Category: Brand(ing):Inside & Outside
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BP’s Bravest Brandividual: What could be motivating Darryl Willis?
If you’ve been paying attention to BP’s “Making it right” newspaper advertising, or if you’ve seen BP’s recent television advertising, you’ve seen BP’s new Brandividual Darryl Willis. Aside from Tony Hayward, BP’s walking PR disaster CEO, Darryl Willis is the only person with a name shown by BPs own advertisements as being in charge of…
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BP’s Beyond Petroleum: Hypocrisy, or caught in the act of learning?
Some people actually believe(d) that BP was making an authentic effort to move “Beyond Petroleum”. I was quite surprised to discover this early in June, in conversation with an organizational change consultant who specializes is sustainability change. This consultant explained that, in contrast to other energy companies that he had worked with, BP was making…
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Employee Branding at BP: Do snazzy uniforms protect the response teams?
Somebody at BP has been reading The Onion. BP has figured out that dressing their employees in groovy outfits can help build esprit, camaraderie and a even a sense of importance. Okay, I’m being snarky here… but I am wondering about the positive (and possibly negative) effects of the outfits these BP control center personnel…
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Rebranding Pompeii as a Living City
It seems that you can’t escape the demands of rebranding, even if you go back 2282 years. In one of the more intriguing examples of rebranding I’ve seen in a while, the world historical site of the City of Pompeii is currently engaged in its own rebranding campaign. The ‘old’ brand of Pompeii To appreciate…
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Corporate Logo Tattoos: The wrong way to wear the brand
In the domain of “things I just don’t understand about people’s relationship(s) to organizations” is this nagging question: Why would anyone want to brand themselves with a corporate logo? Way back when I began studying organizational identification and employee branding (branding in the metaphorical sense), I heard about an April Fool’s Joke on NPR where…
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Organic Discount or Competency Penalty? The real reason organic wines sell for less
Stereotypes about non-profit and for-profit firms explain why organic wine can’t command higher prices. Today’s Freakonomics column picks up on UCLA research reported earlier this week by Matt McDermot at Treehugger.com. The researchers, Magali Delmas and Laura E. Grant, demonstrated that organic wine cannot command as high a price as conventional (non-organic) wine. This despite…
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That Special Starbucks: Does the place help the people be authentic?
First it was the Siren. Then it was the Christmas cards. For a while, it’s been the original artwork by their very own baristas displayed on the walls.. And now, my favorite Starbucks is getting bouquets of flowers. On a recent visit, there were two big vases of flowers on the counter by the espresso…