Our old friends Sears are in the news again. Having, against all odds, staved off bankruptcy, the venerable challenger home improvement retailer is trying to build a new brand image and distance itself from its troubled past. And what do you do when you want to...
What was wrong with Elizabeth Banks? It’s a question we find ourselves asking Realtor.com (not that they’d answer) after seeing their new “Unreal” series of ads. If you don’t remember, Realtor.com retained the services of actress...
Well, another Super Bowl is behind us, and with it are all of the over-thought, dubiously strategic, creative-for-creativity’s-sake commercials. As with every year, the time between the on-field action (such as it was) was filled with gems and duds in almost...
If there’s one thing we find especially irksome, it’s when companies issue press releases announcing the unveiling of “a new branding campaign.” Outside the marketing and advertising industry, nobody cares about these announcements. Yet...
Here’s a newsflash: building products are not at the center of consumers’ lives. People don’t think about appliances, windows, and flooring all the time. Even when they’re actively shopping for these items, audiences don’t think their...
A long-admired model in the CPG business has been refillable razor blades. The basic idea is that brands like Gillette don’t make their money on the handles, but on the refillable razor cartridges that need to be replaced every week. It’s a model worth...
