Filed under: Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Marketing and advertising, United Parcel’B’ (UPS)

This post is one in a series on prominent company nicknames. See all 25, and share your thoughts and memories about Huge Brown below in the comments.

The simplicity of a brand name or symbol confers status on a company. Decades ago, the symbol might literally have been a stock symbol: the oldest companies got one letter ticker symbols from the New York Stock Exchange. United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) now gets that status by taking an entire color: brown. (Granted, it’s not a primary color like IBM’s Large Blue, but it still shows the company’s clout.)

The company first started using its trademark brown trucks in the 1920s when it delivered appliances and other goods for department stores, states Mike Brewster, author of Driving Change: The UPS Approach to Business. Pullman brown was a good choice because “their department store clients wanted the company to be more under-stated, because the stores didn’t want the fact that they no longer had their own trucks highlighted.” That, and the dark trucks were easier to keep looking clean.

Brown is much more than a truck color now. It’s the uniform. It’s the logo. It’s what the company calls itself in commercials. UPS employees bragging about their loyalty will state they “bleed brown.” This year the company sponsored a horse named Massive Brown, which won two-thirds of the Triple Crown.

But, hard as it is to believe now, UPS nearly gave up its trademark color. “The company nearly changed the color in the ’90s during one of several re-brandings, but decided to stick with brown, much to the disappointment of many in the company,” says Brewster. “But the ‘What can Brown do for You?’ campaign has given the color new life at the company.”

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Filed under: Industry, Consumer experience, Ford Motor (F), Marketing and advertising

This post is one in a series on prominent company nicknames. See all 25, and share your thoughts and memories about Ford below in the comments.

I didn’t grow up in one of those families that placed a high premium on American-made goods. If the Japanese can make it better, we’ll purchase it from them! was the general consensus. And those foreign autos served the Harrows well. My parents purchased their 1984 Toyota Tercel when it was new, and that unattractive but reliable compact was part of the family through the beginning of my college career — even surviving my first, hilarious attempts to operate a manual transmission. So, it wasn’t until I moved in with my friend Debbie, as an adult, that I learned the details behind a particularly unflattering nickname for the Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F).

There are those who would joke that the letters in “FORD” stand for “Fix Or Repair Daily.” I know from experience that if you make that particular wisecrack within Debbie’s earshot, she probably won’t crack a smile. Instead, you can nearly see her wheels churning, as though she’s trying to calculate the thousands she’s already poured into her Ford Focus — or maybe she’s just trying to predict which part will break down next.

During the time we shared a mailbox, it was a not-out-of-the-ordinary occurrence for Debbie to receive recall notices bearing the familiar Ford logo. These repair-o-grams arrived with such frequency that the exact number now escapes my memory; when I questioned her via text message, she replied, “I have had six. Stupid automobile.”

Of course, some would argue that this speaks more to the peril of buying a new model the first year it’s released (which she did). Others might recommend that her vehicle is simply cursed. While parked outside our apartment, which faced a busy thoroughfare, she lost at least two rear-view mirrors to drive-by sideswipers, while I lost none. Her Focus was also the victim of a break-in, wherein she was robbed of a half-used Diet Pepsi and less than a dollar’s worth of change.

My ex-roomie’s jinx aside, Ford has been endlessly chagrined by the old “fix or repair daily” chestnut. As proof of its widespread acceptance and usage, even among the upper echelons of the financial media, the nickname was used by Forbes as the headline of a critical 2001 story about the automaker. (On the plus side, the magazine politely side-stepped the car company’s more offensive nickname: “found on road dead.”)

In fact, Ford itself has admitted to quality issues — albeit obliquely. Perhaps you caught the company’s current advertising campaign, which boasted that a recent survey (sponsored by Ford) found Ford’s quality to be on par with that of Toyota Motor (NYSE: TM). I’m no marketing exec, and so I’m not sure what reaction the ads were meant to elicit. For the record, my own take was something along the lines of: Really? Wow, and it’s only 2008. Good hustle, gang! That is to say, the campaign may have done more to underscore Ford’s years of underperformance, rather than highlighting its current accomplishments.

And, despite the promise of improved quality, there are still millions of blue oval-bearing automobiles on the road that suffer from those familiar old quality issues. A recall was issued on more than 12 million Ford vehicles in August 2007 after it was found that the cruise control system was — how to put this delicately? — highly apt to catch fire. Parts to repair the faulty system were made available just a few weeks ago, as if to drive home the brand-newness of Ford’s dedication to quality.

While Ford execs might not be fond of motorists’ cheeky nickname for its autos, it’s hard to argue that the company’s explosion-prone fleet doesn’t deserve a wee bit of flak. And, hey, things could always be worse — Fiat has been slapped with a moniker that’s similarly insulting to its cars, but ups the ante by adding an ethnic slur to the mix. Ahhh … American ingenuity at its finest!

