The Problem With Focus Groups

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” – Henry Ford

  Posted: May 20th, 2013 | Category: Igor

The Color of Money is…Changeable

One of the funniest aspects of alleged naming & branding firm Landor, is the ridiculous rationale they cite for the work they produce. Oftentimes they will, with capricious authority, justify a design based on what certain colors “mean” or “communicate”. These “reasons” become all the more comical when parroted by the officers of their most recent victim.

Landor’s latest for a financial company is a re-worked logo. Fiserve’s Chief Executive Jeffery Yabuki, performs the squawk of shame for the Journal Sentinel:

The new logo, which is the word fiserv. – with a period – is orange because it’s different from the common industry logo color of blue and “has a certain heat and energy to it, but not the kind of danger you perceive when you see red,” Yabuki said.

No red menace here.

Red bad. Red is color of Danger. Danger bad for financial company image.

Unless of course you can sell it to another financial client. From the bowels of the Landor site:

Landor created an identity and retail space for HSBC Direct. The use of white communicates the simplicity of the brand, while red projects a contemporary attitude.

Don’t be alarmed, it’s just HSBC Direct’s Landorian luminosity.

Full Case study

Landor founder, Walter Landor gazing inappropriately at his half-son, Blandor.

Says Blandor the Imponderable: “I fondly recall Poppy and I attending the semi-annual wisdom tooth convention. As we sat on our haunches, grooming each other and eating our sack lunch of turkey biscotti and marshmallow toast, we would randomly jump up and shout, “Wottle up the bull throttle!”. We would then travel the 3 hours home, in complete silence, until our arrival at Mandible Station.”

More on the misspent journey of Blandor’s life.

  Posted: May 19th, 2013 | Category: Igor

Double Dutch

When you are in Holland you are always in The Netherlands, but when you are in The Netherlands you are only in Holland about half of the time. Most people use the two names interchangeably, but you can demonstrate your name smarts by being the first on your block to break through this universal naming fog. Besides, using the names incorrectly is considered an insult to the locals, depending on the circumstance, as is clearly explained here:

Calling the Netherlands “Holland” is like calling Great Britain “England”. Holland is the old name of the western provinces North-Holland, South-Holland and the small province of Utrecht. About half of the Dutch population lives in this region, where you can find the “four big cities” Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.

In summary, Holland is a “Nether Region“, not a country. It’s an area within the country of The Netherlands. Next time we’ll let you know where all things Dutch fit into the naming architecture, including, but certainly not limited to:

