Just a quick word on two marketing efforts I heard about over the last couple of days.
Excellent!
Research in Motion is rebranding itself...as Blackberry! A few folks have known all along that RIM is the maker of Blackberry. Most folks just think of and/or reference Blackberry, both as the company and as a product. For a company desperate to stay in existence, spending thousands of dollars to rebrand itself as what folks already know them as? Waste of time, money and good will.
Usually, a big marketing agency that is brought in to help 'save' a company defaults to the rebranding strategy - because they have gotten lazy and used to having large budgets with which to work.
No marketer can (or should) be tasked with saving a company or getting sales to a certain number if the product is bad, doesn't work or isn't something the consumer wants.
Personally, I'll stick with the micro-brews!