54 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2023
    1. It would have been fantastic to eschew this ridiculousness, because we all make fun of branded vulnerabilities too, but this was not the right time to make that stand.
  2. Jul 2023
      • understanding audience, then make a brand (in this case, I am my brand)
      • make sure to really build out a profile for the audience (me), then you can cater towards that, archetypes help a lot in segmenting (what do I want, like, dislike, etc.)
      • explorer ticked most for me (process of self-discovery). but the hero is really related (mastery)
  3. May 2023
    1. Thank you for your interest in our Corporate program.  We offer bulk discounts on product for organizations that are looking to incorporate 3x5 Life into their company culture or would like to utilize our product as a way to stay 'top of mind' with their customers.  We offer a co-branded solution to add your personal touch to the cards.

      Much like its predecessors (Park Sherman Co.) 3x5 Life offers co-branded products to corporations.

      Did Memindex do this sort of co-branding? I feel like I've seen something to indicate it.

  4. Aug 2022
  5. Jul 2022
    1. OpenBooks is a hub for Neocities community projects.

      Why the name, though?

  6. Jun 2022
    1. “The more you use the Internet, the more your individuality warps into a brand, and your subjectivity transforms into an algorithmically plottable vector of activity.”
  7. Dec 2021
  8. Oct 2021
    1. Modern Fonts, including Politica, Eurostyle, and Matchbook: Fashionable, Stylish, Exclusive

      font options

    2. Brand identity includes: Visual Brand Identity Brand Voice Brand Values Brand Personality Brand Message

      brand identity

    3. Growth is a 6-part engine, and there are six levers that must all operate at peak efficiency for a brand to outgrow their competitors. The last lever is Referrals. And that single lever is should guide everything you do to grow your brand.

      growth marketing stages

  9. Jul 2021
    1. To the surprise of the soup contingent, the first battery of questions didn’t touch on paper or printing. Instead, the Woodbridge delegation asked questions that focused on soup manufacturing and marketing: problems they had, issues they faced, how they could increase their own profit.
  10. May 2021
  11. Mar 2021
    1. This is not a fork. This is a repository of scripts to automatically build Microsoft's vscode repository into freely-licensed binaries with a community-driven default configuration.

      almost without a doubt, inspired by: chromium vs. chrome

  12. Nov 2020
    1. In order to maximize the effectiveness of your projections, figure out which things you want to be associated with in people’s heads and be excited about them. Nothing is more memorable than distinct excitement. Similarly, try to figure out the things that drive the whomever you’re talking to and incorporate them into your mental representation of that person.

      Determine what you want to be known for, present yourself as such, and be excited about those things.

  13. Oct 2020
    1. As Casper’s January IPO filing revealed, scale is all: in 2018 the company lost $92.1 million on revenue of $358 million, spending $126 million on sales and marketing and, according to one calculation, losing $160 on every mattress it sold.

      The problem with believing your own advertising. What happened to real capitalism?

    1. That said, I personally can’t imagine handing over all of my labor to a centralized platform where it’s chopped up and shuffled together with content from countless other sources, only to be exploited at the current whims of the platform owners’ volatile business models. I know a lot of creators are successful in that context, but I also see a lot of stuff that gets rendered essentially indistinguishable from everything else, lost in the blizzard of “content.”
    1. But, whereas engaged scholarship has a political imperative, academic microcelebrity has a market imperative. Academic microcelebrity is ostentatiously apolitical, albeit falsely so because markets are always political. Academic microcelebrity encourages brand building as opposed to consciousness-raising; brand awareness as opposed to co-creation of knowledge. It creates perverse incentives for impact as opposed to valuing social change. Microcelebrity is the economics of attention in which academics are being encouraged, mostly through normative pressure, to brand their academic knowledge for mass consumption. However, the risks and rewards of presenting oneself “to others over the Web using tools typically associated with celebrity promotion” (Barone 2009) are not the same for all academics in the neo-liberal “public” square of private media.

