~ Bloomberg · Branding ~
For three years between 2020 and 2023 I was the branding and advertising columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.
Below is a compendium of brand and brand-adjacent pieces:
From Tropicana and Gap to the Royal Mail, bad rebrands can die an ugly death. But smart companies don’t let armchair critics cow them into brand-damaging stasis.
Don’t Let Your Rebrand Become Internet Roadkill
27 June 2023
Instead of constantly talking about his contrarian vision, he needs to test its market value by putting his mouth where his money is.
Musk Should End Twitter’s Misery and Bring on Brand ‘X’
7 June 2023
A potential giant-killer is about to enter the ever-shifting landscape of product recommendation.
Will AI Topple Michelin, Consumer Reports and the Oscars?
16 May 2023
One of the world’s biggest beer brands just set a new low in corporate courage.
Bud Light & Trans Rights
15 April 2023
From taxes and air travel to health care, some companies thrive where government fails to deliver, ripping off consumers and defending broken systems that fatten their bottom lines.
It’s Tax Season! Here Come the ‘Leech Brands’
6 April 2023
The iconic soft-drink maker has introduced a bold new makeover… so why is it apologizing?
Pepsi's (Un)apologetic Rebrand
30 March 2023
Any new New York logo was bound to ruffle feathers, but riffing on Milton Glaser's creation? Fuhgeddaboudit.
The Big Apple's Rebrand Is an Iconic Failure
22 March 2023
If you thought humans deserved at least seven hours free from marketing’s grasp, think again. How a new breed of brands is selling sleep to the exhausted.
Brandzzz Want a Piece of Your Dreamland
19 February 2023
By swapping golden-age advertising humor for “brandter” — bantz, LoLz and trash talk — companies risk alienating the consumers they hope to attract.
Class-Clown Brands Are Trying to LoLz Us to Death
22 January 2023
Brands have aspired to stand-up comedy for more than 200 years. But advertising may have reached a mic-drop moment.
Is the Golden Era of Humor in Advertising Over?
24 December 2022
From bacon-scented dental floss and KFC firelogs to Hummer perfume and aroma-enhanced VR porn companies are doubling down on the sweet smell of excess.
Why Brands Are Reeking Havoc on Our Noses
4 December 2022
In an age of technoscience rationality, brands are relying ever more heavily on the attractive power of animals.
Brands Are Discovering Their Animal Spirits
13 November 2022
“Dr. No” is a simple movie shot on a poverty-stricken budget, starring a relative unknown, based on the sixth book in a series and released 60 years ago to a mixed critical response.
So … how did it create one of the most valuable and venerated brand franchises in history?
Branding 101 from 007 — and ‘Dr. No’
9 October 2022
What Queen Elizabeth II’s death tells us about the future branding of “The Firm.”
Brand Britannia and the Marmite Monarchy
16 September 2022
From sneakers and supermarkets to pop stars and politicians, billion-dollar brands are subverting professional polish to claim a fake authenticity.
Vernacular Branding Scores Big by Aiming Low
27 August 2022
Hardened doors, bulletproof backpacks, classroom panic rooms — how companies are filling the school safety void of gun control.
The Free Market Responds to America’s School Shootings
31 July 2022
Alcohol brands are thinking outside the bottle to fuel and gratify a new drinking culture.
Is There Anything That Gen Z Won't Drink?
3 July 2022
What Golf 6.0 tells us about branding, fandom, aspiration and belonging.
Golf 6.0 — Millennials Are Saving Golf by Rebranding It
24 May 2022
Your robo-advisor won’t see you now.
Branding Wealth Management for the Averagely Affluent
24 April 2022
Putin’s pro-war “Z” is just the latest example of the agitprop branding of our alphabet.
From Ukraine to Auschwitz, a Single Letter Can Damn or Defy
27 March 2022
Is the metaverse a truly novel terra nova — or just the latest way for companies to pervade every click and pixel of your online presence under the guise of gamified immersion?
Of Course Our Brand Has a … Metaverse Strategy?
20 February 2022
Brand partnerships used to be sparing, targeted — special, even. But as subcultures flourish, no new collaboration is too zany.
