Little remains to be said about the rise and scandalous fall of Texan energy giant Enron. In the relatively short space of 15 years, Enron rose from nowhere to become the seventh-largest company in the United States, and the most well-known energy supplier in the world. It boasted over 21,000 employees and had a presence in more than 40 countries. …

On 6 January 2009 the last of the 813 Woolworth stores that had operated for the best part of a century in the United Kingdom closed their doors for the last time. At one level this could just have been a story about another victim of the prevailing credit crunch, but Woolworth’s brand problems predate that. for further story listen to the full pod…

Tommy Hilfiger is one of the world’s best-loved designer clothing brands. During the 1990s Tommy Hilfiger moved from being a small, niche brand targeting upper-class US consumers to becoming a global powerhouse with broad youth appeal. But then, in 2000, the brand was suddenly in trouble. From a high of US $40 per share in May 1999, Tommy Hilfiger’…

In 1994, food giant the Quaker Oats Company bought a quirky soft-drink brand called Snapple for US $1.7 billion. The company felt confident that the drink brand was worth the price tag because it had already achieved astounding success with the sports drink Gatorade. However, in terms of brand identity, the two drinks couldn’t have been further apa…

One of the most popular and influential books ever written about marketing is The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout and first published in 1993. Their fifteenth ‘law’ is ‘the law of candour’. This states that if a company admits a negative aspect about a brand, the consumer will think more highly about that brand because of t…

Celebrity endorsements can help greatly in boosting sales of a product or service. For instance, when Oprah Winfrey recommended books via her branded book club, they were guaranteed bestseller status. Some brands also benefit from having their founder evolve into a celebrity, à la Richard Branson. Then there are cases of celebrities turning their h…

Pear’s Soap was not, by most accounts, a conventional brand failure. Indeed, it was one of the longest-running brands in marketing history. The soap was named after London hairdresser Andrew Pears, who patented its transparent design in 1789. During the reign of Queen Victoria, Pear’s Soap became one of the first products in the UK to gain a cohere…

In the 1960s Nova magazine was Britain’s ‘style bible’, and had a massive impact on the fashion of the era. Alongside the fashion pages, it carried serious and often controversial articles on subjects such as feminism, homosexuality and racism. At the time, the magazine was unique, but by the 1970s other magazines started to clone the Nova concept.…

In 1986, Gerber, the German baby food manufacturer, made a critical PR mistake. When incidents of glass shards were found in its jars of baby food, Gerber remained tight-lipped and failed to issue a recall. This decision invited a lot of criticism with articles in Business Week, Newsweek, and Time openly attacking the company on ethical grounds. Al…

In late 1999, computer manufacturer Dell launched the Web PC. The computer was small (a mere 10 inches in height) and came in five different colors. The aim of the computer was to simplify the experience of surfing the internet, while at the same time being attractive. ‘The quality of the customer’s experience will be the defining source of loyalty…

Hi guys, Welcome to clout insider, Today will talk about Why is Huawei Banned in the USA? The Story of China's Most Controversial Tech Company

If you've ever Googled the answer to an obscure question and one of the links you've stumbled on looks like something from the 90s, it was most likely Reddit. But what actually is Reddit? And how has a website that simply hosts online discussions develop such a following while also rising to one of the top 20 most visited websites in the world?…