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Crashing the World’s Biggest Wine and Cheese Party
by Jeffery Racheff Cheese-makers, prepare to curd your enthusiasm. The European Union is cracking down on producers who name their products after places of geographical significance — Camembert, Champagne, etcetera, in an effort to pasteurize fakers and keep the famous brands solely within the continent. Basically, if your Burgundy isn’t flying a French flag, the EU…
Jennifer Aniston: victim of a classic ‘Baste & Switch’
by Jeff Racheff There are innumerable reasons why a movie might bomb in Hollywood today. Maybe the studio forgot to promote it. Maybe what started out as a family film scared away audiences after it received an NC-17 rating. Or maybe it just had a forgettable name. Take The Switch for example. Jennifer Aniston’s latest…
Torrent Reactor ‘Buys’ Itself a Russian Village
- About: Naming
Deep in the Siberian tundra, where sub-zero temperatures are the norm and Yaks outnumber computers, the new frontier of internet file-sharing is born. Torrent Reactor, one of the most popular file-sharing sites on the web, announced recently it has purchased the small Russian town of Gar in exchange for its name. The company reportedly paid…
How Branding Can Affect Your Business Startup Capital
- About: Branding, Positioning
“Spend money to make money.” If you’re a startup, the old adage certainly applies to development and hiring. But what about using capital for branding? Working with startups, we hear a lot about the ongoing tensions between branding and capital that go on during the early phase of starting a company. Most startups are focused…
Business Startup Exhibition: How Branding Makes You Stand Out
- About: Branding, Positioning
A business startup exhibition is an opportunity to learn more about brand positioning strategy. Whether you’re planning a trip to a business startup exhibition or looking to apply the information that you learned at one, it helps to think about the startups that you remember. Why did they stick in your head? It’s important to…
MAC Names New Cosmetic Line After Mexican Murder Town
- About: Naming
by Jeff Racheff It’s a good thing MAC designs make-up, because the cosmetics giant is sporting a nasty black eye. The cover-up creator was blasted for a new joint collection with Rodarte apparently inspired by Juarez, Mexico, the hellish murder capitol of the world — infamous for its drug-related slayings, sex trafficking and unsolved cases…
How A Hundred Monkeys Can Help Business Startups
- About: Branding, Positioning
When you create business startups for a living, you know the long odds that any new venture has to overcome. The faith you have in the value of your ideas keeps you going. That means you spend most of the time making the idea a reality. At the same time, you need to make smart…
Business Startup Ideas: Where to Draw Inspiration for Branding
- About: Branding, Positioning
When entrepreneurs are developing their business startup ideas, the topic of branding inevitably comes up. It often gets pushed to the side. Startup owners worry about budgets, or think they should fully develop the product before they start on the branding. Sometimes, however, these concerns are just excuses made by entrepreneurs who are secure in…
Business Startup Checklist for Branding
- About: Branding, Positioning
At A Hundred Monkeys, we talk a lot about what branding is. Because it’s a broad concept, our clients often ask us to break brands down into bite-sized pieces. “What are the building blocks of a brand?” or even “Where should I start building my brand?” are common questions in our early interactions with startups….
Ameriie Has a Vowel Movement
by Jeffery Racheff Rock ‘n’ roll takes no prisoners. Especially with those who have terrible names. This is typically a lesson learned the hard way. The perfect band name you came up with over the course of a week-long drug and booze binge might not fare so well in the long-run. So what does an artist…