Quinn, a former senior executive with the Bullocks Wilshire department store chain understands the inner workings of the fashion retail industry as well as she does consumer trends, and her conclusion based on what she’s seeing in the marketplace aren’t encouraging for some of America’s oldest brands.

“Some of our most recognized and best-loved brands are falling victim to an economy in which price is the paramount concern for consumers,” said Quinn, author of Webs of Fate, a novel about the retail fashion industry from Greenleaf Book Group (www.darlenequinn.net). “We’ve ended the era of the brand-loyal consumer, and entered the age of low prices.”

Quinn’s argument is that major national brands and some regional brands will soon watch their final sunsets as the hunt for low prices currently outweighs old-fashioned consumer brand loyalty.

“Brand loyalty used to mean something in the retail business,” Quinn said. “We are now hardwired to look at paying less than full price. The status symbol has become ‘how much did you save?’ Although there are many of us who are less than happy with the outcome and who are willing to pay more for quality and service, it will take a long time, if ever, for a reversal. I would love to see the return of brand loyalty, but with the economic outlook starting to dim again, I don’t see it happening.”

Brands recently targeted by the Wall Street Web site 24/7 for fading away include two great American traditions:

• A&W Grills – A&W Restaurants is owned by Yum! Brands, a fast food holding company that also owns KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Long John Silver’s. A&W was originally founded in 1919, and the company helped introduce the “drive-in” fast food concept. It was so successful that they started selling their sodas in cans in 1971, a side of the business that was sold to Dr. Pepper/Snapple a decade later. After World War II, the chain had 450 franchised locations, which has since dwindled to 312 US stores by last year. In the era of the mega franchises, like Subway and McDonalds with about 35,000 locations each, A&W can’t survive. The brand has been for sale since January, and if a buyer isn’t found soon, the drive-in could be closed forever.

• Sears – Sears, officially named Sears, Roebuck and Co., is an American chain of department stores which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in the late 19th century. As Wal-Mart became the dominant department store during the 1990s and 2000s, Sears began to struggle, so the company merged with Kmart in early 2005, creating the Sears Holdings Corporation. The problem is that joining forces strengthened market share, but not revenues. Two dying giants who merge only create one larger dying giant. The competition between the two brands continued, simply under the same roof, with Sears losing the battle. Kmart reported a 1.6 percent decline in sales in the first quarter of 2011, while Sears dipped 5.2 percent. The end result? Look for New CEO Lou D’Ambrosio to shutter the lesser performing brand, Sears, and use the additional resources to bolster Kmart.

Darlene Quinn is an author and journalist from Long Beach, California. Her novel, Webs of Fate is set in the mid-eighties before the greatest onset of LBO’s which ended up bring Wall Street to its knees. A time when the greatest completion for department stores was other department store merchants who drastic dropped the price on merchandise which just hit the sales floor in order to gain market share. A time when we still had regional department stores which were not named Macy’s and before the status symbol became how much did you save.

As part of a nine-member management team for the Bullocks Wilshire Specialty Department stores, Quinn has the insider’s perspective on the rise and fall of major department stores. She is currently embroiled in the battle for Macy’s to restore the Marshall Fields store brand stores that they purchased and turned into Macy’s locations in Chicago.

Harley-Davidson, Nike, Playboy, Coca-Cola, VW, and Apple logos have been permanently etched into the skins of customers worldwide. Why do they do it? Why do these raving fans, or Brand Lovers, scorch their bodies with a company’s mark? And what can marketers and brand managers learn from them?

Most acts of unabashed brand loyalty are a genuine mystery to marketers: Why do customers anxiously camp outside IKEA grand openings? Why do bikers brand Harley’s flaming eagle onto their arms?

From our research into the nature of cult brands and brand lovers, we understand that a brand’s outliers—their most outrageous fans and radical customers—are the people with whom marketers should engage, talk, and most importantly, listen.

Although tattooing brand logos and imagery may seem too extreme to marketers, these outliers represent a brand’s choir. These radical customers understand your business on a deeper, more meaningful level than marketers.

Tattoos, when understood, can teach marketers about consumer motivation. Tattoos were once considered counter-cultural in America. People branded themselves with tattoos to mark themselves as different and to challenge the societal status quo. Today, body art is a part of mainstream American culture.

