On the topic of choosing spokespersons for your brand wisely, here’s a photo of a poster in the window of a bank in Italy – sent today by our own Lauren Hughes. It made me laugh hard. Apparently Homer isn’t alone: all the Simpsons get their own card. Of course, in North America, Homer has [...]

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 [...]

Last week, we asked whether or not GM would be able to “go the distance” after creating a huge buzz surrounding the “What is 230?” campaign for the Chevrolet Volt (still not as good as 330). Since then, GM has done little to ease our minds. The foray into Internet marketing lacked information, timing, and [...]

After our criticism of Toronto’s Web site, and some garbage-scented barbs thrown their way in last week’s Brand Jam, it looks like Tourism Toronto has decided to approach the end of the garbage strike with their tongues firmly in their cheeks and their noses in the air. The just-announced tag for a late summer advertising campaign – [...]

Differentiation is good. Very very good. I made the point in my post about the Ottawa Shawarma scene that in a crowded, undifferentiated marketplace, finding a catchy gimmick is a great way to get people to remember you. This unfortunately is the other side of the “personal branding” coin. Yes, I noticed it. Yes, I [...]

(NOMO part 4 of a series of 4) Don’t blame John Mc Cain. Or at least don’t blame him for his problems with “alphabet soup”. Most acronyms are actually “nomonyms” – our word for unhelpful abbreviations, to which we say “NOMO!” We also discussed initialisms like “IBM” – which are also usually a really bad [...]