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$1000 / year? No. http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2011/08/08/Verizon-Strike-Action.aspx $20,000 per employee per year. Google "Verizon billion 20,000" and you'll get about a million articles. A BILLION DOLLARS per year. Actually, even $1000 per year would be a pretty big hit to most families in this economy, but $20k is sickening.

Here is the original article by brandchannel in case you are interested in seeing the rest. I thought I would be, but after skimming it I changed my mind.

Sigh... Yes yes, bottom line is everything... Nothing else matters...

"Most valuable brand" is about what people will pay...

That "people" == customers. So you've said it yourself- it's about customers. Regardless of motivation, regardless of consequences.

The site you quoted is stupid, confusing "brand" with "brand value". Brand, as in "brand loyalty", is about customers tending to purchase specific products or from specific companies, and has absolutely nothing to do with that company's bottom line. What that brand is worth, while the impetus for improving it, is but a derivative aspect.

Right, well, actually George "Dubya" Bush mortgaged your daughter's future over the last eight years. That's not to say that Obama won't do the same thing, its just he's going to mortgage her future to buy different crap.

And as far as being a butt boy for the RIAA/MPAA why are you surprised? Didn't Hollywood come out in force to support him? That's the nature of politics. They help him get elected, and he helps them in return. Despite people's insistence that they are not influenced by celebrity endorsements, reality seems to say otherwise.

For that matter, why wouldn't Barack Obama support the media industry? They are defending their intellectual property. True, they are slimebags who would look much better after a massage with a steamroller, but the copyright infringers and file sharers are the ones which are breaking the law, after all. It doesn't matter whether the DMCA is an abomination, it is the law. And the President of the United States isn't put into office to make up his own rules, aka George W Cheney, but to enforce and abide by the laws in place.

You think you are the first to think of this? If so, you haven't been paying attention. Remember 1986 when Run D.M.C. had the hit My Adidas? You think no one else got the hint over the last 20 years?

Watch carefully. There's a trend, too, in HOW Apple products are used in comparaison to other manufacturers.

When Apple products are used, it's typically by "the good guys". The baddies in the same movie would be using some cheapo white box manufacturer running Windows.

I always find that hilarious.

This link is amusing for checking out all product placements in movies.

...the article is written by Gabriel Stricker from BrandChannel. The tone seems to be a typical marketing/branding kind - lots of high-sounding assertions and phrases, and very few solid justifications for the same.

For instance, check this sentence: "Google is actually the first company with a brand that is built entirely of stem cells: able to grow and develop into whatever form it sees fit."

Huh? World's first company? Built entirely of stem cells? Into whatever it sees fit?

What is this guy smoking?

Google's decision to branch into many unrelated/related ideas is not due to any stem cells or mitochondria, but simply because it has enough money and talent to do so. More importantly, the stock market that usually punishes companies for expanding too fast/too much still seems to be in awe of Google.

Imagine Microsoft deciding to enter into server harware, or Sun into smartphones, or Dell into online dating! But when Google does it, its suddenly "stem cells" in action!

Most of the less-technical people i know can tell you if they have a dell, compaq or mac... but i'd be surprised if many know if they run Intel or AMD and the significance of that.

The Apple and brand is far better known amongst non-techy users...

http://www.brandchannel.com/start1.asp?fa_id=298

I'd bet that intel needs Apple.

Apple are in a good position because they can demand a premium for their products. By switching to the x86 platform they are unlikely to be in a position where they cant offer a premium product because their architecture doesn't support it.

From a migration standpoint, hopefully there will soon be Windows emulators that take advantage of the virtualization on the CPU. A lot more users will be enticed onto the mac if it's straightforward to run the software they need.

I doubt its Walmart that should be afraid, more likely brands like Nike, Reebok and Gucci and not only that they should be afraid of the information thats out there not the search engines that find it.

Let me explain:

A quick quiz:
Gucci is an Italian Fashion product maker right? Tick tock tick tock ..... times up.
Wrong! Gucci are an Amsterdam company that buy in practically all of their products that makes *brands* (Boucheron, Balenciaga...) they say they buy shoes from Italy, according to this guy, the Italian high-fashion shoe industry get most of the shoe from Romania and China now and as a result Italy is Europe's biggest shoe importer:
http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?id =179

Quiz:
Nike are a high quality manufactured brand, Reebok are a high quality manufactured brand, Pan Shoes Bangkok are some crappy Asian brand? Right or wrong, tick tock tick tock... Wrong. Bangkok Rubber company make Reeboks for Reebok, Nike's for Nike and Pan Shoes for Pan Group (which owns Bangkok Rubber Company).
http://www.pan-group.com/

CAT Footware (From Caterpillar):
http://www.catfootwear.com/Main.aspx
Cat Footware are American made and 'Authentic since **1904***' (from their website)? Correct or not?
Tick tock tick tock... Wrong.

