A screenshot of the official Battle of the Brands bracket from admavericks.com
A few months ago, Josh Fleming of Des Moines-based advertising agency Lessing-Flynn approached me and asked if we’d be interested in participating in this year’s Battle of the Brands, a bracket contest that pits the top brands in the state of Iowa against each other for votes.
Fleming wasn’t interested in giving Silicon Prairie News a spot on the bracket, though. Instead, he asked us to help identify one “region” of the bracket, to be made up of the up-and-coming brands related to tech startups. After several iterations, we came up with what we feel is an interesting and varied list of brands from actual product companies that are either in the market place today or are very close to launching. The 15 companies that made the bracket are:
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- SmartyPig
- Eliason Media
- Pongr
- Torsion Mobile
- VolunteerLocal
- T8 Webware
- Hatchlings
- Tikly
- Shoplr
- bHeroic
- Locusic
- Uppward
- Scoreyard
- Dwolla
- DSM Daily
Companies were matched up in what we thought would be interesting pairs, not because a super-secret committee chose them. In other words, there is no 1 vs 16 seed easy matchup for everyone to choose earlier in the pool. The winner of the startup region will ultimately go on to face the winner of the “Randoms” region.
We’ll be writing more on the battle as it gets under way. For now, follow along with your favorite brands at the hashtag #LFBOTB on Twitter and watch the launch video below.
