21 Feb
Brand marketers often fall prey to a massively faulty assumption. They assume that consumers are rational. But consumers don’t really behave that way. The irrational consumer is more than a hypothesis. It’s a well-researched reality.
14 Feb
Is a brand built on a position or is it built on a promise? Promise has become the word of choice in recent years. But I might suggest that the two words have different meanings, and should be applied at different times.
A friend turned me on to a great story on Studio 360 about signage for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site. Here’s the dilemma: how do you design a symbol that will instantly communicate ‘danger’ to future generations? Think about it. Nuclear waste remains dangerous for thousands of years. The site needs signs that [...]
This is from a presentation I gave earlier in the week to a large technology company. It’s a mix of legacy content from Legendary Brands and new content from my upcoming book, Brandlore.
On the Subject of Brand Narrative
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: culture symbolism)
One of the most fascinating ways to study brand equity is to study the deviants–the “dark side” of branding. For anyone who thinks that a brand doesn’t have power, look no further than the Mongols, an outlawed US motorcycle gang.
The Mongols took the extraordinary step of securing a trademark for their logo. The brandmark [...]
Too many brands and advertisers try to sell you on cultural norms — you should use our product because everyone else does. They try to pander to social paranoia. There’s nothing I love more than a brand that says, “maybe you’re not for us.” The new Miller High Life campaign achieves that goal. It takes [...]
I scoured the web to find some examples, but the campaign is still too new. Check out the new Cinemax rebranding. In the high stakes world of premium cable, Cinemax has finally stepped up to the plate. It’s too early to tell whether or not their programming and scheduling will measure up, but the new [...]
I spend a fair amount of time coaching clients on how to apply their brand voice. Brand voice is most often associated with a brand’s personality. It guides the tone and style of verbal and visual identity. It’s easiest to understand brand voice when reviewing copy. Sometimes, the way the brand chooses to express itself [...]
The (maybe not so) latent nerd in me still gets fired up about NASA and the space program. These photos of a recent Discovery launch are a great insider’s look at how the orbiter is assembled, prepped and launched.
I’m fascinated by the NASA brand. It has such a rich narrative legacy, and yet in recent [...]
Tag: Branding Soapbox