When you become known to the world for one overwhelming thing, the world can stop seeing the other stuff you offer. A strong brand, a powerful unique value proposition, can be disadvantageous if you have other things to offer.

Hiroshima is way more than the site of the first atomic bomb used in war. It is actually a lovely, lively and living city.

Kraft Foods Australia has recently named their latest Vegemite product the “iSnack 2.0″

When I first saw this I thought it was a prank. But sadly no, it is for real.

The following thoughts came to mind: wrong, lame, does not conjure about anything to do with food, trying too hard to be hip and cool (and completely missing the mark), a shallow …

The name of a Russian-Nigerian gas joint venture: Nigaz. In Africa, but of course. Very appropriate. Not to mention sensitive.

The latest to join the queue:
Chevrolet Nova = “doesn’t go” in South America.
Ford Pinto = “small penis” in Brazil.
“Come alive with the Pepsi generation” = “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead” in Taiwan.
Rabobank = “ass bank” in Portuguese (thanks Sandro!!!)

Read more over at The …

Saw this book by Jonathan Salem Baskin in a bookshop recently.

Another proponent of actions speaking louder than words – or fancy logos, or fake marketing. Yay.

Buy now from Amazon:
Branding Only Works on Cattle: The New Way to Get Known (and drive your competitors crazy)

I went to the opening keynote of ad:tech Singapore this week.

The vendor exhibition was startlingly incongruent with the stated goals of the event.

ad:tech Singapore 2009 … brings together brand advertisers, traditional & interactive agencies, portals, on-line publishers and technology providers. … ad:tech offers an unrivalled opportunity to discover new practices and technologies, and to learn how many of the great names have …

Or rather, to put it in a less-Hollywood sense, what would you like to be known for?

The last generation had big branded corporations. The current generation has Brand Me. Every one is a brand.

To be famous for something, to have a profile, is equally relevant to career employees and entrepreneurs. In the former case, being famous (within your company or your industry) gets you better job opportunities and …

Apparently Wanko is a chain of women’s clothing shops in Hong Kong and Singapore.

I wonder if this is a deliberate attempt to generate interest from notoriety? Like FCUK did several years ago with great success. See also this post of mine.

Anyway, it provided several minutes of amusement. Part of which involved coming up with at least a dozen similar names for all …

One of the things I talk about is the innate irrationality of humans when it comes to making decisions, and how subjective we all are to our emotions – conscious or otherwise. Many conventional businesses and business practices often cling desperately to the opposite.

Martin Lindstrom’s book Buyology effectively uses the latest brain imaging techniques to confirm this. As consumers, we are …

Nice tagline – inexcusably crappy execution. Like this recent cockup by the Max Planck Institute.

The obvious fail aside, there are other wonderful lessons nicely demonstrated by this one sign.

No hierarchy of reading – the actual information on this sign (the text and logo) more or less have the same visual weight. They are all jammed in to the top edge of the …

I took these pictures of a small expo of televisions in a shopping centre. There were three stalls – each displaying the latest TV offerings from a different brand name manufacturer. Can you guess which ones were from which manufacturer?

How similar these products look to each other! Removing the logos that were plastered all over the place essentially turned these products into anonymous lumps …