dutch-elm, dutch-elm beetle, dutch-kentucky syndrome, dutch-process cocoa powder, dutch-processed cocoa, dutch-type, dutch 200, dutch and flemish literature, dutch antique marble, dutch arch, dutch art, dutch auction, dutch auction preferred stock, dutch barn, dutch belted, dutch binding, dutch bob, dutch bond, dutch borneo, dutch boy, dutch cap, dutch capital, dutch case-knife bean, dutch case knife bean, dutch chair, dutch cheese, dutch chile, dutch clinker, dutch clover, dutch cocoa powder, dutch colonial, dutch colonial style, dutch colonization of the americas, dutch comfort, dutch concert, dutch corner, dutch courage, dutch cupboard, dutch curacao, dutch cut, dutch disease, dutch doll, dutch door, dutch door bolt, dutch east india company, dutch east indies, dutch elm, dutch elm beetle, dutch elm disease, dutch elm fungus, dutch euro coins, dutch famine of 1944, dutch flat, dutch florin, dutch foil, dutch football league, dutch football league teams, dutch genever gin, dutch gilt papers, dutch gleek, dutch gold, dutch golden age, dutch government in exile, dutch guiana, dutch harbor, dutch harbor–unalaska, dutch hip hop, dutch hip roof, dutch hoe, dutch iris, dutch island, dutch john, dutch kentucky syndrome, dutch language, dutch lap, dutch leaf, dutch leonard, dutch limburg, dutch liquid, dutch literature, dutch lunch, dutch marble, dutch master, dutch metal, dutch mineral, dutch monarchy, dutch monetary unit, dutch music, dutch myrtle, dutch national flag, dutch nazi party, dutch new guinea, dutch nightingales, dutch oil, dutch oven, dutch oven furnace, dutch paper, dutch parliament, dutch people, dutch pink, dutch politics, dutch process cocoa, dutch process cocoa powder, dutch processed cocoa, dutch pudding, dutch railways, dutch reformed, dutch reformed church, dutch republic, dutch revolt, dutch roll, dutch royal marines, dutch rush, dutch school, dutch schultz, dutch settle, dutch sewing, dutch shepherd dog, dutch terms using, dutch tile, dutch tilt, dutch treat, dutch type, dutch uncle, dutch war, dutch war of independence, dutch wars, dutch west india company, dutch west indies, dutch wife, early dutch renaissance, east India company dutch, fancy dutch marble, first anglo-dutch war, first anglo dutch war, fourth anglo-dutch war, fourth anglo dutch war, german or dutch brass, go dutch, going dutch, high dutch, hope dutch, in dutch, isle of hope-dutch island, isle of hope dutch island, kitchen dutch, klm royal dutch airlines, low dutch, middle dutch, my old dutch, old dutch, old dutch marble, pennsylvania dutch, pennsylvania dutch language, royal dutch shell, second anglo dutch war, south african dutch, the dutch monarchy, third anglo dutch war, united dutch provinces, upsee dutch…etc.

  Posted: May 19th, 2013 | Category: Igor

Pop Tarts Deceptive Packaging

The Pop Tart on the package is smaller than the real thing, yet shows at least three times the actual filling! (yup, the most important thing you will read all day)

  Posted: May 18th, 2013 | Category: Igor

Another Brick at The Wall

Igor’s Senior Brand Strategist Andy Valvur is pictured below in China. He is on a quest to find a Sifu who will help refine his already well-honed skills in The Immobile Arts. Here he takes a lesson from The Great Wall.

Additionally, Andy is the organizer of The Global Scavenger Hunt, a convoluted tax dodge.

Via The San Francisco Examiner:

The organizer of The Global Scavenger Hunt, a race around the world that begins in San Francisco on Friday, is tight-lipped about the countries and challenges that await 15 two-person teams raising money for charity during the three-week competition. Valvur, 53, won a similar race in 1989. He works as a branding manager in San Francisco and writes for CNN’s humor blog, Capitol Punishment.

After winning the 1989 race, why did you decide to stay involved? Who is not going to enjoy trips around the world? I also like watching people come back in and say, “Did you see? Did you go there?” when they discover something new. The thrill of discovery that you turned somebody on to something new is really cool.

How is The Global Scavenger Hunt different from “The Amazing Race”? In “The Amazing Race,” you have to get from one country to another and have to scramble to the airport. This doesn’t have that craziness — it’s pretty fast-paced, but the challenges start and end in the same city — then we all travel together to the next location.

What traits make for winners in The Global Scavenger Hunt? You got to be quick on your feet, and you have to be able to look at a town and figure out the local transportation system really quick. It’s a lot of map reading and time management.

Why did you think this race should raise money for charities instead of offering a big monetary prize to winners? Instead of ugly Americans running around the world, you’re traveling and at the same time giving a little bit back. We’ve had such a bad reputation in the world — it’s a tiny measure of repairing some of the damage.

And he has done a lot of damage.

  Posted: May 16th, 2013 | Category: Igor, advertising

10 Questions to Ask Before Naming Your Business

From Today’s Entrepreneur Magazine:

What do I want a name to accomplish for my company?