      I'm reminded here of the huge number of academics who write/wrote for The Huffington Post for their "reach" despite the fact that they were generally writing for free. Non-academics were doing the same thing, but for the branding that doing so gave them.

      In my opinion, both of these groups were cheated in that they were really building THP's brand over their own.

  14. Aug 2020
    1. “The idea of a ‘blog’ needs to get over itself,” wrote Joel Hooks in a post titled Stop Giving af and Start Writing More. “Everybody is treating writing as a ‘content marketing strategy’ and using it to ‘build a personal brand’ which leads to the fundamental flawed idea that everything you post has to be polished to perfection and ready to be consumed.” It is almost as if he had reached down into my soul and figured out why I no longer had the vigor I once had for sharing on my personal blog. For far too long, I was trying to brand myself. Posts became few and far between. I still shared a short note, aside, once in a while, but much of what I shared was for others rather than myself.

      For many, social media took over their "streams" of thoughts and ideas to the point that they forgot to sit, reflect, and write something longer (polished or not).

      Personal websites used for yourself first is a powerful idea for collecting, thinking, and creating.

      Getting away from "branding" is a great idea. Too many personal sites are used for this dreadful thing. I'd much rather see the edge ideas and what they flower into.

  15. Apr 2020
    1. Bir İşletme Müşteri Olmadığında Ne Yapmalıdır? Bu zorlu zamanlarda hepimizin en iyisini yapmamız gerekiyor. Fırsat aramak ve meşgul kalmak, endişelenmekten ve hiçbir şey yapmamaktan daha iyidir. Bir işletme, ürün veya hizmet satın alan müşteri yoksa ne yapmalıdır? Gelecek için plan yapın ve atlanan tüm küçük şeyleri düzenleyin; çünkü yeterli zaman yok!
    1. Marka Tasarımının Markaya Etkileri Marka tasarımının ne demek olduğunu açıklamak gerekirse; markanın kullanıcının zihninde canlanan, birden fazla yanını göstermeye yarayan bir araç olduğunu söyleyebiliriz. Bu aslında sadece markalar için geçerli bir durum değildir. Herkesin veya her şeyin, başkalarının gördüğü bir imajı vardır.
  16. Mar 2020
  17. Feb 2020
    1. Why Personal Branding is Important for Business? Get link Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Other Apps February 23, 2020 Branding is a process of promoting your business and creating a presence in the market of your business. Personal branding is the same but instead of promoting your business directly you promote your name which indirectly promotes your business. In this article, we will provide you with 5 reasons why personal branding is important for your business- Personal Branding Helps with Business Branding The very best example that I’ve found is Neil Patel. One of the businesses owned by Neil Patel is Neil Patel Digital, and Neil uses personal branding to promote Neil Patel Digital. If you research about him you would notice that the majority of the promotional platform uses his name on it. While in the process of promoting his name, he promotes his business as well. But, why? Why not promote Neil Patel Digital and what’s the difference? One of the reasons why Neil Patel uses personal branding is that he has a lot of businesses under his belt and when you have your name in the market, whatever tool, tips, and anything comes out of his mouth is credible. So promoting other businesses, new startup and client websites becomes much easier and the traffic is likely to skyrocket faster. When comparing it with Neil Patel digital, you cannot directly promote other businesses or startups, branding your business is limited to your business, but, branding your own name provides much more flexibility when it comes to branding. Personal Branding Enables You to Position Yourself Better than your Competitors Personal branding enables you to position yourself better than your competitors. When you coin your name out there, people connect much better than a business. Humans live in a community and when you create a community of your name attached to it, sort of a cult, you could grow your business as well as your name. Branding helps in attracting the right clients Personal Branding helps your business in attracting the right clients and making profits faster and without investing a lot in marketing. There are a lot of platforms that you can use to start with personal branding.  One of the most important and effective marketing platforms for personal branding is YouTube. Personal branding helps with credibility Credibility is a single key factor that can make your business profitable. Credibility enhances the brand experience in which psychology affects the customer impulses of buying a product. Personal branding takes this a step further by building authority around your name and that authority is going to flow to other businesses or startups you have. Customer Loyalty, Brand Consistency,  Brand Awareness Customer Loyalty, Brand Consistency, Brand Awareness are some of the most important factors that help a business in establishing their business in the market. If you work on these factors your brand image gets improved and the brand persona gets widespread all over the market. It establishes authority, branding and brand awareness. There are a lot of elements that build up these traits like visual branding, marketing, brand personality, etc. Conclusion Establishing a business empire is tough and takes years and years of hard work, but if you work on the basics and develop personal branding then it becomes fairly easy for you to operate your business and launch new products faster and efficiently.  branding business branding personal branding Get link Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Other Apps Comments Post a Comment

