Brand Descriptions
Here you will find the descriptions of some of the brands used in the videos and readings. If you
want to add another brand that we missed, please suggest it in the forums. If you need to find the
description of some words and phrases that pertain to the Marketing concepts in the course, see
the Glossary page.
A
Adobe. Adobe is an American multinational computer software company. The company is
headquartered in San Jose, California, United States. Adobe has historically focused upon the
creation of multimedia and creativity software products, with a more recent foray toward rich
Internet application software development. It is best known for Photoshop, an image editing
software, Acrobat Reader, the Portable Document Format (PDF), and Adobe Creative Suite, as
well as its successor, Adobe Creative Cloud.
Amazon.com. Commonly known as Amazon, is an American electronic commerce and cloud
computing company based in Seattle, Washington that was founded by Jeff Bezos on July 5,
1994. The tech giant is the largest Internet-based retailer in the world by total sales and market
capitalization.
Amazon Dash. Amazon Dash is a consumer goods ordering service (offered by Amazon),
which uses a proprietary device for ordering goods over the Internet.
The Atlantic Monthly. The Atlantic Monthly is an American magazine and multi-platform
publisher, founded in 1857 as The Atlantic Monthly in Boston, Massachusetts. The publication is
majority owned by Emerson Collective, an organization led by the billionaire philanthropist and
investor, Laurene Powell Jobs, who purchased her stake in 2017 from businessman and
publisher, David G. Bradley, who retains a minority interest and remains the operating partner.
B
Billboard Magazine. Billboard Magazine is an American entertainment media brand owned by
the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group, a division of Eldridge Industries. It publishes
pieces involving news, video, opinion, reviews, events, and style. It is also known for its music
charts, including the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200, tracking the most
popular singles and albums in different genres. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm, and
operates several TV shows. Billboard was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James
Hennegan as a trade publication for bill posters. Donaldson later acquired Hennegen's interest in
1900 for $500.
C
Call of Duty. Call of Duty is a first-person shooter video game franchise. The series began
on Microsoft Windows, and later expanded to consoles and handhelds. Several spin-off games
have been released. The earlier games in the series are set primarily in World War II, but later
games like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare are set in modern times or in futuristic settings.
Cards Against Humanity . Cards Against Humanity is a party game in which players complete
fill-in-the-blank statements using words or phrases printed on playing cards typically deemed as
offensive, risqué, or politically incorrect. The game is available as a free download that players
can print to create their own cards, and also available to purchase as a published hard copy. Its
development originated from the successful Apples to Apples card game released years earlier
and a Kickstarter campaign, and received acclaim for its simple concept backed up by its satirical
content.
Coke. Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink produced by The Coca-Cola Company.
Originally intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John
Pemberton and was bought out by businessman, Asa Griggs Candler, whose marketing tactics led
Coca-Cola to its dominance of the world soft-drink market throughout the 20th century.
Coursera. Coursera is an education-based technology company that offers online courses. It
works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses, specializations, and
degrees in a variety of subjects, such as engineering, humanities, medicine, biology, social
sciences, mathematics, business, computer science, digital marketing, data science, and others.
D
E
The Economist. The Economist is an English-language weekly magazine-format newspaper
owned by the Economist Group and edited at offices in London. Continuous publication began
under its founder, James Wilson, in September 1843. In 2015 its average weekly circulation was
a little over 1.5 million, about half of which were sold in the United States.
edX. EdX is a massive open online course (MOOC) provider. It hosts online university-level
courses in a wide range of disciplines to a worldwide student body, including some courses at no
charge. It also conducts research into learning based on how people use its platform. EdX differs
from other MOOC providers, such as Coursera and Udacity, in that it is a nonprofit organization
and runs on the free Open edX open-source software platform.
F
Facebook. Facebook is an American for-profit corporation and an online social media
and social networking service based in Menlo Park, California. The Facebook website was
launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard College students
and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.
Fitbit. Fitbit is an American company known for its own products of the same name, which are
activity trackers, wireless-enabled wearable technology devices that measure data such as the
number of steps walked, heart rate, quality of sleep, steps climbed, and other personal metrics
involved in fitness. The first product released was the Fitbit Tracker.
Free Hugs Campaign. Free Hugs Campaign is a social movement involving individuals who
offer hugs to strangers in public places. The hugs are meant to be “Random Acts of Kindness,”
which are selfless acts performed just to make others feel better.
Freewrite. This is a typewriter marketed as the “World’s First Smart Typewriter.” It claims to
combine the intelligence of the cloud (so one would not have to worry about losing work) and
the authenticity of the traditional typewriter. To learn more about Freewrite, please visit this link.
G
Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones is an American fantasy drama television series created by
David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. It is an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R.
Martin's series of fantasy novels. The series premiered on HBO in the United States on April 17,
2011, and its seventh season ended on August 27, 2017. The series will conclude with its eighth
season in 2018 or 2019.
