Lisa Merriam

Crowdsourcing without a Crowd: Levia’s Failed Attempt

Levia® launched a crowdsourcing video contest in September with much fanfare only to watch the entire effort fizzle. Called “Lights, Camera, Healing,” the program asked people to create and submit original videos extolling the virtues of the “healing power of light.” The Crowdsourcing idea famously worked for Doritos® in creating memorable (and cheap!) Super Bowl …

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Brand Obama–What Now?

With the midterm election results in, Brand Obama faces big challenges. We talked to Barry Silverman who defined what made the brand a success in 2008. On Election Day morning, we had breakfast and talked about what to do to fix the brand in the run-up to 2012 (plus some thinking about Brand Hillary). <object …

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Mr. Smith Doesn’t Go to Washington? Predicting Which Candidate Brand Wins

A brand name that is remembered is a brand name that wins in the marketplace—and possibly the polling place. The candidate brand matter. What Makes a Name Memorable? Many factors create name that is easy to remember: great features and benefits and effective, frequent advertising chief among them. In politics, things like party, platform, personality …

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Processed Food, Diabetes, Bad Branding

Two ad campaigns, one from Conagra’s Chef Boyardee and one from Tyson, are particularly heinous in light of newly released statistics on diabetes. One celebrates kids complaining about vegetables and other nutritious foods they hate. The ad pushes pushes fried chicken nuggets from Tyson as an ideal alternative: The other features some moms punishing another …

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Is the Press Release Dead?

Yes, sort of. The old-fashioned document you faxed to a bunch of editors and reporters is dead. The more recent idea of a “social media press release” is also dead—it did more for the PR agency that invented it than it did for people seeking coverage. Yet that doesn’t mean that an evolved press release …

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