Why Do People Get Tattoos of Brands?
Think about what the term “branding” really means and you’ll have a better appreciation for the importance of the psychology of tattoos. We have a biological instinct to mark ourselves. While body art may scar the body, its meaning is branded into our souls.

There are many psychological reasons customers brand themselves with tattoos of the companies they love:

1. Membership into Social Groups: Brand tattoos help customers bond with others in the same social group who share special interests and common values. Brand tattoos send a message that they belong to a unique, personally meaningful community. You only “get the message” if you’re part of that group.

2. Finding Meaningful Associations: Brand tattoos remind customers of personal values. The tattoo is a permanent badge with special meaning. It creates a powerful recall cue of the memories, experiences, emotions, and other positive associations they have with the brand. A single image, as represented by the tattoo, can encapsulate a series of complex memories and feelings.

3. Connecting with Ideals: Brand tattoos are reminders of the customer’s ideal life. The brand becomes associated with specific ideals, as Apple has become inextricably linked to creativity, beauty, and expression. Customers see the brand’s mark as a reminder of these ideals, and they draw strength from the image.

Customers instinctively look for meaning; they naturally look for something to rally around; they crave an emotional payout from their interaction with the brands they love. Brand tattoos create a permanent physical connection between the customer and the brand. In a world where most businesses focus exclusively on growth and sales, the opportunity for businesses to serve customers on a deeper level remains open and waiting. The results can be magical, and yes, growth and sales often follow suit.

What Four Qualities Do Tattooed Brands Share?

The most popular brands that people tattoo on themselves like Harley-Davidson, Nike, Playboy, Coke, and Disney share certain qualities:

1. Tattooed brands are iconic in nature; they are deeply rooted in our contemporary cultural mythology.
2. Tattooed brands have strong visual appeal—an iconic image like the Nike symbol is a powerful visual marker.
3. Tattooed brands are effective at lifestyle marketing. They represent and promote a way of being in the world, a lifestyle philosophy. Vans and Jimmy Buffett are terrific examples of successful lifestyle marketing.
4. Tattooed brands tend to offer a promise of an ideal experience the customer is seeking. For example, Harley’s blazing eagle symbolizes freedom on the open road.

What Can Smart Marketers Learn From Customer Tattooing?

Where’s the most prevalent place for customers to tattoo the brands they love? It’s not their arms, shoulders, or even backs—it’s in their minds. Customers instinctively create mental tattoos, powerful associations between brands and experiences. The smarter the marketer, the more he or she will focus on creating experiences the customers want. These experiences leave a mental imprint that’s difficult to measure, but undoubtedly present. We can say that a salient mental imprint—a tattoo on the customer’s psyche—is the goal of successful branding efforts.

Smart marketers will learn to see tattoos as portals from the customer’s personal values to their real life experiences instead of a gateway from brand to customer. The purpose and role of the brand is to open their customers up to a meaningful experience that later becomes associated with the brand.

Again, tattoos represent an intricate web of experiences, feelings, and memories. As marketers, your job is to set the conditions for these experiences, feelings, and memories—not simply sell a product or service.

How do you set the conditions to create meaningful experiences for your customers?
1. Start by understanding your customers. Ask your customers direct questions. If you operate a retail store with cooking supplies you might ask:
– What is your ideal customer experience when you enter our store?
– What do you value most when you’re cooking in your kitchen?
– How do our products make your life easier?
– What are the dominant feelings you get when you shop in our store?

Questions like these can provide you with infinitely more useful information about your customers than demographics, psychographics, or focus groups.

2. Brainstorm ways to create the ideal customer experience on a consistent basis.
– How can you surprise your customers?
– How can you serve your customers better than anyone else?
– How can you create a consistent experience that your customers will come to expect and enjoy?

3. Develop a Brand Model around your best customers. An effective Brand Model:
– Highlights what’s most important to your customers.
– Aligns your organization to better serve your customers.
– Helps you make better decisions that will impact long-term loyalty and growth.
– Predicts consumer behavior by understanding your customer’s motivations.

