PR Studies

A US scientific study reported in The Times today proves what I’ve always suspected. There’s little difference in the chemical composition of Coke and Pepsi – but a huge perception difference in the minds of those who know which brand they’re drinking.

It proves the power of branding to add value to me-too products.

Of course, talking about brand differentiators (see below) can lead you into trouble. You might make it into the Pseud’s Corporate column in satirical magazine Private Eye. Or even worse, your words might make it into print in a newspaper.

BL Ochman, the scourge of ‘press releases from hell’, tells a cautionary tale.

John Simmons, editor of Great Brand Stories, writes a clear and coherent introduction to brands and branding in the Observer.

Inevitably, business was at the head of this development. Why use branding to sell politicians when it could be a tool of management? Companies knew they could organise the way they marketed products behind the idea of brands. Then they realised that this principle helped them to market the company itself and to build its reputation. Clearly, branding was useful for external communication, not just through traditional advertising channels but through other media. The marketing door was open and branding had rushed through it.

Alongside this, Brand it like Beckham by Andy Milligan is cited. If the advice given is correct, David Beckham has this coming week to reestablish his core ‘product’ as a footballer (his reason, remember, for achieving spin-off success as a celebrity, brand ambassador and pin-up).

Abbey National is to become abbey. It’s the latest in a line of new corporate identities which are judged on their performance against the stock market average in The Observer:

If a company is clear about where its future lies, and it chooses a new name to fit in with that, the name change should be a success. But if a new name is simply a way of trying to cover up old problems, it is more likely to have the opposite effect.

It’s hard to avoid the debate between the anti-globalisation, anti-branding camp (led by Naomi Klein’s No Logo) and the branding-is-everything camp led by Wally Olins (whose new book is out this month).

The small news story that the famous Theakston brewery is being returned to family ownership is turned by The Guardian into a victory for ‘small is beautiful’ against ‘global is everything’. (I confess that I simply saw it as confirmation that moving to Yorkshire was a good thing.)

Makers of corporate identities have long admired synthetic names that begin and end with the same uncommon consonant. Kodak and Xerox are the two best examples of this much copied phenomenon.

But QinetiQ had until now seemed less resonant, as well as being harder to spell. That is, until the company’s sponsorship of a ballooning world record attempt went wrong – or right, in terms of press coverage. Here’s one of the many news reports, from Reuters, to give the company a name check.

This is QinetiQ, in case you’re still wondering who they are.