He Said, She Said: Razor Branding™ Podcast

When you think about big, bold brands, Nike’s “Just Do It” and Apple’s “Think Different” might be the first thing to come to mind. Those tag lines/campaign slogans are big and bold – but they aren’t brands. For information on these strategies, check out these Razor Branding Blogs: 3 Steps to Build Your Big Bold Brand When Going Negative Goes Wrong University asks Louisiana high school to stop usin...

Anheuser-Busch launched an ad campaign during the 2019 Super Bowl with a primary message: Bud Light does not contain corn syrup.  The ads featured the Bud Light King and the Bud Knight on a quest to return a barrel of corn syrup to its proper owner.  They first visit the Miller Lite castle followed by the Coors Light castle looking for where the corn syrup belongs. For information on these strateg...

Recently, news broke that Rutgers University asked Ruston High School to stop using their trademarked logo. According to Rutgers spokeswoman Dory Devlin, “The university addresses trademark infringement issues to avoid confusion among brands and to ensure its logos are used for their intended purpose.” For information on these strategies, check out these Razor Branding Blogs: University asks Louis...

A few weeks ago, Popeye’s launched a new menu item – the chicken sandwich – going head to head with Chick-fil-A.  The skirmish began with a series of tweets and escalated into a Twitter battle royale with every fast food chain jumping into the fray and doing their best to grab some of the media headlines. For information on these strategies, check out these Razor Branding Blogs: Don’t Play Chicken...

Looking for some expert branding advice but not ready to hire an entire agency? We have exactly what you are looking for. Click here for information on these talks. And for everyday branding tips follow Jaci Russo on Twitter: @jacirusso

Human nature is to blend in. Wanting to stand out can be really scary and dangerous. This goes all the way back to the law of the jungle. Why do antelopes and zebras travel in a pack? To blend in. To their predators, the pack down in the plains, looks like one large animal that is too big to consider attacking. There is real safety in numbers. For information on these strategies, check out these R...

I was at the 10th annual Ad Age Small Agency Conference last week with hundreds of other agencies from around the country. I had the pleasure of attending the first ever conference 10 years ago, and it was interesting to see how many things have changed (most notably being social media) and what has stayed the same (large agency vs small agency challenges). For information on these strategies, che...

I was in Los Angeles last week and was reminded of how much I love the advertising on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. It’s LA’s version of Times Square, and when done well, it is awesome. For information on these strategies, check out these Razor Branding Blogs: “Stranger Things” Uses Out of Home Advertising to Build Their Brand Coach Robichaux Built the Brand of Baseball Do Advertising Awards Buil...

Tony Robichaux, the beloved head coach of the University of Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns baseball team, passed away suddenly at the age of 57. Although he had been head coach for the past 25 years (winningest coach in the university’s history), he always said, “Being a baseball coach is what I do, it’s not who I am.” That’s just one of the many, “Robeisms” that he is known for using to teach life lesso...

The truth behind awards, their true value, and what they mean to a client’s brand. brandRUSSO was born in February 2001, and like most agencies, we entered our work in all of the award shows, winning more than our fair share of  local, regional and national advertising awards . We earned a great haul of glass and metal acknowledging the impressive work we created for our clients. &#...

I spent this past Friday on the road, driving from Lafayette to Jackson, Mississippi to watch my son play baseball at Millsaps College. Along the way, I began to notice a multitude of what can only be described as an outdoor buffet of legal advertising. Now, it’s not like I haven’t noticed them before, as they seem to be everywhere these days, but several lawyers seemed to own pretty much every ou...

And how good old-fashioned messaging can save us all As we continue to move further and further into the world of digital and online marketing, we are presented with many opportunities as well as challenges. Perhaps one of the greatest opportunities is the ability to track engagement like never before. For a marketer, it can only be described as game-changing. But for those struggling to keep up w...