From Target to Supreme, Branding's Latest Obsession Is Collaboration
23 January 2022
From Cheez-It onesies to Burger King’s designer silk shirts, big brands are counting on the jesting irony of festive merchandise to generate free advertising, marketing and publicity.
Your Ugly Christmas Sweater Is Branding’s Latest Weapon
22 December 2021
Instant grocery delivery is a sector on steroids. But how can brands stand out in a super-saturated market?
Branding Quick Delivery and the Billion-Dollar Dark Stores
6 December 2021
From Nike and Apple to Target and MasterCard, today’s wordless silhouette brands are tapping into a wider trend of universal symbolic communication.
Does Your Brand Speak ‘Brandsperanto’?
31 October 2021
Avoiding catastrophe was the bar for Facebook’s rebranding, and Mark Zuckerberg cleared it.
Meta’s Mediocrity Is the Message
29 October 2021
Given the scope of their ambitions and our dependence on them, behemoth brands should be treated, and held to account, for what they really are: commercial superpowers.
Brands are Becoming Nation States
3 October 2021
Can the increasingly sophisticated gimmicks of “brandlonging” turn fickle consumers into faithful members?
Brand-Longing — Brands Want You to Go Steady, Not Play the Field
5 September 2021
When displacement hits, are you a mouse or a mule?
What to Do When Haters Come Gunning for Your Brand
22 July 2021
What happens when the hatrers come for your brand?
Your Brand Has Never Been Easier to Destroy
13 July 2021
A guide to fostering more fruitful collaborations between corporate canines and creative cats.
So You Want to Work With Creative People?
13 June 2021
Why audio has become the latest front in branding’s battle for your attention.
Brands Are Coming for Your Ears
16 May 2021
What every company can learn from the humor and humanization of hidden gems.
Easter Eggs — Does Your Favorite Brand Have a Hidden Message?
18 April 2021
A small vanguard of companies are harnessing transparency
From Absolut to Volkswagen, Blending Is the New Branding
4 April 2021
From Burger King and Toyota to Intel and Warner Brothers, major brands are discarding detail and depth. Why now, and what’s the rush?
Debranding Is the New Branding
7 March 2021
In his 1974 spy classic, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” John le Carré wrote: “Haydon also took it for granted that secret services were the only real measure of a nation’s political health, the only real expression of its subconscious.” What, then, are we to make of agencies like the CIA rebranding?
Tinker Tailor Soldier...Brand?
14 February 2021
While blands seduce millennials with an ever-receding mirage of self-actualization, adorkables double down on Gen Z’s internal conflict between self-consciousness and self-promotion.
Generation Z, You’re Adorkable
24 January 2021
The tattered catalog of Trump brand flops, scandals and failures is almost comically absurd: Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump Mortgage, Trump University, Trump Ice, Trump Model Management, Trump Vitamins, Trump Shuttle, Trump: The Game … to name but a few. Now to this list comes “Trump: The Presidency” — a four-year farrago of graft and malice that ended, all too predictably, in insurrection, impeachment and ignominy.
Farewell to the Trump Administration's Favorite Brands
20 January 2021
The power of user indulgence lies in its recognition of our whims, weaknesses and inherent contradictions. Indulgent design allows products and services to dovetail with life as it is actually lived which, in turn, enables brands to form genuine and lasting customer connections.
User Indulgence Is the New User Interface
3 January 2021
“So-called invisibility against submarine attack is not only impossible, but dangerous, and consequently if a vessel can be seen at all, it does not matter how visible she is, providing her course remains a matter of question for the attacker.”
Don’t Let ‘Dazzle’ Brands Deceive You
29 November 2020
Nostalgia aside, the improbable longevity of “Keep Calm and Carry On” owes much to the poster’s messaging clarity and design elegance — two attributes glaringly absent from the current government’s Covid-19 communications.
Britain’s Covid Response Is Graphic Confusion
11 November 2020
The deadliest pandemic of the digital age has supercharged the rise of the dashboard, and illuminated the promise and peril of “dashboard thinking.”
Covid-19 Has Made Us All Dashboard Junkies
30 October 2020
What makes a brand a bland is duality: claiming simultaneously to be unique in product, groundbreaking in purpose, and singular in delivery, while slavishly obeying an identikit formula of business model, look and feel, and tone of voice.
Welcome to Your Bland New World
7 September 2020