Stockholm, Seal Beach, Calif. and Wellington, September 2 (JY&A Media)
31 August 2009

The Medinge Group, a Stockholm-based think-tank on international branding, today announces publication of the third edition of its yearly online review, The Journal of the Medinge Group at www.medinge.org <http://www.medinge.org/> . Exclusively digital, the collection of essays and thought provides a window into the think-tank’s evolving vision of humanistic branding.

Medinge is closely watched in the business community for its vanguard thought. In 2003 the group inaugurated the yearly Brands with a Conscience award, which is frequently cited in international media. The awards are given every January at a private ceremony in Paris. The think-tank also runs a free-standing for-profit consultancy. Medinge celebrates its tenth anniversary in year 2010. The third edition of Medinge’s online Journal focuses on place brands, new spirituality, greater recognition of the ethical underpinnings of brands in the world today, and a chapter excerpted from a new book on the luxury category.

Vol. 3, No. 1, August 2009
Table of contents

Sicco van Gelder
Placebranding 2.0
This article argues that in future, places will function differently and that their governance is evolving into one where multiple stakeholders will come together to solve specific issues and that governments, although almost always involved, will be only one of the partners of such new alliances, coalitions and partnerships.

Patrick Harris
Strategy, Teams and Momentum
Harris introduces the technique he calls a visual Mind-Map via a supporting audio file. This alternative to the conventional PowerPoint presentation allows all the key points of a talk to coexist on a single page, and personalizes the process. Harris says he sometimes begins with a blank page, filling it in with participants in an interactive scenario.

Pierre d’Huy
Nul ne peut se jouer des signes (French text)
When brands make claims which they cannot support, stakeholders easily spot the ruse. Pierre d’Huy makes a semiotician’s case for the fact that signs can’t lie. In the philosophical universe, people won’t be misled.

Pierre d’Huy
Who’s Kidding Who? (Translated from French by Stanley Moss)
An English-language version of d’Huy’s article “Nul ne peut se jouer des signes.”

Nicholas Ind
Against Leviathan: building rhizomatic brands
This paper challenges ideas about resistance to change and by implication, the traditional model of brand building which suggests the dominance of the organisation in controlling a brand. In its place we will stress the value of movement and difference – both of which are inherent in people’s relationships with brands.

Philippe Mihailovich
Minding the Gap! Branding Bridges in the Brain
Where the brand’s personality is seen to begin – often the first successful product – is critical to the brand’s credibility and its ability to stretch further over time. It’s all a matter of bridging the gaps in our minds so that we can accept and trust these brands in a new category.

Stanley Moss
Demythologizing the McElroy Memo
In 1931 a young P&G executive wrote a document which proved crucial to the formation of ideas about contemporary brand management. But attitudes about branding have since grown up around the memo’s opportunistic policies. This article deconstructs McElroy’s directives, reasssessing our perspectives on how brands need to be viewed in today’s post-globalisation strategic universe.

Stanley Moss
Quiet Brands/Invisible Brands” (PDF presentation)
A short slide show on how enterprises are unbranding, or moderating their public positions, exploring avenues of greater discretion in brand strategy.

Simon Nicholls
New Movement
The author proposes that integrity, relevance and shared values need to drive to the forefront of dialogue about brand theory.

Erika Uffindell
Turning Discord Into Harmony
Ultimately, change is simply what happens to us all, all of the time. The lesson is not in the amount of change we can handle, but in the way we manage that change.

Jack Yan
Poised for Success: the Indian Nation Brand
Yan cites the ‘Incredible India’ campaign as a strategic triumph. He calls it a good example of Nicholas Ind’s principle of “living the brand.”