The wonderful Wired
by Paul Miller
Wired Magazine is firing on all cylinders this month with a load of interesting articles. My favourites are James Surowiecki's article The Decline of Brands which charts the rise and fall of brands as indicators of business success (as he finishes the article "The aristocracy of brand is dead. Long live the meritocracy of product.") and Steven Johnson's piece about the implications of the 311 service in New York. On his blog, Steven says he thinks 311 is one of the two most sigificant innovations in urban information technology - the other is London's very own congestion charge.
The mag also comes with a free CD where artists have licenced there music using the same 'some rights reserved' copyright licence we use for our pamphlets.
David David
I do like the James Surowiecki piece a lot. When i worked on The Money Programme I came across a lot of these branding gurus, from Rita Clifton to Wolf Olins. Their brand-speak feels increasingly tired in an age where consumers are far more empowered and have so much more information at their fingertips. Skoda became successful again because the relaunched product was good, not because of some clever marketing campaign (although it played a part of course). Rebranding seems so 90s in many ways.
Which leads me on to speculate about the political implication of the backlash against branding. Above all else, New Labour was a masterstroke of rebranding that fitted right in with the zeitgeist of the times. It's of course interesting to note that Demos was at the forefront of the rebranding project with Mark Leonard's 'Britain TM renewing our identity' pamphlet. If the age of the branding guru is coming to a close as James Surowiecki speculates, then what does this mean for the future of political marketing. Again, it comes down to the product over the spin. Well, we can always live in hope...