What Happens When A Company Veers Away From Its Brand Color? Starbucks Goes Red This Holiday Season

Starbucks goes red? When a company intentionally veers from its traditional brand color, there better be a darned good reason. Starbucks for instance has joined the Product (red) brigade, spearheaded by U2's Bono to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

It's marketing for a cause and it's a beautiful thing. When companies make themselves productive beyond the scope of their own profitability, it is just a blessing not only to the organization but to the world



Seeing a company that contributes to the world's sustainability is impressive. Companies in the private sector do not operate in a vacuum, but in a world where at some point everyone is interconnected.

Every time you buy coffee at Starbucks, five cents will be contributed to Africa. It's not a lot but it can save lives. It's a good start. When company brands as big as Starbucks start to take notice, I certainly do hope others will follow. This is a great way to blend holiday marketing as well.

Yahoo's Re-organization - Damage Control?

Yahoo has been in a bit of trouble. It might have declined the Microsoft buy-out offer in a futile attempt to stay afloat. Yahoo, the company and as the brand is suffering extreme criticism from all sides. Executives are leaving for greener pastures, which only goes to show that something may be amiss within those hallowed walls.

That's not to say that not many have left Google and Microsoft. I'm sure many talents there have also left in search for the better opportunity. And may have found them through other smaller companies that are still able to provide them the leeway and freedom that most probably the big guns have now refused to shell out.

But as for Yahoo, the company is indeed on shaky ground. With one executive after another publicly exiting. There must be a very think atmosphere of frustration and anxiety there. I do hope the restructuring does help them figure out what happens.

Analysts seem to think that Yahoo is the result of death by product management. Perhaps it's true, but how come the multiple product perspective didn't impact Google? There must be something wrong with the business strategy or management that's affecting how the company operates from inside out.

It would be shame though to lose Yahoo. I do think they are still one of the best in the online business world and I do hope they figure this out. I've seen Yahoo grow throughout the years and they are still quite admirable although they aren't number 1. Number 2 still isn't a bad place to be.

The World's Number 1 Brand Goes To Google. Big Surprise... Not!

Companies in the industry of technology are growing ever more powerful and do not seem daunted by the mounting pressures of the stock market. Do you know why? Let me tell you a little secret... it's because the prevalence of the online world is just beyond the normal boundaries of trading and consumer goods. Online services are not normally real products but knowledge sharing that is not affected by the rising prices of crude oil! Well not directly anyway... but you get my point.

Technology companies, including Google, Microsoft and Apple, accounted for 28 of the top 100 brands in Millward Brown's survey. They represented a combined brand value of $US187.5 billion.

Anyway Google tops the list of Millward Brown's survey. According to Sydney's Morning Herald, the search engine's marque is worth more than $86.1 billion ($94 billion), up 30% on last year, according to the Brandz list from Millward Brown Optimor published yesterday, which calculates the proportion of sales driven by brand.

The top five is unchanged from 2007, with Google followed by General Electric, Microsoft, Coca Cola and China Mobile. Wal-Mart, Citi and Toyota dropped down the rankings.

When Two Well-known Brands Collide (Volkswagen And Porsche)

Here's amazing news from Forbes.com on the possible fusion of well-known car brands Volkswagen and Porsche!

Porsche's announcement on Monday that it had decided to take a majority stake in Volkswagen came just hours after Volkswagen itself announced it was taking majority control of Swedish truck maker Scania. Two big moves within 24 hours? It was all in a day's work for the 70-year-old grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, and typical of his bold leadership.

Piech is the chairman of Volkswagen, but also one of the biggest shareholders in Porsche, with a 13% stake. Born in Vienna, Austria, Piech cut his teeth in the car business, having started out designing and engineering new Porsche models when he was just 26.

In his golden years he has been doing a lot more corporate engineering, facilitating talks between German truck maker MAN and Swedish rival Scania, and pushing for a three way tie-up with Volkswagen's Brazilian truck business last year. That now process should get into gear now that there is little doubt about the future ownership of Scania.

In fact the tie-up of VW, Scania and Porsche spells a European auto giant that makes everything from affordable cars, to trucks, to city buses, to luxury cars and limos. Will Piech want to spin off the truck division? Probably not. The truck making industry is on a roll at the moment and companies like Scania, Volvo and Daimler are reeling from the strong demand in Eastern Europe and other emerging markets.

What Piech really wants is full, unadulterated control of Volkswagen by Porsche itself. That may seem odd to the uninitiated, since Piech is already VW's chairman. But there is a there is a psychological element behind his strategy. "Piech comes from the family that founded both Porsche and VW and he has been working his whole life to bring them back together," said Roman Mathyssek, senior auto analyst for Global Insight.

Volkswagen came about in 1933 when Ferdinand Porsche, Piech's grandfather, was commissioned by the German government to great a "volkswagen"--literally "people's car" in German--that could carry five people. The "volkswagen" went on to become its own corporate entity, though the ties to Porsche have remained strong over the decades.

Today, though there are myriad family interests to complicate matters, nothing much happens at Porsche without Piech's say so. Soon enough, nothing much will happen at Volkswagen without Porsche-as-a-company's say so.

Hence the drive to get Porsche's official stake in Volkswagen above 50%. For Porsche to use Volkswagen's research and development expertise or collaborate on a project, it'll need to go through the right corporate channels. Porsche may also push for restructuring at Volkswagen. At the moment, the State of Lower Saxony, a region in Germany that is the second largest shareholder of Volkswagen, is loathe to make job cuts at VW, but Piech may well see inefficiencies that need addressing and want to use Porsche to direct the change.

In a nutshell, says Mathyssek, Porsche will benefit from VW's breadth of technical expertise (think Audi) while VW will benefit from Porsche as a stable majority shareholder. Above all, Piech will realize his vision.

(image from Weblo.com)