Cat brand products are made by Wolverine World Wide.
Here is the information saying they signed up the CAT brand in ***1994***, not 1904:
http://www.wolverineworldwide.com/brands_cat.asp

Here's their annual report:
http://www.wolverineworldwide.com/investors_report s.asp

So where are CAT brand shoes made? Read the 2004 Report, page 29.
Risk factors:
"reliance on foreign sourcing and concentration of production in China; the availability and price of power, labor and resources in key foreign sourcing countries, including China;"

Made in China.

It's not the search engines, its the information they should fear. Look at the CAT thing, I simply clicked on their financial details and did a search for 'China' to locate the information. Nothing to do with Google or Yahoo.

Ambush Marketing doesn't need to use specific words like "summer" or "olympics". For instance, Nike has been ambush-marketing the Olympics for years, and in 1996, many people thought they were an official sponsor.

Here's how Nike ambushes: Put up billboards of Nike athletes all over London; buy TV advertising that shows, say, a top Nike sprinter winning a generic race. People won't tell the difference. In the past, "official" advertisers would put an Olympic logo on their ads to prove they were legit, but people didn't notice or care. This silly list of no-no words will be the same -- no viewer will think, "Coke used the word 'Gold'? They must be official!" The law won't stop ambush marketing at all.

What does make an advertiser look "official" is repetition, and this is the problem with official sponsorships. For Atlanta they cost US $50 million; for London they'll be much more. Spend that much on the sponsorship, and Reebok simply can't afford to blanket the airwaves as much as Nike can. So Nike has more TV spots than Reebok, and thus viewers think Nike is "official."

The only way the Olympic Committee could really help their official sponsors is by giving them signage at the venues. Like, if during a basketball game Reebok could put its logo on the scorer's table. (As of now, the Olympics bans all venue advertising, a relic of its "amateur" history.) I wouldn't be surprised to see this happen by 2012.

And marry the two best-liked/recognized brands in the world. Jobs is THE MAN. And the guys running Google's brand strategy for Page and Brin are pretty sharp, too.

Jared's closed the site.

1 - In what way was he making money from it (I played there, never had to pay, didn't have to look at ads or anything.)

2 - Copyright and trademark infringement aside, I'd be careful about going after some of these people - Sony have "recently" done that and lost their trademark on walkman in Austria (and derivatively elsewhere - I'll just include the brandchannel article)

Kinda makes you wonder about the iPod dunnit? iPod is becoming a victim of it's own success with regards to naming. Many people here in NZ refer to all mp3 players as iPods... weirdos.

meth

my underoos are a bit tight but they're hanging in there. which is a real disturbing graphic if you interpret it properly.

hey, wait a minute - problem solved! thanks google!

Newsflash, dude.

It's not a "small minority of TiVo owners" - it's almost everybody who has a DVR, whether it is a TiVo or not.

I've talked to dozens of people who don't use TiVos but refer to their DVR as a TiVo anyway, and who refer to "TiVoing" TV shows.

TiVo brand name strength is a reality, and it is something companies will pay for, if TiVo gets acquired.


"All DVR owners" is still a tiny fraction of the market that Apple would hope to capture. If Apple announced a DVR product, it would attract the attention of people who never even heard of a DVR and who have at best only a vague notion of what a "TiVo" is. This is not to deny TiVo's brand name strength, which would be of considerable value to a company that was not already the world's top brand . As for Apple, if they wanted to buy DVR company (and don't already have a DVR well along in development, which strikes me as more likely), they'd probably be more likely to be interested in somebody like Elgato, makers of EyeTV.

How can the Commodore brand be worth $33 million when Hasbro bought Atari for $5 million in 1998.

It means young artists will have to search harder for their inspirations, but the results will be better for it.

Yes, to think that if Britney Spears had access to such works as American Revival Gospal of the 20s or Alternative Rock of the 70s the public might have been spared such wonderful corprate^H^H^H^H^creative acts such as Oops!... I Did It Again.

Oh, wait a minute, she's got ,tons of money and corporate backing! So, unlike a new starting atrist she can buy herself access to these works.

Sony lost their exlusive use of walkman trademark in Austria in 2002.
Read about it here and here.
Or search google for sony walkman trademark case austria