How to manage the end of a relationship between an agency and its client In business, as in life, there are relationships. There are beginnings, middles and unfortunately, there are endings. In advertising and branding, it can be the ending of a relationship with a vendor, a team member, or a client – each one takes its toll on the emotional fabric of the creative process. For me, this has been th...

The love/hate relationship many fans have with the NFL To say that the NFL has taken a few bad hits these past few years would be an understatement. The most recent episode revolves around a blown call at the NFC Championship game between the New Orleans Saints and the Los Angeles Rams. The call in question occurred at the end of the game, and pretty much kept the Saints from returning to the Supe...

Asking its audience if they are “the best a man can be?” A few months back, we wrote a blog that talked about Nike’s use of Colin  Kaepernick  in their most recent “Just Do It” ad campaign. Instead of focusing on the controversy of whether Kaepernick was right or wrong in his actions, we instead chose to discuss Nike’s attempt to cash in on such a politically charged national conversatio...

And how providing a strong emotional experience can build a stronger brand. When it comes to building a successful brand, it’s important to never forget the experience you provide. Whether you’re a small business or a giant corporation, if you fail to provide a positive user experience for your audience from beginning to end, then no amount of money or marketing will change the how the public view...

And how changing the conversation, helped increase the value their brand. Taking over a former Armani store in Santa Monica, a new high-end shoe company, held a private launch party this past Thursday night with key influencers and high-end early adopters to celebrate Italian designer Bruno Palessi. For information on these strategies, check out these Razor Branding Blogs: HOW PAYLESS CHANGED THE...

The Good. The Bad. The Ugly. As a child of the 80s, I was fortunate to grow up during the evolution of the cell phone, the home computer, and the Internet. In the early days, cell phones were carried in bags, computers were slow and bulky, and to get online you had to sometimes wait 20 minutes for your modem to kick in. Today we live in a world that I could not have imagined when I was in college....

If you haven’t had a chance to read the book “Scramble” by Marty Neumeier (author of The Brand Gap, Brand Flip, Brand A-Z, and lots of other awesome branding books), I hope this blog will be the catalyst that makes you pick it up. The subtitle of Scramble is “How agile strategy can build epic brands in record time.” For information on these strategies, check out these Razor Branding Blogs: MODEL O...

And why one cannot survive without the other For some people, marketing and branding is close to the same thing. There is some truth to this if your marketing is influenced by sound branding, but this is rarely the case. More often than not, marketing is developed without the use of consumer insight resulting in a one-sided conversation. Before we get to that, though, let’s break things down a bit...

And why it doesn’t have to be that way I’m just going to throw it out there before I begin – I love advertising, and I always have. But I know for many businesses, advertising is a necessary evil. It is something that is either blindly pursued with skeptic hope that it might work or a burden on the bottom-line that they would rather do without. For information on these strategies, check out these...

How to maintain your brand equity through difficult times I think it would be safe to say that if you own a business, run a business, or manage a business, you have had a few sleepless nights even when things were going well. Sure, you follow the adage of “never let them see you sweat”, but inside, you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, particularly when things begin to slow and the...

Is it time to rebrand, or merely take a closer look in the mirror? To say it’s easy would not be entirely true, but every once in a while it benefits us all to take a good hard look at ourselves. Sure, it would be easier to live in a world of self denial, while avoiding mirrors like we were the long lost love child of Lestat. But in the end, there comes a moment of clarity when we realize the time...

How to work with your agency to get the best results. Say the word “relationship” and you’ll receive varied reactions. Some find themselves involuntarily spinning back to high school, where relationships were often one-sided, requiring you to stand in someone’s front lawn just before midnight holding a stereo that blasts messages of love and devotion. For information on these strategies, check out...

And why so many National Brands still haven’t figured it out. For many national brands, one of the biggest challenges is how to find ways to connect with a local audience. For global brands such as Coke or Nike, this localization is of less concern due to the fact that they aren’t competing against established local brands. For them, their localization efforts come in the form of sponsorships and...