A Critical Look at Spotify, Part III

 (This is the final installment in a three part series on DRM-based music service, Spotify. To read the Part I and II of this series, click [more]

A Critical Look at Spotify, Part II

(This is part two in a three part series on DRM-based music service, Spotify. To read the Part I of this series, click [more]

A Critical Look at Spotify

 (This is part one in a three part series on DRM-based music service, Spotify.) At Stealing Share, we have a deep appreciation for companies seeking to be different and better than their competition....
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Is your brand promise the right promise

Sometimes, a company comes along that tries really hard to solidify its brand message in the respective marketplace. While we all might want to give them kudos for its hard work, we simply cannot allow ourselves if it’s not right....
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We Are The Brands We Buy

At Stealing Share, we pride ourselves on being anthropological brand strategists. Our anthropological goal? To investigate human behavior and determine why it is that we choose to act in a particular manner in all aspects of our lives....
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The NBA is having a lockout. Does anyone care?

There was a time, when as a young boy, my ultimate dream in life was to become a professional athlete in the NBA....
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The Waning Equity of Videogame Consoles

Video game console manufacturers have become leery of taking a stand on who their customer is. As a result, they are losing equity as they become more similar....
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Born of Change. Do Not Stop Now

Business was born as a result of change. Henry Ford’s “any color you want as long as it’s black” horseless carriage, Alexander Graham Bell’s “Mr....
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Tackling the Fear of Rebranding

Taking the step to rebrand your company is a nervous proposition for many. Humans, by their very nature, don't like change, and few things are more stressful in business than changing the face of your business....
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A Sound Brand is a Brand with Sound

Consider this: You take out your brand new, MacBook Air, flip open the screen and turn it on. What do you hear? That's right, it's that wonderfully evocative Apple chime. A one-of-a-kind sound that represents the invigorating coming to life of your personal computer....
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Nation Building. Where are the brands?

More Care Given to Laundry Detergent It is odd how most nations never spend the resources managing their brand that P&G does in selling disposable diapers and laundry detergent....
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The Comprehensive Model on Persuasive Human Communication

The Human Model | Motivators | Challenges | Desire | Familiarity | Leadership | Affirmation | [more]

Measuring Your Potential to Steal Market Share

All Brands Have Potential to Steal Market Share Your prospect’s potential attachment to your brand can be measured and understood when you have a complete and clear understanding of the “meaning” that they assign to your brand....
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Its all about Persuasion

Unless your brand lives in an alien world, a world different from the rest of the global marketplace, your marketing communications are designed to do a whole lot more than just retain your current customer base....
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Lehman Brothers Forgot About You

Alan Watts, the pop-culture philosopher from the late 60s, once told a story of how a construction foreman arrived at a job site one morning to tell the workman that the company was closing and that the job site was to be closed....
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Does Changing Brand Names Fix Bad Publicity

Cowboys herding cats. Fred Astaire dancing with vacuums. Office workers getting tackled by a hefty linebacker... FROM THE SAN DIEGO TRIBUNE One name, but the two are not the same I Corporate monikers can cause mix-ups Bruce V....
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Being The Low-Cost Provider is a Costly Proposition

It may come as a shock to some, but it costs a lot of money to position yourself as the lowest cost provider in any category. It’s folly because it’s a difficult market position to own and hold on to....
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Why Most Destinations Get Brand Research Wrong

Let’s say this bluntly. What you are going to read here represents exactly what is wrong with destination and tourism branding and marketing. Feelings are going to be hurt but the truth will be told....
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What Switching Triggers Really Are

The purpose of all marketing and share-stealing brand development is to influence the purchase decision. This remains true regardless of category and regardless of focus....
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Laying the Groundwork for Your Brand to Steal Market Share

Every company claims to want to grow their market share and I believe all of them want to. The question then arises, “Why do most fail?” I will address those issues here and focus on why the CEO needs to be not only involved in the process, but actually spearhead it....
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How to Use Brand The Right Way

Brand is a human invention and has arisen as a direct result of a human need. As brand anthropologist, we have studied human behavior for decades and are completely confident that human conventions and inventions arise because they serve a belief or precept....
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Having Better Products by Having Different Drivers

What drives sales and growth in consumer products? Look at the communication messages to find out what is believed to be the main driver. If the messages are to be believed, then product innovation and product attributes must drive preference....
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The Considerations of Changing Your Company Name

It bears repeating: A simple change of name, logo, advertising tagline or themeline does not change a brand by itself....
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Hiring the Right Brand Company

At the risk of sounding self-serving, let us just say this: Stealing Share is not the right brand development company for everyone....
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How Service Industires Can Fix Their Brand

Consultants come in all forms. They are lawyers, architects, government agencies, associations and even brand firms, just to name a few. Even if they aren’t a brand firm like Stealing Share, they often make recommendations on public perception that is related to brand....
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How Marketers Can Fix the Social Media Problem

It’s not a new thing to talk about the incoming impact of social media. As a matter of fact, it seems down right behind the times to pretend it is a new and timely topic. But it still needs to be examined because so few understand it....
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Name that brand

NAMING DOESN'T JUST NEED "MORE" We spend a lot of time dispelling the myths of branding. We tell companies to define their brands by the customers they wish to influence more than by the attributes of the company itself....
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Brand is the province of the CEO

WHERE BRAND OFTEN FAILS: AT THE CEO LEVEL As CEO of your company, you might best be represented by the Janus figure of mythology. Your visage must face in two directions at once. This is not an easy feat to accomplish to say the least....
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Brand by the numbers

BUILDING A BRAND IS JUST GOOD BUSINESS A CFO is usually tapped to be the catchall when it comes to corporate spending and finance. As the economy shrank, it was the job of the CFO to look for ways to cut costs while attempting to increase revenue....
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It is time for the COO to step up

Chief operating officers have little to no opportunity to participate in the marketing of a company, but they are crucial to the success of a brand. If the brand promises are not fulfilled, then the brand will fail. And often that responsibility falls to the COO....
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Cautionary tales for a board of directors

BRAND CAUTIONARY TALES FOR A BOARD OF DIRECTORS The responsibilities of a board member swing wide, ranging from the minute details to big-picture directions and approvals....
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The fear of branding

MARKETING EXECUTIVES NEED TO FEAR BRAND NO LONGER It may seem counter-intuitive to some, but the simple fact is that marketing directors and vice presidents of marketing often feel threatened by brand development firms....
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Headquarters never listens to division presidents

