Your brand’s best friend might be an enemy
Red Sox vs. Yankees, Coke vs. Pepsi, Republicans vs. Democrats, Apple vs. Microsoft. These are among the most recognizable brands in the world. Each is defined in part by its opposition to the other. Can you even think of one without thinking of the other?
What makes rivalries so compelling and, oftentimes, enduring? In a word, balance.
The future is usually hazy for me. I wasn’t impressed when first introduced to the Macintosh II in 1988, figuring the computer would take its place beside the waxer as a pasteup tool. I didn’t predict my wife would be upset when I forgot her birthday. But it was clear to me that neuromarketing would be big.
Why we’re all buying—and selling—cool
I have a horrid confession: I wore Daisy Dukes in middle school. It didn’t have to do with the TV show or Catherine Bach…honest. Rather, it represented rural New Hampshire social capital of the day: the more ragged the cutoffs, the better.
Most of us like to think we left peer pressure behind when we left middle school (or graduated from high school). But when it comes to benefits, in the marketing sense, there’s one that always comes out on top: enhanced social standing. In fact, as far as the brain is concerned, it can be as good or better than cash.
Facebook’s Big Brother issue
Professor George Milne of the University of Massachusetts studies online privacy and why some businesses—like Facebook—are starting to give us the creeps.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been clear that he believes we should all be open with our personal information. He put that belief into action by setting Facebook privacy defaults that were … well, less than private. (Zuckerberg obviously read Nudge, which notes that even when given choices, most of us never bother tinkering with defaults.)
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On Price and Perception
The very real value of branding
Why? A high-priced item is often a high-status item. Read More »