All things brand.
All things culture.

At BrandCulture, we don't stand on ceremony, celebrate conventional wisdom or honor sacred cows. Peruse cheers and jeers for the best, worst, oldest and very latest branding theory and practice...all with the assurance that every post here has passed our "Branding. Not Bull" promise. Won't you please join us?

Culture

Death, Taxes and Jury Duty: Jury Service in Los Angeles

"I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, 1789 Every year the fifty courts in Los Angeles County handle 2,700,000 new cases. This gives the system the ignominious distinction of being the largest court in the country. To fuel this formidable juggernaut of justice, Los Angeles calls 2.68 million residents every year for jury service – the equival

Read the Article
Brands, Design

Creatives Have Nothing to Fear – Except Poorly Designed Research

There always has been and likely always will be a contentious relationship between creatives and number-crunchers. Market surveys, and even focus groups, which require more art than science to analyze, are often seen by designers and writers as a gauntlet to be survived rather than an opportunity to gather unbiased information. Some advertising firms like Crispin Porter & Bogusky now eschew focus groups e

Read the Article
Brands, Culture

Building an Authentic Brand: Walk the Talk, or Go Home

A former boss once asked me if I knew what the most important word in the English language was. “Perspicacity?” I offered keenly. “Persiflage?” He shook his head and with great sobriety said: “Authenticity.” I can think of other words that might be more important (love, defibrillator, and plunger come to mind), but since that day I’ve seen authenticity become a buzzword among branding agencies and their clients. It makes a lot of sense. Generation X is filling the “prime earning year

Read the Article
Culture

Corporate Culture: Truth vs. B.S.

I just read an interview with Samuel Culbert—a professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and the author of Beyond Bullsh*t—arguing that how people talk to each other at work affects the success of their businesses. Culbert asserts that “bulls—t has become the etiquette of choice in office life,” and that it can undermine a workplace because “it makes people feel beaten up, deceived—even dirty.” He defines “bulls

Read the Article
Brand Strategy, Brands

Branding is Much More than Self-Promotion

A recent study reports that the average North American adult’s attention span for print ads is 1.8 seconds. One-point-eight seconds! That’s less time than it’s taken you to read these three sentences! Now you won’t find this study in a medical journal, as it was a qualitative research effort undertaken and guesstimated by yours truly, but marketing experts do agree that consumers have less patience for and more skepticism toward traditional advertising than ever before. So why are some companies

Read the Article

Ready to talk about how your brand and your culture can do more for your business?

Let's talk
Let's talk