THE PERMISSIONS OF BRAND IS THE MAIN CONCERN FOR DIVISION HEADS At the end of the day, managing the efficiencies of a business is just a small part of the responsibility of being a division head....
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In New Era of TV, Rival Hosts Drown Out King

May 26, 2010 In New Era of TV, Rival Hosts Drown Out King By BRIAN STELTER The New York Times The biggest interview on television last week, with the Senate candidate Rand Paul, happened at 9 p.m....
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Stealing Market Share in a Sluggish Economy

Today's destination travel and tourism business is currently, for many, a bear market. As is the case in investment trading during a bear market, an entire index of stocks is in decline, but a few select stocks will grow....
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Being Successful and Hated

Why should a company, whose profits have risen to $1.41 billion, spend a dime of that profit to fix their brand? How can the brand possibly be broken? In other words, can a company’s success create a problem that only addressing brand can fix? Seems counterintuitive....
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Saving Sears

Figuratively, who is Sears? What do they represent? Where do we place them in terms of their brand and when do we think of them in terms of a destination? These are brand questions because they reflect back on the personality of the brand....
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Paper Clips - It Does not Matter What You Manufacture

Here is a strange one right out of the theater of the absurd. Often, companies tell us that their product has become a commodity. So, how can brand help sell a commodity? The answer is so simple it begs to make a dismissive sweep of the hand at the question....
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How to Avoid Being The Shack

Humans by their very nature are afraid of change. Retailers are too, but a failure to embrace change and anticipate it is exactly what has doomed many retailers in the past. Radio Shack is perfect example of that....
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As A Marketer, You Dont Want the Recession to End

Marketers all over the country are in a constant reactionary mode in light of the current state of the economy. Negative retail sales numbers are reported and marketers react by cutting prices. Negative earnings prompt marketers, specifically their bosses, cut marketing budgets and head count....
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Dispelling the Myths of B2B Branding

The false belief about branding is that those competing in the B2B markets don’t have to worry about building a brand, especially a corporate one....
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Pulling the Plug on Cable and Satellite TV

Change is afoot for the cable and satellite TV companies....
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Playing the Price War is a Losing Game

Everyone loves a good deal. There are some people who search them out going from store to store, looking for the best deal. There are others who buy merchandise simply because it is a good deal and there are others who will only buy something if it is on sale....
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Domino's Promise is Only a First Step

As published by NATION'S RESTAURANT NEWS By TOM DOUGHERTY (April 05, 2010) I think it’s quite funny that the advertising industry has been buzzing over the new ad campaign launched by Domino’s Pizza....
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Agricultural Suppliers Need To Ask Themselves, Why Brand?

For the largest suppliers to the agriculture industry – those who supply seeds, chemicals, technology and other services – there is often a balancing act between promising your target audience one thing and navigating the regulatory difficulties to stay in business with another....
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Bank Marketing Worse Now Than Ever

If the financial crisis has taught us anything about bank marketing it is that financial institutions will never learn. But maybe they just don’t want to. First off, it is clear that the major banks believe they are too important to fail....
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There is a Smarter Way to Market Logistics

The last time we worked with a logistics company, the CEO asked us, “So, why is brand so important in a B2B business?” His reasoning was that in his business, in which proposals are as thick as the Guttenberg Bible, reasoning and data carry the day instead of an emotional connection....
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Marketers are the Problem with Retail Marketing

For a brand strategist, it is disheartening to see retailers rely on basic consumer attitudes about the retail market in general for good news, rather than seeing an uptick in sales due to the success of the individual brands....
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5 Questions to Ask Marketing

There are a number of ways people both in and out of the marketing industry believe you can judge creative work from advertising to design to brand position. Many will tell you that it just needs to be catchy or entertaining enough to be noticed....
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Creating Preference In a Downturn in Destination and Tourism

The destination and tourism downturn may very well be the last sector to turn around. Therefore, let’s examine the implications of this slowdown and contraction, and find the means to rise within it....
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Insurance: Insincerity in Advertising

Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom” was a mainstay of weekend television programming, starting in 1963. Viewers regularly tuned in to see what animals Marlin Perkins, Jim Fowler, and Peter Gros would come face to face with each week....
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The Problem With The Auto Industry

What is wrong with the automotive industry? Simple. It is peopled with too many inward-looking car people. The new ideas come from car people who look inside out, not outside-in....
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Advertising Agencies are not Your First Answer to The Problem

Most of us think less of people who are process driven because we know that everything you do should serve a distinct and viable purpose. At the end of the day, the processes that do not serve any real purpose drive most of us crazy because they appear to be a waste of our time....
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Wal-Mart Can Be Beat, But Not By Copying It

From Chain Store Age Feb. 25 2010 By Tom Dougherty The Holy Grail in retailing is, of course, how to take market share from the biggest retailer of them all: Wal-Mart....
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Office Supply Stores - Who Has A Winning Brand

My colleagues and I were recently discussing the lack of brand surrounding pharmacies, in particular the three main players: Rite Aid, CVS and Walgreens. This immediately brought to mind the office-supply super stores because they suffer from the very same problem....
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Medical Device Companies Must Learn Their Lessons Better

When you look at the global economy today, one of the few segments that seems to best weather the economic storm is medical devices and medical products. One would think that this might be a category from which we could all learn some important lessons in brand differentiation....
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The Insurance Industry Needs To Wake Up

The insurance business is overwhelmingly dominated by non-brand brands. This seems unlikely considering the awareness that some brands enjoy — brands like GEICO and Progressive. However, both of these brands support my claim that the brand sphere of insurance is basically a desert....
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Banks: The Worst At Brand Marketing

It is, of course, easy to pile on banks these days, but let’s continue that trend anyway. You see, when it comes to brand, the banking industry has been flat-out the worst....
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Lessons We Can Learn From Starbucks Failures

What is wrong with Starbucks? Starbucks is a victim of its own business success and is a case study in what happens when a business confuses its business success with brand success. For years, brand experts cited Starbucks as an example of a successful brand....
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How To Brand to Get Over The Economic Hump

With the economy still struggling and so many people without jobs, many consumers have been forced to part with brands they are loyal to in favor of a cheaper generic product....
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The Pharmacy Buisness Has Severe Brand Issues

The pharmacy business is one of the most troubled in a troubled category — namely retail. If ever there was a group of stores looking for an identity, not to mention a brand identity, the pharmacy business is it. Think about how the industry has changed over the years....
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Opportunities In The Insurance Industry

I can save 15% by switching to GEICO? I can get life insurance for less than a dollar a day with Prudential? State Farm will “protect the roof over your head and everything under it, especially your sense of security....
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How To Beat Wal-Mart Without Going Broke

The Holy Grail in retailing is, of course, how to take market share from the biggest retailer of them all: Wal-Mart. Hundreds of billions of dollars in yearly revenue, more than five times as much as the nearest retailer. Continued growth in both revenue and earnings. Wal-Mart is king....
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You Need A Plan To Win. Will Any Plan Due?