      Branding is a process of promoting your business and creating a presence in the market of your business. Personal branding is the same but instead of promoting your business directly you promote your name which indirectly promotes your business

  18. Jan 2020
    1. Color Psychology- Build your Brand Image using Color Theory January 9, 2020 shivkumar Logo & Branding Color, psychology and branding are all very different things, but when we combine all of them, you get a guide that helps businesses in building their brand using color psychology. Why You Should Care About Color Psychology? Human behavior has always been a very interesting area of study for many scientists, questions like-Why everyone has different opinion about certain things? Why do women and men think differently? And thousands of different questions needed to be answered. One of the questions that scientists have been researching about is colors and its effect. Humans are one of the few species that can see colors. The other species like monkeys, ground squirrels, some birds, insects etc. can see few colors but not as good as humans. So, it becomes essential for us to find out why. Color influences our daily behaviors in many ways. We react differently when we look at certain colors. It creates a physiological change in your body’s biochemistry, which leads to certain decision like buying it or not.  Using this knowledge, we can help businesses in building their brand image by addressing the psychological behavior of a customer. Taking this path for influencing the customers, make it an easier and effective approach for business as it saves money, time and other resources. What is Color Theory? Color theory is a guide that designers use to mix, match and combine to create visual effects in their designs. There are 18 decillion numbers of colors that is, 1 followed by 33 zeros, it becomes extremely hard to create a guide and include all those colors in a book. Since designers are more creative people, and providing them with a study material containing details about these colors can be overwhelming for them. So, Color theory was introduced that helps a designer to create his/her own color that they want. If you want to understand the color theory, we need to understand what a color wheel is? Color Wheel for Better Understanding of Color Psychology Color wheel is an arrangement of different colors and illustrates the relationship between primary, secondary and tertiary colors. In order to understand color psychology, we need to understand what colors are, which can only be done using color wheel. Components of Color Wheel The color wheel contains different colors and can be categorized as follows- Primary Colors Primary Color consists of three colors that make all the other colors. The three colors are red, blue and yellow. These colors are also used to make secondary colors. Secondary Colors Secondary colors are purple, green and orange which are placed between two primary colors. The secondary colors are formed by mixing the primary colors, which is as follows- Red+ Blue= PurpleBlue + Yellow= GreenRed+ Yellow= Orange Tertiary Colors Tertiary Colors are a combination of primary and secondary colors. The color formed is similar to the primary color but with a difference in its tone. There are six tertiary colors which are as follows- Red-OrangeYellow-OrangeYellow-GreenBlue-GreenBlue- PurpleRed-Purple Saturated Color or Hue Saturated Colors or Hue are those colors that are pure in nature meaning the colors are untouched. In this color scheme, no other colors are mixed with the original color to form a pure color. Tone Adding grey color to the base color gives a toned color. For example-adding grey to red increases the tone of red and you achieve a different color. Since, grey is made up of black and white, altering the percentage of black and white in the grey gives different grey color which in turn alters the red color. Tone is often used to decrease the intensity of the color. Tints Adding white color into the base color gives a tinted color. For example-adding white color to red forms a different color, which lightens the brightness of the color red. You get a pinkish color which is also one of the favorite colors of women. Tints are often used to decrease the brightness of the color. Shade When black is added to the base color, we get a different shade of the color. For example- adding black color to red color, form a maroonish red which is a darker form of red color. Shades are often used to intensify and decrease the brightness of the color.  