Poolboy nails one of the three most pernicious forms of marketing trends: the ironic self-deprecating brand run by some douchey social media manager: Read the rest

Dunkin' Donuts will still sell donuts but, as of January, shall only be Dunkin'.

According to CNN, "The makeover is part of Dunkin' Brand's efforts to relabel itself as a 'beverage-led' company that focuses on coffees, teas, speedy service and to-go food including -— but not limited to — doughnuts."

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Japan's Wakino Ad Company is selling ad space on women's underarms for rates starting at 10,000 yen/hour. Their first paid campaign comes from Seishin Biyo Clinic for its armpit hair removal process. From Straits Times:

Meanwhile, Wakino is calling for aspiring models to raise their hands, as it has since embarked on a recruitment drive via its website.

The company, which said it is open to hiring male models as well, will also be organising an armpit beauty contest.

IHOP caused quite a stir last week by claiming they are changing the restaurant chain's name to IHOb. They aren't. It's (duh) a marketing stunt and the "b" stands for "burgers." From the New York Times:

Many people said they were distressed, some because they hate the sound of the new word, others because they love pancakes. (Pancakes remain on the restaurant’s menu.) Still others pointed out that the “changed” logo, with its lowercase b, resembled that of o.b. tampons....

Brad Haley, IHOP’s chief marketing officer, said that the idea had been proposed by the marketing firm Droga5 in November. He said that only one IHOP location, on Sunset Boulevard, had undergone a design change in response to the new (fake) name, which is meant to promote a product line of Ultimate Steakburgers.

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The $63 billion takeover of Monsanto by Bayer prompted a thorny branding question: what to call the new company? The company's management has announced its decision: the new company will be called "Bayer," despite the name's longtime association with Nazi slave labor camps, fatal human subjects experiments conducted on prisoners supplied by the Nazis, and complicity in the production of Zyklon B, the lethal poison used in concentration camp gas-chambers. Read the rest

See ya later, er, crocodile.

For an extremely-limited edition line of polo shirts, Lacoste is temporarily replacing its iconic green crocodile logo with the likenesses of 10 different endangered animals. The French clothing brand partnered with BETC Paris and International Union for Conservation of Nature to choose the campaign's threatened species, ranging from the Anegada Rock Iguana (450 left) to the Vaquita (just 30 left).

They note:

For each species, the number of polo shirts produced corresponds to the number of individuals known to remain in the wild.

That means that, for example, only 450 Anegada Rock Iguana polos will be produced because there is only 450 of them left in the world.

Take a look. Lacoste's team even made the new logos to mimic the look of the original crocodile logo:

Only 1775 of these shirts will be made available in total (at around $183/each) and can only be purchased through Lacoste's French website. Proceeds benefits the preservation of these animals worldwide.

While I'm not a tennis prep (and not in Lacoste's market audience), I do admire the spirit of this campaign.

(Fast Company) Read the rest

Khoi Vinh noticed that tech marketing adheres a very specific, somewhat infantilized illustration style. I call it safety minimalism—Vinh sees in it the rise of a monoculture.

In my experience, the vast majority of them are quite similar in their aesthetic: the colors range from primary to bright pastels; the figures are cleanly drawn and almost always rendered with vectors; the details are highly abstracted and shading is geometric if it appears at all; the compositions are generally minimal and only occasionally feature very limited background elements. ... It probably wouldn’t be far off-base to assume that a lot of these illustrations were done not by professional illustrators but by product designers who also have some illustration talent themselves.

Just as likely is the genre's systemic occupation of cheap stock illustration sites, which aggregate semi-skilled hackwork into a convenient business-to-business service.

Either way, Vinh poses an important question about "the prevalence of a single, monocultural aesthetic" by every startup, tech firm and personal brand monster: surely some other voice, or even another "modulation" of the same style, would be more appropriate for at least some?

UPDATE: First comment from Moosemalloy points out some important art history: "I submit that this style is redolent of and still influenced by the flattist pastel-y images that Adobe Flash tended to produce and that hence proliferated in early-to-mid web history. Flash is discontinued but still, I suspect, casts its shadow (or lack of shadow!) over web imagery generally, and this is a manifestation of same." Read the rest

A brand manager at Dong Energy finally convinced them that their company name might be getting in the way of their messaging. They will be Ørsted from here out. Read the rest

If an artificial intelligence reviewed your favorite logo, how would that logo fare? now you can find out with Logo Rank, a nifty tool by the guy behind Brandmark. Read the rest

Spotted doing the viral rounds and unattributed (though watermarked with a URL that redirects to Elbe Spurling's website) this wall of Dr. Pepper knockoffs is a magnificent lesson in branding magic and semiotics and all that fancy jazz. I transcribed the names:

Dr. Choice Dr. Bold Dr. Perfect Dr. Bob Dr. Wow Real Dr. Dr. Thunder Dr. Right Dr. K Dr. Shaw Dr. A+ Dr. Stripes Dr. Chill Dr. Skipper The Dr. Dr. Tremor Dr. Snap Dr. Perky Dr. Shasta Dr. Spice Dr. Fine Dr. Zevia Dr. Dynamite

Not included, tragically, is Kroger's recently-marketed "The Fizzicist", photographed here by Brent Nashville.

If I made one, it would be 'Not really a Dr."

Update: One ~bmasmith compiled a big list of Dr. Pepper clones. Read the rest

Aaron created the Falsum, a fully worked branding guideline with templates and a style guide for a wordmark and logo for resisting Trumpism. Read the rest

From the THX sound to Windows startup chimes, audio is a key weapon in the psychological branding arsenal. In this video from Wired, Andrew Stafford (Co-Founder & Director at Big Sync Music) and Steve Milton (Founding Partner at Listen) provide commentary on some of the most famous.

There was a time, Stafford says, when the Nokia ringtone was being played 20,000 times a second. [via MeFi]

Encore: the story behind Sosumi, the most annoying Mac sound. Read the rest

A building council in Vancouver, BC commercial building are reportedly refusing to allow one of the building owners to lease to Moby Dick's Restaurant, a fish-and-chips franchise, in part because of its name. According to a lawsuit, the building council claims that “that the word ‘Dick’ in Moby Dick was an offensive term" and "also claimed a Moby Dick sign would hurt the value of neighboring properties, and that the restaurant would bring increased litter and violate city laws on odor." From Courthouse News Service:

“It was clear by the end of August 2016 that the Strata intended to refuse any signage proposals belonging to Moby Dick which resembled its traditional trademark and brand,” the complaint states. “Instead, the Strata demanded that Moby Dick adopt a signage that was ‘minimalist’ both in color and design. As such, the Strata wrongfully denied Moby Dick’s use of its logo, brand name, and goodwill recognition at the commercial property.”

Mengfa seeks declaratory judgment and damages for interference with business relations.

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New Yorkers renting in the Trump Place buildings on the upper west side have forced the building's owner to take Trump's name off their homes. Read the rest

When estimating his net worth, Pepe the Cheeto is apt to include a multibillion dollar valuation for the "Trump" brand-name; but new Trump Hotels will be called "Scion" hotels, "a nod to the Trump family and to the tremendous success it has had with its businesses, including Trump Hotels, while allowing for a clear distinction between our luxury and lifestyle brands." Read the rest

Christophe Szpajdel rebranded the hopefuls with more elaborate and distinctive imagery than is permitted by the blandly inoffensive standards of election campaigning. Read the rest

Photo: Zoelee Read the rest