A name can help separate you from competitors and reinforce your company’s image, says Steve Manning, founder of Sausalito, Calif.-based Igor, a naming agency. He suggests clearly defining your brand positioning before choosing a name, as Apple did to differentiate itself from corporate sounding names like IBM and NEC. “They were looking for a name that supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different,” Manning says…

…Does the name sound good and is it easy to pronounce?

Manning says the sound of the name is important in conveying a feeling of energy and excitement. You also must be sure potential customers can easily pronounce your company’s name. “It is a hard fact that people are able to spell, pronounce and remember names that they are familiar with,” he says, pointing to Apple, Stingray, Oracle and Virgin as strong names. But he doesn’t like such company names as Chordiant, Livent and Naviant. “These names are impossible to spell or remember without a huge advertising budget, and the look, rhythm and sound of them cast a cold, impersonal persona,” he says…

…Is the name visually appealing?

You also want to consider how the name looks in a logo, ad or a billboard, Manning says. He points to Gogo, the inflight Internet service provider, as a good name for design purposes. “It’s the balance of the letters, all rounded and friendly, versus a word with hard, angular letters like Ks and Ts and Rs,” Manning says. Other visually appealing names include Volvo because it has no low-hanging letters and Xerox for the symmetry of beginning and ending with the same letter.

Full Article Here

  Posted: May 14th, 2013 | Category: Igor

The Horror

Bad Branding At Its Best. Clichéd Stock Photography:

  Posted: May 4th, 2013 | Category: Igor

You Know Things are Bad When Canada Mocks You

  Posted: April 30th, 2013 | Category: Igor

The marketing money pit of the descriptive name

An important first step when naming a business, product or service is to figure out just what it is that your new name should be doing for you. The most common decision is that a name should explain to the world what business you are in or what your product does. Intuition dictates that this will save you the time and money of explaining it, which actually turns out not to be true. Why not?

The notion of describing your business in the name assumes that the name will exist at some point without contextual support, which, when you think about it, is impossible. The name will appear on a website, a store front, in a news article or press release, on a business card, on the product itself, in advertisements, or, at its most naked, in a conversation.

There is simply no imaginable circumstance in which a name will have to explain itself. This is fortunate, because having a descriptive name is actually a counterproductive marketing move which requires an enormous amount of effort to overcome. A descriptive naming strategy overlooks the fact that the whole point of marketing is to separate yourself from the pack. It actually works against you, causing you to fade into the background, indistinguishable from the bulk of your competitors.

The following is a list of companies in the naming and branding arena. While each of their names describes what they do, you can clearly see the heavy marketing price they pay for such a shortcut:

Brand-DNA (.com) Brand-DNA (.net) DNA Brand Mechanics Brand 2.0 Brand Doctors Brand Equity Brand Evolve Brand Fidelity Brand Institute Brand Mechanics BrandForward	Brandico Brandjuice Consulting BrandLadder BrandLink BrandLogic BrandMaverick BrandPeople Brandscope Brandslinger BrandSolutions Brandtrust
Name Development Name Sharks Namebase Nameit Namexpress Namelab Namington Naming Systems	Namerazor NameSale Namestormers Nametag Nametrade NameQuest Namix Naming Workshop
Nomen Namepharm	Nomenon Medibrand
Absolute Brand Interbrand Building Brands Real Branding	Core Brand Futurebrand The Branding Iron Spherical Branding
I.D.ENTITY	Identity 3.0
Idiom Brighter Naming Corporate Icon	Metaphor Megalonamia Wise Name
Creating New Names The Name Works	ABC Namebank The Naming Company
Ivarson Brand Vision	Strategic Name Development
The Brand Consultancy	Lexicon Branding
Independent Branding	TradingBrands
The Better Branding Company	Not Just Any Branding

There are three pieces of advice that will serve you well in avoiding a similar dilemma:

1. Names don’t exist in a vacuum: There are competitors–the idea is to distinguish yourself. Business is a competitive sport.
2. Names don’t exist in a vacuum: The notion of describing your business in the name assumes that the name will exist at some point without contextual support. This is never true for any business or product.
3. Names don’t exist in a vacuum: When judged without the context of a clear positioning platform and an intimate understanding of how names work and what they can do, the best solutions are either never considered or quickly dismissed.