Elizabeth Harrow is an analyst and financial writer in the research department at Schaeffer’s Investment Research. She is featured in the weekly video series Option Basics on SchaeffersResearch.com.

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Filed under: Marketing and advertising, Penney (J.C.) (JCP)

JC Penney, Inc. (NYSE: JCP) has never missed an chance to reinvent itself as often as Madonna. The semi-upscale retailer is trying to find out how to reach increasingly stubborn consumers who are not only holding back funds from discretionary buys, but are finding non-media ways to spend their time. Think those multi-platform ad dollars going into print and television are reaching younger consumers? Think again.

As a result, JC Penney has targeted young females who may play games using the web and advertising embedded into games to try and reach that elusive group. Just like when it marketed to college freshmen by sponsoring the Academy Awards, this marketing effort is highly targeted and risky, but it’s what’s needed. JC Penney recruited EVB to help it with this rather one-of-a-kind marketing campaign.

Although JC Penney has been successful at reinventing itself many times, the retailer wants to move beyond the association with moms and form relationships with the daughters, according to the retailer. Not content with a MySpace page and some display ads on female-oriented sites, JC Penney enlisted EVB to create a game called “Dork Dodge” and it was an instant hit with the test audience.

From a retailer’s perspective, this is just what is needed. Retailers trying to reach new money and recruit money from other areas need to re-think where they’re spending money, and that means thinking outside the box. Trying to reach any teen audience means nearly totally bypassing television and print and going directly to the web. And, if you can, integrating mobile into that strategy however possible.

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Filed under: Forecasts, Industry, Marketing and advertising

Advertising revenue at large media companies is being beat up by the economy. Traditional media like newspapers are losing boat loads of money to the internet.

With most massive TV network companies showing flat revenue and newspaper chains struggling with double-digit losses, the falloff in auto advertising is likely to make the second half much worse.

According to The New York Times, “In the first quarter alone, the auto industry spent $414 million less on advertising than in last year’s first quarter, according to TNS Media Intelligence.”

What can media companies do? For one thing, give money-losing companies a discount. For a newspaper or magazine to print extra pages adds only modest expense. Putting extra banners on internet sites costs next to nothing. The same is true with Television ads. They cost money to produce but not to run. In other words, cut-rate car ads are better than no car ads. Media companies may have lower margins, but at least their revenue does not have to drop of a cliff.

From a media standpoint call it the “auto company preservation act.”. Detroit may not make it out of its current dilemma alive. Any help it gets increases it chances to become healthy again. If the domestic auto business can recover, so will its marketing spending.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

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Filed under: Windows, Office, Productivity, Freeware

While personal work tends to not be physically risky, that doesn’t mean you should assume it’s not impacting your health. Carpal tunnel and Personal Vision Syndrome are no laughing matter, and it’s important to take steps to avoid them.

EyeDefender helps by starting breaks at intervals of your choosing (you select the length of the break as well). To rest your eyes you can choose either your default screensaver, an image, or the visual training mode. The training mode is a bit reminiscent of the relaxation portion of Flash Focus for the Nintendo DS.

If you stick to the schedule you set up, EyeDefender breaks will also help prevent repetetive strain injuries. Like anything designed to help your quest for improved health, you’ve got to stick with it to see benefits.

For web workers that have a hard time tearing themselves away from their screen, EyeDefender is a handy application with tremendous potential benefits. It’s free for non-commercial private use and runs on Windows only.

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Filed under: TV, General Electric (GE), Marketing and advertising, Business of sports, Media World

Maybe my pessimism about the ratings for Olympics was premature.

According to The Wall Street Journal, “More viewers tuned in to watch the first two prime-time Olympics telecasts on General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE)’s NBC network than any summer Games in a decade — even as the Games received record attention on the Internet.”

My wife has offered a plausible theory about this performance: people are curious about China and are watching the Olympics because they can not afford other forms of entertainment because of high gas prices. I’m willing to give swimmer Michael Phelps his due as well. Plus, the only other sport competing for the viewer’s attention is baseball. Pro football training camps are in full swing as well. The Olympics would be crushed if they occurred during football season or during “American Idol.” Americans do have their priorities.

Friday’s opening night ceremony attracted 34,2 million viewers, up 35% from the last summer games, according to the paper. I feel bad I missed it because it seems to have been very cool.

Keep in mind that General Electric still may face a tough slog in recouping its $894 million investment in the U.S. broadcast rights. Make goods, free commercial time, are still a possibility if the ratings go south.

The company’s Olympic dreams, though, will do little to help the company’s suffering shareholders which raises the question of why GE still owns NBC Universal.

Maybe a good Olympics will encourage Chief Executive Jeff Immelt to sell or spin-off the media business which is totally unrelated to the rest of the conglomerate.

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