Brighter Marketing Network...from Brighter Products (U.S.) to...
Recently, the Brighter Marketing Network has expanded with two new blogs, with similar themes but differing geographies. Both Brighter Products and Brighter E.U. focus on consumer products, branding, packaging, marketing, etc.
...to Brighter E.U....and keep an eye out for...
Brighter E.U., as the name implies, is about products from the European Union, and is run by Rosie Reay, operating out of Spain. And Kyra Dawson, who is also known as the Brighter Scribe, is bringing Brighter Canada online in a similar vein. Meantime, don’t forget to visit Brighter Naming, our flagship site, for all your international naming and tagline needs.
...Brighter Canada!
I’ve got the U.S. beat with Brighter Products, and some imperial ambitions, which is why I get to post on topics such as Argentine wine, until Athol either reins me in, or launches Brighter Latin America.
Check them out—you’ll find some cross-pollination with Brand Name Awards, particularly in the Design area, but both of these new blogs in my (not necessarily unbiased) opinion provide useful information and a fun read for any audience.
–Greg Marus
Though the latest incarnation/revival of BrandNameAwards is less than a year old, we thought it would be enjoyable to emulate the events we’ve been covering by presenting a few awards of our own. Decisions of the judges are final and completely arbitrary; the only prize is increased recognition here at BrandNameAwards (and hopefully some more traffic to the winners’ web sites).
In no particular order, the winners are:
Most Unusual Competition Award
To Napa Books, of Helsinki, Finland, for its annual Napa Flipbook Competition. (Design-Graphic, and Writing-Open/Mixed/Other)
High-Wattage Award for Most Famous Celebrity at an Event
To the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt National Design Awards luncheon, which featured First Lady Michelle Obama. (Design-Fashion)
Hardest-to-Classify Award
To Knitting Daily, for a special Fall 2012 publication, Jane Austen Knits, a knitting magazine inspired by the works of Jane Austen and the Regency era. (We wound up parking this one under both Design-Fashion and Writing-Fiction.)
Most Specialized Competition Award (tie)
To the Masonry Veneer Manufacturers Association (MMVA) for its 3rd annual MMVA Design Awards (Design/Materials-based); and to the American Academy of Neurology Foundation for its 2012 Neuro Film Festival (Video-Other Video Media).
Furthest Outside-the-Box Award
To Georgia Tech, for the Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition. The awards are for newly designed musical instruments. (Design-Other).
Best Choice for a Venue Award
To the Marketing Agencies Association Worldwide (MAAW), for holding its MAAW Globe Awards ceremonies in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. (Marketing-Award winners).
Biggest Prize Award
To the Hamdan International Photography Awards (HIPA), which had a top cash prize of $100,000. If the winner heard about HIPA from BrandNameAwards—hey, throw us a bone! (Photography-Open/Mixed)
Best Idea for An Educational Stop on a Vacation with the Kids Award
To the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site (Illinois), sponsors of the North American Indian Photography Contest. (Photo-Themed)
Most Unusual Call for Entries Award
To PR Daily, for seeking entries nominating new awards categories for its PR Daily Awards. (PR-Call for Entries)
Best Trivia Award
To Yahoo!, for bringing to our attention the fact that the term “Emmy” is a feminization of “Immy”, which is short for the image orthicon tube, which was originally built to guide flying explosive weapons in World War II. (Video-TV)
The “Better Late Than Never” Award
To Cinema Eye Honors for its Legacy Award, which will be given in January, 2012 to the documentary Titicut Follies. The film was released in 1967. (Video-Film)
The “Smartest Guy in the Room” Award
To (who else?) the UK’s Royal Society, for its 2nd Notes and Records Essay Award, for “…researchers in the history of science who have completed a postgraduate degree within the past five years. The essay must be based on original research; not previously published; and relate to aspects of the history of science covered by the Notes and Records of the Royal Society.” (Writing-Nonfiction)
Least-Likely Pairing of Sponsor and Medium Award (tie)
To the Council of Churches of the Ozarks for its 180 Film Festival & Art Celebration (Video-Multiple Video Media); and to the Picayune Writer’s Group of Picayune, Mississippi, for its haiku contest. (Writing-Poetry).
To which we can only add:
Picayune Writer’s
Group; Mississippi hotbed
Of haiku; who knew?
Happy New Year, from the team at BrandNameAwards!
Our U.S.-based visitors will be well aware that we are at the beginning of the holiday season, with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up on Thursday, November 24. We here at BrandNameAwards are thankful for all of those who stop by the site, and also for all of our sponsors. We’d like to welcome a new one: Film Movement, a DVD of the month club for foreign and independent films. With the coming of colder weather, why not check out some good indoor entertainment, with Film Movement, or perhaps one of our other sponsors, Brady Games?