It’s amazing how much of today’s business news is based on serendipity. If the “good news” is based on someone else’s “bad news” it ought to be a clarion call that something is very wrong with corporate strategic planning....
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Pharmaceuticals Doing Themselves No Favors

The pharmaceutical industry has a whole has a problem: It is stubborn. And millions of dollars are going to waste because of it....
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Stealing Market Share Is The Province Of The CEO

Marketing and advertising alone won’t save you. It won’t provide you with the fuel to succeed in the global competitive market place. Don’t misunderstand, a great ad campaign can provide a quick, short-lived bump....
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Connection Is The Key To Winning The E-Reader Battle

Just last week, I decided to join the 21st century and buy an electronic book reader. It felt like a simpler solution to carrying War and Peace, Moby Dick and Les Miserables on every plane trip. (As I think about it, can Ulysses be very far off?)....
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Dominos Pizza Tries to Win by Being Average

I think it quite funny that the news wires are buzzing over the new ad campaign launched by Domino’s Pizza last week. For those of us who just returned from Siberia and have missed all the fuss, Domino’s is running a series of ads that are the fast food equivalent of mia culpa....
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Slay all the sacred cows

As the CEO of your company you are responsible for the bottom line. You have departments assigned all sorts of activities from marketing, advertising, brand management, HR, IT, and R&D and at the end of the day, all of them report directly to you....
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Meaning...Who Cares

Have you ever played that game, “Telephone?” You know that game where you sit in a circle and the first person whispers something to the second, the second to third and so on until it is back around to the first person again....
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Banks Should Stop Advertising Now

Banks shouldn’t spend one more dollar on advertising. That is, until they can get right....
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A Fresh Start To Advertising

There has been a disturbing trend recently in TV advertising and it, as much as anything, explains why so much of it has failed to increase market share for its brands: The brand barely makes an appearance. And, when it does, it’s only at the end....
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Know The Enemy - Increase Market Share

Kill The Cows There can be no sacred cows when stealing market share. Everything about your marketing, brand, position, and even your perceptions about your customers and competition must come under great scrutiny....
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Are You a Communications Company, Think Again

All Businesses are also Communications Companies. Who You Really Are So you are a manufacturing business. Or you are a marketing business. Or you are a service business....
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How to Build a Global Brand

One of the most exciting efficiencies in business is the Global Brand. A global brand allows tremendous economies of scale, especially in marketing communications investments. However, these economies of scale can only be achieved, if brand impact is not sacrificed in the process....
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How to Take Your Competitors Customers

Growing your brand’s market share demands taking customers from the competitor’s camp meaning that you need to change a purchase behavior and break what may very well be a long-standing and habitual pattern. Change is the keyword and change is the key....
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Organizations to Brandaniztions: Aligning Organizations To Effectively Manage Brands

Business is changing. However the manner in which most organizations conduct business has not changed in many years....
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Brand Strategy Implementation

A new way to maximize your company’s revenues – regard and treat all of your customer and prospect interfacing functions as media, and organize them to ensure that they are maximized as media. Let us assume that your business already has a great brand strategy....
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Who is Better, Who is Best

Do the best products always win? The market place is riddled with the remains of good products that have succumbed to market failure and the shells of products that never met their potential....
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Creating Preference - Branding, CRM and Marketing Tactics

The Relative Functions of Branding, Marketing, and CRM The single most important distinction managers must make in the segmentation of the target group for any brand is the distinction between prospects and customers....
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A New Economic Order

Marketing is Dead. Long live the Brand! A New Order There is a new economic order. Marketing was a business function relevant to the old economic order....
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Taking Advantage of a Deceptively Immature Market

Immature May be A Facade The TV set market would seem to be the last market to be described as immature. After all, television has been a significant part of our lives for more than 50 years and the brands are firmly established: Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, etc....
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The Secret To Reality - It is All About You

Check to see if you’ve ever heard this. You’re watching a reality TV show and a contestant does something that endangers their chances of staying on the island, so to speak. Then, someone in your family says, “Oh, I’d never do that....
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Growing Market Share - Channel Strategy - Creating Brand Preference

Branding Tug of War — Sometimes brands need a push and a pull There are a number of companies that require a third party to distribute their products....
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When To Test Creative Concepts

“A sovereign’s first duty is doubtless to conform with the wishes of the people; but what the people say is scarcely ever what they wish: their desires and their wants cannot be learned from their own mouths so well as they are to be read in the heart of their prince....
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The Price of Clarity is the Risk of Offense

Who Is Your Brand For? The wizard of ads, Roy H. Williams once said, "The Price of Clarity is the Risk of Offense." We often tell clients that one of the most important keys to a successful branding strategy is clarity....
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Poll finds nearly 80 percent of U.S. adults go online

This recent article was published by Reuters and we thought it important enough to reprint it here. How important is the web? More important than any of us realize....
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Embrace That Scary Thought: Change

Our world is increasingly becoming smaller by the minute. It’s not just the speed by which we communicate (instantly) that makes it smaller or even how we’ve all recently learned how much smaller our world is economically....
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Podcasting Call: Seldom-used technology is tool business should be evaluating

(Pod)casting call Seldom-used technology is tool businesses should be evaluating The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area - by Michelle Cater Rash Staff writer In the summer of 2006, the government relations practice group at ...
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Smarter Strategies have Smaller Budgets

"Spend More" is Not a Strategy If you have a marketing budget in excess of $80 million, you can sell just about anything — even Sunny Delight. You might even be able to convince some people that your product is good for them....
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AMD and Intel: To Brand or Not to Brand

Why Some Brands Work In general, BMW, Chrysler, Chevy, and Ford all get the job done, but BMW does it a little better and with more style....
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Two Wrongs Do Not Make A Right

