Last week, I saw a presentation from Carat, the advertising/media agency, where they outlined the most common reactions to debt to a recession. They are (in no particular order):

• Out of control • Alone • Fear of the Unknown • Overwhelmed • Shame/embarrassment

Since there has been a lot of talk about the power of avoidance strategies over growth approaches in a downturn, I thought this is great food for thought. All of these fears are so primal, and almost any product can be positioned to address one or the other.

InBev just got the go-ahead to buy Anheuser-Busch, the stalwart corporate citizen of my birth place, St. Louis, as well as other US cities. How long InBev had been planning the move might be timed to the hiring of its first official CSR Director, whose qualifications included a stint setting up a CSR program for Saab, which was then owned by the ultimate symbol of American industry (if not Americana itself), General Motors. Co-incidence or advance planning? Just seemed odd that a company headquartered in Europe, far and away the leader in CSR over the US, would tap US talent for the job. Another example of CSR as competitive strategy?

About a year ago, I canvassed my branding and CSR colleagues to find out the best blogs for reading about how the two are being integrated. Not only had no one heard of such a blog, few could even name a branding blog. In fact, aside from Brand Channel and some other attempts that failed, the lack of branding blogs is astonishing  for an industry that is all about communicating, especially since hardly a day goes by when someone doesn’t send me some bit of writing or opinion on the subject that I would love to share.

So welcome to a place for all of us, to share our latest ideas and insights, courtesy of my employer, Holding Associates, Inc.