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Armstrong Debacle: Are Celebrities too Risky for Brands?

Once again, brands that thought they could borrow some magic from a celebrity find themselves swimming in confusion and controversy, like poor Mickey Mouse in The Sorcerer's Apprentice . From  AdAge : Within hours, Mr. Armstrong's endorsement empire fell apart as Anheuser-Busch, Trek, Easton-Bell Sports, 24-Hour Fitness, Honey Stinger, Oakley and other firms dumped the cancer survivor, even as some pledged to continue support of his Livestrong Foundation. Nike's livid. The US Postal Service is dismayed. I'm not at all surprised. Celebrity endorsements are a double-edged sword for brands. When the celebrity is hot and you're slicing the competition into prosciutto, life is good. When the celebrity trips and the brand falls on that sword, well, not so good. The foibles of even the most upright-seeming celebrities are eventually exposed and magnified by social media and the Internet, association with stars is a minefield for brands. Eventually someone's ...
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Insurance Marketing: Morbidity Begone!

From Ad Age, a good story about Lisa Bacus, CMO of American Family Insurance and how she's remaking the company's image with a really sound media and creative strategy: Like many advertising categories, insurance marketing was heavy on tactics and price-driven deals but short on branding in 2009. That's where Lisa Bacus, VP-marketing for American Family Insurance, saw an opportunity -- to tell brand-driven stories while her competitors, such as State Farm and Allstate, were driving home the literal value of their packages. Beginning in fall 2009, the insurance marketer and its media agency, Mindshare Entertainment, embarked on its first branded-entertainment strategy, encompassing several integrated entertainment programs with multiple media partners. The first, focused on agent interaction, was led by "In Gayle We Trust," a branded web series for NBC.com (written by Brent Forrester of "The Office") featuring a fictional American Family Insurance a...
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Josef Müller-Brockmann, Swiss Modernist Branding Master

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I am continuously impressed, to this day, by the clarity and ingenuity of visual expression by Swiss designers. A quick visit to  www.helveticbrands.ch  provides a dose of inspiration for any identity designer who is stuck in a rut. And a review of the work of 60s Modernist Josef Muller-Brockmann not only inspires, but provides a whiff of nostalgia at the same time. It's an intoxicating combo. Muller-Brockmann did a lot of commercial work for clients such as IBM, but it's his public service announcement work that really sings the siren song for me. I imagine he did it for either nothing or next-to-nothing monetarily, but clearly his vision for the better world he was helping to create shines through, something all companies should strive to accomplish through the  creative expressions of their brand .
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