Warm and Cool Color Since white light is made up of seven colors therefore, whenever the light hits the surface of the color, it absorbs some colors and reflects others. For example- when light hits a blue color surface, it absorbs all the color but reflects the blue color, giving it its blue color. Colors can be distinguished into two broad categories based on the amount of light it reflects and absorbs. Warm colors and Cool colors, as the name suggests, warm colors are hot in nature and cool colors are cool in nature. You can find the difference between warm and cool color by drawing a line in between the color wheel. Neutral Colors Neutral Color are those colors that are neither warm nor cool hence, they are named cool. These colors are hidden in the color wheel and cannot be found easily. Neutral colors include black, white, gray, brown and beige. They are called neutral colors because of their distinction from the other colors. Neutral colors are used to create shade, tone, tint and other color alteration.   Color Schemes for Branding Your Business Now, we know what colors are and different types of colors that can be used for branding. Creating a brand design is more than just using colors, but, it is using colors for a purpose that tells a story. Using a color combination of two or three colors helps in creating a design that is lively and conveys a story. The color wheel helps us in finding these combinations that go well with each other. There are few general geometric combinations that look very good and can hold true for any color. These geometric shapes when moved from color to color, the other colors also match accordingly. Complementary Colors Complementary colors are those colors that are placed opposite to each other in a color wheel. This combination is best when you want to make things stand out like on a CTA button, CTA Text etc. It visually registers better when we use complementary color because of the contract created by the color. Opposite attracts which makes these color schemes more appealing to the eyes and can be used to instantly attract the attention. As the above image shows, the complementary color (Left Side) helped the CTA button to get highlighted easily, whereas, on the right side, we have to add shadow to make it look distinct and still the design cannot do the job that a complementary design does. You can use the complementary color scheme in the logo design to make your logo different and help it to stand out from the crowd. These colors are versatile and are best for marketing your business. You can use this color scheme to create your website as well as a logo that complements each other.  Split Complementary Colors Split complementary colors are best if you want to use three colors. In this color scheme, the contrast is not complementary but still creates a distinction that gets registered. Using split complementary colors in the designs is quite tricky and might come as funky. So, if you are a business that deals with professionals, businesses must keep away from these colors. As the above image shows a web page design that uses three split complementary colors. The design has a base color as rose pink and purple as supporting complementary color. The CTA buttons are yellow-greenish (Rio Grande) color. They complement each other and at the same time do not create intensity that complementary colors do. Analogous Colors Analogous means similar or comparable. Analogous colors are a group of three colors placed next to each other in the color wheel. These colors have the potential to create a seamless look that relaxes you. This type of color scheme is subtle yet alluring which makes it best choice for interior decoration, posters design, paintings etc. Monochromatic Colors Monochromatic colors are those colors that use tone, tints or shades of a single color. The use of monochromatic colors is to add sophistication and elegance to the design. They are also seamless and can be used for product package design, website design, photography etc. The best way to use the monochromatic colors is with a neutral color to create a distinction that is necessary for certain designs. Using Triad, Tetradic, and Polychromatic Color Schemes for Branding There are lot of colors and different color models to follow. Marketing your brand has multiple channels and each channel has its own design requirement. Since, design and art are subjective, it is not necessary to follow just two are three colors. You can