I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the first major conference dedicated to how the Aerospace and Defence industry can help combat climate change. The Energy and Environmental Defence and Security Conference (E2DS’09) held at the RSA, London on November 5th to 6th gave a fascinating insight. Sponsors included Rolls Royce, EADS, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Saab, Northrop Grumman, ITT, Finmeccanica, ADS, ASD and others.

The extent of the very real climate change threat that we face was hammered home by keynote speaker Dr Berrien Moore, co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

This illuminating and thought provoking conference was a result of the vision of Nick Cook, journalist and MD of Dynamixx, the organisers of the event. As Nick said, “Our mission is to create a dynamic forum for the Aerospace and Defence community and so foster dialogue, debate and analysis of the many opportunities that await it in the energy and environmental arenas.”

Here at Beechwood, we’ve developed creative marcoms campaigns for our technology clients on The Greening of the Data Centre, Energy Efficiency, IT for the Environment and more. So it’s reassuring to think that, maybe one day, the Aerospace, Defence, IT and Technology sectors will all combine together to take up the challenge of climate change through collaboration and innovation.

http://dynamixx-e2d.com

With congratulations to Roz Littlewood and Graham Hart for managing such a successful event.

The recently announced, UK’s 12th annual Superbrands analysis saw Microsoft regain the number one position and Apple join the top 10 for the first time.

This yearly analysis of the top 500 brands is carried out by The Centre for Brand Analysis and measures brands not by value but by how much they are trusted by the British public. The brands are judged against three factors, quality, reliability and distinction.

It’s interesting to compare the results of this survey with the top twenty most valuable brands as detailed in a previous blog. There are some similarities, some differences and, of course, in the UK list of Superbrands, positions that may be a surprise to some of our clients in the US and EMEA

This survey defines a Superbrand as having established “the finest reputation in its field,” offering “significant emotional and/or tangible advantages over other brands, which customers want and recognise.”

Around 1,400 brands are considered by a panel of experts and more than 2,000 UK consumers take part in the voting.

The Top Twenty Five:

1 Microsoft
, 2 Rolex, 3 Google
, 4 British Airways, 5 
BBC
, 6 Mercedes-Benz
, 7 Coca-Cola, 8 
Lego
, 9 Apple, 10 Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 Virgin Atlantic, 12 Duracell, 13 Marks and Spencer, 14 Philadelphia, 15 Dulux, 16 BMW, 17 Colmans, 18 Dyson, 19 Ordnance Survey, 20 Nintendo, 21 Jaguar, 22 Sony, 23 BP, 24 Fisher-Price and 25 Andrex.

Working with American technology-based clients consequently means working with our cousins from across the water. American Craig Storti’s book Americans at Work is very insightful. It offers advice for those who need to understand more about how Americans work and there are some fundamental differences. Beechwood has selected some direct quotes on the differences in business culture and they are found in one of our Thinklets. Enjoy!

I’ve just reread the late Paul Arden’s  ’It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be’. It’s a gem of a little book that uses the creative processes of good advertising as a metaphor for business practice. Rather like the way that Machiavelli’s The Prince is written about power and government but is used as a guide to management.

As executive creative director of Saatchi and Saatchi, and I quote Dave Trott writing in The Independent newspaper, “Arden was the ringmaster behind the whole creative circus that saw British Airways become ‘The World’s Favourite Airline’ The Independent become the new intelligentsia’s favourite newspaper, Margaret Thatcher the nation’s favourite leader and Silk Cut their favourite fag (English slang for a cigarette for any American readers).”

One fascinating extract from the book in particular got me thinking about the strategy, positioning and marketing of brands for business start-ups. And how it’s essential when developing a brand from the beginning, from a blank canvass so to speak, to have a clear, simple focus and vision.

“When Charles Saatchi started his ad agency it was regarded as a creative boutique. His brief for the company stationery was to make it look like a bank (about fifteen years later they tried to buy one bank).

He also invested a third of his capital in a full-page advertisement in The Times.

The effect was to make his creative boutique appear an established company.”

A simple, clear brand strategy with a big impact marcoms activity to help start making the brand vision a reality. But what else would you expect from Saatchi and Arden?

Google, became the world’s first $100 billion brand this week according to a report to a business analysis report by BrandZ. While studying the paper, we were all struck by the number of technology brands in the top 20. The power of the brand in the technology sector is stronger than ever and as important as ever. Especially in today’s economic climate, where the brand can help see businesses through difficult times. 

As everyone knows Google was named as a misspelling of Googol - the number one with 100 noughts after it. So, even at 100 billion, the brand has quite a few noughts to collect before it reaches parity with its parent!

