Month: September 2011

Creating a successful brand is a task that can take months, years, or even decades to accomplish. Written about in The Globe and Mail, Axle Davids has supposedly developed a new, innovative system through his company, Distility Branding, which allows clients to “define their brands in one day.”

Essentially, clients go through a series of branding exercises and receive a one-page brand summary at the end of the day.

The thought of a successful, effective one-day branding process is intriguing to say the least. Determining points of difference and parity for already established companies is challenging enough, but creating a whole new set in the span of one day – along with a value proposition – is remarkable.

As was shown in this video, created by MSc Brand Leadership students at Norwich Business School (University of East Anglia), branding is an extremely powerful tool, and even considering that the process of creating something that controlling in society can be done in the span of one day is, from my point of view, a momentous feat.

At the end of the day, brand positioning and creation – in certain cases – has and will continue to cause world-changing effects. Thinking of jumpstarting this in a day is Axle Davids’ entrepreneurial contribution to the world of marketing.

Netflix has definitely messed up. Splitting services, charging more, and making the experience less enjoyable for customers is never a good thing.

This past summer, Netflix announced that it was going to increase its prices for US subscribers. Instead of paying $9.99 (US) a month for both streaming and rentals, the price is now $7.99 (US) individually for streaming and rentals.

What doesn’t make sense to me is why Netflix

would do something like this. What sorts of decisions contribute to a company making a decision as big as this one, especially when the repercussions can be so grand? As of September 16th, the share price is down to $169.25, and Netflix has actually had to drop their subscriber forecast by a whole million.

Aside from the economical aspects of this decision, I can’t help but recall what was mentioned in class – benefits vs. features. Features are cool and all, but benefits are where it’s at! The benefit of paying a lower fee for both services, not having to worry about price increases, and getting a great deal on streaming & rentals was great! But, once price was increased for additional features and to offer more to customers and shareholders, people didn’t see the benefit and jumped ship.

Oh, Netflix…

In many parts of Africa, children are  being exploited for the benefit of the Tobacco industry, as was illustrated in The Guardian.

In Malawi alone, approximately 80,000 children pick tobacco leaves in deathly conditions everyday and with little compensation. We may sometimes say we hate our jobs, but in retrospect, are they really that bad compared to what these kids go through?

Organizations such as UNICEF and ILO as well as ECLT are attempting to combat issues of child labour around the globe, but what about companies and consumers? Universal Corporation and Alliance One International are responsible for purchasing over 90% of Malawi’s leaves. If consumers stopped supporting cigarette manufacturers that are involved with these unethical business practices, it could contribute immensely to combatting the issue. As a socially conscience consumer, a product’s features could be great, but if its making didn’t remotely benefit the workers, it won’t benefit how I feel about the purchase. Therefore, no purchase. We should all try to be more conscious of how our purchases affect the ethical balance found in businesses around the world.