Wal-Mart buys into Christian toy brand

Children in the US could soon be playing with little figures of Bible characters such as Jesus, Moses or Goliath. Next month, Wal-Mart is due to start stocking the brand Tales of Glory, which will produce a faith-based line of products.

The range includes a talking Jesus and Daniel in the lion’s den. It hopes to appeal to parents who are both actively Christian and also those who simply want an alternative from more boisterous toys.

Personally, we like the action figure range from Accoutrements, which not only includes a Jesus but also illusionist Houdini (tied to a chair) and Oscar Wilde.

Thanks to the BBC website for starting us off on this idea!

‘Cultures of Commodity Branding’ conference

It is strange but true that Brand Strategy’s editor Ruth Mortimer used to be an archaeologist. So we were delighted to see this unusual conference – on May 10th and 11 2008 – pop up onto our radar; it is looking at branding in ancient cultures. It’s not just going to be looking at the past, either, it will hopefully provide lots of interesting lessons that marketers can take onto the future.

We hear it’s going to be packed full of papers from luminaries such as Douglas Holt, the L’Oreal professor of marketing at the Said Business School, Oxford University and Rick Wilk, the professor of archaeology and anthropology from the University of Indiana.

‘Cultures of Commodity Branding’ has been organised by Dr David Wengrow at UCL. For more information, email him at d.wengrow@ucl.ac.uk….all very interesting, we think.

Turning the search light on Blackle

We heard about a search engine called Blackle through the MTV Sticky trends service. It’s a Google competitor which claims that it helps to save energy because its black screen requires less energy to light up. It catches onto the ‘green’ theme at the moment and also neatly finds a marketing stance. Will it take off?

Interbrand’s Top 100

Google, Zara, Apple, and Nintendo are among this year’s top gainers in BusinessWeek’s annual ranking of The Best Global Brands, the top 100 global brands by brand value produced for BusinessWeek by Interbrand. Coca Cola, the beverage giant remains at the top of the tree with a brand value of $65.3 million with computer software brands Microsoft and IBM taking second and third place respectively.

Alongside producing a league table for the most valuable global brands, the report by the branding consultancy examines how organisations bring brand value to life through highlighting four themes that are of crucial importance to a successful brand. Google (ranked at No.20) is given as an example of good Brand Management, it is regarded as a company that retains its ‘skateboarder’ values whilst operating a huge multinational business. Starbucks with its multi-level experience of the brand from coffee selection through to store ambience and music (ranked at No. 88) demonstrates the theme of Touchpoint Development. Apple, with its much lauded i-phone (ranked at No.33) and Nintendo (ranked at No. 44) with its Wii product have created a lot of noise around their products and measure up well against Demand Creation. Planning Efficiency is the hallmark of logistic savvy fashion brand Zara (ranked at No.64).

Crystal Clear

Technical and artistic innovations remain the source of the Swarovski brand’s glamour. The jeweller’s Crystal Palace exhibit at London’s contemporary art venue, the Serpentine Gallery this month and from August 1st at cutting edge department store Selfridges, firmly communicates a design heavy message. The Austrian jeweller’s ongoing bid for the art world allows it to reinvent and revitalise its crystal trademark with a new take on the chandelier. Leading names in design have been commissioned by Swarovski to create their own contemporary interpretation of the decorative piece, exploring the versatility of cut crystal and its technical possibilities. Dramatic results include pieces such as Lolita designed by Ron Arad, Prived Oca by Humberto & Fernando Campana, Ball by Tom Dixon, Black & Lite by Amanda Levete, Cosmos 1 & 2 by Naoto Fukasawa, and Kas & Kade by Karim Rashid.

Global youth and technology trends from MTV, Nickelodeon and Microsoft

The average Chinese young person has 37 online friends they have never met, Indian youth are most likely to see mobile phones as a status symbol, whilst one in three UK and US teenagers say they can’t live without their games console.

These are the results of a research report – Circuits of Cool/Digital Playground – from MTV, Nickelodeon and Microsoft, looking at the relationship between young people, brands and technology. The survey spoke to 18,000 kids and young people in 16 countries.

