In honor of Paul Stanley’s 60th birthday, here are a few lessons we can learn from the iconic rock band Kiss about branding.

1. Make sure your product is right first

It took over three years and wasn’t until they released their third album that Kiss finally found their sound with their signature song “Rock and Roll All Nite.”

2. Be different

Yes they built on the success of artists like Alice Cooper, David Bowie and the New York Dolls, but no one would confuse Kiss, their make up and outfits, and their epic stage shows for any other band.

3. Design a great logo

 

 

 

No comment necessary.

4. Evolve,but don’t change

Kiss certainly went through their ups and downs, but they managed to return to their core and find new ways to connect with new audiences through the years.

5. Don’t be afraid to have people hate you

Great brands are polarizing. They have fans who love them and detractors who hate them. What they don’t have are people who are ambivalent. If people just ‘like’ your brand, you’re in trouble.

Happy birthday, Starchild.

Forget the buzzword, what is true innovation? How should it be used and how does it affect our everyday lives? Harvey Briggs takes a critical look at how the concept of innovation is used today, and what it should be in this months Innovation Management post.

And not the way they were forty years ago when Pinto’s were exploding on highways and byways across the country.

In the category that matters most when it comes to volume in the U.S. Ford has laid down the gauntlet at this year’s North American International Auto Show with the 2013 Fusion.

Not content to have Hyundai be the style leader in the category, they’ve updated the shape with a style that appears to be both contemporary and timeless without being generic.

Not content to have Toyota be the green leader in the category, they’ve updated their hybrid to reach 47 mpg city and added an electric model with a range extending gas motor that gets the equivalent of 100 mpg.

Not content to just offer something for the ecoheads, there’s an available 2.0 liter engine that makes nearly 240 hp and can be had with all-wheel drive.

Last year when I bought my Audi, the Fusion was a very close second. With the new styling, engine options and other updates, it goes right to the top of my list when I start shopping again next year.

The quality of questions we ask determines the level of the knowledge we gain.

If you want to get more out of work, school, meetings, life; learn to ask better questions.

Shakespeare famously wrote, “That which we call a rose. By any other name would still smell as sweet.”

This is great advice for marketers, and the folks at Sunsweet have taken it to heart.

Remember prunes? Yeah, those wrinkly things that old people eat to help them go? Well, it seems as though they weren’t selling so well to the younger generations. So rather than just trying to reposition prunes, they’ve renamed them.

Prunes are now, dried plums. Perfect. We like plums. We like dried fruit.

And now they’ve taken it one step further and consumerized them, creating Plum Amazins. They’re chopped dried plums and a little sunflower oil.

New form. New positioning. New name. New life.

Well done.