Brand Mix

Who cares about data? I'm back to the weekend for SOTB, as it was crowded out this week by other blog posts and work. Here's my roundup of recent noteworthy events and posts. A dual theme week: Food and Germans:

1) WTF at Whole Foods (doing the cultural math): Grant McCracken
Grant systematically dissects the cultural inappropriateness of Whole Foods CEO's John Mackey's views on health care given Whole Food's position as the leader of the food and health revolution. His op-ed in the WSJ has led to a boycott campaign and tends towards the cannibalistic. It's his baby, after all.

2) How TrueBlood Drew Blood (Vampires and Why We Love Them): Grant McCracken
Another post by Grant. This one about the success of the HBO show True Blood. He wonders why vampires have become so popular.

3) Further unraveling of pool chair reservations: Market Design
This may only be funny/interesting to those British readers who have first-hand experience of staying in some package-holiday-hotel in Spain and never getting to sit near the pool because the Germans got up at 6am and put towels on the best seats to reserve them. Now Thomas Cook is offering Germans (only) the chance to make advance reservations for said chairs.

4) VW Ad Review: Only Part of the Chaos Over Car Accounts in Ad Land: David Kiley
VW of America has put its $200+ million account into review. David Kiley looks back at some of the Crispin work including this spot:

5) Sh*t my dad says: brandflakesforbreakfast
Now with over 160,000 followers on Twitter, shitmydadsays has shot into orbit. (It's only been going since August 3rd.) Food-related sample: "Don't touch the bacon, it's not done yet. You let me handle the bacon, and i'll let you handle..what ever it is you do. I guess nothing." Funnily enough, I've been doing something similar for a while, capturing the (thankfully mostly G-rated) sayings of my daughter, Emmi (born in Germany)

6) You are what you eat in pictures

Fridge wars from: Ben Kunz

New Good Humor logo from Brand New

Apparently real (and German) from Ruth Mortimer

That's it! Back soon with more stories from the world of brand strategy. More thoughts and comments also available on Twitter (@martinjbishop).