Stealth Branding

I commented on streetwear label Freshjive dialing back the branding yesterday, and it reminded me that I’d seen similar things in the f&b industry recently.
My trendspotting spidey senses are tingling.

This is Burger King at the new Ion Orchard in Singapore, which their press release says is “specially-designed to reflect the lifestyle trends of the new [...]

Losing The Logo

For someone who’s designed a lot of logos I know this is going to sound strange, but I don’t wear any unless I really can’t get around it.
The exceptions seem to be the gym and sneakers (where you’d be pretty much naked if you didn’t dress in an assortment of triple stripes, swooshes and acronyms), [...]

When Good Advertising Intentions Go Bad

Just when the Singapore ad industry had got over the embarrassment of the BK 7″ Blow ads, we’re getting some international attention again. This time questioning whether hand cream is really the product you want to associate with your Stop Child Sex Trafficking campaign.
pic by creativespark

Never Mind The Length, Feel The Quality

A couple of days ago c0sm1c left a comment for me on a previous post about copywriting. He (rightly) pointed out that it’s quite often not the writer’s fault. The power dynamics in an agency/client relationship is almost always that the client gets their way. They are, after all, the ones with the cheque book.
It’s [...]

Blink Branding

There’s a whole section in the July Marketing Singapore magazine called  No Guts, No Glory, asking “As budgets shrink in an ever competitive market, are more marketers moving away from tried and true costly methods and going by their instincts?”
The magazine reports that a lot of companies are bypassing the months of market testing and [...]

The Answer My Friend Is Blowing In The Wind

It’s summer in Washington. The weather is in the gorgeous low 30s in the day and high teens at night. There’s a spring in everyone’s step and Capitol Pride is next week.
And there are lots of convertibles on the road. From Jags to VWs, they all have their tops down, and I expected to see [...]

Advertising

cartoons drawn on the back of business cards by Hugh McLeod

Watch My Copy

It probably serves me right for reading the newspapers over breakfast, but sometimes I find myself continuing to stare at a page until my mind goes blank.
Usually it’s not the articles. Standards of journalism here are high. It tends to be the advertising, especially the locally created stuff, because standards of copywriting here are appallingly [...]

Old Dharma Initiative Ads Surface

I’ve been trying to follow the documentary Lost on TV, but in the reconstruction of events it seems that in the room where the researchers were putting together their paperwork someone turned the industrial fan on by mistake. They must have been on a tight shooting schedule because I don’t think they had time to [...]

Ah Wahnt One O’Those Widget Thangs Fur Mah Website

I’ve just plowed my way though the March issue of Marketing Singapore. This month all the stories seem to have been brewed from the same template. They all start off with a variation of:
“For most of us in marketing, 2009 is going to be a tough year. Our budgets have been slashed, our consumers are [...]