However you choose to spend your time, we at BrandNameAwards wish all of you the best for the upcoming holiday season, and the New Year in 2012.
Film Movement is the DVD-of-the-month-club for new award-winning independent and foreign films.
You’ve probably noticed we’ve made some recent changes at Brand Name Awards, to provide our visitors with a faster, more productive experience here.
The biggest change has been our introduction of subpages, so our readers can go directly to the information of greatest interest to them. Each of our main pages (Advertising, Marketing, Design, PR, Photography, Video, and Writing) now all have links to subpages. The categories—and even the types of categories—differ from one main page to the next, reflecting the different interests and concerns of the various reader communities. Additionally, all the main pages now also have a link to our Pages Directory.
And, for those pressed for time and with a need to be very current, we are now providing Twitter tweets from @brandnameawards about all our posts.
Welcome to our latest version of Brand NameAwards—and keep checking in for more developments in the future!
During the dot com boom days, the word branding was misused in all directions. And the worst offenders were the big investors and Wall St finaglers who tried to instantly build brand with no substance by throwing money at certain companies. “Never mind profits, just create lots of buzz” was a common rallying cry.
Well now I think it is time to talk branding again. But proper branding for all size organizations. Big companies usually have trained professionals and systems in place to grow their brands, plus they have different problems and opportunities. But for the rest of you who never studied branding at college, or those who think branding is spending money on advertising, or worse still, branding is creating logos and graphics or a new PR plan, here is a basic cook book that shows a CEO of a smaller company how to properly create and manage a brand. If you have been properly practicing integrated marketing you are probably half way there. If you have been watching the brand magic Apple has been disbursing based on the backs of a very technology based company, then you can’t say it is just for big consumer giants.
For those of you who want to learn what a brand really is, and how to measure and create and maintain it, this big is a perfect primer. It is an especially good read for the product manager, marketing manager or CEO who did not study marketing formally. Plus it has practical, tactical, implementation steps and plans to get the whole company on the same page. Become a known brand in your market niche and all of marketing and sales will be a lot easier and cheaper. Certainly do not spend much money on advertising until you have first spent some pocket change on this book or similar ones targeting small businesses.. where the challenges and available staffing is so different to the large brands of the world.
See www.BrighterBranding.com for more details. See www.FodenPress.com to order a copy or to download. Also available from popular bookstores, Amazon and on Kindle.
Last Sunday, The Book of Mormon ran away with the Tony Awards. Wasn’ t it refreshing to see that a semi-religious play could be so well received without everyone falling over their shoelaces pretending to be politically correct? Does this mean more people will be interested in the Mormon religion now? Or just their great music? Or is it simply that Broadway has found a new source of ideas for musicals and this is the harbinger of more musicals with a strong religious connection?
Come to think of it, one of the other nominated plays was about the religion of business – which probably has a bigger following than any other denomination!
Or are the Mormons simply an easy target? In my little book Are There Wheelchairs in Heaven – And other questions to ask your gods, I actually ask the question: “Are some religions more popular simply because they have better music?” (See www.FodenPress.com).
So before you take anymore potshots at the Mormons, think hard about the strange and unusual and local customs that have crept into your religion, and how we have narrowed down the world to just a few gods.. usually with their own unique geographic area. If you sit back and look at it logically, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. We just don’t know if god(s) even exists, let alone if we selected (or usually our parents selected for us) the right one! But the right kind of music and fellowship brings peace to a lot of us, even if we are buddhists, baptists, hindus, jews or atheists.
This reminds me of the major brands of the world. A lot of it doesn’t make sense unless you look at it as a historical development by common herds of people finding comfort over a long time frame.
Athol Foden, who had been managing this site, has invited me to work with him to bring you even more and better information on the world of awards.
We will be providing posts and announcements concerning marketing awards, advertising awards, public relations awards, creative awards, photography awards, design awards, writing awards, branding awards, calls for entries, and more.
To those who have already visited Brandnameawards.com, welcome back! To our new visitors, welcome aboard! I look forward to providing you with all the links to all the creative awards. Please let me know about your award or competition by emailing me at greg@brandnameawards.com.
–Greg Marus
And just for fun and reference, the Major TV, Movie and Theater Awards:
People’s Choice Awards 6-Jan-12 |
SAG Awards 29-Jan-12 |
Grammy Awards 12-Feb-12 |
The Oscars 27-Feb-12 |
Primetime Emmys Jul 2012? |
Tony Awards 12-Jun-12 |
From our visitors