Here’s an interesting editorial from “Ad Age” Magazine about branding and owning a word.  It starts by explaining the the success of Barack Obama’s campaign and how he owns the word “change” and then goes on to talk about success and failure of other companies slogans.  I like the quick blurb about how an individual can own a word to help jump start their career.  I thought about this for myself for quite some time — what is my “brand?”  I haven’t come up with it yet, but I feel it’s something I need to do in order to crystallize what I’m about before making my next career move.  How about you?  What is your brand?

Here’s a link to the article

Why You Can (and Can’t) Learn From Obama

Change Isn’t Always the Best Prescription

By Al Ries

Published: February 04, 2008

LA Times is using 10 billboards scattered around LA to play 8-seconds news spots for vehicles struck in traffic.  This is cool, yet scary at the same time.  Cool in that it’s a great way for the LA Times to remind potential customers of their existence and great for customers because in an emergency, important news can be relayed to them (although, this purpose is not stated in the article.  It seems their initial intent is to broasdcast human interest stories).  It’s scary because it distracts drivers from their primary task of driving.  I wonder whether these signs are timed to only broadcast during times of heavy traffic so as to avoid being the cause of traffic.  It could be doubly cool and scary if they integrate a small radio transmitter into the sign so you can hear sound from the billboard too.  They already have a still sign like this near LAX.  It broadcasts on an AM frequency.

I wonder who is providing the service for Clear Channel, or whether this is technology that was developed within Clear Channel.  Regardless, providing the infrastructure for this could be a good business.  I imagine the ultimate intent of who ever own this technology/business is to selling ads across their network of signs.  What about this on a smaller level?  Like providing digital signage for fast food restaurants?  or stores?  It would be nice to be able to quickly update menus, prices, and sale signage without having to print something new.  It would be nice to own the infrastructure behind it …  opportunity maybe?  I’ve seen a few small companies trying to do this.

As for the billboards themselves, I’m not sure if I would like this in my neck of the woods.  Fortunately, in SD, billboards are tightly controlled, so there aren’t very many of them around the county.  I personally like the regulation because I find billboards distracting and tacky.

L.A. Times Posts News to Digital Billboards

Daily to Target Commuters to Increase Awareness of Local News Content

By Andrew Hampp

Published: March 05, 2008