For example, any one of the following intuitive concerns could have been enough to keep these powerful names from ever seeing the light of day:

Virgin Airlines

• Says “we’re new at this”
• Public wants airlines to be experienced, safe and professional
• Investors won’t take us seriously
• Religious people will be offended

Caterpillar

• Tiny, creepy-crawly bug
• Not macho enough – easy to squash
• Why not “bull” or “workhorse”?
• Destroys trees, crops, responsible for famine

Banana Republic

• Derogatory cultural slur
• You’ll be picketed by people from small, hot countries

Yahoo!

• Yahoo!! It’s Mountain Dew!
• Yoohoo! It’s a chocolate drink in a can!
• Nobody will take stock quotes and world news seriously from a bunch of “Yahoos”

Oracle

• Unscientific
• Unreliable
• Only foretold death and destruction
• Only fools put their faith in an Oracle
• Sounds like “orifice”–people will make fun of us

The Gap

• Means something is missing
• The Generation Gap is a bad thing – we want to sell clothes to all generations
• In need of repair
• Incomplete
• Negative

Stingray

• A slow, ugly, and dangerous fish–slow, ugly and dangerous are the last qualities we want to associate with our fast, powerful, sexy sports car
• The “bottom feeding fish” part isn’t helping either

Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac

• I don’t want hillbilly residents of Dogpatch handling my finances.
• They don’t sound serious, and this is about a very serious matter.

As you can well imagine, this kind of negative deconstruction is at the root of why a committee can’t agree on a non-descriptive name that has any meaning. It’s also what gave birth to the second major school of bad naming: the “unique empty vessel” that “can become whatever you want.” Here are some of the victims:

Acquient, Agilent, Alliant, Aquent, Aspirient, Aviant, Axent, Axient, Bizient, Candescent, Cendant, Cerent, Chordiant, Clarent, Comergent, Conexant, Consilient, Cotelligent, Equant, Ixtant, Livent, Luminant, Mergent, Mirant, Navigant, Naviant, Noviant, Novient, Omnient, Ravisent, Sapient, Scient, Sequant, Spirent, Taligent, Teligent, Thrivent, Versant, Versent, Viant, Vitalent and Vivient.

As with the descriptive list, these names are not part of an elegant solution, they are the seeds of a branding nightmare. This type of name is arrived at because of the lust for a domain name, consensus building and as a shortcut to trademark approval. At some point in the process marketing left the room, and nobody seemed to notice. And while they may technically be unique, it’s at the level of a snow flake in a snow bank.

The third type of name is the evocative name. These include the aforementioned Apple, Stingray, Oracle, Virgin, Yahoo etc. While everyone respects evocative naming when done well, most corporations don’t go down this road because it’s the toughest to understand and execute.

On a very fundamental level, here are the basic ingredients of the best evocative names:

Differentiate

A competitive analysis is an essential first step. How are your competitors positioning themselves? What types of names are common among them? Are they all projecting a similar attitude? Do their similarities offer you a huge opportunity to stand out from the crowd?

Apple needed to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by the other computer companies at the time who had names like IBM, NEC, DEC, ADPAC, Cincom, Dylakor, Input, Integral Systems, Sperry Rand, SAP, PSDI, Syncsort, and Tesseract.

They needed to reverse the entrenched view of computers in order to get people to use them at home. They were looking for a name that was not like a traditional computer company, and supported a Positioning Strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different.

Positioning

The next step is to carefully define your positioning. The idea is to position yourself in a way that rings true in a fresh way–that cuts through all of the noise out there. The goal is to have your audience personalize the experience of your brand, to make an emotional connection with it, and ultimately to take you in. To redefine and own the territory.

