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I’ve Been Facebook Murdered!

While this is the story of what happened to my boss, he’s in Florida escaping the bitter Arctic cold front while at a sales conference for one of our esteemed premium brand clients—so, I don’t feel bad stealing it away for a blog entry.
The other day, Mr. Bossy Boss told me a tale about this [...]

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The Legion of Extraordinary Things

Extraordinary: going beyond what is usual, regular, or customary. — Merriam-Webster
Last night, while watching my recording of Wednesday’s So You Think You Can Dance (yes, I’m one of those people), the show’s host introduced me to a group called “The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers.” While this seems like a fun name, I was hardly going [...]

General

Facebook Promotions Go Premium

Last Thursday, the Facebook Marketing page announced new guidelines on running promotions through Fan Pages. Why more marketers aren’t in a frenzy, I don’t know because in one short posting, they basically annihilate 90% of the reason any brand actually has a Fan Page—having something of value to communicate to their customers on the cheap.

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Wise Branding From the Soda Pop Shop

John Nese is a regular guy who has an irregular love–he adores soda pop. Having worked with his father since he was younger in their run-of-the-mill grocery store, his little establishment was given the opportunity to carry the big brand of soda, Pepsi. After feeling bullied into an agreement he didn’t want, John decided he would start collecting his own selection of specialty sodas—without the help of a big compay. Over the years his little store has become anything but run-of-the-mill.

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Google and Bing: Social Media Search Won’t Kill Your Brand Just Yet

Marketers, advertisers and brand managers are all buzzing with the news of Google and Bing announcing their new social search features, which will include content from Twitter and Facebook when users search on either engine, and what this now means for a brand’s overall success or failure. These tools have been promoted as the official [...]

General

2 Keys to Online Brand Conversations

What is the best way to start an online conversation? Once it starts, how do you keep it going? Both the questions and the answers are deceptively simple…

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I Wanna Be Just Like Apple

If you’ve watched any live TV in the last few weeks, you’ve undoubtedly seen the Motorola Droid commercial mocking the iPhone. Well, at least copying the font, music style and format of a campaign a few cycles ago. If you’ve been holed up in a cave somewhere and haven’t seen it, you can experience it [...]

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Transparency: The New Path to Premium Status

What is a premium brand? The definition we use here at the WD is that a premium brand is one that is recognized as being of greater value than its competition. In fact, when we have new clients take the WD Premium Brand Test we ask the question “does your brand have superior features or [...]

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Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

Social Media. It’s the buzzword of the moment and rightly so. Numerous studies continue to be published, each revealing the depth and value of social media efforts, which pique the interest of even the most timid of interactive users. Regardless of continued success stories, it seems that most brands approach this medium of advertising by [...]

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Starbucks Apologizes for Great Branding

In the last few months, there has been much ado about Starbucks’ rebranding some of its stores to strip away their corporate identity and revamp the locations with local character. According to an article in The Seattle Times, some stores—including the one featured in the article—will include alcohol, live music, and many other elements that [...]