September 23 Luncheon: Building and Selling a Brand Image

"Unfortunately, the concept of 'branding' has been diluted into meaningless business jargon," says Chris Houchens, our September speaker. But that doesn't mean that sound branding fundamentals are any less important.

The author of Brand Zeitgeist, Houchens will showcase the importance of developing and maintaining a brand for marketing supremacy. His lively session will feature several real world branding hits and misses.

Houchens is a marketing speaker and author. He has spent years working in both media and marketing including as the operations manager of a radio group, as the online director of a newspaper, and as the marketing director of a healthcare organization.

In addition to speaking to groups around the world about common sense marketing, Chris has been blogging his insights on marketing since 2005. The Shotgun Marketing Blog has been listed as a top marketing blog by several ranking lists. Read it at http://ShotgunConcepts.com

Tennessee Brand Undergoing Some Modifications

Click here to check out a story about a Tennessee brand that might be making some modifications to its products. I was worried that Cracker Barrel was going to add fish tacos to its menu "in an effort to boost profits and sales at a time of intense industry competition, therefore ushering in a more aggressive period of new product news and customer diversification." But it looks like they're adding some breakfast skillets, which seems appropriate - maybe they'll be positioned as the south's rendition of fajitas. Should we consider these skillets a significant enough product development initiative to bring in bigger crowds? If so, expect to wait 25 minutes instead of the usual 15 for a table on the weekends. (The quotes are mine, but I'm sure someone said it during a meeting somewhere.)

Tennessee Brand Says "Socialize liberally. Drink conservatively."

Check out this Ad Week blog entry about one of everyone's favorite Tennessee brands getting into the mix (no pun intended) of political advertising.