To be fair, this is not a problem that GM and Chrysler have alone. Auto manufactures and the models they build have had this problem spanning decades. Automobile manufacturing has failed to connect with consumers on a preceptive level....
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Global Rebranding: Virgin Atlantic Gets it Right

From time to time we recognize a brand that represents the best in a category. Here we cite Virgin Atlantic as an excellent case study of consumer-focused branding designed to grab market share from the competition....
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Supermarkets are in Trouble

Why Don’t Supermarkets Have Brands?  It may come as a surprise to the category of supermarket chains to learn that almost to a fault, none of them owns a brand. They think they do, but they do not. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding....
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No U.S. Automakers Have a REAL Brand

They Share the Same Non-Brand Ford, Pontiac, Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge, and Mercury all share the same bland brand. Sad isn’t’ it that the U.S. automotive industry, once the envy of the world, has begun to see itself relegated to “also ran” status....
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Marketing Masturbation - Branding Not to Win

Do You Want To Win? There is a single fundamental truth in branding that is true regardless of industry, company, or product: IN ORDER TO BE SUCCESSFUL, YOU MUST BE WILLING TO WIN....
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Can You Brand A Commodity Product

Paying Before The Pump It seems counter intuitive to believe branding to be a vital element when trying to create value for what is commonly labeled a commodity product; however, your brand just may be the only market value you can claim....
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Planning to Grow Market Share

Learn from the Best John Wooden, the famed UCLA basketball coach, was famous for warning that “If you always do what you have always done you will always end up where you have always been....
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Banks and Credit Unions: How to Grow Market Share In A Mature Market

An Example of Bad The competition to increase market share has gotten more intense regardless of business category. The goal is somewhat easier to attain if you’re in an immature market in which the messaging is fairly basic and the players can succeed just by selling category....
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Stealing Customers from the Market Leader

Outsmart Them  Category benefits are a poor substitute for brand meaning and brand definition. It is one of the major pratfalls in brand development and a trap into which many brands fall victim....
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The Financial Crisis is an Opportunity for Leadership

With all of the upsets in the world economy these last few months, we at Stealing Share are contemplating why a brand development firm like ourselves has been busier than ever before despite the recent financial crisis....
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Behind The Steel Curtain: A Brand With Meaning

Getting your brand to reflect your audience A recent report from Associated Press reported this startling news: Women adore the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers....
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Green Promises Felled Ford, Industry Watchers Say

From BRANDWEEK Green Promises Felled Ford, Industry Watchers Say CEO and company face's credibility was shot years ago....
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Why Grow From a Sales Driven to a Marketing Driven Brand

When Should Marketing Take a Front Seat? At some point in a company's growth, there comes a time when it decides whether the product or service it offers has exponential growth opportunities....
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Creativity - Great Advertising's Forgotten Component

Ah, the good old days of advertising Years ago advertising giants like Claude Hopkins wrote books entitled My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising. David Ogilvy made pronouncements on the correct placement of coupons in direct response advertising....
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The Three Keys To Persuasion.

Identification, Notification, and Persuasion Know The Truth In the self-serving world of commercial advertising, the costs of advertising communication messages continue to skyrocket....
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Developing Research for Global Brands

The Stakes Are High When a company makes the strategic decision to globalize one of its brands, it is forced to look anew at the brand and to evaluate it with fresh eyes. It needs to make sure that the brand definition translates into the new culture in a meaningful way....
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Brand is always emotional, especially in politics

With the risk of offending and angering everyone - a Stealing Share specialty - the US political campaign provides an opportunity to better understand the science of brand persuasion if we can get out of our own way and truly see....
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The Big Three - Ford As Case In Point

The Meaninglessness of Ford Motor Company It seems like whenever we turn on the radio or television, we see or hear another story about the sad state of affairs for domestic auto manufacturers. Sales continue to slide and quality continues to lag behind Asian imports....
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Dont Be A Victim of Success

Protecting Brands From Being #1 At Stealing Share, we define brand as a representation of consumer perception. Brand is the perception and feeling toward a product or service....
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The Enemy of Growing Market Share

Stop With Political Correctness Political correctness is the enemy of great brands. It is, in fact, the enemy of great marketing. The finest brands and the best marketing are those that seem most transparent to the customer....
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Made in China: The New Brand of China

Made in China: China’s New Brand The 2008 Olympics was indeed China’s “Coming Out Party” on the world stage....
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Like a Bolt of Lightning: Sprinter Loses Marketability

“And like that (poof) he is gone.” That’s a quote from one Verbal Kint from “The Usual Suspects,” describing villain Keyser Soze, but it might apply to Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt in more ways than one....
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Branding: An Expense You Cannot Live Without

Costs of Branding Undertaking a branding initiative is not a task that should be taken lightly. It is an extremely time-consuming and difficult process and often can be expensive....
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Beer: Its Not The Taste, Stupid

The US Beer Market The discussion on the U.S. beer market inevitably turns to Budweiser and its corner on the American suds market, no matter which segment is discussed....
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The Rules have Changed. Advantage Small Companies.

The advertising environment has changed  Advertising revenues, the profit that media makes from selling advertising space, has been on a decline for many years. Recently, it has taken a nosedive and much of the buzz about it has to do with economic issues....
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Overcome the Hate - Beating back the negative perceptions

It sounded like a simple process when the dentist said our oldest son had a tooth lodged in his head and a simple procedure would bring it down where it should be. You know, like in his mouth. But the problem wasn’t with the procedure....
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Technology Brands Can Lose Sight Of The Goal

No Sacred Cows Allowed Some “branding firms” and companies, for that matter, believe that branding is all about changing a logo, name, website, or collateral material....
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Liquidity and Loyalty, One Study Hints Link Is Weak

American Banker  |  Monday, August 4, 2008 By Paul Davis Several banking executives have said that their companies benefited from a "flight to quality" in the second quarter, that they plucked rivals' customers who were spooked by the ...
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No Such Thing As An Immature Market

Lessons For New Entries All brands must steal market share to survive, even if you believe you are “first to market” with a new product or service or you believe you have created a “new category....
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The Information Age Is A Dangerous Myth

Your Customers Beg To Differ The promise of the information age has fallen on deaf ears. Futurists have been touting our epoch as the age of information but your customers have other ideas....
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The 7 Deadly Sins of Web Development

