I’ve been slowly doing a bit of blog housekeeping lately and found a post that I inadvertantly swept under the couch last September. The link still works, so here is is.

Blogging note: If you use Typepad and save posts as "draft", sometimes you might want to filter your posts and see if you’ve got any drafts lying around that should have been posted.

Great branding story today (ok, not from today) from ClickZ. I love the term Brandwashing.

The Branding Dimension: Brandwashing
"Brandwashing" is my dysphemism for branding. Don’t get me wrong, I mean this in a positive way. Similar to its ominous counterpart, brainwashing, brandwashing is conditioning consumers’ perception of a brand and the consequent increase of its awareness, recall, and equity over time.

As more brands turn to the Internet as a viable advertising vehicle, the channel will only become more congested. This trend is already validated by ever-decreasing CTRs for almost all standard banners, year after year, as consumers are bombarded with ad units and messaging. If the current challenge is to break through the clutter to get in front of the target audience, behavioral targeting has the ability to ensure timely delivery of the right messaging, in the right context, to the right people. 

In a recent discussion with interactive colleagues at WPNI/Newsweek, I learned Shell and Exxon have included online as a major component in their respective marketing mixes. One might wonder why petroleum giants are doing online advertising. I have a few guesses and will confidently say branding is one of their objectives. If branding is about achieving strategic ubiquity online, then behavioral targeting can certainly be a solution.

The Three Dimensions of Behavioral Targeting

There’s no by-line, but I have to assume that Mathew Ingram wrote the business column in The Globe and Mail that contained this gem.

EURIPEDES CLOTHES OFF: Sex sells. Sure, you’ve heard that before, but new research suggests it’s even older than you think. A paper on branding in ancient times, by business professors Karl Moore of McGill and Susan Reid of Bishop’s, reveals the oldest use of brand imagery, dating from around 2000 BC, was an Indian seal of what is believed to be the fertility god Shiva. By the sixth century BC, potters in ancient Greece were branding vases with standard slogans such as “Exekias painted and made me.” One potter, Euthymides, went further, boasting that his vases were of “high quality as never (were those of) Euphronios.” But one creative potter promised sexual returns with the inscription “Nestor had a most drink-worthy cup, but whoever drinks of mine will straightaway be smitten with desire of fair-crowned Aphrodite.” So not that much has changed. Sex clearly still sells in modern Greece, judging from the Olympic beach volleyball cheerleaders.

The Globe and Mail

Steve Rae uncovered a great story about the psychology of branding as it relates to tourism.

Touch Points: We must accept a loss of control

By the way Canada, my offer still stands.