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About Branding

Branding is Just Like Life: Just let them be upset

There is a big difference between caring about what people think and worrying what people will think. In the case of Louis CK, he doesn’t care about either one. When asked if comedians should apologize for remarks that offend people, he said “If the heat gets hot, just let them get mad. Let them be…

Oh the HuManatee!

Target is looking to expand its clothing footprint with a foray into aquatic mammal fashion. That’s not just the setup to a weird and tasteless fat joke — it’s what Target actually called the color of some of their plus-sized clothes. The company was put on the defensive last week after calling the color of…

Adventures in bias: Why focus groups will kill your brand

“Apple is famous for not engaging in the focus-grouping that defines most business product and marketing strategy. Which is partly why Apple’s products and advertising are so insanely great. They have the courage of their own convictions, instead of the opinions of everyone else’s whims.” — Dan Pallota, “Real Leaders Don’t Do Focus Groups” In…

Branding is Just Like Life: Beginners only

There is a wonderful book called Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki which lays out this thesis much more elegantly than I can. My thesis is that you know more about branding than the experts. The book begins with these words: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s there are…

Have it our way: Customization and censorship in branding

For $150, NikeiD lets you customize a pair of shoes with anything you want. Well, almost anything. The company has an official list of personalizations that it strictly prohibits. These include anything that “may seem objectionable” like profanity, inappropriate slang, potential trademark violations, celebrity names, certain color combinations, or just any material “that we do…

Branding is Just Like Life: Brand-speak not spoken here

Branding is just like life. Most marketing people put everything they know about branding into one bucket. And everything they know about people into another bucket. This is a serious mistake. If you look at branding as a pseudo-academic discipline, you’re totally missing the point. This is like the person who reads all the self help manuals…

Simile, but different

Analogies can be useful for bringing clarity into the world, but they can also get in their own way. Leading someone from A closer to B has a time and place, but comparisons can also turn into gross oversimplifications. I recently overheard someone describe a work as Picasso-esque. Really? I’m skeptical. Picasso lived a long…

Cult followers: the Twitter numbers game

No one likes a kiss-ass. Mostly because it works. Like other places in life, Twitter is full of kiss-asses. There’s always someone begging for new followers or praying that their favorite popstar smiles down and retweets confirmation of their puny mortal existence. For the most part, it’s all a numbers game. Modern life on the…

Attention young adult: Buy this automobile

Car commercials have been a staple of television advertising for as long as I can remember. The new coupe racing around alpine turns, mom taking the kids to soccer practice, slicked down pavement (or easily surmountable rock formations), definitely no other cars in sight. If you put two and two together, these cliched scenes tell…

Covert action at the Oxford English Dictionary

You may have missed it. There’s been a lot going on this holiday season. But news has emerged of foul play at one of the English speaking world’s most hallowed institutions: The Oxford English Dictionary. Linguist Sarah Ogilvie charges in a new book that Dr. Robert Burchfield, former OED chief editor, covertly deleted thousands of…