Lisa Merriam

B2C Branding

Toyota Brand Doublespeak: Spinning Possible Recall as “Special Service Campaign”

When a corporation uses slippery doublespeak, particularly for brands with trust trouble, they double down on the damage they do to their reputation. Brand Doublespeak Doesn’t Fool Anyone Who does Toyota think they are fooling when they try to paint the new recall of the Tundra as a “heads up” to dealers of a “special …

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Marketing Executives Networking Group Top Marketing Trends 2009

The Marketing Executives Networking Group, an national organization of top-level marketing professionals, has just released new study of top executives on marketing trends across industries and marketing disciplines. We spoke with Tom H. C. Anderson, founder and CEO of Anderson Analytics, the firm that conducted the study:

New York Bar Show

We walked the floor of the New York Bar Show at Jacob Javitz Center to see what trends await customers across the bar and on the shelf in 2009.

Promote Uganda: Focusing the Message for Place Branding

Focusing The Message of an NGO Doing Place Branding Promote Uganda is a non-governmental-organization (NGO) founded by successful ex-patriot Ugandans with the goal of improving the economic lot of people in Uganda. The organization is an ambitious one. We helped them organize and articulate their agenda around several key place branding initiatives: Providing tourists information …

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AIG Name Change to AIU

AIG is trying to outrun its old reputation by adopting a new brand. Will it work? Most people aren’t buying it. The entity, formerly known as AIG, is firmly attached to its reputation of irresponsible financial stewardship and credit default swap schemes that played a major role in the global financial collapse of 2008. The …

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