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Brands as Belief Systems
Much of the lexicon of branding, from mission statements to company values, and from visions to manifestos, suggests terms from religion, philosophy, and politics. What do brands have in common with these more typical examples of belief systems?
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A Brief History of Content Strategy
A trip across the ages from the beginnings of content strategy to the present. We’ll start all the way back when tablets were, well, tablets…
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The Semiotics of Branding
Is a brand a sign, or is it the destination? Or is it both? Or is it something greater than either one? How you answer that question may well depend on where you sit professionally, in-house in a product or sales group, as a strategist or communications expert in or outside the organization, or at…
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The Linguistics of Branding
My day job (that takes a few nights as well) is helping companies connect to their customers through ‘verbal branding’: that is to say, positioning, messaging, corporate language, and brand voice. It’s somewhat unusual in that to many people, brands are visual constructs, consisting of logos, color schemes, visual vocabulary, and guidelines. However, that’s not…
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Of Peanuts and Personas
Does our understanding of brand and user personas derive, at least partly, from the classic personality archetypes we read about as kids? Even the names you see in a typical customer segmentation, such as “Sally Social Media” and the like, suggest a possible source: Peanuts characters.