Web Errors — Proceed at your own risk Building a website used to be the dominion of a select few. “Webmasters” would sift through reams of arduous HTML, CGI, and PERL code in their quest to create the perfect site....
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Viral Branding: A Virus Brand Can Do Without

Brand is All About Meaning Brand is all about meaning. Ideally, as a consumer thinks about or comes in contact with a given brand, that brand should incite a torrent of thoughts, ideas, images, and beliefs....
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How To Grow Market Share in Uncertain Times

Increasing Market Share In Uncertain Times Winning in business today means growing your market share — I don’t care how mature or immature your market segment appears to be, your long-term success means that your share will grow only at your ...
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Getting More Out Of Your Most Valuable Resource

How to Get the Most Out of Your HR — By UN-BUNDLING Them Almost all of us think of one another as individual human beings. This way of thinking about one another is pervasive. Even in business, when we hire people, we think we are hiring individuals....
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How To Sell More of Your Products

How to sell more products - by thinking differently about your business From the beginnings of business most of us have thought about business in terms of the products we sell. You too are used to thinking of your business like this....
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An Inside View of What Makes a Logo Great

The Logo as an Icon People the world over have come to expect a logo when encountering a company or product — It’s so ingrained in how we size things up....
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Selling Without Persuading: American Politick

At Stealing Share, we continually talk about brand as a reflection of who the target audience is when they use a particular product or service. So the question is, do presidential campaigns use brand, as we define it, to their advantage? Well, sort of....
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Destinations Get Brand Preference Wrong

Often, the greatest enemy to success for a travel destination is the politics of the constituency. If you are a nation, island, resort area or a convention and visitors bureau, saluting all of your political constituents can end up diluting your message....
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An Inconvenient Truth - A Failure to Persuade

Learn From Success Stealing Share is in the persuasion business, make no mistake about it. Our business category is brand development but our brand work must be, by definition, persuasive....
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What makes destinations popular

From Travel Weekly. More than location: What makes a destination popular? By Mark Chesnut   When Tom Dougherty drives down the street, he sees the same thing, over and over again....
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The Two Immutable Share-Stealing Laws

An Absolute Take this as an absolute: If you want your brand to steal market share, you must find a means to convince your competitors’ customers to change their minds and their purchasing behaviors....
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Citibank Willingly Gives Up Coveted Brand Space

The Difference Between a Brand Theme-Line and an Advertising "Tag line” The two phrases are often confused and as a result, very few brands have a brand theme-line today....
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The Best Brand Of All

The Most Powerful Retail Brand Of all the retail stores and super-stores in the US, who has the best brand? Which brand commands dominance over the competition and strikes fear into the heart of the market space? Just to stir up the pot a bit and to make a point, ...
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Crucial Business Changes Allow for Market Share Increases

Businesses Needs to Be Restructured to Maximize Market Share Growth Businesses now exist in a hyper-competitive environment. The more competition there is, the more power shifts from businesses to the customers (including prospects)....
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Research Can Build Your Business

The Importance of Meaningful Research At Stealing Share® we always conduct research before building a brand and marketing strategy for our clients, who have hired us to grow their market share....
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Specific Steps to Build a Brand that Grows Market Share

Eight Steps for Building a Brand that Builds Market Share The best way to ensure consistent brand share growth over competition is to have a powerful Brand and to deploy it just as powerfully....
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Aligning Brands With Purpose

Mergers Should Make Sense From A Brand Point of View The business dynamics regulating the marketspace today mandate that organizations constantly move towards economies of scope and economies of scale....
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The Powerful Difference Between Perception and Fact

Perception vs Fact  Typically, as human beings, we think of perception and fact as two different things. It is common to think of perception as “the world in which we see it.” It is the world that we can experience, feel, touch, and “perceive....
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Home Improvement Offers NO Brand Improvement

Truth in Marketing What your company takes as truth is not the fuel of preference and choice. The reason for this is that truth is not universal, it is in fact a product of perspective — and there are as many perspectives in the world as there are places to stand....
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Apple Inc. Will Win Big

Look Out Microsoft Take it from us, Apple computer is now on track to steal market share and change the face of personal computing forever....
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Holiday Inn Demonstrates Lodgings Loss of Brand

Hotels, Motels, and Inns, Oh My! The hotel business has some explaining to do....
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A Sales-Driven Company Or A Marketing Driven-One: Which One Are You?

Pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers share the same challenges and marketing hurdles as the manufacturers of package goods and consumer products....
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A New Concept: The Theater Near (For) You

There is a slight sea change at your local multiplex, depending on where you live, and it marks an attempt by theater owners and chains to generate more revenue as the amount of competition increases....
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How To Win When Outspent and Increase Market Share

We Are All Outspent Most brands face daunting tasks in preparing marketing communications to steal market share. If you have unlimited budgets and are capable of out-spending the competitive set, your job is that much easier....
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Changes in The U.S.

Brand In the U.S. For the most part American manufacturers have been chasing their tails into marketing oblivion....
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The Democratic Partys Brand Needs Major Brand Help

Republicans Own A Stronger Brand Nowhere is brand more important, and more poorly used, than in the political arena....
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Airlines - Different is Better

Airlines Are Off-Track A steadfast rule when stealing market share is not to follow the leader. Rather, it is of paramount importance to be different and better then the competition. Nowhere is that tenant more abused than in today’s airline industry....
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Business Management Based on the Whole System Model (Part 2)

Building on Business Management, Part 2 In Part II, we will build on the foundation in Part I and look at how business functions as the evolutionary cutting edge of the Whole System Model....
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News Analysis: Does Private Equity Impact Brand Equity?

