Product

A tongue in cheek tour of corporate stock photo tropes, from triumphant thumbs and flirty headsets to manure powered growth and rockside WiFi, exposing how cheesy visuals quietly sabotage authenticity.

Once upon a time, marketing was about hyping the benefits of a product in order to convince you to buy it. Whether you were happy didn't matter much, because you already had your money and had moved on to other customers. In a contemporary consumer society, however, that's thankfully no longer a sus…

Stealth marketing blurs the line between clever and creepy. From overt BMW films to disguised Mercedes trailers, buzz wins until backlash hits. In a networked world, deception travels fast.

Forty has been in business for over a year now, and it's been a wonderfully successful first year, having completely blown away our business plan estimate, our own expectations, and even our craziest ambitions. While I don’t claim to be a business expert, I do think that we’ve learned some things th…

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…

Misconceptions about the purpose of a corporate identity system often cause companies to limp along with a sub-standard business image. Find out how you can avoid these common mistakes in your own organization. (Update: Many thanks to Antonio Mariscal, who took the time to translate [a Spanish versi…

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…

There are golden fields ready for the harvest, if you can bring yourself to stop fighting your peers for table scraps in oversaturated markets.

[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…

There’s no shortage of advice available regarding the best ways to generate buzz for your hot and exciting new product, but what are you supposed to do if your product isn’t really buzzworthy? Let’s say you’ve made a new line of those plastic clips that you put on a bag of potato chips to keep them …