One of most important things that the best of the best brands accomplish is to be thought of as greater than the goods and services offered, to create an aspiration. Nike’s “Just Do It’ helps them rise above selling sneakers. Apple’s “Think Different” is bigger than computers. Fannie Mae’s “We’re in the American Dream Business” elevates them from mere mortgage brokers.

On a product level, Velveeta, Slinky, Mustang, Snapple, etc., are tapping into something outside of the narrow definition of what it is they do, and are allowing the consumer to make the connection, to personalize the experience. This type of active engagement created by playing off of images that everyone is already carrying around in their heads is an essential ingredient in creating a great name.

From there, a name should contain as many of the following qualities as possible. The more of them that are present, the more powerful the name:

SELF-PROPELLING

• A name that people will talk about.
• A name that works its way through the world on its own.
• A name that’s a story in itself, whether it’s at the local bar, on the job, or on CNBC.

EMOTIONAL CONNECTION

• What does the name suggest?
• Does it make you feel good?
• Does it make you smile?
• Does it lock into your brain?
• Does it make you want to know more?

POETRY

• How does the name physically look and sound?
• How does it roll off the tongue?
• How much internal electricity does it have?
• How does it sound the millionth time?
• Will people remember it?

PERSONALITY

• Does the name have attitude?
• Does it exude qualities like confidence, mystery, presence, warmth, and a sense of humor?
• Is it provocative, engaging?
• Is it a tough act to follow?

DEEP WELL

• Is the name a constant source of inspiration for advertising and marketing?
• Does it have “legs”?
• Does it work on a lot of different levels?

The key is to step outside the box that the industry – any industry – has drawn for itself, and to do it in a fresh way that hits home with the audience. To accomplish this, it is necessary to think about names in this fashion:

Virgin

• Positioning: different, confident, exciting, alive human, provocative, fun. The innovative name forces people to create a separate box in their head to put it in.
• Qualities: Self-propelling, Connects Emotionally, Personality, Deep Well.

Oracle

• Positioning: different, confident, superhuman, evocative, powerful, forward thinking.
• Qualities: Self-propelling, Connects Emotionally, Personality, Deep Well.

As an exercise, go back and see how the other names deconstructed above–Apple, Caterpillar, Banana Republic, Yahoo!, Palm Pilot, The Gap, Stingray, and Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac–stand up when held to these high standards. These are the qualities that separate a potent, evocative name from a useless one that is built without a considered positioning platform, such as BlueMartini or FatBrain. Random names like these disallow audience engagement, because there are no pathways between the image and the product–there is no connection to be made.

Want more? Download our Naming Guide PDF.

[ More posts about naming a company | More posts about company naming ]

  Posted: April 10th, 2013 | Category: Igor, company names, name changes, product names

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay Off Topic

Nobody knows the words to this song- but no matter. Enjoy.

  Posted: April 2nd, 2013 | Category: Igor

Spoof ‘Startup’ Vooza Comes Out OF Stealth

Via TechCrunch:

Yesterday we saw a lot of attempts at humor from tech companies, with varying degrees of success. To help shake off that April Fool’s Day hangover, Vooza, the satirical “startup” that has been putting out spot-on parodies of modern tech company culture since this past summer with fake (but scarily real sounding) buzzwords like “Radimparency“, is coming clean about what it’s really up to — creating a fresh kind of web-based advertisements for startups.

Full Article Here

  Posted: April 2nd, 2013 | Category: Igor

1950s Cigarette Smoking Cartoon Characters toys

  Posted: February 24th, 2013 | Category: Igor

3 Essential New Tools for Startups

Depending on your bent, these new tools make eating, breakfast, lunch, dinner and second dinner at your desk either more convenient & empowering or more depressing & oppressive. We’ll go with the latter.