From BRANDWEEK Expect the unexpected when deal-makers arrive in the marketing department By Todd Wasserman It's fairly easy to get Howard Davidowitz riled up....
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The Rules for Increasing Market Share

Every company or organization today that is successful must be driven in a constant quest to grow its market share. However, most companies fall far short of all the projections and annual planning....
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Business Management Based on the Whole System Model (Part 1)

Business Management based on the Whole System Model – Part I of three. This article is being written to show how the Whole System Model can improve business management....
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The Proof is in the Mark: Delta has a Repeat of A Wasteful Idea

Probably the most understated misconception in marketing today is in the definition of the word, “brand” or “branding....
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Advertising Falls on Deaf Ears

As a corporation, Stealing Share® battles many misconceptions because we define ourselves as a brand development firm. Most companies confuse the idea of brand with the product name and only think about brand when they are launching or re-launching a product into the market....
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Kodak: Failing to Maintain Relevancy

When you make a list of the world’s strongest brands, a few names surface quite regularly: Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Apple, Sony, Disney, Microsoft, Nike, and even Harley Davidson....
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Pizza Huts New Ad is More Clever Than You Thought

You’ve probably seen the ad. It opens with 50 New Yorkers tasting pasta at what appears to be a swanky Manhattan restaurant called Tuscani. The Alfredo is Great! The New Yorkers exclaim over the dishes....
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The Other Great Value of Brand - Building Your Mar Cap

Most businesses have little idea of brand as a powerful business function. The people who run these companies believe they are in the business of making products and then selling them....
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Few New Brands Need A Name Change

Brand is important even when not changing your name. If your goal to grow your market share and your category — and your category is relatively mature, then re-evaluating your brand is as important as your advertising messages....
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A TRUE BUSINESS QUESTION: Is a dimensional logo worth the cost?

There are a number of cool-looking three-dimensional logos in the marketing landscape now. It's a trend worth noticing because, in this highly competitive selling environment, companies of all sizes are constantly reaching for a visual advantage and often see three dimensions as representing that advantage over the traditional two-dimensional logo. The question to ask, however, is whether the perceived benefit is worth the cost - or whether there is a benefit at all....
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Banks: The Best and the Worst

MarketWatch ranks the best and worst bank brands by Number of Complaints and by Customer Satisfaction. Brand is a lot more than just product and service — but when trying to grow market share, these may be signs of weakness and brand failure. ...
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Bank Marketing International- Brand Development Firm from North Carolina

One brand firm tells it like it is. Stealing Share, a brand development firm from North Carolina, US whose name means... From Bank Marketing International REALITY BRANDING London, UK - Here's a branding firm that tells it like it is....
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Brand Strategy: A Better Road Map To Success

Where Should We Think Brands Live? And Why? Our ability to build powerful, market share-expanding brands depends largely upon where we think brands live....
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How To Avoid Wasting Money on Your Brand

Making Your Brand Work — WORK So, at last, you have a great brand. You worked hard with your branding agency, and they have developed a great brand that is sure to get you competitive advantage, and promises increasing market share well into the future....
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Branding Investment Services - TD Ameritrade Wins!

Trouble On Wall Street Investment companies and brokerage houses are ripe for the picking and TD Ameritrade is looking more and more like the grim reaper. It is easy to look at a market caught up in its own outdated business models where Merrell Lynch, Bear Sterns, A....
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Brand is no laughing matter

When we finished 2007, there were all kinds of lists in the media: Top stories of the year, books, viral videos, movies, etc. The cable network TBS even ran Funniest Commercials of the Year....
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Remaining Calm Around The R Word

The "R" Word One cannot turn on the business news, visit a web portal, or read a newspaper or magazine without being reminded that the US is facing an economic downturn....
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What is a Recession

Tom Dougherty CEO, Stealing Share, Inc Economists have their own definitions, prognosticators have theirs, and politicians have theirs....
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Victorious BLU-RAY Heads Into the Big Fight

Wal-Mart, Netflix, Best Buy. Most of the big box retailers for consumer electronics have decided to focus exclusively on selling Sony’s Blu-Ray technology for high-definition DVDs rather than Blue-Ray’s competitor, HD DVD....
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Branding Packaged Goods - The Keys To Persuasion

Identification, Notification, and Persuasion in Packaged Goods Know The Truth In the self-serving world of commercial advertising, the costs of advertising communication messages continue to skyrocket....
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Advertising - How To Cut Out All The Waste

Wasted Dollars Spells FAILURE ohn Wanamaker, the great department store innovator, once said that he was sure that 50% of his advertising dollars were wasted…but he could not figure out which 50%....
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The Biggest Challenge for Business

Navigating Currents and Harnessing Energies in the Marketflux The biggest challenge we face in thinking about the economic environment in which business takes place – is our static world-view, of a relatively still stage, peopled with businesses and people and ...
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US Banker- Successful Brand

It wasn't that long ago that bank customers felt an emotional bond with their bank. Banks fit so snugly into our lives......
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BMW Brand Study

We found this study most informative and provides some great insight into how a great brand should be manged, nurtured, and avoid the need for major rebranding efforts (keep up to date - check out our Blog for info on the auto industry) BMW: "Newness" and the Product Life ...
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Business and The WHOLE SYSTEM

The Function of Business Within the Whole System We have seen that the Whole system comprises the Sociosphere and the Physiosphere, which together share Humanity layer....
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Branding a Bank Means Analyzing the Market

Branding A Bank — Where To Start? All good bank advertising starts with a complete analysis of the market. That means considering the banking competition, the bank customer, and the bank advertiser....
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How a Destination & Tourism Brand Should Choose an Ad Agency

Choose Well Who decides what constitutes a great destination and tourism advertising strategy? Is it the destination brand or tourism brand that pays for it, the agency that creates it, the panel that judges it, or the travel market that buys into it? Of course, the ...
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Tough Times Call For Tougher Marketing Messages

Stealing Share digs into the mindsets of target audiences scientifically so their client’s brand and corporate identity are aligned with the most emotionally intense beliefs in the market, before competitors adapt....
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Brand IN Context: It is The Economy Stupid

Therefore, companies must align themselves with the changes in the consumer and note the differences in the way the eight primary human motivators have shifted. ...
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Consumers change too. So better had you

The fact is that consumers, companies, and even governments around the world are feeling the ill effects of an economic machine that, in retrospect, was clearly out of control. When things were going along just fine, no one seemed to care that the economic machine was out of whack. Fast forward a couple of quarters, now EVERYONE cares....
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Super Bowl Advertising -Just Entertainment

The Super Bowl is no longer merely the sporting event it used to be. It has gradually, over the years, and especially the four decades of its existence, become the definitive cultural event of our age, at least in this country, the United States....
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Highlights Of This Years Super Bowl Advertising

We are not going to go into all the individual commercials shown during Super Bowl XLI. We are going to mention a few that seemed to show some strategic or executional brilliance, even if these still failed as a whole. Before we go into them, let us make a key introductory point....
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Different Brands without Real Differentiation

Budweiser and Budweiser Select Anheuser-Busch presented three more commercials in the Super Bowl, two for Budweiser, the two hundred year old lager beer, and one for the newer Budweiser Select brand, which was launched just two years ago, in 2005....
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Bud Light Super Bowl Commercials