use multiple color schemes to create a design for your brand. These color schemes are named as triad, tetradic, and polychromatic colors which means three colors, four colors and multiple colors respectively. There are two different channels when it comes to marketing and these are Digital marketing and print marketing. Both of these channel uses different model for designs. CMYK Color Model CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black). This model is used for the printing process which uses ink plates with the same color. All the branding materials that require you to print like business card design, flyer, ad poster etc. must follow this color model to get the best results. RGB Color Model RGB stands for red, green and blue. This model is used for marketing over digital medium. Since the screens of our devices RGB pixels for displaying the image, it is the best choice to create a design based on RGB model. Choose the Best Colors for Your Business There are overwhelming numbers of colors in the world. There are so many options to choose from. What should I choose? Well! It depends on different factors like demographic, culture, gender etc. but we can narrow down our search for the best color for branding your business image by learning about the psychology of colors and how they emotionally affect our choices. Color Psychology of Red Red is a powerful color and can grab instant attention. It contains high energy and can be associated with attraction, love, anger, strength, power and many other emotions. A business that needs to create stimulates physical senses like hunger, lust and passion. Psychologically, it energizes the physical body and increases blood circulation and heart rate, which makes it the best option for the food industry. Some of the businesses using the color red are McDonalds, KFC, Coca Cola, etc. Color Psychology Negative Effect of Red Red is a very powerful color and requires a balancing color which cancels out the negative effect. Some of the negative traits that are associated with red color are danger, anger, aggressiveness etc. therefore, it becomes extremely important for you to balance this emotion by adding colors like white, blue, yellow etc. Color Psychology of Blue Blue is the most used color for branding as it is the safest due to its quality. It evokes calmness and serenity feelings which make it the best option for business. Many studies suggest that, blue color is also the most preferred color for men. A business that wants to create trust and sincere feelings in their customer heart should use this color. Some of the businesses using the color red are Facebook, Samsung, HP, Intel etc. Color Psychology Negative Effect of Blue Blue can create a feeling of aloofness and sadness and can lead to loss of appetite which makes it the worst option for the food industry. To balance these emotions, you need to pair it with a complementary color or neutral color like white.  Color Psychology of Green Green color is nature’s color and therefore, associates it with growth and vitality. We can find green color in nature and when we see green color, we often get an image of leaf, plat or tree in our head. It is a very relaxing color and evokes a feeling of safety and compassion. It is also associated with money because of the use of green color in Dollar. You can find many businesses related to finance industry to have green or blue color logo design because of its association with growth, nature, security etc. Some of the businesses using the color green are Subway, Starbucks, TD Ameritrade etc. Color Psychology Negative Effect of Green The color green can induce a feeling of jealousy, which works sub consciously. Jealousy is a negative emotion but, if used correctly, can increase your business growth. Cultural significance is really important when dealing with the color green as different culture has different meaning associated with this color. Color Psychology of Yellow The color yellow is the brightest color of all the visible color spectrum, filling it with energy and optimism. It can grab instant attention and increase metabolism due to its energetic nature. Traffic signs and warning signs are all written in red and yellow. Some of the businesses using the color yellow are McDonalds, Lays, IKEA, Nikon, IMDB etc.   