  Posted: February 21st, 2013 | Category: Igor

RIM Changes Name to BlackBerry, launches new BB10 line

RIM went all-in today, ditching the negativity associated with their name and putting full effort and confidence behind the BlackBerry name. Via Reuters:

Research In Motion Ltd unveiled the long-delayed line of smartphones it hopes will put it on the comeback trail on Wednesday but it disappointed investors by saying U.S. sales of its all-new BlackBerry 10 will start only in March.

Chief Executive Thorsten Heins also announced that RIM was abandoning the name it has used since its inception in 1985 to take the name of its signature product, signaling his hopes for a fresh start for the company that pioneered on-your-hip email.

“From this point forward, RIM becomes BlackBerry,” Heins said at the New York launch. “It is one brand; it is one promise.”

Whatever other difficulties the company faces, the name change to BlackBerry is exactly the right move from a naming, branding, marketing and advertising perspective.

It does mean if the new BB10 model smartphone is a flop, then the name
“BlackBerry” will be irrevocably tainted, but after several years of poor performance, the BB10 is the company’s last chance anyway, so going “all-in” is the only way to go.

Full article

  Posted: January 30th, 2013 | Category: Igor

New Super Bowl Bound Volkswagen Ad

This new Volkswagen ad is an Internet age update of two iconic pieces of advertising & marketing from the ’70′s.

From 1970:

And this one from 1971:

  Posted: January 27th, 2013 | Category: Igor

Corvette Resurrects “Stingray” Name for 2014

38 years ago, the last Corvette Stingray rolled off the assembly line. Since then, the car has simply been called “Corvette”. But now the Corvette Stingray name is back, re-launched on the coolest vette since the ’67 model. Well done.

  Posted: January 14th, 2013 | Category: Igor

McDonald’s Officially Changes Name in Australia

  Posted: January 12th, 2013 | Category: Igor

The Top 50 Most Overused Words in Press Releases for 2012

Via Shift Communications

“There are some words that initially sound good when you write them. They’re words that make you sound bigger, faster, smarter, or more appealing to your customers, prospects, and audience. Unfortunately, everyone else has exactly the same idea in mind and as a result, we end up with tired words, words that are overused, and no place is this more common than in the press release. In partnership with Marketwire, SHIFT Communications sampled 5,000 press releases from 2012 to find the most overused words. Take a look and share the graphic with your fellow communications professionals so we can start to use different words next year.”

  Posted: December 28th, 2012 | Category: Igor

Merry Christmas from Bill Murray!

Massage Therapy Marin

  Posted: December 25th, 2012 | Category: Igor

The coolest thing I ever got for Christmas – Mattel’s “Strange Change Lost World Time Machine”

Simultaneously labeled “Strange Change”, “Lost World” and “Time Machine”. The cooker itself was named “Time Machine”, and once you threw away the box it was the only name on anything, so that is what everyone called it.

EVERYTHING you could want to know about this classic toy

  Posted: December 24th, 2012 | Category: Igor

How To Make A Great Car Name — Or Completely Screw It Up

A rare, refreshingly insightful article about naming, via Jalopnik:

This week, Infiniti found themselves the subject of much ridicule after their decision to rename all of their cars with a “Q-” or “QX-” prefix followed by two numbers.

It’s not like “G37″ or “JX35″ had a ton of personality, but now fans of Nissan’s luxury brand will need to make do with even vaguer, more nonsensical names like “Q60″ and “QX70.”

All of this got me thinking about car names. What makes a car’s name good or bad? Does a name have anything to do with a car’s success in the marketplace? Do names even really matter?

I believe that car names are important, and that good ones can at least help establish some appeal for the vehicle — while bad ones can backfire and make buyers ignore a car that might be great on its own.

Often, naming a car is a dance between the automaker, marketers, designers, advertising people, focus groups and other people tasked with these kinds of things, as well as going after whatever name hasn’t been used yet or just plain making something new up. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.

