At last week’s Beg to DIFFER Boot Camp, we discussed the history of the word “branding” – as in the ancient practice of marking a cow with a red hot iron. But if the idea of cattle-marking seems trivial and simplistic to you, that’s only because you’re not a cowboy. So listen up cowpoke: here’s the cow-dirt on branding: it’s [...]

Yesterday, we had another fantastic Brand Strategy Boot Camp at the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI), co-presented with Brandvelope Consulting (that’s us). Thanks to all who attended for fantastic insights and lively discussion (and for not falling asleep during my schpiel). I’ve included a slideshow of photos from the session below, and my colleague [...]

Those pesky Swiss are at it again. In a tongue-in cheek June post, I ranted a bit about how I was mad at Switzerland for being so much better than my country Canada at building global brands. Well now my favourite brand strategy blog in the world brandchannel.com has taken up the cause with this [...]

A great post this morning on bladeronner.com (A Valuable Business Lesson from “The Princess Bride”) got me thinking: a) what a brilliant movie Princess Bride is; 2) how relevant the “Dread Pirate Roberts” idea is to branders; and 3) how many other lessons for us are hidden in this great film. Branding lesson 1:  Names matter.  Westley: No [...]

Next week, on Thursday August 27, we’ll be holding another Beg to DIFFER Brand Strategy Boot Camp in Ottawa with partners the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI)and Brandvelope Consulting. As part of the Camp, we’ll be dealing with the 4 Big Questions of Branding – the four fundamental things humans need to know about [...]

Since writing the 25 meaningless tag lines post, and tag lines need to help people we’ve been getting numerous tips for tag lines that are worse, and I’ve been spying bad ones all over my marketing-savvy city of Toronto. So, here’s round two of meaningless taglines. Pat yourselves on the back – most of them came from [...]