Color Psychology Negative Effect of Yellow Aggressiveness is also associated with the color yellow, therefore, often balanced with black or white. Some of the compatible colors of yellow are blue, red, orange etc. Color Psychology of Orange Orange is the combination of red and yellow making it energetic like them. It can grab attention and can induce feelings like excitement, enthusiasm, and warmth. Halloween is associated with orange color, therefore, it can have a cartoonish and dark assessment by the viewer. Some of the businesses using the color orange are Amazon, Modzilla, Harley Davidson, JBL etc. Color Psychology Negative Effect of Orange We see orange colors in nature either on a flower, fruits, vegetable or on the dying leaves during autumn season. This makes it a contradicting color which makes it a controversial. It gets balanced when using it with colors like white, black, blue etc. Color Psychology of Purple Purple is a royal color that can be found as the go-to choice of many historical figures. You can find many royal prince and princess dressed with a beautiful silk and muslin clothes colored purple. Wisdom and prosperity is indicated by using purple color. Some of the businesses using purple color are Cadbury, Yahoo, Twitch, FedEx etc. Color Psychology Negative Effect of Purple Purple is also associated with mysteriousness and Premiumness which makes it unopened or approachable to everyone. If your business image demands you to be open then it becomes very difficult for you to use this color. You can use the color with other colors to get past this feeling and create the balance. Color Psychology of Gold Gold, as the name suggests, is a royal and rich color. Gold as a metal is a high priced metal that makes it one of the most valuable things on earth. This quality can also be noted when we use the gold color in our designs. It expresses charm, confidence, luxury, and treasure which makes it valuable. Some of the businesses using the color gold are Royal Stag, Bacardi etc. Color Psychology Negative Effect of Gold Since it is associated with premium class and rich features, this color is not for everyone. If your customer base is a premium class, then you can use this logo, and if you want to be approachable to every section of the society, then you must use some other color. Color Psychology of Silver Silver is a metallic color that is associated with strength and power and therefore, is often used by card manufacturers. It’s glamorous, modern, sleek, high-tech etc. making it an appealing choice for a young audience. Some of the businesses using the silver in their brand image are Audi, Jaguar, Lexus, Toyota, Honda etc. Color Psychology Negative Effect of Silver Silver can be a little cold and impersonal, which makes it un-connecting. This color sets a fence around it making it un-approachable which can be good as well as bad depending on your customer base. For a luxury brand, the customer base is the premium class of society, making it acceptable. Color Psychology of Black Black is the darkest and most powerful color of all. It is the most mysterious and sophistication oriented color making it the best option for premium and popular brands. Some of the businesses using the black color are Nike, Addidas, Gucci, Puma, Apple Inc. etc.   Color Psychology Negative Effect of Black Black can be aloof, secretive, sad, and negative feelings that can intrigue your inner insecurity. It has the potential of depressing you and creating a void within. It is necessary for you to use this color with caution and to balance it with a color like white, yellow etc. The color black can match any color, making it versatile color choice.   Color Psychology of White White is opposite of the color black and is innocent and self-sufficient. It’s a neat, pure, simple color that evokes the same feeling. Some of the businesses using the color white are Vans, WordPress, Wikipedia, etc. Color Psychology Negative Effect of White White is often connected with boring and un-impressive features. The color white when used alone can easily pass you conscious mind, but, when used with other colors can create an influential design that can get instant attention. Color Psychology for Marketing and Branding There are many studies that show that color has a huge influence in creating a brand. Human beings are visual animals making it one of the most used channels to influence. Branding and marketing depend highly on visual imagery to promote their brand image and products. Color appeals to the psychological part of the human brain and creates an influential patch for brands to adapt. The right color for your brand depends on many factors like brand voice, brand image, demographic, culture, industry and much more.

