
Branding
The Grey Line
A fair game and a good outcome are not the same thing. But brands have been betting on the confusion.
Friday, March 13, 2026

A fair game and a good outcome are not the same thing. But brands have been betting on the confusion.
Friday, March 13, 2026

Ken Burns and the White House both released landmark narratives this fall; together, they offer an unintentional lesson in how brand mythologies are made and unmade.
Saturday, December 6, 2025

Larry Vincent/generated in Midjourney
Target’s new smile policy tries to fix the brand from the outside in but real change starts with product culture and giving people a reason to smile.
Sunday, November 9, 2025

Larry Vincent/Midjourney
Aligning a brand with a cause requires a lot more than rainbows and media buys.
Friday, June 23, 2023

Midjourney
HBO Max is about to be rebranded as 'Max'. Is this a shift towards commonness or a bold marketing gamble?
Saturday, May 20, 2023

Preference is an important measure of brand strength, yet it has many dimensions. One of those relates to safety.
Sunday, March 4, 2018

When managing a human brand (including your own), there is one metric that matters most
Sunday, September 17, 2017

Alex Wong/Getty
One of the biggest political headlines this week offered a case study in a frequent brand challenge
Sunday, September 10, 2017

Branding relies upon a story that lives inside the consumer's brain. But that story is changing in an era when stories appear and evaporate in a fraction of a second.
Sunday, July 16, 2017

Helen H. Richardson/Getty Images
What happens when your brand symbolizes something offensive to others? How much do logos incite bad behavior? The case of the Washington Redskins.
Sunday, July 9, 2017

Being t-shirt worthy was once the imperative for brand managers. But consumers have drifted away from badging brands to confer status. Instead, they seek ways to hack the brand's cultural currency to satisfy their social media reach.
Sunday, June 25, 2017

In the quest to become indispensable to consumers more brands should consider how they can ritualize their brand experience
Sunday, April 9, 2017