From Innovation and brand extensions on What’s Your Brand Mantra?.
Virgin = rebel = Richard Branson. Richard sets out to do something rebellious in whatever industry he chooses to enter. The Virgin brand is based not around what Richard does, but how he does it.
The second part sounds a lot like Google with its various products that seem to be lacking an overall strategy. It’s been a while since Google released a revolutionary, industry changing product. But the public perception of Google is still: cool and innovative.
Read more on brand extensions and if they work or not. Jennifer brings up Google further down in the post. In my opinion, the Virgin example makes a stronger point even when applied to Google.
Google is an innovation machine, generating a lot of new ideas that may or may not fly, but they all hang under its mission of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and usable.
What does your brand stand for? And how can you improve it?
Note: I’m following several Marketing related blogs as I’m convinced we will see radical changes in that area in the coming years (and it has already started). It’s great to read what some professionals in this field are experimenting with.
While looking around for a new mobile phone I was stranded on a blank page on www.cingular.com. The source looked like this:
<!– Vignette V7 Hybrid V6 Tue Aug 01 03:27:09 2006 –>
<form name=”frmCingIdx” action=”/index_b2b_orange” method=”post”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”ClientIP” value=”xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx” />
</form>
<script>
document.frmCingIdx.ClientIP.value = “xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx”;
document.frmCingIdx.submit();
</script>
I can’t reproduce this anymore. Note: The xxx.xxx was my real IP.
My Nokia 6100 died today. It’s been through a lot in the few years that I owned it. I’m really sad to see it go as it served me well.
Now the big problem is what kind of phone to get. In principle I only use it to make phone calls, send SMS and write stuff down in the calendar. But I could see myself using a camera and maybe even surf the web or read email (you know, like the kids today).
It must be small and light with decent battery life. At least tri-band. Bluetooth would be cool in case I get a new computer and want to hook it up. IrDA for backwards compatibilty. EVDO? Not necessarily. And I don’t really like flip phones (too fat, antenna sticking out).
As I’m with Cingular, my choice is limited to this. I hear people raving about the RAZR, Q, Sidekick 3 and Treo 650 but I’m not really convinced of any of these. So here is my short list based on what’s available online at Cingular.
- Nokia 6061: Only dual band, flip phone
- Nokia 6102i: 850/1800/1900 MHz (900 is missing), IrDA, EDGE, Bluetooth, Yahoo! IM, 128 x 160 Pixels
- Sony Ericsson Z525a: Quad band, Bluetooth, IrDA, Yahoo! IM, antenna is not sticking out, 128 x 160 Pixels
- RAZR V3: Quad band, Bluetooth, antenna is not sticking out, 176 x 220 Pixels
Heading over to Yahoo! Tech to see what others are saying about these phones. Maybe Cingular has more at their stores?