Brand Mix

Here's my weekly summary of some interesting and entertaining posts. A more comprehensive list: "Martin's Shared Items" is at the bottom of the page:

1) Is it April Fool's Day already? P&G, the darling of Cannes: brandgymblog
"The world has gone mad. The world of advertising at least." David Taylor talks about the turnaround of P&G from a quant-testing, scene by scene objective setting producer of unexciting ads to the winner of advertiser of the year at Cannes. And why it matters.

2) Brand positioning: Choose your words carefully: Branding Strategy Insider
Derrick Daye argues against using too many words in a positioning statement. Throws in a reference to the world record for the longest line of people playing Chinese whispers and how that led to a macaroni cantaloupe.

3) My Genius, my Guinness: Idea Sandbox
Paul Williams shows a coaster (beer mat) that can only be decoded with a glass of Guinness. Brilliant!

4) Two posts about the Micosoft bid for Yahoo!
B to B, B in B, and the cultures of commerce: Grant McCracken
Betting on the Law of Duality: Jack Trout
Grant looks at it from an internal, cultural integration perspective (bad) and Jack looks at it from the market share perspective (good). Meanwhile, it looks like Jerry would rather get into bed with Rupert than Steve.

5) Three posts about food
Big Macs and the phylogenetic distribution of diet: Boing Boing
The worst food in America: Boing Boing
Attribute Soup: Tom Fishman
Want to maintain a global diet? Then try a Big Mac. Latest research shows that they contain 20 different species and ingredients from around the world. Need a quick calorie boost? Then rush to Outback Steakhouse and order the Aussie Cheese fries with Ranch Dressing. With 2,900 calories (and 182g of fat) this "starter" wins the Men's Health award for worst food in America. Need to stop the marketing madness? Then share Tom Fishburne's latest cartoon which is a useful reminder that too many product benefits spoil the broth.