Helpful words

Building a brand: Virgin America

I have heard the interiors of Virgin America planes described as everything from “swanky” to a “strip club in the sky.” While it might not be everyone’s style, it’s certainly better than your other options. Unless you prefer the Reagan-era textiles mottled with burnt coffee you might find on Delta. What’s great about how Virgin…

Branding is Just Like Life: Somebody has to own the brand

When you are creating a brand, the first thing you need to be true to is yourself. Do not share the ownership of your brand with anyone else. This does not mean that your corporate brand is your private property. This does not mean you have to be a brand Nazi. It is more like…

Building your brand for women

Are you building your brand for a female audience? Some companies see this as a straightforward question with a formulaic answer. There’s even a term for female-focused brand strategy that might be one of the worst phrases in the English language. Build your brand in two easy steps! Just “shrink it and pink it.” Shrink…

Creative product names: Mechanical Turk

Amazon has a knack for naming. The company is named after the longest river in the world – a fitting moniker for the biggest shop in the world. They have creative product names as well. Kindle is easily the best-named e-reader. A9 is a bit of a dud, but we’ll let that one slide. But by…

Branding is Just Like Life: Only don’t make it up as you go along

There are a lot of obnoxious stories out there about personal branding. This is not intended to be one of them. My own belief is that life is commercial enough without dragging branding into your personal life. But, allow me to borrow that idea for a moment to make a really useful distinction. Your personal…

company-name-machine

The greatest company name generator ever invented

There are a lot of company name generators out there. Pick a few prefixes and buzzwords and ta-da: 20 crappy name options. If you’ve ever used any of them you realize pretty quickly that you’ll probably have better luck finding a name by throwing darts at the phone book. Anyway, along comes a team of…

Is Facebook Home a good name?

It’s not a phone. It’s not an app. It’s something much more ambitious: software that integrates with your existing phone and brings your Facebook news streaming right to your home-screen. Instead of seeing your lock-screen as soon as you turn on your phone, or the rest of your apps when you unlock it, Facebook Home…

Branding is Just Like Life: Just let them be upset

There is a big difference between caring about what people think and worrying what people will think. In the case of Louis CK, he doesn’t care about either one. When asked if comedians should apologize for remarks that offend people, he said “If the heat gets hot, just let them get mad. Let them be…

Oh the HuManatee!

Target is looking to expand its clothing footprint with a foray into aquatic mammal fashion. That’s not just the setup to a weird and tasteless fat joke — it’s what Target actually called the color of some of their plus-sized clothes. The company was put on the defensive last week after calling the color of…

business-renaming-flow-chart

Should you rename your business? Check our flow chart

Deciding to rename your business is a pretty big decision. Do you have too much brand equity? Too many stakeholders? Does your name connect with your audience? Can it? So we created this flow chart to help you sort through the key issues in renaming a business. If you run into any snags, we’re here…

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