The measure of success is not in the number of customers who rush out to tattoo your logo on their bodies. The most important mark will always lie in your customers’ minds. Creating consistent meaningful experiences for your customers will help you “tattoo” your brand’s image onto your customers’ hearts and minds.

BJ Bueno is founder of The Cult Branding Company, a consumer research firm devoted to building brand models for successful businesses. His company helps businesses use psychological research to identify the patterns their best customers share and to predict consumer behavior. BJ is an international expert in Cult Branding and consumer behavior. He is the author of Cult Branding Workbook (2008), co-author of The Power of Cult Branding (2002), and Why We Talk: The Truth Behind Word-of-Mouth (2007).

First, it was “America Online”. Then, in 2006, “America Online” changed its name to “AOL”. Now AOL will reportedly change its name, yet again, to TMZ.

In April, 2006, America Online announced that after 15 years it was “retiring the name America Online and will now officially be known simply as AOL.” At that time, the legal structure of AOL also changed, from a corporation to a limited liability company.

According to Brian Alvey, the co-founder of the Weblogs, Inc. Network (AOL acquired Weblogs, Inc. around October 2005), AOl has been making changes to parts of the AOl site, putting additional emphasis on TMZ:

Reading all of this news about how Facebook is the new AOL Buddy List and seeing how many people can only understand what I did in blogging when I tell them that my platform is what TMZ runs on, I am now convinced that AOL will be undergoing another name change by the end of the year.

Many users have been flocking to Facebook lately, and there’s even an AOL/Facebook partnership, which kind of got mixed reviews.

If you look at the graph below (courtesy Alexa.com), you’ll see that the AOL traffic (shown in red) has been steadily going down over the past few years while the TMZ traffic has been going up:

I have to admit that yes, it’s probably time for a change. AOL has been known as a dialup service that “caters to newbies”, and a lot of “techies” in the internet world tend to look at someone differently if the have an “AOL email address”. It may be time for AOL to rebrand itself to TMZ. Look for AOL to start the rebranding efforts in a few months, perhaps sooner.

AOL LLC, and its subsidiaries, operate a network of internet brands and the largest Internet access subscription service in the United States. The AOL LLC brands include the AOL.com(R) website, AIM(R), MapQuest(R) and Netscape(R). AOL also has operations in Europe and in Canada. AOL, which is based in Dulles, Virginia, is a subsidiary of Time Warner.

Bill Hartzer’s note:At this point, this name change from AOL to TMZ is being reported as a rumor. If anything changes, I’ll keep you posted. Feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed for updates as they happen.

According to the BusinessWeek/Interbrand annual ranking of the top 100 best global brands released today, Google, Zara, Apple, and Nintendo are among this year’s top gainers. Google ranks 20th in the list. Yahoo! ranks 55th in the list.

This is the seventh year that BusinessWeek has teamed up with Interbrand, to publish the ranking of the top 100 global brands, ranked by the brand’s overall value.

What’s interesting to note is that Ford and Gap lost 19% and 15% of their brand value, respectively, in this year’s annual rankings.

Coca-Cola (listed as the top global brand) may be having trouble boosting their brand, though. Coca-Cola is at the top of the list for the seventh consecutive year, reportedly because it is big and the brand is everywhere–but Coca-Cola failed to grow its reputation because “its move into healthier drinks has yet to resonate” according to the BusinessWeek/Interbrand folks.

BusinessWeek chose Interbrand’s methodology for the annual rankings because Interbrand evaluates brand value in the same way any other corporate asset is valued–on the basis of how much it is likely to earn for the company in the future. According to a press release today, “Interbrand uses a combination of analysts’ projections, company financial documents, and its own qualitative and quantitative analysis to arrive at a net present value of those earnings. Interbrand takes many ingredients into account when ranking the value of the Best Global Brands. Even to qualify for the list, each brand must derive at least a third of its earnings outside its home country, be recognizable outside of its base of customers, and have publicly available marketing and financial data.”