      Color psychology plays an important role in building a brand image. Branding and marketing use colors to influence customers and branding.

  19. Sep 2019
    1. 3 lessons in branding

      3 lessons in branding:

      • “At the end of the day, brands are about trust”
      • All great brands are authentic, credible, and aspirational

        If you check all three of these boxes, there’s no reason why you can’t enter a new product vertical

      • To put your brand on steroids, attach yourself to a celebrity or influencer

  20. Aug 2019
  21. Oct 2018
    1. Create a consistent brand experience Consistency is the key to establishing brand identity and to turning your company’s purpose and mission into a human story. When your customers see and hear a consistent message from your brand, it reinforces your identity and unique selling proposition and eventually, often subconsciously, assigns higher value and trust in your credit union. Think bigger than business cards and letterheads. True brand consistency extends from the branch culture and how you interact with current and potential members to subtle colors and particular language you use in your marketing.
  22. May 2018
    1. Offering consultation services to clients is no longer optional in a world where websites can be generated by Squarespace and other white label services.
    2. The model of future successful brand agencies is a hybrid approach of digital and brand, neither one prioritized over the other.
    3. While none of these are a traditional logo, each of them represents a touch point between a human and a brand. Just like a logo, these types of interactions represent the tip of the iceberg of a brand. These days, a brand mark does not need to be visual–touch, interaction, or sound can equally be a brand mark.
    4. At a time when brand experiences are often based upon touch, sound, and voice, how can a branding process that starts out from a purely visual perspective ever possibly succeed?
  23. Aug 2017
    1. You too can be hot if you offer your woman amazing adventures, diamonds and gold, and studly body poses, all with aggressive spraying of Old Spice.
    2. To brand effectively with social media, companies should target crowdcultures. Today, in pursuit of relevance, most brands chase after trends. But this is a commodity approach to branding: Hundreds of companies are doing exactly the same thing with the same generic list of trends. It’s no wonder consumers don’t pay attention. By targeting novel ideologies flowing out of crowdcultures, brands can assert a point of view that stands out in the overstuffed media environment.
    1. Take the Google logo. It is cheerful, and people seem to like it, especially the way it is allowed to reflect events and anniversaries. It has been created for the digital era - a near zero-weight logotype designed for fast loading. But I can't help thinking that its cheerfulness is designed to mask the darker aspects of Google's activities. I don't think that Google is evil, but it is unavoidably involved in aspects of digital culture, mainly relating to privacy, that cause concern.However, my main objection to the logo is that it is a piece of woeful logotype design for one of the most ubiquitous companies, and it could only have emerged in the age of branding. It's impossible to imagine any of the great logo designers, dead or alive, doing anything as weak and lacking in subliminal qualities. Yet for the age of branding, it is somehow acceptable.
    2. In truth, making a clear visual statement and incorporating some subliminal messaging is really all that a brand identity can hope to do. Any ambition beyond that is simply wishful thinking.
    3. In Perkins' view, Vitra, Mercedes, Audi, Apple and Lufthansa all have great brand identities. He calls them "timeless, and no matter what the climate, consistently strong". But significantly, all these identities were initially created before branding replaced corporate identity as the primary activity of many designers.
    4. He also sees a clear difference between North and conventional brand agencies: "We are different because we are probably a bit old fashioned; we believe in strong, honest, uncomplicated communications, usually minimal symbols and trust marks. We keep it simple." Far from being old fashioned, Perkins has recognised that the greatest service a designer can offer to an organisation is clarity and integrity of image.
    5. Perkins sees a clear difference between brand creation and identity design: "The brand is the whole experience, the service, product, personality and expression, and I can't see how people claim to do the branding, the total experience. We build identities, not brands."
    6. I'm saying that it is more progressive to be concerned with the visual image of an entity than it is to be concerned with its 'brand values', which in the end are mostly just smoke and mirrors.Plus, and this is the really important bit, the other stuff is no longer controllable. Firms and organisations can say that they are 'ethical', 'customer centric' or 'service focused', but unless they really are these things, they are wasting their time saying that they are. For me, this is why designers should stick to design, and firms should not confuse branding with the actual services or products they offer.
    7. Anyway, telling customers what to think in the age of social media is simply a waste of time.
  24. Feb 2016
    1. Because even if you don’t have a conscious one, you’ve been living one.”

      Sometimes it's hard to see a narrative for our lives. A good place to start is "themes". Start becoming conscious about what common ideas or threads keep popping up in your life. From there, figure out what's common about the common, give the disparate themes some coherence and/or direction, and you've got not only a narrative of your past, but a direction for your future, perhaps even a mission for your future, and if you're really lucky, in this process you might find out which "character" you are/want to play too!

  25. Jun 2015
    1. When you hear people talk about Slack they often say it’s “fun”. Using it doesn’t feel like work.

      I'm commenting on my friends (Medium comment) here in Hypothesis because I wanted to see how Hypothesis handles that!