As Fizzy and Light as the Beer Itself! As in several previous Super Bowls, the biggest single advertiser at this Super Bowl XLI was Anheuser-Busch, with nine spots. Their Bud Light brand alone fielded six 30’ commercials....
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Package Goods as a Battlefield

Are Product Margins Merely Margins of Error? Packaged goods companies, like P&G and Unilever, continue to fight for every drop of margin they can squeeze out of a crowded category....
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Stealing Share Means Being Different, Not Being Like Nike

Jump Off The Bridge Stop looking to the market leader as a role model. This is a tough hump to get over because good common sense tells us to look for clues in proven successes. We still should....
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Napoleon Strategy works

Napoleon Speaks on Increasing Market Share. Napoleon Bonaparte is still studied for his military axioms and tactics. Most marketers realize that marketing is a form of warfare — albeit without the national imperative or the mortal risks....
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Lessons in Succeeding

How much do you want to win? Are you willing to put everything on the table and examine every opportunity for your brand to succeed in market warfare? We all pretend to strive for victory but most companies fall far short of what it takes to actually prevail....
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Remove Your Marketing Risk

Avoiding Risk When You Steal Share What do you know? What don’t’ you know? What is knowable? Until you fully understand the REAL issues facing your brand, you cannot solve your marketing problem....
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Guidlines For A Winning Brand Project

Marketing Options As marketers who have evaluated their options available in hiring a brand company can tell you, there are wide variety of companies offering a wide variety of products and services....
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Branding A Destination - Emerge to Their Surprise

If your tourism brand does not command greater preference or produce increased margins then you do not have a destination brand — you have a business. The only reasons to invest in competitive branding a destination is to grow margins and/or increase your destination's preference....
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Branding an Association - Think Differently

If your organization's brand does not command greater preference or produce increased margins then you do not have an association brand — you have a business....
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Branding Telecom - Effective Ways To Grow Marketshare

How do we steal market share in telecommunications? The answer is interesting and telling in today’s competitive telecom advertising and marketing climate....
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Call Them Gen Y or Millennials: They Deserve Our Attention

We found this short piece on Gen Y to be most intersting. We have reprinted it here for your edification. Created by Merrill Associates. Copyright 1996-2006....
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Being the Best Does Not Guarantee Success

Dispelling Another Brand Myth How much of your corporate time is spent on R&D to create the best product? How much of your efforts are spent in marketing your product or service as the finest choice in your category? Building a brand that can steal market share ...
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Sun Tzu - The Art of Branding

This is not the standard paper from Stealing Share®. Rather, it is a quick look at the sayings of Sun Tzu, and reinterpreting those salient ideas as they apply to brand strategy and brand development....
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How To Build A Strategy Designed To Steal Market Share

Marketing as Warfare Military metaphors work well for the field of marketing and advertising, and with great deference to the more serious conflict in Iran, we will look to both Napoleon and Sun Tzu for our foundation for stealing market share....
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The Center Of The Universe

Myths and Legends What does the Ptolemaic theory have to do with the aggressive advertising that is created with the purpose of stealing market share? As it turns out, a great deal. Ptolemy created the first working model of the universe....
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Back In The Marketing Saddle

Back To Business The tragic events of the last couple of years have left marketers searching for the appropriate marketing response. Somehow, "business as usual" seems a little out of sync, callous, and unfeeling....
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Growing Market Share - The Importance of Brand

Backward Thinking The “desired brand image” is usually the last item on the creative brief. Most often it asks that the brief’s author describe the brand in human terms such as “dependable,” “trustworthy” and the like....
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Grabbing Share Memory vs. Recall

How do we steal market share? The answer is interesting and telling in today’s competitive advertising and marketing climate....
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Viagra: A Brand That Just Wont Go Away

Remember That Brand? Well It’s Back! One would have to travel to the back woods of the Appalachians or perhaps to the cave dwellings in the Southwestern canyons to find anyone who has not heard of Viagra....
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Blockbuster Brand Troubles

New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey on Friday said he has filed a lawsuit accusing Blockbuster... FROM REUTERS New Jersey Sues Blockbuster Over Ads NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey on Friday said he has filed a lawsuit accusing Blockbuster Inc....
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Sears and KMart Brand Merger

The real issues facing Sears and Kmart in their new roles as retail partners revolve around brand......
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Barron's Lipper Quarterly - Procter & Gamble

Paging Mr. Whipple. Can Mutual funds be sold like toilet tissue or toothpaste? BY J.R. BRANDSTRADER. Picture, this: It's Father's Day and family and friends are gathered around the tube to watch the u.s. Open....
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Coke Branding Lessons

How Coca-Cola lost its fizz—and other branding lessons. The power of a brand is hard to pinpoint, but it might just be......
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The Denver Post - Brand Permission

Scandal may aid smaller funds, but don't expect marketing push. "For one, those traits are assumed, not marketed", said Tom Dougherty......
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Fairchilds Brand Marketing

The loss of a great brand: eToys. Three years ago, I was compelled to run out and purchase a CD from a Hawaiian folk singer......
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Fund Marketing Alert- Citibank

Banks need to market to customers’ needs. Banks need to focus their marketing and advertising needs of their customers......
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Fund Marketing Alert - Evergreen Investments

Evergreen Investments. Mutual fund managers are beginning to get their feet wet again in the sea of advertising. One such company......
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Long Island Business News- Branding Mutual Funds

Mutual funds: Branding for the millennium. Napoleon once said, “There is a moment in every battle at which the least maneuver......
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Marketing Views- Great Advertising

Create great advertising for the millennium. Every company that uses advertising in its marketing mix agrees that......
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Progressive Grocer- Pet Food Brands

Branding, Old-West style. You can’t own a brand. Brand belongs to the consumer, not to the marketer......
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The San Diego Union-Tribune - Gateway Computers

How now Gateway cow? Poway computer maker abandons folksy prairie image for a hip, urban appeal. Gateway was born... FROM THE SAN DIEGO TRIBUNE How now Gateway cow? Poway computer maker abandons folksy prairie image for a hip, urban appeal Bruce V....
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Your Marketing Strategy Is Failing You

Brand Preference If your brand does not command greater preference or produce increased margins then you do not have a brand — you have a business. The only reasons to invest in competitive brand development are to grow margins and/or increase preference....
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Research: Change What You Currently Do

A sovereign’s first duty is doubtless to conform with the wishes of the people; but what the people say is scarcely ever what they wish: their desires and their wants cannot be learned from their own mouths so well as they are to be read in the heart of their prince....
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Even If The Web Crawls, Your Brand Does Not Have To!

