Category Archives: Reputation Economy

2010 TREND: The company behind the brand is now a brand asset – or a liability.

Finding Opportunities in the Hidden Costs

It’s a good thing that our industry puts such a premium on creativity, since marketers are facing a pretty hefty creative challenge at the moment: how do we accommodate and acknowledge consumers’ Future Fear without succumbing to cynicism, hopelessness, anger, … Continue reading

SXSWrapup (Part 7): New Weapons in the War on Whiners

After completing yesterday’s basic training, today we’ll get fully embedded in the War on Whiners, figuring out exactly what brands should be doing when it’s time to fire back. But, perhaps your first question isn’t how to respond; maybe you’re … Continue reading

Best of 2010 on The Awesome Blog – Part 1

Well, we’ve reached the end of another year of marketing madness, and The Awesome Blog has been there to guide you along the way. As you begin to take stock of 2010 and think about where you want to head … Continue reading

How Does Your Brand See the World?

When we’ve talked about telling the “story” of your brand, we’ve often found that online video provides a compelling medium for doing so, even if the topic isn’t inherently sexy. Case in point: consider the juxtaposition of these two videos … Continue reading

LeBron James vs the Reputation Economy

We’re a bit under-the-gun today (as always, that means we’ve got some good stuff comin’), so we’ll keep today’s post short and sweet. Actually, there’s nothing sweet about the video above – in fact, it’s clearly the product of a … Continue reading

Bridging the Gap in Logo Design

Uh oh. Here we go again. Gap just broke out a new logo. But rather than refreshing the brand to connect with a new generation of consumers, Gap managed to send the world of art directors into a tizzy. Many … Continue reading

Hometown Heroism, One Town At A Time

Over the course of this year, we’ve talked a lot about “small” cause marketing, where brands are increasingly focusing their CSR efforts on more narrow, local, well-defined problems. We’ve viewed this as the intersection of two trends that we called … Continue reading

How to Fight Back in the Battle for Your Reputation

Right before our break, we took a deeper look into how corporate social responsibility looks in the world of the Reputation Economy, where a brand’s (or a house of brands’) seemingly disparate actions are judged by consumers as a single … Continue reading

No Good CSR Deed Goes Unpunished

We all knew that Pepsi’s Refresh project was a risky proposition. Their decision to ditch their million-dollar Superbowl ads opened the door for their rivals at Coke to advertise essentially unopposed during the country’s biggest broadcast. Furthermore, while many have … Continue reading

Your Pizza, Minus the Tummy Tuck, Bronzer, and Rhinoplasty

When we introduced the idea of Down-to-Earth-ism in our 10 Trends for 2010, we described this trend as an evolution of the New Austerity. We argued that consumers were stressed, strained, and suspicious, and that pie-in-the-sky promises seemed inconsistent with … Continue reading