Brand Republic Blogs

Words on Coke External website

by Ian Moore, 24/05/2013

Our kids have been complaining that they can’t find Coke bottles with their names on. We pointed out they should be happy their own are unusual and distinctive. Their rejoinder was how come Mum and Dad’s are available?

by @gordonmacmillan, 20/05/2013

The UK Independence Party is looking to exploit divisions in the Conservative Party with an ad campaign launched today.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has sent a rallying cry to disaffected Tories to join his party’s growing ranks as the Conservatives fight over Europe and gay marriage.

by @gordonmacmillan, 09/05/2013

US TV network Starz, which was behind the acclaimed drama ‘Spartacus Blood and Sand’, is to create a ‘Mad Men’ style drama about Fleet Street, the former home of Britain’s national newspapers.

by Chris J Reed, 09/05/2013

Alcohol is the new cigarette when it comes to sponsorship. Questions about the connection are being asked more and more. I am sure that fast food will be next.

A recent Australian survey found that sporting clubs and the wider community have much to gain from breaking the ties between alcohol and sporting sponsorships. As well as gains in reducing alcohol related harm benefits include increased community participation in sporting clubs and more money generated by clubs.

by Hugh Salmon, 08/05/2013

Last week Stuart Hall, a BBC broadcaster, ‘admitted 14 charges of indecently assaulting girls, one aged nine’.

It emerged in what the BBC call a ‘Respect At Work‘ review, that ‘some behaviour appeared to go unchallenged by senior managers, with certain individuals seen as being ‘untouchable‘ due to their perceived value to the BBC’.

by Louise Kennedy, 07/05/2013

During a recent trip on the tube, an ad for ‘Inhibitif’ caught my eye. Sounds like a great product, but what about that name? Sure enough, when I got home, I remembered the product, but not the name. It got me thinking about what makes a brilliant brand name?

by Ian Moore, 05/05/2013

I was perplexed to note that Pets At Home are selling livestock on multibuy. Russian Hamsters, for example, £10 each or two for £17. I don’t know what to make of this fmcg tactic applied to our furry friends. I mean, they might not turn out to be best of mates. Have you seen a rodent’s incisors?

by Ian Moore, 26/04/2013

The case of the pulled Hyundai ‘suicide’ ad highlights a perennial dilemma for marketers. Someone will always take offence, and the wide acres of free speech are littered with (hardly hidden) perils, as the likes of Frankie Boyle and Salman Rushdie have found to their inconvenience.

by Hugh Salmon, 23/04/2013

When I joined the advertising business, there was a new buzzword called ‘marketing’. Few knew what it meant. At Ogilvy & Mather, where my career was born, we had a guy – yes, one person in the whole agency – whose job was to explain this new concept to our clients.

by @gordonmacmillan, 17/04/2013

The News of the World prepared a special 16-page pull out to commemorate the life of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher only for the paper to fall before she did.

The News of the World close almost two years ago, in July 2011, and its special Thatcher issue went down with the News International-owned newspaper.

by @gordonmacmillan, 16/04/2013

In the wake of Margaret Thatcher’s death, the Guardian reports that Daily Mirror publisher Trinity Mirror considered running an ad campaign highlighting how its papers opposed her policies during the 1980s.

Trinity Mirror, which publishes the Labour supporting Daily and Sunday Mirror titles and the Sunday People, created a mock-up ad that takes aim at its Conservative supporting and pro-Thatcher rival The Sun.

by Ian Moore, 12/04/2013

I started my first job during the Winter of Discontent. I was a novice fmcg salesman, never knowing if I’d find enough petrol to crawl home at night. At cash & carry gates the glowering flying pickets allowed my Cortina to enter. I think they liked the irony of us ‘flash’ reps taking orders that would never be delivered. In any event, all our factories were idle – the dockers had seen to that. Britain came perilously close to running out of food during that season of strife. But only a small cadre of reps and store managers knew just how close. Then the people booted out the Labour government, and the rest, as they say, is history.

by @gordonmacmillan, 12/04/2013

This is quite inspired work from BBH London for the Guardian, which has created this ad to trail Posy Simmonds’ take on the life of Margaret Thatcher in Saturday’s paper.

It features a headline at the foot “One woman, a nation divided”, but it is hardly needed when you have such a strong image that sums up perfectly how many feel about the former Prime Minister – loved by some and hated by others. Great advertising.

by Louise Kennedy, 08/04/2013

It’s been around for a month or so now, but Nurofen’s new emotional positioning of the lifestyle benefits of pain relief breathes new life in to a category driven by function. So how can other categories take note?

by Ian Moore, 04/04/2013

Aged ten I won a bike, a chopper, presented by Jimmy Hill, no less. It was a national sales promotion for Burton to pick a ‘British Dream Team’. I can’t remember my entire selection, though it certainly included the peerless trio of Best, Law and Charlton. There was Moore at the back, and – naturally – Banks in goal.

by Hugh Salmon, 03/04/2013

In what may be my most read post to date, DLA Disgrace, I discussed the shameful process that our Government inflicts on the disabled people in our community. It is outsourced to ATOS – ‘an international information technology services company’.

by Chris J Reed, 30/03/2013

Burger King has always had a terrible reputation for creative. Their new advert damages the brand yet further and stretches the limits of taste to the limit.

In the context of North Korea and South Korea/The United States of America’s nuclear sabre rattling Burger King have decided to create this advert.

by Ian Moore, 28/03/2013

As a former Cadbury brand manager I keep a sharp eye on confectionery matters, and of course Easter is the big thing right now. But, having a quick shufti around the shops yesterday I was disappointed to find very little in the way of inspiring creativity.

by Chris J Reed, 22/03/2013

Diageo’s Johnnie Walker brand have come up with some very innovative marketing solutions outside of bars and supermarkets to promote their newly created premium brands. This in turn has helped Johnnie Walker become more premium generic brand

by Hugh Salmon, 21/03/2013

What is it about the national debt that I am not getting?

Please forgive me for not being an economist but, when you owe loads of money, you can’t keep up with the repayments and you plunge deeper and deeper into the doo-doo, there comes a time when you go to your creditors and say:

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