Spreadsheets soothe nerves but distort reality. Great brands move hearts before minds. Respect data yet prioritize instinct, meaning, and identity to spark devotion and long term impact numbers can't capture.
Is the Häagen-Dazs brand fundamentally inauthentic? The name “Häagen-Dazs” doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s not an ancient Danish city or the name of two Swiss ice cream masters or anything of the sort. The name was made up by Jewish-Polish immigrant Reuben Mattus, who sat at his kitchen table i…
When I was young, I had a really pessimistic view of marketing. I thought advertising was about emotional blackmail and manipulation, branding was conceptual mumbo-jumbo, design was pointless visual fluff, and public relations was just a way to hide your faults and deceive your customers. Taken toge…
Brands live in minds, not infrastructure. Sell your true vibe, not generic “quality.” Lean into what you are—authentic culture beats wishful rebrands and earns loyalty faster than polished spin.
The web design and development industry can be difficult for businesses to navigate, with options ranging from your cousin looking for iTunes cash to multi-million-dollar agencies like [Avenue A | Razorfish](https://web.archive.org/web/20060820095208/http://www.avenuea-razorfish.com/). This guide wi…
The world’s biggest branding crisis isn’t accounting scandals, poor customer service, or ugly logos—it’s executives’ paralyzing fear that they’re going to do something wrong. Imagine that you’ve just been chosen as the new CEO for a Fortune 500 company. The numbers you see each morning are comparabl…
Compelling stock photos, catchy slogans, and memorable marketing copy have just a fraction of the branding power of a single human being. Think of all the great ad campaigns you’ve seen in your lifetime. Now think of all the great people you’ve known. Family. Friends. Teachers. Classmates. Coworkers…
In an effort to improve public perception (which leads to increased tourism and investment), some states might consider investing in an attractive new name. We’ve seen numerous examples of well-established companies changing names in an attempt to reinvent their reputations. We’ve also seen an incre…
The LA Times is feeling the effects of the population’s media consumption moving away from print, but their $10 million solution leaves much to be desired. Large companies tend to get so wrapped up in their own momentum that they fail to notice that the rest of the world has changed direction. The m…
XHTML, CSS, DOM, XML, XSLT, XMLHttpRequest, and JavaScript were just programmers’ techno-babble…until they were collectively christened “Ajax.” On February 18, 2005, Jesse James Garrett (founder of [Adaptive Path](https://web.archive.org/web/20060328061204/http://www.adaptivepath.com/), wrote a brie…
[Eris Free](https://web.archive.org/web/20060328061101/http://erisfree.com/updates/79/branding-blogging-and-business-oh-my), [Paul Scrivens](https://web.archive.org/web/20060328061101/http://9rules.com/whitespace/web_business/money_integrity.php), and [Molly Holzschlag](https://web.archive.org/web/2…