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.

Instead of constantly talking about his contrarian vision, he needs to test its market value by putting his mouth where his money is.

A potential giant-killer is about to enter the ever-shifting landscape of product recommendation.

One of the world’s biggest beer brands just set a new low in corporate courage.

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.

The iconic soft-drink maker has introduced a bold new makeover… so why is it apologizing?

Any new New York logo was bound to ruffle feathers, but riffing on Milton Glaser's creation? Fuhgeddaboudit.

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.

By swapping golden-age advertising humor for “brandter” — bantz, LoLz and trash talk — companies risk alienating the consumers they hope to attract.

Brands have aspired to stand-up comedy for more than 200 years. But advertising may have reached a mic-drop moment.

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.

In an age of technoscience rationality, brands are relying ever more heavily on the attractive power of animals.

“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?

What Queen Elizabeth II’s death tells us about the future branding of “The Firm.”

From sneakers and supermarkets to pop stars and politicians, billion-dollar brands are subverting professional polish to claim a fake authenticity.

Hardened doors, bulletproof backpacks, classroom panic rooms — how companies are filling the school safety void of gun control.

Alcohol brands are thinking outside the bottle to fuel and gratify a new drinking culture.

What Golf 6.0 tells us about branding, fandom, aspiration and belonging.

Your robo-advisor won’t see you now.

Putin’s pro-war “Z” is just the latest example of the agitprop branding of our alphabet.

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?

Brand partnerships used to be sparing, targeted — special, even. But as subcultures flourish, no new collaboration is too zany.

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.

Instant grocery delivery is a sector on steroids. But how can brands stand out in a super-saturated market?

From Nike and Apple to Target and MasterCard, today’s wordless silhouette brands are tapping into a wider trend of universal symbolic communication.

Avoiding catastrophe was the bar for Facebook’s rebranding, and Mark Zuckerberg cleared it.

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.

Can the increasingly sophisticated gimmicks of “brandlonging” turn fickle consumers into faithful members?

When displacement hits, are you a mouse or a mule?

What happens when the hatrers come for your brand?

A guide to fostering more fruitful collaborations between corporate canines and creative cats.

Why audio has become the latest front in branding’s battle for your attention.

What every company can learn from the humor and humanization of hidden gems.

A small vanguard of companies are harnessing transparency

From Burger King and Toyota to Intel and Warner Brothers, major brands are discarding detail and depth. Why now, and what’s the rush?

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?

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

The deadliest pandemic of the digital age has supercharged the rise of the dashboard, and illuminated the promise and peril of “dashboard thinking.”

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.

The response of some of the world’s biggest brands to the shocking killing of George Floyd suggests that the corporate social media crisis playbook has yet to be written.