2010 saw such remarkable stumbles in brand management, it’s hard to imagine what’s to come. From NBC dragging The Tonight Show through the mud to even worse decisions by their now-parent Comcast, we’re one month in and it has already been a bad year for marketing executives in America.

The first and most well known folly came with Apple’s iPad, which was met immediately with worldwide groans at the feminine-hygiene implications of it’s already underwhelming name, which prompted one commenter to muse, “I guess there aren’t many female higher-ups in the Apple organization…”

And while there are plenty of obvious better options, including iTablet, iSlate, or giving up on the now-cliche “i” branding altogether, at least the name made sense and wasn’t totally absurd.  “iPad” conjures up the power of the iPod, and it is, in fact, a notepad-like computer. So it’s not all bad.

No, all bad would have to go to Comcast, who recently announced that they are re-branding their core services of cable, internet, and phone access by naming them XFinity.  The name has been rightly met with scoffs in the blogosphere — scoffs so loud that now Time Magazine has picked up on the act.  It’s bland, it’s dense and indecipherable, and it is clearly from “the future,” circa 1989.

Remember Dunder Mifflin Infinity?  Yeah, that was a joke about bad corporate marketing decisions.  And now “Corporate” from The Office is paralleled by Comcast’s ownership of NBC — this is life-imitating-art genius that would never sell as a movie because it’s just too absurd.

Hulu.com is an amazing website.

An ironic partnership between Fox and NBC, Hulu is a video sharing site featuring high-quality, professional videos from each network’s primetime shows and webisodes — including the popular Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, and Family Guy.  Since it’s inception just over a year ago, Hulu has also added plenty of extra content to its ranks, including viral video machines The Daily Show and The Colbert Report — and unlike YouTube, Hulu shows many of those programs in the form of full episodes, and even quite a few in HD.

And of course, the fix for YouTube was in as soon as Hulu launched.  Unlike other online content ventures from major media outlets, Hulu allows their videos to be imbedded in one’s blog or website — even full episodes.  Now, it appears as though Hulu will very quickly surpass YouTube in terms of advertising revenue:

The feat suggests traditional media companies can make money online without having to cede control to Google, as the music industry did to Apple, whose iTunes music store dominates the digital music market.

It also shows the difficulties other social networks might have in generating revenues from their amateur content.

Obviously, the ability to become associated with professional, monitored content is more appealing — for now — to advertisers than appearing on random YouTube viral videos is.  That easily explains why Hulu’s 6 million visitors is currently pulling in nearly as much as YouTube’s 80 million.  But I still believe that advertisers skittishness toward online advertising is on its way out, however slowly.

Why Coke or Pepsi or Budweiser thinks that flashing their logo on TV and in magazines is more valuable than flashing it on a website is beyond me.  Branding is branding, and they can reach just as many people on Facebook as they can in Maxim Magazine — only in Maxim, readers cannot click on their logo and be taken directly to the product’s website.  Yet advertisers still complain about “low click-through rates” — a marvelous concept that doesn’t even exist in other advertising mediums, but still manages to disappoint CEOs.

Once the internet becomes as integrated in our society as television, Hulu will have to have an audience, not just a product, to rival YouTube’s.  Until then, congratulations to them.  They’ve succeeded where other media companies have failed miserably for a decade.

More stunning analysis from Peggy Noonan via Morning Joe, in reference to Obama’s performance at the G-20 summit vs. his campaign events in Europe over the summer:

“The difference is, that was presumptuous, this is appropriate.”

Good to know that showing up for an international summit with every significant leader on the planet can be deemed ‘appropriate.’  Can’t win them all, I suppose.

[This column first appeared in FlyerGroup newspapers on June 10th, 2009]

Driving down the street the other day, I noticed something odd on the side of the road. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but I knew something was different about the intersection I was sitting at waiting for the red light to turn. I looked around for a new business, a new sign, an upgraded stoplight — anything.

Then, I spotted him. A man, dressed as Uncle Sam, complete with red and white striped pants, an American flag blazer, and a red, white and blue top hat, was dancing and waving his arms around at the passing traffic on the street.

Bear in mind that I used to live in San Francisco, and in that place, this man wouldn’t be worth a second glance, but what in the world was he doing here in quiet, suburban Avon, Ind.?

After taking a moment or two to process his flailing, I eventually realized that he was attempting to direct the attention of the passing traffic to a tax preparation business that had set up shop in an adjacent strip mall. Clearly, the man needed a sign or a banner of some kind to actually be an effective advertisement, but who am I to tell Uncle Sam how to do business?

Continued…

The Clinton Global Initiative does great things for impoverished nations the world over, none more important right now than Haiti. But where did this illustrious group start? An article about Doug Band from the Sarasota H-T sheds some light.

To donate to the Haiti relief efforts, please visit the Red Cross website or text “Haiti” to 909999 to instantly donate $10. I haven’t passed that message along since the quake, so it’s better late than never.