05 June 2020

DIFFUSION launches BrandNews

DIFFUSION has just launched BRANDNEWs, a newsletter to help you find out what brands around the world are launching or have launched, who’s failing and what brand strategy is making an impact. 
BRANDNEWs is published weekly from 5 June 2020 and will provide category listings of newly launched and failing brands as well as some analysis about what brands are doing with their strategy.
The first 500 subscribers will get free access til end of June and thereafter there will be a small monthly or annual subscription charge via SubStack for all.
If you’re in marketing, branding, advertising, markets and research you’ll find BRANDNEWs indispensible.
Contributions are welcome.
Here’s some samples of what you might get:
BRANDNEW
Retail Fashion
  1. Gauge81 was founded in 2019 is (pronounced GO-SH eighty-one) is an Amsterdam-based label that blurs the line between casual and evening wear. Gauge81
  2. Kirin meaning giraffe in Korean) is a streetwear label founded by Korean DJ, fashion icon and designer Peggy Gou. The line first made its debut at Paris Fashion Week 2019.
BRANDFAIL
Passenger Car Rental and Hiring
Hertz USA, whose ownership also includes the Dollar and Thrifty brands, has filed for Chapter11 Bankruptcy protection. It blames the collapsing used car market in the US. 23 May 2020. Hertz
Retail Trade: Department Stores
Target/Kmart More than 160 Target stores in Australia are closing down and being rebranded as Kmart stores. 23 May 2020. Target to Kmart
BRANDstrategy
Tesla
The Tesla brand strategy is a minimalist futuristic green primarily automotive brand with a bare bones approach to marketing by founder and chairman Elon Musk using the marque as a platform for promotion including ferrying astronauts to for SpaceX, the world’s first private space flight on 1 June 2020 to a retail store that used to offer free rides in downtown Manhattan. Tesla has largely eschewed big budget advertising and focused instead on social media (Musk has 35 million personal followers), visual iconography via the (super)charging stations, distinctive livery and aural branding across the entire Tesla range. Even the launch of the Tesla Cybertruck in late 2019, despite controversy generated at the event, still didn’t dim the enthusiasm for the brand. Musk’s brand strategy is to build Tesla via a whole of brand approach, tying product development together with the green integrity of its electric battery to create a closed ecosphere around the brand.