BusinessWeek/Interbrand's Annual Ranking of
The Best Global Brands For 2007

Rank   Company            2007         Percent
                          Brand         Change    Country of
                          Value      (over 2006)  Ownership

                          $MILLIONS
1      Coca-Cola          65,324         -3 %        U.S.
2      Microsoft          58,709          3 %        U.S.
3      IBM                57,091          2 %        U.S.
4      GE                 51,569          5 %        U.S.
5      Nokia              33,696         12 %      Finland
6      Toyota             32,070         15 %       Japan
7      Intel              30,954         -4 %        U.S.
8      McDonald's         29,398          7 %        U.S.
9      Disney             29,210          5 %        U.S.
10     Mercedes-Benz      23,568          8 %      Germany
11     Citi               23,443          9 %        U.S.
12     Hewlett-Packard    22,197          9 %        U.S.
13     BMW                21,612         10 %      Germany
14     Marlboro           21,283          0 %        U.S.
15     American Express   20,827          6 %        U.S.
16     Gillette           20,415          4 %       France
17     Louis Vuitton      20,321         15 %        U.S.
18     Cisco              19,099          9 %        U.S.
19     Honda              17,998          6 %       Japan
20     Google             17,837         44 %        U.S.

21     Samsung            16,853          4 %     S. Korea
22     Merrill Lynch      14,343         10 %        U.S.
23     HSBC               13,563         17 %      Britain
24     Nescafe            12,950          4 %    Switzerland
25     Sony               12,907         10 %       Japan
26     Pepsi              12,888          2 %        U.S.
27     Oracle             12,448          9 %        U.S.
28     UPS                12,013         12 %        U.S.
29     Nike               12,004         10 %        U.S.
30     Budweiser          11,652          0 %        U.S.
31     Dell               11,554         -6 %        U.S.
32     JPMorgan           11,433         12 %        U.S.
33     Apple              11,037         21 %        U.S.
34     SAP                10,850          8 %      Germany
35     Goldman Sachs      10,663         11 %        U.S.
36     Canon              10,581          6 %       Japan
37     Morgan Stanley     10,340          6 %        U.S.
38     Ikea               10,087         15 %       Sweden
39     UBS                 9,838         13 %    Switzerland
40     Kellogg's           9,341          6 %        U.S.
41     Ford                8,982        -19 %        U.S.
42     Philips             7,741         15 %    Netherlands
43     Siemens             7,737         -1 %      Germany
44     Nintendo            7,730         18 %       Japan
45     Harley-Davidson     7,718          0 %        U.S.
46     Gucci               7,697          8 %       Italy
47     AIG                 7,490         NEW         U.S.
48     eBay                7,456         10 %        U.S.
49     AXA                 7,327         NEW        France
50     Accenture           7,296          8 %      Bermuda
51     L'Oreal             7,045         10 %       France
52     MTV                 6,907          4 %        U.S.
53     Heinz               6,544          5 %        U.S.
54     Volkswagen          6,511          8 %      Germany
55     Yahoo!              6,067          0 %        U.S.
56     Xerox               6,050          2 %        U.S.
57     Colgate             6,025          7 %        U.S.
58     Chanel              5,830         13 %       France
59     Wrigley's           5,777          6 %        U.S.
60     KFC                 5,682          6 %        U.S.
61     Gap                 5,481        -15 %        U.S.
62     Amazon.com          5,411         15 %        U.S.
63     Nestle              5,314          8 %    Switzerland
64     Zara                5,165         22 %       Spain
65     Avon                5,103          1 %        U.S.
66     Caterpillar         5,059         10 %        U.S.
67     Danone              5,019          8 %       France
68     Audi                4,866         17 %      Germany
69     adidas              4,767         11 %      Germany
70     Kleenex             4,600         -5 %        U.S.
71     Rolex               4,589          8 %    Switzerland
72     Hyundai             4,453          9 %     S. Korea
73     Hermes              4,255         10 %       France
74     Pizza Hut           4,254         -9 %        U.S.
75     Porsche             4,235          8 %      Germany
76     Reuters             4,197          6 %      Britain
77     Motorola            4,149         -9 %        U.S.
78     Panasonic           4,135          4 %       Japan
79     Tiffany & Co.       4,003          5 %        U.S.
80     Allianz             3,957         NEW       Germany
81     ING                 3,880         12 %    Netherlands
82     Kodak               3,874        -12 %        U.S.
83     Cartier             3,852         15 %       France
84     BP                  3,794         -5 %      Britain
85     Moet & Chandon      3,739         15 %       France
86     Kraft               3,732         -5 %        U.S.
87     Hennessy            3,638          2 %       France
88     Starbucks           3,631         17 %        U.S.
89     Duracell            3,605          1 %        U.S.
90     Johnson & Johnson   3,445          8 %        U.S.
91     Smirnoff            3,379         11 %      Britain
92     Lexus               3,354          9 %       Japan
93     Shell               3,331          5 %      Britain
94     Prada               3,286         14 %       Italy
95     Burberry            3,221         16 %      Britain
96     Nivea               3,116         16 %      Germany
97     LG                  3,100          3 %     S. Korea
98     Nissan              3,072         -1 %       Japan
99     Polo RL             3,046         NEW         U.S.
100    Hertz               3,026         NEW         U.S.