Other key overall findings from the report

• Technology has enabled young people to have more and closer friendships thanks to constant connectivity.

• Friends influence each other as much as marketers do. Friends are as important as brands.

• Kids and young people don’t love the technology itself – they just love how it enables them to communicate all the time, express themselves and be entertained.

• Digital communications such as instant messenger, email, social networking sites and mobile/SMS are complementary to, not competitive with, TV. TV is part of young peoples’ digital conversation.

• Despite the remarkable advances in communication technology, kid and youth culture looks surprisingly familiar, with almost all young people using technology to enhance rather than replace face-to-face interaction.

• Globally, the number of friends that young males have more than doubles between the ages of 13-14 and 14-17 – it jumps from 24 to 69.

• The age group and gender that claims the largest number of friends are not girls aged 14-17, but boys aged 18-21, who have on average 70 friends.

Carlsberg and Mentos….mmmm!

We like this viral spoof video claiming to be from Carlsberg, joking about the Diet Coke and Mentos experiments so popular on the internet (where someone drops the sweets into the fizzy drink to create foaming fountains).

Very funny.

The Simpsons movie marketing – magic or mayhem?

The marketing for The Simpsons movie has stepped up a gear recently…earlier this year, we revealed that a number of 7-11 stores would become Kwik-E-Marts (the store in the cartoon) to publicise the film, something that has now been confirmed. And obviously there was a competition for the film premiere to be held in a town called Springfield, just like in the show.

But now we have been treated to the delight of seeing a giant doughnut-munching Homer Simpson depicted on the hillside next to the iconic pagan fertility symbol, the Cerne Abbas giant, in the UK’s Dorset region. The figure was drawn on using washable paint and local pagans were hoping for rain as the site bears great spiritual significance and apparently, they weren’t too happy about the blatant marketing stunt…

…..and on the excellent AdFreak blog, we discovered that Burger King has launched a tool called Simpsonize Me which allows you to upload photos of yourself and ‘become’ a Simpsons character. There is also one available on the movie’s website. You can see our none-too-flattering attempts to create Brand Strategy editor Ruth Mortimer below.

Can marketing a music CD help tackle hepatitis C?

This is a nice little case study of very targeted marketing in the healthcare arena, using quite innovative methods for that sector:

The Department of Health in the UK is using a music CD (see cover below) to market messages about the dangers of liver disease hepatitis C to people of south Asian origin. The CD features tracks from global Asian artists including Kamaal Khan, Hadiqa Kiani and Adnan Sami. There is also an interview included with a Pakistani woman, Shabana Begum, who recounts her personal experience with the illness, which can be fatal.

While hepatitis C can affect anyone from any background, there is apparently some evidence emerging that suggests it may be higher among those people of south Asian origin living in the UK than the general population. Since hepatitis C is blood-borne, the CD aims to warn anyone visiting south Asia to be careful when receiving medical or dental treatment, piercing ears and noses or even using razors.

The CD – developed by Munro and Forster – is part of a wider campaign to combat hepatitis C by the DoH called ‘FaCe It‘ which has been running since December 2004. It will be distributed through Asian businesses, organisations and melas over the summer. Further information leaflets in a range of languages will also be given out.

It’s an interesting idea – will it work? Combining music with a serious message is nothing new – think about what Bono and Bob Geldof been doing for years – but this seems like an interesting step for the healthcare sector; more attention-grabbing than endless leaflets, anyway. Are there any other campaigns like this out there? Let us know.

Universal is dominant record company brand

Universal Music Group is the dominant record company brand, according to new research from Music & Copyright.

The company has 25.7% of the physical and digital combined market, compared to Sony BMG on 21.2%, Warner on 13.8%, EMI on 12.8% and all others at 27.5% collectively. It is even stronger in the digital market than the combined physical and digital sector, with 26.5% of digital only sales, compared to Sony BMG on 22.5%, Warner with 16%, EMI at 10.5% and all others with 24.5%. This means that Universal alone sells more digital music than all other companies outside the big four put together. Its total revenue share of the digital market is 27.5% – even higher than its market share.

Music & Copyright also claims that Universal is now dominant in both recorded music and song publishing – the first time that this has ever occurred.