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At Transmit HQ we’ve been working hard on creating the landing page for Brand Regard (formerly known as Brand Capital – we changed the name) in preparation for opening the service up for the public. We’re happy to announce that the new page is now ready! Check it out at www.brandregard.com.

We’ve also added some information about the product’s main features, our team and our partner program.

Brand Regard is currently in closed beta and will launch in a few weeks time. If you can’t wait until then, join our mailing list and we’ll send you an invite.

We also just launched the Brand Regard blog, where this post was originally published.

Last February Procter & Gamble launched a campaign, created by the ad agency Wieden+Kennedy, called The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (aka Old Spice Man). The rest is internet history. The ad has become wildely popular and the original video has raked in over 15 million views on youtube.

Regardless of the ad’s success, marketing tracking agency WARC reports that sales of the specific product the Old Spice Man is holding are down by 7%. Some agree and explain, others refute.

One thing worth looking at, apart from the sales data, is how many people have been searching for “old spice” and how the campaign impacted the search volume. Below is the timeline of how often people have been searching for “old spice” in Google (from Google trends).

Old Spice - Google Trends

Notice how the campaign only hit the viral sweet-spot in July. According to BrandWeek, the 7% figure is for 52 weeks ending in June the 13th 2010. The viral effect only takes off in July, which isn’t included in the data.

The campaign’s impact on search volume from February to June might not be reflected in sales, but the jury is still out on the impact of the viral aspect, which only just took off.

Big day today as we open the gates of Brand Capital.

Brand Capital Screenshot

For now it’s only a tiny gap for a handful of Alpha testers with whom we plan to iron out the major bugs and nuances before migrating to Beta phase. Still a massive effort and a great milestone.

In this release we have put all our time and focus into the signup, upload and sharing features. It should only take a few minutes to create and configure your brand toolkit online and start sharing with employees and agencies alike.

We’re gathering feedback using Get Satisfaction and already have this wonderful praise in from the rock star CEO of Clara.

Great Tool!

This is an awesome Web App – I look forward to using it with my Team

Gunnar Holmsteinn CEO Clara

If you are interested in participating in the early testing, please sign up now as we’ll be extending the invitations during the next couple of weeks.

If you were planning to fly somewhere recently, chances are your flight was cancelled. And if so you might have cursed the country that prevented you from keeping your schedule. The Icelandic government has teamed up with the tourist industry to take advantage of the publicity surrounding the volcanic ash. The result is a 5 million dollar ad-campaign called “Inspired by Iceland” which has the goal of getting travellers to visit the country this summer. It features celebrities like Eric Clapton, Stephen Fry and others who tell stories about how they experienced the country and why they found it inspiring.

Although most locals agree that in the long run the eruption will be good for the tourist industry, there is concern about the short term effect. The fear is that people might be afraid that their visit to the country could be disrupted by the ash.

On the campaign’s site right now there’s a video with Viggo Mortensen singing the country’s praises. The site will  launch officially in a few days and then other celebrity videos will be added. Whether the campaign has enough creative sparkle to get the message across is still up for debate. While the volcano is in full swing people might simply not want to risk being stuck for days on an island against their will (kind of like the plot in Lost). What is your opinion? Is this money well spent?

As we might have mentioned we are currently developing 2 web applications and for the last few weeks we have been mastering the business plan. It was always there but now it is as close to perfect as it is going to get. It can be really frustrating writing a business plan; basically you sit in front of your computer for days brainstorming clever ways to make your idea look brilliant. But an idea is only a fraction of the process of making a company a successful one, the execution is 99% of the whole process.

Last night I started reading a book that a fellow entrepreneur lent to me called “Founders at work” it is about founders of startups such as 37 signals, Hotmail and many more. The first chapter is about how PayPal became successful and eventually was acquired by eBay for 1.5 billion dollars. The initial idea was making a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company (whatever that is). But soon after they got investment from Nokia Ventures, they changed their business model completely. Max Levchin PayPal’s co-founder claims that the main reason the investor didn’t freak out was because they belived in the team and saw that it was obvious that they were able to adapt to different circumstances.

What I take from the PayPal story is that innovation isn’t only one idea that you develop and hope that will become a success. It is series of innovative ideas that might sculpt your idea into a successful business. So even if our business looks solid according to the plan, I am keeping the option open that in the near future we might change it completely.

Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce.com, posted an article on Techcrunch today titled “The Facebook Imperative“. In it he writes about what drove him to found Salesforce.com:

I quit my job at Oracle in 1999 because I couldn’t stop thinking about a simple question: “Why isn’t all enterprise software like Amazon.com?”

More than a decade after Benioff asked himself this question, it is still timely. Why is so much enterprise software ugly and difficult to use?

Benioff had a point and Salesforce.com has been a firebrand for Software as a Service since 1999 – and still is.

Benioff’s phrase sounds like a mission statement for Brand Capital: Software that makes Brand Asset Management as easy and painless to use as Amazon.com.

Tomorrow is the deadline for applying for the job of “brand communication manager” – a position in the UK Conservative Party’s General Election campaign team.

Regardless of what one thinks of politics, the Conservatives have been running a very successful rebranding campaign since David Cameron took the helm in late 2005. He even changed the logo to a tree when going green was still ahead of the curve.

It will be interesting to follow the general election here in the UK from a “branding” perspective and to see how Labour will react to the tree hugging conservatives.

Of course, in politics, an overzealous emphasis on branding has a name: Spin.

Let’s hope no party’s position of “brand communication manager” will evolve into the position of “spin manager”.

I happen to love www.youtube.com and I can get lost in there for hours looking at various videos. The other day I was listening to Owl City songs and then I saw this video with some guy who made his own version and video of the song. Check it out:

If you watched the whole thing you might have noticed a question in the end: “What’s your fave store to get lost in?”.

I immediately thought that this could be a great slogan for an Ikea commercial. The song fits perfectly. I visualize a couple or roommates picking up everything they need to furnish their apartment and getting lost in the process and discovering the wonders of Ikea!

Judging by the reaction from the Ikea employees however, this campaign will probably never be made.

Every Christmas every media is filled with commercials and most of them are simply annoying. But there is always one commercial I never mind seeing every Christmas and it is from Coca Cola:

On behalf of Transmit, I wish all our readers a merry Christmas.

Google Goggles is a new application from Google for android phones. I took a look at their promo and it looks good. Hartmut sounds a little bit like a German character in South Park, but the video is brilliant. The next step would be to get an android phone for Christmas!

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