In general, the leader should never attack or name the competition. Instead the leader should promote the category. By attacking a competitor or responding to an attack ad, the leader only legitimizes the competition and the existence of a choice. Neither is good.

If under attack, a leader should instead address any problems with PR. Never with advertising. When Apple says consumers are frustrated with Vista in its advertising, Microsoft shouldn’t run ads saying everybody loves Vista.

That above, is just a quote. More, with examples and details on Ries’s blog here.

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The Top 10 UK brands according to the public looks like this:

1. Microsoft
2. Coca-Cola
3. Google
4. BBC
5. BP
6. British Airways
7. LEGO
8. Guinness
9. Mercedes-Benz
10. Cadbury

Is interesting that the parallel study with media and marketing experts on the independent Superbrands Council disagreed with the public, placing Google in the number one slot. Innovative brand Apple, its sub-brand iPod, car icon Mini and online auctioneers eBay completed the experts’ top five. Only three brands made both top tens, namely Google, the BBC and Coca-Cola. Here is the Expert’s Top 10:

1. Google
2. Apple
3. iPod
4. Mini
5. eBay
6. BBC
7. Coca-Cola
8. Red Bull
9. Tesco
10. Waitrose

More infos on Superbrands UK website

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I’d start with the Apple Computers who dropped computer from its name. The move is rather normal considering that iPod or iTunes are two of the main products of Apple Inc. and was announced in the same time with the buzzy launching of iPhone. Now, getting to this, cannot help myself not to admire the Apple capacity to create a buzz in the media, no matter that we’re talking about the internet of the classic mass media. The phone they launched is, I admit, a work of art and has a lot of great features but I wouldn’t hurry to name it neither a Blackberry killer, a computer or a smart phone. It’s more like a beautifully designed, big brand sustained swiss knife of mobiles.

Anyway, the iPhone road is not clear yet, at least in terms of naming and branding as Cisco sued Apple over the name itself considering they are marketing a VOIP phone with the same name for quite a while now. I wonder on this what made Steve Jobs go on with the name at the Macworld conference: the trust in the Apple brand power to impose the iPhone on the market (along with its previous similar names products: iPod, iTunes or iMac) or the time pressure of the launch. There were even rumors (not confirmed after all) that they already changed the name to iTouch Mobile. Well not yet.

Speaking about Apple’s phone, is worth mentioning its (two years in advanced blindly signed) exclusivity distribution contract with Cingular. And coming to this is also worth mentioning that AT&T launched its largest-ever ad campaign yesterday geared toward absorbing Cingular Wireless into the AT&T brand. More than that. AT&T will also be launching a campaign to rebrand BellSouth as AT&T. AT&T acquired BellSouth for $80 billion in December – the largest telecommunications merger in U.S. history. Cingular was a joint property of AT&T and BellSouth. Now that’s a huge rebranding effort to follow.

Citigroup, the global banking giant, is shrinking its name. Executives are prepared to rebrand the company “Citi” and to fold up its familiar red umbrella and instead use a logo with a stylized arc above the name. The design is similar to the “citi” logo that now appears on much of its consumer advertising, office buildings and credit cards. A rollout could begin as early as next month.

Pepsi is introducing 35 different packaging designs as part of a global brand revamp aimed at bringing younger consumers closer to the brand. It is only the 11th time the brand has changed its look in its 109-year history. The graphics, created by US agencies, will use themes associated with teens and young adults. Looking to get a little extra pop out of its sponsorship of the Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show, Pepsi announced it is giving away a jewel-encrusted Pepsi can valued at $100,000 as well as Super Bowl tickets for life.

Now, getting to the soon to come Super Bowl and Time Magazine person of the year 2006, just found via Church of the Customer Blog an interesting initiative of some advertisers that have jumped on the citizen-created bandwagon by inviting everyday people to help create their ads. Lining up are Chevrolet, Doritos, and the NFL. The contests for Chevy and the NFL are to submit ideas for commercials, not actual videos. Winning ideas are made into ads by professional agencies.

And, in the end, since I got next to sports, even though I’m planning a separate blog post on this, it has to be mentioned as an important start-of-the-year-branding-event and a subject follow, the multi-million dollar Beckham brand relocation in USA.

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The purpose: to highlight to senior executives the importance of paying close attention to their brand’s performance in the online arena.

The method: ranking is based on the number of times the brand’s name appears in leading search engines like Google, Baidu and Technorati, the number of links to the brands website, its reach and Page-rank relevance, and the number of times people express their “love” or “hate” for the brand.

The Top 10 (Interbrand/BusinessWeek position in brackets):

1. Google (38)
2. eBay (55)
3. Apple (41)
4. Amazon.com (68)
5. Disney (7)
6. Yahoo! (58)
7. Microsoft (2)
8. Canon (35)
9. Nokia (6)
10. Sony (28)

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The brands that rose to the top of our ranking, says BW article, all had widely varied marketing arsenals and were able to unleash different campaigns for different consumers in varied media almost simultaneously. They wove messages over multiple media channels and blurred the lines between ads and entertainment. As a result, these brands can be found in a host of new venues: the Web, live events, cell phones, and handheld computers.

The era of building brands namely through mass media advertising is over. The predominant thinking of the world’s most successful brand builders these days is not so much the old game of reach (how many consumers see my ad) and frequency (how often do they see it), but rather finding ways to get consumers to invite brands into their lives. The mass media won’t disappear as a tool. But smart companies see the game today as making bold statements in design and wooing consumers by integrating messages so closely into entertainment that the two are all but indistinguishable.

Top 10 Global Brands by Value in 2005 ($m)

1. Coca Cola – 67,525
2. Microsoft – 59,941
3. IBM – 53,376
4. GE – 46,996
5. Intel – 35,588
6. Nokia – 26,452
7. Disney – 26,441
8. McDonald’s- 26,014
9. Toyota – 24,837
10. Marlboro – 21,189

Top 5 Gainers

1. eBay – +21%
2. HSBC – +20%
3. Samsung – +19%
4. Apple – +16%
5. UBS – +16%

Top 5 Loosers

1. Sony – -16%
2. Morgan Stanley – -15%
3. Volkswagen – -12%
4. Levi’s – -11%
5. Hewlett Packard – -10%

See full Top 100 Best Global Brands by Value for 2005 (PDF, 82KB)
Via: Brandshift

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