Brand Mix

Photo: peasap (Flickr CC)

It's Halloween. Pumpkins all over America are being hacked and slashed to pieces. Thousands of Ghosts, Spidermen and Balloon Boys are ready to head out and hunt for tons and tons of candy that will help keep dentist chairs fully occupied in the months to come. To celebrate the occasion, here are six posts, tricky or treaty in some particular and sometimes obscure ways:

1) How Trick-or-Treating Started: Smithsonian.com
Apparently: "Trick-or-treating is a modern day holdover of the practice of propitiating, or bribing, the spirits and their human counterparts roaming the world of the living on that night." This post describes various different theories on how trick-or-treating started and also references this 2006 New York Times article which talks about how Halloween, like an invasive species, is gradually displacing the British tradition of Bonfire night much to the chagrin of traditionalists.

2) Why celebrate Halloween? Seth Godin
Most of what we believe, Seth argues here, is based on what other people believe. "This groupthink is the soil that marketing grows in. It's frustrating for someone who is hyper-fact-based or launching a new brand to come to the conclusion that people believe what they believe, not that people are fact-centered data processing organisms."

3) With Video, a Traveler Fights Back: The New York Times
Perhaps more Ripley's Believe It or Not than trick or treat but, incredibly, United Airlines managed to lose the luggage of the man whose guitar it so famously broke a few months ago. Not just lose the luggage but also make a complete mess at dealing with the situation. The good news is that it gives Dave Carroll more song material.

4) 5 Ways To Use Twitter's New List Feature For Marketers: Influential Marketing Blog
Twitter's new list feature is a treat for some. Rohit Bhargava's post is worthy of inclusion just for the phrase: "You can segment your firehose." Twitter has gotten to where it's got to by being extremely simple. But the deluge (or firehose) of information it spews out is a problem that lists may possibly help to solve. Rohit describes a few ways to use lists. I set up two lists myself: @martinjbishop/brand-gurus and @martinjbishop/branding-501.

And now, to get into the spirit, here are two videos:

5) This is Halloween: The Nightmare before Christmas



Well, that's just fine
Say it once, say it twice
Take a chance and roll the dice
Ride with the moon in the dead of night

6) Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps): David Bowie



I could have also gone with The Zombies and Time of the Season - nice video!

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