Helpful words

Dismasted: The Rise and Fall of Mast Brothers Chocolate

The branding efforts of Mast Brothers Chocolate typify the American craft-culture renaissance. We’re told the chocolate bars, ground from premium beans of tropical origin in a small city loft, are the pride and obsession of siblings Rick and Michael Mast. In promotional photos, the brothers pose in front of burlap sacks in their factory, dressed…

a-hundred-monkeys-brand-story-narrative-writing

Serial Box

The Problem: Communicating a tangled message Starting a new category Serial fiction reminds most people of the 19th century. We think first of Dickens and Austen, The Three Musketeers and The Brothers Karamazov. Today, Serial Box, a company founded by former client Julian Yap, is rebuilding the serial for the 21st century, complete with digital…

Deconstruct: Freeform

Deconstruct is a propaganda venture from A Hundred Monkeys in which we perform close readings of new names belonging to companies with large legal teams. “Freeform … free to take whatever shape feels right, free to push beyond the expected. Free to get from point A to point B in a line that’s nowhere near…

What the Wu Tang Clan Can Teach You About Branding

In 1993, nine New York rappers dropped an album that would go on to… I don’t need to finish it, do I? You know who the Wu Tang Clan is, and if you don’t, you can read one of the many pop-cultural accounts of their rise to stardom, power, and a place in the hip…

On Re-renaming Denali

  • About: Naming

In June of 1896, a gold prospector named William Dickey was digging on the banks of Alaska’s Susitna River. Towering over the river valley was a giant peak, rising over 20,000 feet. While Dickey labored at the foot of the mountain, news arrived that William McKinley had won the Republican presidential nomination. Elated, the prospector…

Naming: It’s What’s for Dinner

If you were to take a walk through a California orchard in 1920 or so, you might come across a tree bearing a large, egg-shaped fruit. The fruit is covered in tough, green skin. Plucked from the tree, it ripens, turning a duller green. You would know it as the alligator pear. The avocado, as…

Deconstruct: 365 by Whole Foods

Deconstruct is a propaganda venture from A Hundred Monkeys in which we perform close readings of new names belonging to companies with large legal teams. Last week, Whole Foods announced the launch of a new chain of grocery stores. Described as “a smaller-store concept where value meets quality,” the new chain is intended as a…

Branding E-Cigs

Brand Death It’s been a long, dismal downhill for tobacco branding. First came the ban on TV and radio ads in 1970. Since then, tobacco companies have been banned from sponsoring sports and cultural events, advertising on billboards in 46 states, and printing their logos on tshirts. Over time, regulatory incursions have made their way…

Deconstruct: Microsoft Edge

Introducing Deconstruct, a new propaganda venture from A Hundred Monkeys in which we perform close readings of names belonging to companies with large legal teams. With Edge, Microsoft rolled out a browser that boasts newer, leaner software, replacing the dated Internet Explorer. That’s a good thing, cause the IE name needed to go. Like fellow…

There’s a Word for That

To name is to swim through the deep order of words. It’s our business, and we keep sharp tools at hand to help us get the job done. Part of making sense of language is in classification. Take a form and examine it, then find all its recorded examples. We might take inspiration from a…

1 … 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 … 38