It could be argued that for the luxury car companies, the name of the model itself is less important than the badge. People like being able to say “I have a BMW” or “I have a Lexus,” but you don’t get the same effect when you say “I own a Chevrolet.” Usually, you need to follow that by specifying whether it’s a Cruze, a Malibu or a Silverado, but a BMW is a BMW. It carries a cachet that doesn’t require elaboration with the actual model. If we follow this logic, perhaps Infiniti’s rebranding won’t be such a big deal.

Names for sporty cars are the easiest ones to get right. You need a name that invokes speed, excitement, performance, and viscousness. If it sounds like it can kill you, it’s a good sports car name. Viper, Challenger, Cobra, Firebird, stuff with “GT” in it — all good names for that kind of car.

Nissan’s Yutaka “Mr. K” Katayama is a genius for many reasons, and one of them is that he ordered that the original generation of Datsun Z be called “240Z” instead of “Fairlady Z.” He knew Americans — specifically, American men — would never buy a sports car with a name like that. I am convinced that this is why the Miata unfairly gets as much shit as does for being a “girly car.”

Read full article here

  Posted: December 23rd, 2012 | Category: Igor

Great Britain or United Kingdom / The Netherlands or Holland?

Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales. Throw in Northern Ireland and bingo, you’ve got the United Kingdom.

The distinction between The Netherlands and Holland is a tad trickier, obfuscated by the fact that their tourism board disingenuously promotes the whole place as Holland. But they are not one and the same. Just so you know when to use which name, we’ve laid it out here.

  Posted: December 22nd, 2012 | Category: Igor

Nice Viral Marketing For Oreo

  Posted: December 18th, 2012 | Category: Igor

What trends should be on every marketers’ radar in 2013?

Via Forbes

With just a couple of weeks until the new year arrives, it’s time to start thinking about the trends that are dominating brand marketing and will stick around or get even bigger in 2013. These are the brand marketing trends that can open significant opportunities or create big challenges over the next 12 months. Is your brand ready for them?

1. Brand Accountability

Social media reputation management has never been more important, and brand transparency is critical. In 2013, even the smallest mistake can become a huge public relations problem. You need to be ready with response plans in place to protect your brand reputation.

2. Brand Trust

Social media also makes it easy for consumers to confirm if a brand really walks the walk and talks the talk. It’s a lot harder to earn consumers’ trust in your brand today, and it will be even harder in 2013.

3. Brand Flexibility

The world is changing faster than ever, and so is the social web. To top it off, hyper-connectivity will reach record levels with the growth of mobile device usage in 2013. Your brand needs to drive the change, not just try to keep up with it. If your brand isn’t able to adapt, another brand will.

Full article and trends 4-7 here

  Posted: December 18th, 2012 | Category: Igor

Give the ladies what they want

The marketing geniuses at Neutrogena, realizing how crowded the women’s skin care product sector is, have been selling vibrators. But not just any vibrator, a vibrator that a woman can, with head held high, take through airport security, buy at the drugstore, and leave in plain sight for the kids to find. Brilliant.

It’s the Neutrogena Wave, a sex toy with plausible deniability built-in.

Here’s to wiggle room:

  Posted: November 24th, 2012 | Category: Igor, WTF, advertising, company names, language, pop culture, product names

New, Effective, Wild Turkey Bourbon Thanksgiving Ad

  Posted: November 22nd, 2012 | Category: Igor

Happy Thanksgiving!

  Posted: November 22nd, 2012 | Category: Igor

Limited editon? There’s something to be thankful for!

  Posted: November 18th, 2012 | Category: Igor

Re-Designing The Stop Sign – aka “The Process”

Too funny. A parody of the corporate creative process.

“What if there were no stop signs, and a major corporation was charged with inventing one? They’d brief their agency and let them do it. Sorta”

  Posted: November 15th, 2012 | Category: Igor, industry insider, pop culture