BusinessWeek is a leading global business media organization, providing unparalleled insight and analysis to a worldwide audience of business leaders. Founded in 1929 and published by the McGraw-Hill Companies, BusinessWeek magazine is the market leader, with more than 4.8 million readers each week in 140 countries. Local language editions include Chinese, Russian, and Bahasa Indonesian. Launched in 1994, BusinessWeek.com is the preeminent provider of daily, essential business news, information, and services to business decision-makers. Reaching 85% of the nation’s households, BusinessWeek Weekend delivers important business, consumer and financial news to television viewers every week.

Interbrand, a leading brand consultancy, combines the rigorous strategy and analysis of a management consulting practice with the entrepreneurial and creative spirit of branding and design. The company offers a comprehensive array of consulting services that guide clients in the creation, enhancement, maintenance and valuation of their most valuable asset — their brands. Founded in 1974, Interbrand has offices in over 30 cities in more than 20 countries around the globe and clients from among the most respected businesses. For more information visit the world’s only online exchange about branding, produced by Interbrand, at http://www.brandchannel.com/ .

If you’re interested, the 2005 and 2006 tables are located here (2005) and here (2006).

Success and failure of a particular business depends upon the kind of publicity done. This is true in the case of online and other businesses also. There are different methods that can be used for the promotion of any goods or services, but the key lies in identifying the one method which will be able to put your business to the top without too much of an effort. Advertising on the web is the most widely undertaken promotional methods about any product or service. The news about the existence of your business must reach out to a large number of audiences and only then will you be able to attract customers to do business with you.

The method of promotion on the web is known as SEO or search engine optimization. Search engine is not just one method, but is in fact a combination of different methods for promotion. Online business owners undertake search engine optimization so that their sites can rank high in all of the major search engines. Ranking high in all popular and major search engines is one of the surest means to attracting huge traffics to your online site. Search engine optimization, if done in the proper manner, is sure to give immense benefits to your business.

It said that only a professional knows what work he has to do and it is not at all different in the case of search engine optimization also. If you are an online business owner, you will do wonders to your business if you hand over the search engine optimization work to a professional firm. Evaluating the existing competition in the market and finding out the methods that has been used for optimization is a good way of going about doing things related to search engine optimization.

This is your business and you have worked really hard to put this up. So do not just sit back and relax once you hand over the search engine optimization work to a firm that has trained professional. You must keep a constant track of the work which is being done and see if this is bringing results for your business or not. You are best judge to know if your business is benefiting from the search engine marketing strategy or not. If the strategy is not working out for you, sit and talk to the professional and try to find out what is wrong. It may be that the strategies adopted for search engine optimization may not be suitable to your business.

Remember each business is different and so the strategies adopted must also be different. The strategy which has proved to be a huge success for your friend’s business may not at all be suitable for you. So what you must do is hire professionals who really know their very well, not someone how just has fancy degree and is not capable of doing anything of substance. The idea is to make a wise choice from the huge number of professionals who are working in the field of search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is in fact the most innovative means to do promotion about anything.

Steve Waganer has specialization in Web Marketing. He is expert in Search engine optimization, Affiliated Marketing program,Affordable search engine marketing and Organic SEO methods.To get his expert Search Engine Marketing Tips for your website to get high rank and top position in major search engines visit http://www.cometsearchenginemarketing.com

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