On Thursday, April 2, Kevin Verner, spoke to the Charleston AMA chapter about the evolution of branding. Topics included brand strength and point of difference, brand relevance and brand adaptability.
Kevin’s speech was equally enlightening and humorous. He started the speech with a modified version of the disclaimer that plays at the beginning of South Park (“All opinions and products in this presentation – even those based on real brands – are entirely fictional. All logos are doctored from their original form – poorly, the following presentation contains considerable intellectual license and due to its content it should not be viewed by anyone.”) and then dove into case studies including Marlboro, Champion Sparkplugs and Monopoly slot machines to show how these brands have evolved over time to meet market changes.
He handed out some of his favorite books to those who correctly answered his questions or as he stated, for no reason other than the fact that they were his books and he could give them to whomever he pleased.
His top three book recommendations were:
- Buy-ology by Martin Lindstrom
- The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand by Al and Laura Ries. For a full list of these laws click here.
- The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz. View a speech by Barry Schwartz to Google employees relating to his book.
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All attendees were asked to test their branding knowledge with a quiz which provided pieces of corporate logos to identify. You can test your own logo recognition with these similar quizzes.
Kevin also challenged us to each think of three analogous industries and track their brand evolution in order to compare to our own brand. Which industries can you compare to your own?
-Lee Deas, CAMA President
Flickr Photos
April 6, 2009
Great quiz! I was expecting to know more logos than I did; ended up only recognizing 6 of the 15. I need to work on my logo/brand recognition!
April 6, 2009
My years of South Park viewing finally paid off in the form of Martin Lindstrom’s book Buy-ology. At the April luncheon, Kevin awarded me this book for correctly citing the source of his presentation’s disclaimer.
Martin Lindstrom and his new book Buy-ology was the cover story for the March 15th issue of Marketing News – an excellent AMA publication exclusively available to AMA members. The article piqued my interest in the book which explores the consumer’s subconscious mind using fMRI and brain-scanning technologies. Martin was able to get the real truth behind people’s buying decisions without the bias that can infiltrate even self-reported data.
I started reading the book over the weekend, and I would highly recommend picking this up. Or you can just impress Kevin Verner with your Cartman impression. Respect my AUTHORITAY!