Millward Brown Optimor released the 2009 BrandZ Top 100 and Brand Curve recently posted the highlights from the findings.
Jeremy Bullmore, author of Behind the Scenes in Advertising, columnist of ‘Dear Jeremy’, chairman of J. Walter Thompson Co. and subsequently of WPP Group, and Director of the Guardian, provided an introductory commentary for the BrandZ 2009 report. 

Bullmore argues against the notion that brands were invented by manipulative marketeers to pursuade consumers into purchasing high-priced but otherwise “unremarkable” commidities.
He claims that we’ve been building brands since 1955 when Sidney Levy and Burleigh Gardner’s The Product and the Brand was published by …read more

The Wal-Mart logo has been replaced with an updated, “sunnier” version.  Wal-Mart hasn’t updated its logo since 1992 (you can see the evolution of the Wal-Mart logo on the Brand New blog.  Wal-Mart claims the new logo is meant to support its overall strategy to change its reputation from behomoth to local retailer of the people.  I’m not sure if anyone is going to buy that, but nevertheless, the majority of us (myself included) still shop there.

What do you think of this logo?  I can’t help but be reminded of Cingular when I look at it.  Take the poll below …read more

Darren Rowse of Problogger.net fame and a member of the b5media leadership team (of which Brandcurve is a network blog), published a great post today about the Top 10 Ways to Hurt Your Blog’s Brand by Commenting on Other Blogs. 
Here are a few of my favorites from the list: