Al On Hilton
Interesting piece by Al Ries on Hilton and the need for clear brand positioning. (logon required).
Do you know your brand?
What’s your brand? If you can’t answer that question about your own brand in two or three words, your brand’s in trouble.
Powerful, long-lasting brands are built by owning a word in the mind.
What’s a Volvo? A safe car.
What’s a BMW? Fun to drive.
What’s a Barilla? Italy’s No. 1 pasta.
News Blinks & Pointers: July 11, AM ’05
- Superfuture (thanks to Mr. Whipps)
- Holmes report reports: This year, according to the 2005 KPMG International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting, the majority (52 percent) of the world’s largest companies issued separate reports detailing their corporate social responsibility performance, up from 42 percent the year before." Other highlights:
- At the national level, the two top countries in terms of separate CSR reporting are Japan (80 percent) and the United Kingdom (71 percent). The highest increases in the 16 countries in the survey are seen in Italy, Spain, Canada, France and South Africa.
- Pew reports newspapers and traditonal media still valued: "Most Americans continue to give favorable ratings to their daily newspaper (80 percent, compared to 20 percent unfavorable), local TV news (79 percent to 21 percent), and cable TV news networks (79 percent to 21 percent). The margin is only slightly smaller for network TV news (75 percent to 25 percent). In fact, the favorable ratings for most categories of news organizations surpass the positive ratings for President Bush and major institutions such as- the Supreme Court, Congress, and the two major political parties. The exception to this pattern are large, nationally influential newspapers, such as the Washington Post and New York Times, whose favorable ratings have declined markedly. According to Pew, ”The public has long been ambivalent about the news media—faulting the press in a variety of ways, while still valuing news and appreciating the product of news outlets.” And…
- Overall, a third of Americans below age 40 cite the internet as their main source of news and many of these people are reading newspapers online. Consequently, while people under age 50 remain far less likely to read a print newspaper than are older people, they are turning to local and national newspapers online in fairly significant numbers. Overall, one-in-four (24 percent) Americans list the internet as a main source of news. Roughly the same number (23 percent) say they go online for news every day, up from 15 percent in 2000; the percentage checking the web for news at least once a week has grown from 33 percent to 44 percent over the same time period.
- News audiences more likely to watch news that discloses VNR sources: News audiences say they are more likely to watch a news broadcast that always discloses the source of any thirdparty video it uses, according to a recent survey of more than 1,000 television viewers by Ipsos for video news production company D S Simon Productions. Overall, 42 percent of respondents said they were more likely to watch a program that always disclosed video sources, and 39 percent were just as likely to watch—a total of 81 percent who said they would be affected negatively by disclosure. Only 16 percent said they would be less likely to watch a news program if it disclosed the sources of outside video. <<Aside: this is the value of subscribing to the Holmes Report… nothing on the DS Simon website… sigh!>>
- ODEO for podcasts
Just love mindmaps…
Stumbled onto these mindmaps today in a momentary lapse of focus – actually, it was a pretty sustained period of zippo focus…
On Corporate Blogs
Interesting story from InfoWorld. Points to the Cannondale blog, which I hadn’t come across before. Includes comments from iUpload CEO – they’ve recently integrated their blogging solution with Google maps..And, Robin over at iUpload has an entry on Canadian Idol’s use of blogs to engage with thier community…
London…
My old home has been hit by horrific terrorist attacks. Why attack working class Londoners? It’s just so pointless and futile. Our thoughts are with all suffering through this.
Lots on the blogosphere on this one. Here are a few links:
Glad James is OK – remembered his office is in Aldgate East. Waiting to hear about the rest of the gang…
