Brand Blogging

I am a brand freak, fascinated by the way we marketers/researchers look to influence the purchase patterns and choices of consumers. This blog will be dedicated to my thoughts about what I see in the marketplace today in terms of branding. One area of ongoing fascination--what actors are being chosen to do voiceovers for products, particularly cars. For example, it seems Mercedes recently replaced Richard Thomas (with his trusted John Boy intonations) with Jon Hamm from "Mad Men." What shall we make of that? A refreshing of the brand voice, obviously and literally, to appeal to a younger audience perhaps, and drafting behind the nostalgia "Mad Men" evokes and the smoothness of Jon Hamm in character as Don Draper and what he as an actor personifies. His reading is crisper than Thomas's, who is breathy and somewhat high in range in his delivery, which gave the brand a sort of rarefied, ethereal feeling--something beyond the reach of "everyday people." Perhaps one of the factors that Mercedes wants now is the low, smooth tones of old school "cool"--everything "Mad Men" and "Don Draper" stand for. More on my voiceover musings later...but look next for a comparison between San Rio (Hello Kitty et al.) and Disney (Mickey et al.), with a little Legoland thrown in. Talk to you soon.