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Will putting a trademark on hashtags restrict its ability to be successful? In recent times, brands have increasingly been using their own bespoke hashtags to communicate with customers. As the use of hashtags becomes more common, hashtag trademark applications filed have followed suite. The words…

Loved brands are profitable brands Is the whole ‘Loved Brands’ thing a fluffy piece of feelgood PR from the branding community or a commercially savvy strategy? That so much cynicism surrounds the brand industry must be a reflection of the inability of the industry to…

As Instagram announces its changes to their timeline, are brands already planning for the future? Instagram have recently announced they will be gradually rolling out a new algorithm based timeline replacing the existing chronological format, with a broad roll out expected in the coming months.…

A true surfing legend – a snap of myself with Kelly Slater at the 2016 Rip Curl Pro. I was lucky enough to meet Kelly Slater over the long weekend at the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach, and it’s fair to say I am a pretty…

New times equal new challenges for re-branding Over the last twenty years we’ve been working with business to re-position and refresh their brands the most significant change we’ve witnessed is the internet. Not such a ground breaking thought I know; the net has forever changed…

A questionable brand strategy In response to the UK Governments announcement it plans to increase tax on high sugar content soft drinks, Coke has announced plans to sue. As the soft drink market continues to decline globally Coke has been doing a good job of…

99 designs‘ business model puts emphasis on quantity over quality with their multiple designers and claims of “incredible results”, as designers compete to give you a “great custom design solution”.  Yes, I said COMPETE. With 4 offices in Australia, USA, Germany and Brazil, 99 designs…

Sponsors using Sharapova’s news to kill two birds with one stone. Choosing not to stand by Sharapova because of recent events? Or was it just the perfect excuse to move on without facing public backlash? Nike, the same company that stood by Tiger Woods and…

Would you launch a new newspaper brand today? Newsprint is dead, or so we keep hearing. So what do you do if your business is Newsprint? This is the kind of challenge lots of brands have. What do you do when your whole category is heading…

Big food’s short term thinking on sugar Every day there seems to be more and more information surfacing about the activities of major food brands in response to the obesity epidemic the western world is facing. There’s little doubt they’re using their financial muscle and…

US burger brand disrupts the category with old school American attitude. Carl’s Jr. also known as Hardee’s, is the latest burger brand to hit the Australian shores. It’s bold, irreverent and unapologetic and it is focused on young hungry Aussie blokes.

‘Enrich not exploit’ becomes new brand belief for The Body Shop After 40 years, The Body Shop is seeking to reaffirm its position as a leader in ethical business with a new commitment to its audiences. The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick has always wanted…

What exactly is a Challenger Brand and why are they so interesting? We’ve long been fans of Challenger Brands – businesses with the mindset to disrupt their category, to unlevel their playing field and upset their competitors’ apple carts. We categorise ‘challengers’ by mindset – what’s…

Do you have a Single Customer Engagement Mindset? We were talking brand engagement with a client recently and I was reminded of this You Tube clip from the Sasquatch Music festival back in 2009. The clip starts with a single guy entranced by the music…

A brand bringing you eco-friendly cleaning products – and award winning packaging design. Ecostore are offering substitute products to those other harsh chemical household products we all see in our major retailers. We all know these cleaning products contain many nasties, but sometimes we don’t…

Memorex is a consumer electronics brand that was best known for it’s recordable media for DVD and CD drives, and who can forget those classic cassette tapes! The story of this brand began in 1961 in Silicon Valley and by the early 80’s they were a…

An Inspiring TED Talk on how Marketing can be a Powerful Tool for Change Colombia is a country of exceptional beauty and promise, and it’s also a country where the F.A.R.C. guerrilla movement has incited violence for 50 years. The human cost of the war…

A Branding Challenge for market Leaders Microsoft has launched the latest evolution of their brand mark at the opening of its new store in Boston. The task of keeping a brand’s visual language fresh and relevant to the market is critical (we recently wrote a…

A High Class Brand Problem So what do you do when you’re the global market leader? When your brand and packaging is recognized in almost every corner of the world? When your product and brand already command a premium price? What on earth do you…

Welcome to the New Retail Era The world of retail is changing more rapidly than ever. On-line stores compete with off-line stores, fashion boutiques feature new ranges every month, and it seems almost everything can be made in China for next to nothing, creating undifferentiated…

All Brands Have Meaning Whether carefully and strategically considered or by default, all brands hold associated meanings in the market place. Well considered brands establish a competitive brand proposition (their brand strategy) with layers of meaning to both differentiate themselves from their competitors and to…

All Brands Have Meaning Whether carefully and strategically considered or by default, all brands hold associated meanings in the market place. Well considered brands establish a competitive brand proposition (their brand strategy) with layers of meaning to both differentiate themselves from their competitors and to…

Building Your Brand’s Visual Properties When creating a corporate image for our clients brands, we focus on building unique brand properties that can be leveraged to become brand assets. A brand’s typeface is one of the visual properties we incorporate into the brand design process,…

The hidden code All brands project an image through the visual language of their brand identity. Customers and markets use the code contained within their visual language to make logical and emotional associations that drive their responses to trust, lust, aspire and desire the brand……

Like all new frontiers, social media is a lawless place where anything goes, especially when it comes to brand. Everyone seems to have moved into these boom towns with a population of more than 12 million people projected for Twitterville alone this year. It’s a on-line,…

Beers aint beers Everything about the Coopers brand oozes authenticity. Coopers in South Australia is a family owned brewery with a long history of making fine ale (as opposed to making beer). Coopers is a brand with high beer cred for taste and quality. But…