500 square feet compared with the former Toys R Us footprint of 20,000 to as much as 50,000 square feet. The new stores will feature toy brands in "interactive and playground-like environments."

The renowned New York toy store, FAO Schwartz, graced Fifth Avenue for decades until it went bust in 2015. The ThreeSixty Group snapped up the remains and reopened a store in New York's Rockefeller Center in 2018. Expansion into airports is planned for the revived brand.

American Apparel had nearly 200 stores when it filed for bankruptcy in 2016. New owner Gildan Activewear purchased the company's trademark, opened an LA store in 2018 and sells the brand online.

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.

Check out the new book featuring 156 best and worst brands of the 50s and 60s!