Branding

Steve Spangler has managed to make science cool … and at the same time earn a living. For the teacher turned retailer, the focus has remained the same: to educate kids, particularly about science. And if that means turning bottles of Diet Coke into erupting geysers in the process, all the better. Founded in 1990, Steve Spangler Science is the offshoot of a man's lifelong obsession with science. After 11 years as a science teacher, Spangler shifted directions. He decided to bring his passion for science to a wider audience, and a mail order catalog offering educational toys and science-related products was born.

A POPULAR new reality series on CBS, “Undercover Boss,” shows senior managers working incognito as everyday employees. As for employees who are not secretly C.E.O.’s, they have champions, too, in marketers that are devoting ad campaigns to workers.

As someone who has been working in retail direct marketing for more than three decades – quite possibly longer than anyone else in the room at today’s Retail Innovation & Marketing Conference – Williams-Sonoma CMO Pat Connolly has a tremendous amount of insight on retail, traditional marketing, and how the internet can help retailers save money and increase their brand.

Retailers must make a concerted effort to get consumers' attention in today's fast-paced environment, where prospects are subjected to hundreds of adverting messages a day. When it comes to brand recognition, integration is the name of the game. For consumers to really connect with a brand, they must have the same brand experience online, in-store or with the catalog.

Today's teens have been inundated from their earliest recollections with advertising, be it on TV, online, in their favorite video games and movies, and the list goes on. To effectively sell to this generation of consumers, Under Armour studies what makes it tick. What are teens thinking about? How do they behave? What motivates them to purchase?

Some niches are tough. But during a recession, the overcrowded home decoration space is brutal. Forget waiting for end-of-season sales; companies are discounting new merchandise. It’s at times like these that your investment in brand differentiation pays off ... if you did it correctly.

As a career business journalist, my first job out of college was back in the early '80s as an assistant editor with Catalog Showroom Business. This business magazine went belly-up by the late '80s. So, too, did much of the catalog showroom industry over the next decade or so. Oddly enough, all these years later, I see some common bonds between that business and the tri-channel retailing business of today, which I'll get to in a moment.

Magazine Space Ads Grab New Names for Paul Fredrick; GreatSkin's Unique Affiliate Program Delivers Prospects; Zappos Turns to Magalogs for Leads.

Having come a long way from its modest beginning as a chain of floral shops in metropolitan New York, 1-800-Flowers.com usually has set trends, not followed them.

Can you maintain your brand’s “look and feel” on an outbound phone call? Does your fulfillment packaging reinforce your company’s “one thing”? Is your brand clearly understood in your print catalog, but misinterpreted in your e-mail campaigns?