Fact: Regardless of brand type and level of web dependency, the Internet is a part of your business marketing strategy. The business world would be hard-pressed to find any brand lacking a website, and with good reason....
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The Time Is Right For Destinations To Build Brands

The Tourism Market It has been more than three years since the bottom fell out of the destination and tourism industry, but many are hopeful that prospects are looking up....
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Invest In It: How Financial Firms Steal Share In A Recession

The Financial Industry Mutual funds, brokerage houses and financial advisers believe that their fortunes mirror the success or failure of the stock market. That is, if the stock market is down, clients leave, and if the stock market is up, clients stay....
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Stealing Market Share Means Analyzing That Market

The System All good advertising starts with a complete analysis of the market. That means considering the competition, the customer, and the advertiser....
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Stealing Share In A Mature Marketplace

Is Your Market Mature? Everyone who has ever taken even the most rudimentary marketing class learned early on that category building is the sole providence of the market leader....
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Emotion Is The Engine Of Brand Name Choice

Make Advertising Work Harder Making advertising effective is more difficult today than ever before. To get TV viewers to give a precious second of their attention to a commercial message is beyond daunting — it’s nearly impossible....
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Double Duty: The Complexity Of Pharmaceutical Branding

The Pharma Market The Pharmaceutical business has gone through a major transformation in the last 10 years as the push for market share moves slowly away from direct sales and toward consumer marketing....
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Reinventing Velcro: The Importance of Brand Simplicity

What Is Simplicity? Akin to the concept of white space and minimalism in design, simplicity of brand representation is the right direction to go in order to increase your market share. Simple is better....
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Macintosh: Apples for Businessmen

The iPod Owner There is something oddly intimate about the relationship between consumers and their iPods. In fact, it is easy to say there is something oddly intimate about Mac users and their Macs in general. For years Mac has presented itself as a niche for creatives....
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Brandnameitis: The Lack of Brand Coherence in Naming

Confusion Is In Charge It would be easy if all drugs fit into categories named after the seven dwarves (Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Happy…etc). Unfortunately, the naming of new drugs is well short of a fairytale process....
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Remembering Your Roots: Brand Opportunity In The Pharmaceutical Industry

Umbrella Companies Pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer, Merck, Abbott Labs, among others, have done an excellent job creating new drugs....
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Gas Crisis Everywhere: Brands Should Accelerate

This Is The Time To Grab Customers Do not think for a moment that the belt tightening in consumer’s wallets due to fuel costs and availability does not affect your brand? It is quite simple to see how this pressure will cut into destination and tourism as well as transportation ...
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Business-to-Business Market Research: A Wide Open Opportunity

B-to-B Is Special Developing and enhancing brands for companies whose main emphasis is business to business has very specific challenges....
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B-2-B or Not B-2-B: The Preoccupation With Price

Is Price The Answer? Business to business marketing seems to be a mere reflection of the nation’s economic trends as a whole, which means that there is one thing and one thing only that currently drives B2B brands: Price....
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Guidelines To Stealing Market Share

How You Get Started It does not matter if you are a resort destination, a new fast food sandwich or an automotive widget; the obstacles and difficulties of stealing market share from the competition are the same....
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Pet Food Market- Increasing Market Share

Brand — Helping Consumers Define Who The Are The US pet food market has gone through some changes in the last few years that have caused many pet food company marketing executives to sit up, rollover and beg....
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Biz Life Article -How To Steal Market Share

Grabbing Share– Memory vs. Recall How do we steal market share? The answer is interesting and telling in today’s competitive advertising and marketing climate....
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Website Optimization Will Increase Your Market Share

Optimize Your Web Site To Grow Market Share So much of our business today is dependent on the success of our website....
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The Oprah Brand

Oprah gives burger a boost When The Counter's hamburgers were mentioned on Winfrey's show, monthly sales shot up fivefold. By BusinessWeek....
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Harrahs Study

We found this brand study to be most informative. While it speaks mainly to the destination/tourism industry, the lessons can be applied to any category. Brand building for destination and tourism is more complicated than more traditional services and goods....
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The Beer Industry

BEER BRANDS: SO MANY CHOICES; SO FEW REASONS TO CHOOSE By Tom Dougherty, CEO — Stealing Share The battle for market share and marketing advantage in the beverage industry has never been keener....
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Increase Your Market Share - Change Your Ad Agency or Fix Your Brand

A powerful brand strategy influences everything that the brand touches. It provides focus, clarity of purpose and is the wellspring of future business success. Often, the advertising agency is the first to fall victim to poorly defined or ill-defined brand strategy....
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Being First is Secondary

Dispelling Brand Myths “Being first in the market is most important — Being best ensures your success” No, being first only assures your brand of an entrance opportunity. The market graveyard is littered with failed and failing “firsts....
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Brandweek - Sears & K-Mart

From BRANDWEEK By Tom Dougherty SEARS and Kmart need a good deal more than a walk down the aisle to ease their retail woes, which neither entity has yet to I identify....
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The Four Camps Of Advertising Agencies

The Advertising World Who decides what constitutes great advertising strategy? Is it the brand that pays for it, the agency that creates it, the panel that judges it, or the market that buys into it? Of course, the answer is the market, but you’d be surprised how ...
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Taking A Different Position Can Be A Hair-Raising Experience

Pulling Out Your Hair Some years ago, a nationally known lecturer was losing his hair. Ironically, he was so consumed with hair loss — and so much in denial — that he considered himself to be a man who had hair....
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Chicago Sun-Times - Sears and Kmart

On Sears and Kmart,"Talk centers on physical store locations and the consolidation and fat-trimming the new management......
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Branding Vacation Destinations,Travel, and Tourism

Branding your vacation destination. When the traveling consumer decides where to vacation this year, what influences......
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American Banker- Building a Robust Brand

Branding: Marketing or Anthropology? It should come as no surprise to the banking community that building a more robust brand......
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Advertising on Mobile Phones: Get Permission First

The mobile phone industry is at a key point in its history. The relatively recent integration of video and music and data and social networking into cell phones has been an exciting development - and they point to even greater opportunity for both carriers and consumers....
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