The Tide is Rising
There are some pundits writing that brand is dead in the digital age. Others, like me, say it is even more important today because of digital.
I saw one great example of brand and brand extension that is cleaning up across the country. The best-selling laundry detergent wants to be the best-selling dry cleaners. When you say Tide Dry Cleaners, you automatically think that whites will be whiter and colors will be brighter.
Tide also has a huge advantage with nearly 1 million Facebook fans and a gazillion loyal customers who have trusted the name for laundry for 60 years.
P&G, which owns Tide, also has opened Mr. Clean Car Wash in many states. What I really like about what P&G is doing is that it’s staying true to the brand when it opens stores of any kind.
Tide is infusing the Tide Dry Cleaners with the known Tide fragrance (rather than the chemical-based blast you get in most dry cleaners) that’s been “cozily familiar to generations of households,” the New York Times reported.
Strong brand wins and, in this case, may raise all P&G boats.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle. After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant. He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.” Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.” One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College. Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board. Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.
