PSFK lists some of the common characteristics among the ranked brands as:

Utility – Aim to enhance your usefulness for the consumer. In doing so, look not only at your product or service, but the eco-system that surrounds it.

Experimentation – Constant innovation is the essential element of growth. Continual- ly push the boundaries of your offering and create ancillary products.

Design – Premium aesthetics coupled with consistent delivery wins every time. A premium experience can be applied to any product or service, no matter where it sits on the price spectrum. Make your audience feel valued, encouraging them to include you as part of their identity.

Community and listening – Create a sense of community for your customers. Actively engage them and listen to what they have to say. They are the best source of guidance for improved service.

Change the model – Look at your consumers’ eco-system of needs and change your business model to suit them.

Beyond the 30 second ad – Of the top 100 largest advertising spenders in 2008, none of them made it onto this list. Instead of spending money on advertising, leverage the existing community that’s involved with your brand to promote your products and services.

Environmental priorities - Brands in the lower half of the list lose points prizing innovation over environmental responsibility. Build in sustainable practices wherever you can in your brand’s eco-system.

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It’s a revolution that’s already being ignited by innovators as disparate as Wal-Mart, Google, Threadless, Nike, Apple, and Etsy. They’re playing by a new set of institutional rules – institutional rules that are letting them redraw the boundaries of value creation, while yesterday’s incumbents continue to fail en masse. These rules depend, in large part, on media.

Umair Haque @ Daytona Sessions vol. 2 – Constructive Capitalism from Daytona Sessions on Vimeo.

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The New York Times highlights several agencies that are branching out with their own products:

• Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s Zag division launched the fashion blog Mrs. O
• Brooklyn Brothers created Fat Pig chocolate and has a furniture line in the works
• The esteemed Anomaly established the Avec Eric website and TV series for chef Eric Ripert as well as recently launched music t-shirt store I/denti/tee

Canadien agency Taxi opened their own coffeeshop and Neverstop even set up a barbershop.

So what’s going on?

Advertising agencies have dabbled in side businesses for decades, but “inventing their own brand, not dependent on clients’ largess, is the big new thing,” said George Parker, an ad agency consultant and writer of AdScam, a blog about the industry. As the economy worsens and ad budgets tighten, “the creation of intellectual property and new products is something you’re going to see a lot more of,” he said.

But beyond just adding a new revenue stream during the recession, ad agencies need to do something. Is it that the big idea alone is no longer enough? It’s necessary, but it may not be sufficient, anymore.

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Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The cult of celebrity is killing our culture.

Roger Ebert perfectly captures something I have been frustrated with for a long time:

The AP, long considered obligatory to the task of running a North American newspaper, has been hit with some cancellations lately, and no doubt has been informed what its customers want: Affairs, divorces, addiction, disease, success, failure, death watches, tirades, arrests, hissy fits, scandals, who has been “seen with” somebody, who has been “spotted with” somebody, and “top ten” lists of the above. (Celebs “seen with” desire to be seen, celebs “spotted with” do not desire to be seen.)

The CelebCult virus is eating our culture alive, and newspapers voluntarily expose themselves to it. It teaches shabby values to young people, festers unwholesome curiosity, violates privacy, and is indifferent to meaningful achievement. One of the TV celeb shows has announced it will cover the Obama family as “a Hollywood story.” I want to smash something against a wall.

Read the whole thing

(via kottke and The Denver Egotist)

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