H
I
Instructables.com. Instructables is a website specializing in user-created and uploaded do-ityourself projects, which other users can comment on and rate for quality. It was created by Eric
Wilhelm and Saul Griffith and launched in August 2005. Instructables is dedicated to step-bystep collaboration among members to build a variety of projects. Users post instructions to their
projects, usually accompanied by visual aids, and then interact through comment sections below
each Instructable step as well in topic forums.
iPass Inc: is an American multinational company headquartered in Redwood Shores, California
that provides Internet access on wireless-enabled devices. The firm was first incorporated in
California in July 1996 and later reincorporated in Delaware in June 2000. For more information
about iPass, please visit their Wikipedia page.
J
K
L
M
Moleskine Notebooks. Moleskine Notebooks is an Italian manufacturer, papermaker, and
product designer founded in 1997 by Maria Sebregondi, based in Milan, Italy. The company
produces and designs luxury notebooks, and also includes planners, journals, sketchbooks,
leather backpacks, wallets, and various accessories and stationery.
N
The New York Times. The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and
continuously published in New York City since September 18, 1851, by The New York Times
Company. The New York Times has won 122 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper.
The paper's print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street
Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the United States. The
New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation. Following industry trends, its
weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million.
O
P
Play Impossible game ball. A multi-sport smart ball that connects wirelessly to your smart
phone for physical-digital games.
Potato Parcel. Potato Parcel (or PotatoParcel.com) is an American company and website for
delivering potatoes with personalized messages, which are limited to 140 characters or one
picture.
Q
R
Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator website for film and
television. In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes and its parent site Flixster were sold to Comcast's
Fandango. Warner Bros. retained a minority stake in the merged entities, including Fandango.
From 2007 to 2017, the website's editor-in-chief was Matt Atchity, who left in July 2017 to join
The Young Turks. The name "Rotten Tomatoes" derives from the practice of audiences throwing
rotten tomatoes when disapproving of a poor stage performance.
S
Scrabble. Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles
bearing a single letter onto a board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form
words which, in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downwards in columns, and be
defined in a standard dictionary or lexicon.
Snickers. Snickers is a brand name chocolate bar made by the American company, Mars,
Incorporated. Consisting of nougat topped with caramel and peanuts, enrobed in milk chocolate,
Snickers has annual global sales of $2 billion.
Spotify. Spotify is a music, podcast, and video streaming service that was officially launched on
7 October 2008. It is developed by startup Spotify AB in Stockholm, Sweden. It provides digital
rights management-protected content from record labels and media companies. Spotify is
a freemium service, meaning that basic features are free with advertisements, while additional
features are offered via paid subscriptions, including improved streaming quality and offline
music downloads.
Studio Neat: Studio Neatwas founded in 2010 by Tom Gerhardt and Dan Provost. They are two
designers who enjoy making simple products that solve problems. They are the only two
employees of their company. Their first product is the Glif was launched on Kickstarted in 2010
and represented a new way of approaching consumer products. For more information about
Studio Neat and their products, please visit their website.
T
Tough Mudder. Tough Mudder is an endurance event series in which participants attempt 10–
12 mile-long (16–19 km) obstacle courses that tests mental as well as physical strength.
Twitter. Twitter is an online news and social networking service where users post and interact
with messages, "tweets," restricted to 140 characters. Registered users can post tweets, but those
who are unregistered can only read them. Users access Twitter through its website interface,
SMS, or a mobile device app.
U
Uber. Uber is an American technology company that develops, markets, and operates the Uber
car transportation and food delivery mobile apps. Uber drivers use their own cars although
drivers can rent a car to drive with Uber. It operates in 633 cities worldwide.
University of Illinois Willard Airport. University of Illinois Willard Airport is south of
Savoy in Tolono Township, Champaign County, Illinois. It is owned and operated by
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is named for former University of Illinois
president, Arthur Cutts Willard.
V
W
Walmart. Walmart is an American multinational retailing corporation that operates as a chain
of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. Headquartered in Bentonville,
Arkansas, the company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated on October 31,
1969. As of January 31, 2017, Walmart has 11,695 stores and clubs in 28 countries, under a total
of 63 banners.
X
Xerox Corporation. Xerox Corporation is an American global corporation that sells document
solutions and services, and document technology products in more than 160 countries.
Y
Yelp. Yelp is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California.
It develops, hosts, and markets Yelp.com and the Yelp mobile app, which publish crowd-sourced
reviews about local businesses, as well as the online reservation service Yelp Reservations. The
company also trains small businesses in how to respond to reviews, hosts social events for
reviewers, and provides data about businesses, including health inspection scores.
YouTube. YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno,
California. The service was created by three former PayPal employees – Chad Hurley, Steve
Chen, and Jawed Karim – in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for
US$1.65 billion; YouTube now operates as one of Google's subsidiaries.
Z