Top twenty most valuable brands 2009 in $M:

Google - 100,039; Microsoft - 76,249; Coca-Cola  - 67,625; IBM - 66,622; McDonalds- 66,575; Apple - 66,113; China Mobile - 61,283; General Electric - 59,793; Vodafone 53,727; Marlboro 49,460; Wal-Mart 41,083; ICBC 38,056; Nokia 35,163; Toyota 29,907; UPS 27,842; Blackberry 27,478; HP  26,745; BMW 23,948; SAP 23,615; Disney 23,110

The creation and origins of company names – so central to their brand and image – springs up quite a few surprises. Some company names, that we now take for granted, come from interesting sources of inspiration. Others are just plain safe and dull. So let’s run through an alphabet of company names.

We start, as usual, with A is for… Apple.

Apple  - As everyone knows the Apple Macintosh is named after the American variety of apple called the McIntosh and was chosen in part because Steve Jobs had worked on an Apple Farm one summer. It is also suggested that Jobs was a great fan of The Beatles’ record label Apple. A further theory, (truth unknown) is that the Apple logo with the bite taken out was a homage to Alan Turing.

Alan Turing is considered the father of modern computer science. He worked at Bletchley Park during World War II as a code-breaker and helped cracked the Enigma machine. He was also a homosexual who, when outed, it is rumoured, committed suicide by eating from a cyanide laced apple.

Alfa Romeo -  the company was originally known as ALFA, an acronym for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili. When Nicola Romeo bought ALFA in 1915, his surname was added to make the brand name we know now.

Adidas - the German sports-good company takes its name from its founder Adolf Dassler or ‘Adi’ Dassler, as he was known.

Adobe -  it is said that the U.S. software company was named after the little creek that ran past the homes of founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke.

Aldi - the German discounter store (see Chris’s blog ‘Flight to Value’) is also named after its founders. It takes the first two letters of the family name ‘Albrecht’ and the first two letters of the word ‘discount’. Cunning huh?

Asda - the British Supermarket chain comes from an abbreviation of Associated Dairies.

Asus - the company takes its name from, Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology. The first three letters of the name were dropped to place the company name in a higher position in the alphabet. Perhaps we should change our name to Eechwood.

Aston Martin - the British car company’s name comes from the founder Lionel Martin and the Aston Hill races near Birmingham, UK where the company was first founded.

Atari - this word comes from the language of the Japanese board game ‘Go’. ‘Atari’ is when all of an opponent’s stones are threatened with capture - a bit like ‘check’ in chess, apparently.

Audi - the car manufacturer was founded by Lionel Horch in 1909.  He took the name from the Latin translation of horch (hark in English). Audi is the imperative form of audire - to hear.

A&M records -  was named after its founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss.  Incidentally Moss,  also a  very successful  horse breeder, named one of his horses Zenyatta after The Police’s third album Zenyatta Mondatta.

Amstrad  - the British electronics company is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. We’re sorry Alan but when it comes to originality in name creation ‘You’re fired!’

On September 29th, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index plunged and all of its constituents’ stocks fell, all bar one: the Campbell Soup Company. Investors flocked to the iconic brand, which makes some of America’s favourite soups and its shares went up by 0.3 percent. That’s a very good clue to the type of brands that will prosper in 2009 - those that represent good quality and excellent value for money.

According to Interbrand, as value for money rises up the consumers’ agenda, two early beneficiaries of consumers’ changing mood have been German hard-discount supermarket chains Aldi and Lidl (read Mark’s blog on brand names, coming soon), which have been gaining market share across Europe from established giants. It used to be shameful for the middle-class to shop at discounter stores but now their brands suggest intelligent buying.

For consumer, read business. I believe now is the time for agencies to respond as partners to their clients in these challenging times with solutions that deliver good quality and excellent value for money. The flight to value is for all of us to embrace. As a marketing agency, Beechwood have always liked to think we offer our clients value. And with the current weakness of sterling against the dollar we now offer our US clients more value than ever.

The land of Route 66 and the gas station diner, the good old US of A is well known for its love of the automobile. So the following may come as something of a surprise. Especially when you consider that this all happened, way back when, in a twenty-year period between 1897 and 1916.

1897 - The first electric taxis hit the streets of New York City early in the year.

1910 - The Pope Manufacturing Company of Connecticut becomes the first large-scale American electric automobile manufacturer. The electric automobile is in its heyday. Of the 4,192 cars produced in the United States, 28 percent are powered by electricity, with others powered by steam. Electric autos represent about one-third of all cars found on the roads of New York City, Boston and Chicago.

1916 - A man by the name of Woods invents the first hybrid car, combining an electric motor and an internal combustion engine. This predates the Toyota Prius by an amazing 81 years.