What’s in a name? Mercedes was named after the daughter of a business partner. Acclaimed make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury is the face and name of her beauty brand. Cisco is a derivative of the city of San Francisco, where the company originated from. Spotify is a made-up, portmanteau word combining ‘spot’ and ‘identity’. Unsurprisingly perhaps,…
There’s a tried and tested brand formula I use when I start any new job. I ask the people who are part of my onboarding to describe what the company does in under a minute. I do this because; a) it’s a fun exercise, and b) it helps me gauge the vernacular employees use to…
In the 80’s, two of my most favourite TV shows were Japanese. Saiyūki or ‘Monkey Magic‘ as it was more commonly known in Australia, was a fantastical series produced by Nippon TV, based on a 16th century Chinese novel ‘Journey to the West‘. It melded eastern mysticism, with absurd storylines and comical martial arts scenes,…
Mother’s Day is a difficult time of the year for me—as it is for many others. For all the years I’ve spent living in the UK, I’ve had a regular reminder of my loss that hits me two-fold; once on the first Sunday in May, when the vast majority of the world acknowledges the role…
With all the geo-political problems Turkey has encountered in the last year, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that Turkish Airlines would roll-out yet another brand campaign fronted by a superstar celebrity to attempt to pull in the tourist dollars. Case in point, the latest outing with the all too predictable ‘Widen Your World’…
There’s something to be said about unique companies that have a stellar product, who go IPO, and then suddenly find themselves having difficulty coping with their new public identity. While the ultimate benchmark of success is always going to be their ability to generate consistent revenues, what sometimes gets lost amidst shareholder demands, are the…