Going Social

I'm jumping into the Twittersphere... @brandinguzman

Branding in a Recession

Desperate measure or attempt to renew brand loyalty?

On Tuesday, February 3, Denny's served more than 2 million free Grand Slam breakfasts across the US. After announcing this promotion on Super Bowl Sunday, people lined up for hours to get their free meal. The news reported that while some people ordered drinks and left generous tips, others ate their breakfast with water and some didn't even bother tipping their waiters. Tough times indeed. Overall, the restaurant chain estimated that the Grand Slam promotion did "better than break even" from selling profitable drinks. So the questions become: will this promotion really help Denny's revert their downturn in sales? Will this promotion, together with all of their advertising that focuses on getting "a real breakfast", help Denny's renew its brand?

2009: Year of the Ox

2009 presents a set of huge challenges for me both at a professional and personal level. I'm currently working on 5 finished papers: one that is being reviewed, two that are in a revise and resubmit stage, and two that have been rejected and must be twitched to be sent to another journal. Meanwhile, I must finish the data collection for another study focusing on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its effect over global brands. If that weren't enough, before June Dr. Paswan and I should finish the paper 'What does it mean to be green?', and I have to focus on developing a couple of solo pieces that I must complete before going up for tenure. For those of you who have been in my class, you'll remember the 8 steps of segmentation and know how delayed the writing of this paper is by now. So professionally, my hands are full.

At a personal level, April 20 will represent my comeback in the Boston Marathon. After two failed attempts, this year I shall overcome the Boston curse. I'm about to start my formal training to tackle the big race. And although things might get complicated after June, I am thinking about the Austin 70.3 Half-Ironman in October.

The biggest, but most beautiful, challenge of all will come in June, when Sarah and I will become parents. We pray every day for a healthy baby, which is what really matters. So I find that 2009 being the year of the ox is nothing but appropriate, because I will require ox-like determination to tackle all of the challenges in 2009... and don't we all, given the current economic circumstances?

I believe 2009 will be a fascinating year for branding. With less money to spend, companies will have to be very smart on how to invest their precious marketing dollars. The 2009 branding party kicks off next Sunday, when the almighty Steelers face the Cardinals at the Super Bowl. It will be very interesting to see what and who is able to surprise us. Hopefully we'll see better things than the recent "G" campaign that still has many of us baffled. What is Gatorade trying to do?

An Update on UNT's Green Branding

After a very successful Spring semester, my Brand Management students delivered 11 reports on how to make UNT go green. Three teams were asked to build a "super report" that was delivered and presented to UNT's administrators. The "Pathways to Green" proposal was very well recevied and had a huge impact at many levels. The document has been used by the Sustainability Council as support for the development of their own sustainability proposal. And after many iterations, Alyssa Ferrer's logo was adopted as the official brand image for the movement. I am currently working with Audhesh Paswan on a paper in which we explore what is it that people understand as being green. I'll keep you updated.

Obama the Brand

Many of you have asked me if I consider Obama to be a brand. As some of you know, I have been working on the topic of political candidates as brands for some time now. Traditional political marketing has argued that the political parties are the brands while the candidates are only the products. I completely disagree, and believe that candidates have become the brands while their parties have become an important brand association. I did some research back in Mexico before the 2006 elections and analyzed the brand image for the 3 presidential candidates that were running for office. My research concluded that candidates are in fact viewed as brands and that the image of the candidate is an important component of the voter's decision. I have written a paper that is currently under review, so please keep your fingers crossed so it gets accepted.

Al Ries, published a very interesting article about Obama the brand and the reasons for his success. If you haven't read it, I think it's worth it.

http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=132237

UNT's Green Branding

Exciting news... what started as a "what if" thought last fall while taking a shower at the gym, is becoming a reality. Back then I thought: why is it that UNT isn't exploiting the green that it bleeds in order to become the first large university in Texas to become sustainable? After talking about this with some colleagues and Brian Weinberg, the creator of so many good things, my day dreaming might be a little bit closer to becoming real. I have been invited by President Bataille to be part of the University's Sustainability Council. There seems to be many people at UNT who know what is necessary to make the university become green. I've been given the honor to help from the marketing and branding side of this effort.

In case you haven't heard... this is what we've started to do:

http://www.coba.unt.edu/news/view.php?/2008/01/25/unt-going-green-environmentally

Finally getting started

After months of thinking about it, I've finally found time to start filling this up and sharing my branding ideas. So what's up right now? Actually, maybe too many things. The UNT going green branding project is starting to create a buzz, branding and immigration issues might become a new focus of my research, with some luck the design research cluster at UNT will come to life, and of course, my usual branding and CSR projects are on a roll. And what about analyzing the potential impact that branded gasoline (Shell, Exxon, Valero, etc...) could have over Mexican consumers?

So yes, I'm busy... very busy.

I promise to make at least one posting a week. And to get things started, how about thinking about innovation? If you're interested, follow this link:

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/flatmm/hbrextras/200712/coyne/index.html