"Unsurprisingly, having recognizable cartoon characters on the boxes caused kids to rate a cereal as better tasting, affecting their subjective assessment of it."

"John Leighton's hexagonal map only extended about 6 miles from the centre of London, but it's a relatively process to extend more concentric rings of hexes, turning the Great Wen into a setting for a boardgame, Settlers of Catan or Squad Leader re-imagined upon London." Wargaming/Catan pretty much leapt into my mind, too. I like this.

"You may not know his name but you will certainly know his work: Morris Cassanova (aka Mr Chicken) designs and makes signs for most of the fried chicken shops in the UK." That's a good market to have sewn up, I'd imagine.

"One of my enduring passions is exploring graphic design with programmatic and generative systems. While some aspects of design require the skilled hand of the designer, others can be formalized and explored by computer. For those tasks, Mathematica is an exceptional tool." Some lovely thinking around generative design.

"Are all these industries in such terminal decline that they’re grasping around for any revenue stream or way out? Or is this the converged future, where business and culture are one and the same? Not only can’t I tell whether things are real or marketing vehicles any more, I can’t even determine what’s being marketed." Chris has a point.

"Of all the adverts I’ve seen this year, I think this (late entry) surprised me the most. Not because of the concept - the hilarious coincidence that sometimes people who are not famous share names with people who are famous has been used before - or the clumsy copy. It surprised me because I actually know the person in the photograph. And she really is called Julia Roberts." So do I. She really is, you know.

"Timex sets their watches to precisely 10:09:36 while Rolex waits almost a minute until 10:10:31." Some lovely observations collated by Kottke.

"Alternate movie posters about film brand integration." Beautiful, typographically speaking, and definitely honest.

"Brands are built...out of culture...out of meanings from culture. In the Volvo campaign, the meaning was safety and symbol for this safety was a little girl. Pretty standard. But this book is interested in new ways to source meaning. Let's look at new, emerging brand tactics." More excellent posts from Grant.

"If you think of Matthew McConaughey as a celebrity product, he's one of the most consistently branded and immediately recognizable products on the planet... The man is a rigorously disciplined marketing genius." Amazing.

"...by stringing together “first-order” desires for loot and approval, these games train us to be passive pursuers of one desire after another rather than engaged critics." Part 2 of Pliskin's analysis of Benjamin Barber's "Consumed".

"...making that context a part of your marketing is going to be much more relevant to customers than being dismissive of your competitors could ever be." Alex on marketing and copywriting, again. Good stuff (and: good snacks!)

"people... are going to judge your product on that single thing that you think is so important... Have you thought through everything about that? Are you happy with dealing with all those implications?"

"I always want to see more marketing that solves problems, and liked the idea that a loyalty scheme could solve more problems than the fake “I have to pay for ten out of ten coffees rather than nine out of ten” kind of problem."

"...the fact that Flickr has users who are passionate and articulate about what they love about the site is an asset. It’s also potentially a headache." A great piece by Tom Ewing on debates about brand values with an engaged audience.

"Strictly limited edition 4Gb USB stick, shaped in Radiohead’s iconic "bear" image and housed in a bespoke deluxe box." Full .WAV files and some natty packaging, to boot.

"For years Buckley’s Cough Mixture, available in Canada since 1919, has been highlighting the fact their cough syrup tastes horrible, but it works." Love some of the taglines; a smart bit of marketing for the kind of products you hate but need...

Wow. Just wow. Phenomenal print adverts for Lego, that manage to sum up the brand so well.

List of corporations, and their "official" typeface (usually for their logotype, but also for other things).