{"id":5734,"date":"2012-05-02T11:36:04","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T18:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=5734"},"modified":"2012-05-02T11:36:04","modified_gmt":"2012-05-02T18:36:04","slug":"a-brand-new-news-chum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=5734","title":{"rendered":"A &#8220;Brand&#8221; New News Chum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-4958\" title=\"userpic=corporate\" src=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/userpiccorporate.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\" \/>Today&#8217;s lunchtime news chum all has to do with brands and branding:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Refreshing a Brand<\/strong>. USA Today has an article on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/money\/industries\/food\/story\/2012-04-27\/old-brands-new\/54632570\/1\" target=\"_blank\">two brands (Pepto Bismol, Wheat Thins) that are <em>refreshing<\/em> themselves to create a new image<\/a>. Pepto Bismol is realizing that the pink bottle isn&#8217;t portable, and so is introducing Pepto-Bismol To-Go, a pack of 12 cherry-flavored, chewable tablets in a pink, plastic cylinder. This does nothing for me; Pepto has always had chewables. The other brand is Wheat Thins, who has decided to stop marking themselves as a cracker, instead going for the &#8220;salty snack&#8221; market. Umm, no.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Brand Origins<\/strong>. The OC Register has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/travel\/motel-351374-sambo-chain.html\" target=\"_blank\">an interesting story on the origins of two brands: Motel 6 and Sambos Restaurants<\/a>. Both started in the Santa Barbara area (as did Cocos Restaurants). Motel 6 is still going strong, and the article talks about the original Motel 6, which is still in operation. Sambos, however, isn&#8217;t. It is down to one restaurant, the original. Why did this happen? Because of a bad choice to tie the restaurant (which was named after the founders, Sam Battistone Sr and Newell Bohnett) to the 1899 children&#8217;s book &#8220;The Story of Little Black Sambo&#8221; that depicted a dark-skinned boy who saves himself from tigers by running them around until they turn to butter, then pours it on some pancakes. Most of the Sambos that once existed became <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fundinguniverse.com\/company-histories\/VICORP-Restaurants-Inc-company-History.html\" target=\"_blank\">Bakers Squares<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Zipping It Up.<\/strong> A fascinating article from Slate on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/business\/branded\/2012\/04\/ykk_zippers_why_so_many_designers_use_them_.html\" target=\"_blank\">YKK Zippers, the people who make such high quality zippers that no one wants to use anything else<\/a>. Once interesting note is that YKK owns their entire supply chain to ensure quality.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Splitting Shoes. <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/la-fi-keds-payless-sold-20120502,0,7839082.story\" target=\"_blank\">Collective Brands is splitting up<\/a>.\u00a0 That may mean nothing to you, but let&#8217;s put it another way: Wolverine Worldwide (the folks behind Hush Puppies and Patagonia) has bought Collective, and will be keeping their shoe business (Sperry Top-Sider, Saucony, Stride-Rite and Keds). They will be spinning off the retail business (Payless Shoes).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s lunchtime news chum all has to do with brands and branding: Refreshing a Brand. USA Today has an article on two brands (Pepto Bismol, Wheat Thins) that are refreshing themselves to create a new image. Pepto Bismol is realizing that the pink bottle isn&#8217;t portable, and so is introducing Pepto-Bismol To-Go, a pack of <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=5734\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[83],"class_list":["post-5734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-chum","tag-corporate-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5735,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5734\/revisions\/5735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}