  26. Sep 2014
    1. Starts off on a difficult foot by attempting to deny common conceptions about how advertising works, and even legitimizes their function, but comes full circle to strong indictment of the insidiousness of brand ubiquity.

    2. Avoiding ads doesn't help much either. Because brand images are part of the cultural landscape we inhabit, when we block ads or fast-forward through them, we're missing out on valuable cultural information, alienating ourselves from the zeitgeist. This puts us in danger of becoming outdated, unfashionable, and otherwise socially hapless. We become like the kid who wears his dad's suit to his first middle-school dance.

      Unless you accumulate friends who also avoid ads, who think you're less cool for having allowed yourself to be exposed to them or for deploying them too conspicuous as social signaling, at least when that brand is not favored by that scene. Ironically, of course, most scenes are simply favoring different brands, because it's hard to accumulate any significant set of material trappings that aren't branded.

    3. If I decide I want to be more outgoing, I could just print a personalized ad for myself with the slogan "Be more social" imposed next to a supermodel or private jet, or whatever image of success or happiness I think would motivate me the most.

      The issue with this straw person is that there's a very real repulsion people experience at perceiving themselves being manipulated. Advertising works best when we aren't thinking much about its effects.

    4. Admittedly Chevron does attempt, in the US, to carve out a brand image for itself, but the brand is largely based on a promise of quality rather than an arbitrary emotional or lifestyle association. The argument I'm making is that, if inception actually works, then we would expect to see a lot more of it in the (rather large) market for gas stations.

      And to strengthen the author's point, I think Chevron has ramped up it's branding not as an attempt to distinguish itself from other brands but to repair the damage its brand has incurred as the result of environmental activists raising awareness of its ecological and social injustices.

    5. So if an ad works by inception, we should expect the value (to the advertiser) to scale linearly with the size of the audience. On the other hand, if an ad works by cultural imprinting, we should expect its value (to the advertiser) to scale more than linearly with the size of the audience.
    6. Cultural imprinting is the mechanism whereby an ad, rather than trying to change our minds individually, instead changes the landscape of cultural meanings — which in turn changes how we are perceived by others when we use a product. Whether you drink Corona or Heineken or Budweiser "says" something about you. But you aren't in control of that message; it just sits there, out in the world, having been imprinted on the broader culture by an ad campaign.

      Yes! Whence the emotional inception. If you don't buy that product that says you're super cool you are then filled with anxiety about whether you're cool. Etc.

      What's being described here isn't some other way in which advertising works other than emotional inception, it's the mechanism of that inception.

    7. The same way an engagement ring is an honest token of a man's commitment to his future spouse, an expensive ad campaign is an honest token of a company's commitment to its product line.

      Gah! Awful.

      As soon as you think such a signal is valuable, it becomes a tool of deception.

      That's why we've seen some backlash against flashy promotion toward a nostalgic, faux low budget, "authentic" aesthetic.

    8. If Disney were ever to violate this trust — by putting too much violence in its movies, for instance — consumers would get angry and (at the margin) buy fewer of Disney's products.

      How does confirmation bias play into this? Can Disney violate that trust with some margin of comfort? If consumers are (as here assumed) primed to receive family friendly entertainment they are less likely to notice when that expectation is violated than when they are when it's confirmed.

    9. First, a lot of ads work simply by raising awareness. These ads are essentially telling customers, "FYI, product X exists. Here's how it works. It's available if you need it." Liquid Draino, for example, is a product that thrives on simple awareness, because drains don't clog all that frequently, and if you don't know what Liquid Draino is and what it does, you won't think to use it. But this mechanism is pervasive. Almost every ad works, at least in part, by informing or reminding customers about a product. And if it makes a memorable impression, even better.

      A central pillar of my hatred for advertising is the fact that awareness does work and the ability to raise awareness is strongly correlated with marketing budget. Products therefore beat competition by virtue of starting with larger advertising budgets, not be being better products.