Brand Mix

I really, really want the London Olympic Games to be successful. Let's hope the choice of the one-eyed mascots is just a little bump along what will otherwise be a smooth road ahead:

1) London 2012: A Second Gold Medal for Dubious Branding: eyecube
I was sort on the fence about the 2012 London Olympics logo but I have no such doubts about the mascots that have been chosen. I don't like anything about them, not their names (Wenlock and Mandeville), not their design (sort of Pokemon-like and described as "patronising rubbish" in the Telegraph) and especially not this video:



2) Write The Future: Nalden
Meanwhile, World Cup fever is spreading across the globe (except, of course, in the U.S.). This week, it was Nike's turn to capture the spirit of a world cup competition actually played by countries throughout the world.



3) Word bloat and privacy policies: Bad Langauge
The week can't pass without reference to all the hoo-hah about Facebook's ever-changing privacy policies. The New York Times seems to have created a department specifically dedicated to producing infographics about Facebook's new policy. Matthew Stibe references a couple of those infographics in his post where he points out that you only need five words to say ‘we will protect your privacy’ if that is your real intention, rather than the 5,830 words in FB's privacy statements.

4) Mayors of Starbucks Now Get Discounts Nationwide with Foursquare: Mashable
Foursquare has take a step up the adoption and relevance ladder this week as Starbucks announced a chain-wide promotions rewarding "Mayors" in FourSquare with $1 off Frappucinos. That's a high profile and low cost promotion for Starbucks, given that there's only one mayor per location and there has to be a limit to how much Frappucino any one person can drink. As marketing promotions like these become more common, expect issues related to FourSquare "cheating" to soar as people start checking in (multiple times) to places just to get rewards. They do it now for a mayorship so they'll definitely do it even more for real rewards.

5) GINK: derrickcomedy
As Darryl points out in his post about this video on brandflakesforbreakfast: "This is exactly how you sound when talking about FourSquare in front of your mom."



6) Walk on Water: Liquid Mountaineering
Another video found on brandflakesforbreakast. This one has almost 4 million hits on YouTube-- a clever and disguised promotion for Hi Tech shoes.



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