Spoiler: Cheech & Chong smoke the Ragu sauce In my inbox today, two different bloggers slammed two big food brands for recent “edgy” social media campaigns. First, C. C.Chapman Ragu Hates Dads. Then, Dale Buss on Brandchannel What Was General Mills Smoking to OK Cheech and Chong Magic Brownie Campaign? On both, I beg to [...]

I’m often critical of Canada’s efforts at country branding, but in this case one of our national flag-bearing agencies nailed it. Totally. The trickiest thing about truly great logo design is not to have your symbol say a lot. That’s easy, just layer element upon element upon element like the Canadian Olympic Committee’s logo (at [...]

This photo made me laugh and laugh and laugh, then think about branding, then spare a thought for the poor Libyan people who have had to live under this guy, then laugh some more. One of these kids is not like the others Looking at this photo, and a hilarious set of Ghadafi’s crazy get-ups collected [...]

Dumb question: what’s better for your brand? Buying a Super Bowl ad or investing in social media? Believe it or not, that was the essential question asked on Friday in AdAge’s CMO blog by academic marketing heavyweights Tim Calkins and Derek Rucker. Read it here: Will Social Media Slay the Super Bowl? Beg to Differ would [...]

Branding is about calling attention to the important stuff. The old expression “can’t see the forest for the trees”, describes a handicap many of us suffer in business – and life: we often focus so hard on tiny details we miss the bigger picture. But what about when you can’t even see the forest because [...]