Brands

Fit In or Stand Out? Different Takes on Differentiation.

The current uproar over the Susan G. Komen Foundation got us thinking. Not about politics. Not about crisis communications. Rather, it got us thinking about colored ribbons, blue circles and what brands can learn from them. <img class="aligncenter" title="Disease awareness ribbon designs" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2011/11/21/2081455_hires_

Can Brands Be Too Honest?

Brands We Love: Pininfarina

You've got to admire a brand that can successfully bridge the gap between Ferrari and Hyundai. And if you're in charge of a brand of your own, it's worth looking at how far Pininfarina have managed to stretch their brand's equity without overextending it.

Want to Build a High-Performance Organization? Pay Your People Less.

A growing amount of research (here's a 2005 business study, and  a recent abstract from education) could spell bad news for those of us who measure our value by our paycheck. On the other hand, it sheds important and coun

Cosmo For Guys? That’s What We Call a (Brand) Stretch.

Two days ago Cosmopolitan magazine launched a new magazine for the iPad called Cosmo for Guys, or CFG for

Branding Climate Change: Think Smaller

The ice caps are melting, glaciers are shrinking and

Kumon Logo Strikes Precisely the Right Note of Misery

Our last post on the fuzzy math of social media got us thinking of . . . the 3Rs, back to school, and more precisely, back to school performance!  In the race to ever greater achievement, never have a circle, two dots and a line struck as much trepidation in students and concomitant delight in ambitious parents than the "<a title="Kumon Logo Explanation" href="http://www.kumongr

A New Brand Identity for Spanish Airports

With little fanfare and without so much as a web page explaining what's going on, Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegacion Aerea (its friends call it Aena) has launched aena aeropuertos – a new organization with a new identity that millions of travelers a year will be exposed to. It's blue, it's burgundy, it

IBM’s New Visual Vocabulary: Beautiful, but is it On Strategy?

Performing some competitive intelligence research for a new client, we were pleasantly surprised by the level of design IBM has put into some of the supporting graphics on its website. They caught our design eye immediately, but will they tickle the fancy of buyers?   It's great to see a big company

Microsoft Competes on Price. Should You?

*this post has been edited Tastes Great or Less Filling? Spanking or Time-Outs? Republican or Democrat? These trifling debates pale in comparison to the single most important issue of our time: are you a Mac person or a PC person? If you're the former – or a highly sought-after Independent – Microsoft has launched a Do the Math website to see if you can be bought