Favourite posts

Here’s a quick guide to the favourite posts (so far) on Beg to Differ.

1. Pizza Hut drops the pizza… again

June 19, approved 2009

Rebranding blunders: The pizza hit the fan in June when Pizza Hut began the roll-out of a new abbreviated version of its brand: “The Hut”. We, of course, Begged to Differ, but we also wondered what Jabba and the pan-galactic Hutt Cartel might think of all this…

Other posts on this topic: Radio Shack as “The Shack” and SciFi becomes SyFy.

2. Starbucks: beer, bands, & baristas

July 20, 2009

Coffee-shops: Sad to say, we drink a lot of coffee at Beg to Differ, so it comes up a lot. In July, rumours reached Beg to Differ that Big Coffee poster child Starbucks Inc. was going to be experimenting with launching an “unbranded” line of alcohol-serving coffeehouses.

More on coffee: Lessons from Ottawa’s Bridgehead; Tim Hortons returns home; and Starbucks VIA and brand civil war.

3. NOMO: The 25 worst acronyms in the world

July 31, 2009

Acronyms & abbreviations: In July, we broached the topic of abbreviations, acronyms, initialisms, or “NOMOnyms” as we call the lot of them. This post by Lauren Hughes was pretty funny stuff, but the point comes across clearly.

Other posts on abbreviated names: government acronyms (NOMO!); abbreviation hurts brand equity; and Dragon’s Den & EDC.

4. 25 meaningless tag lines

August 13, 2009

Taglines & positioning: This one by Lauren Hughes still gets a lot of hits, because a) it’s really funny, and b) seeing this list makes almost everyone who reads it think about their own tag line – and realize just how empty most of them are.

Other posts on tags & positioning: tag lines have to help humans; 13 more meaningless tag lines; that guy in the kilt

5. 10 brand strategy lessons from The Princess Bride

August 24, 2009
Branding lessons: this was our first viral “mini-hit” and still has more Re-Tweets on Twitter than any other post. Why? Well because it’s based on one of the greatest movies of all time of course.

More humourous lessons: 5 more from Princess Bride; modest proposal for GM; protect your crown jewels; skateboards & stripping poles;

6. New Coke 25 years later

September 2, 2009

Consumer branding: this is a reflection by Dennis Van Staalduinen on what he – and all of us – can learn from the New Coke debacle in the mid-eighties, and the monumental arrogance behind Coke’s faulty assumption that they owned their brand…

More on consumer branding: weird breakfast brands; Crunchberries; Nutella; Trident loses intensity.

7. How Steve Jobs taught me to be human

September 11, 2009

Humanity in branding: this theme has been picking up steam in the last couple of months, and you can expect to hear much more on it in the future. But this post reflects on all the ways Steve Jobs brings humanity and emotion to branding.
More on the human side of brands:be human in 5 easy steps; “Personal Branding” an oxymoron?; branding is about cowboys, not cows

8. Break up letter to Intel Inside

September 30, 2009

Clarity in technology brands: Based in Ottawa, Brandvelopespends a lot of time dealing with technology branding issues. But this post became our biggest hit ever for a surprising reason: because thousands of Intel employees sent it to each other, and dozens of current and former employees let us know we were right on the money with our critique.

Thoughts on tech branding: more on brand architecture & Intel; Geek-speak and Google; Google assimilates Microsoft.

9. What if Restaurants charged like agencies?

October 9, 2009

The branding business: we haven’t have a lot of posts about this topic area… yet. But we felt we needed to respond to a viral video which lampooned clients for not “getting” the value of the work creative agencies do. After all, it takes two to tango – or quibble over a giant invoice.

More on the biz: when branding, look outside;

10. How to name a chicken sandwich

October 19, 2009

Brand naming: When KFC launched a new chicken sandwich with a name developed by Brandvelope, we took the opportunity to toot our own horn a bit and talk about the process of naming a brand. And the results: our biggest single day tally of visitors as branders came by for a taste of what we do.

More on names:Sorry Shakespeare: names matter; brandscape – a chicken or egg?

11. American Airlines meets Mr. X

November 9, 2009

“Whole brand” thinking: This short post on the failure of a giant corporation to understand effective customer engagement in the social media era marked the first time a SlideShare deck of ours reached 2000 hits – and climbing (in response to a tip from Alison Gresik).

More on this:Toronto Web site fail; Human in five steps; the perils of too much choice; one immutable law

12. Green Eggs & Twitter Spam

November 19th, 2009

Social media: Big ReTweet favourite with more than 100 RTs to date. Basically, we wondered a) what @SamEyeEm would be like on Twitter, and b) what Dr. Seuss might think about the new “ReTweet” feature on Twitter.

More on this topic: Twiterloo; branding explained in Twitterese; “Social Media” needs a new name.