From July 1st 2010 Australia will be the first country to ban logos, trademarked images and colours on cigarette packaging as part of a new anti-smoking initiative. The move comes after the Australian government raised the tax on cigarettes up by twenty-five percent on Thursday last week.
The new packet designs will feature large graphic images warning users against the negative health effects of tobacco use. Under the laws cigarette companies can only display their brand name using small, inconspicuous regulated fonts featured on the bottom of the packet.
Read more …

Do you remember when having a Commodore computer was something to brag about? Yes? Are you old? Yes. Think about this, today’s 25-year-old computer user has probably never even seen a real Commodore computer. But if the brand’s new CEO has anything to do with it, that could change soon. Yes, Commodore is back, baby!
Commodore is rising from the ashes like a phoenix – or at least it’s trying to. Later this year the brand will release a desktop computer unit enclosed in a keyboard. Commodore’s website describes the …

Vitrue’s Social Media Index (SMI) assigns brands and products a score based on overall buzz from status updates, videos, photos and blog posts. The company has tallied its results for 2009 and released its top 100 social brands based on index scoring, with last year’s winner — the iPhone — reigning supreme once again.

Although the index focuses on consumer mentions and reactions — as opposed to indexing brand engagement via social media — the list is still a veritable powerhouse of information in terms of consumer buzz and word-of-mouth …

Experience the entire photo gallery with commentary at: Gizmodo
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{Photography by Marcin Wichary}

“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. If the consumer (whether it’s a business, a buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn’t pay a premium, make a selection or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer. “

Read more at: Seth Godin’s Blog on marketing, tribes and respect
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{Photography by Joi}

He’s one of indie filmmaking’s biggest names. If you ever find yourself watching a film you’re not sure who directed… here’s a checklist of signs to know you’re watching one of Anderson’s films.
5- Bill Murray Being Serious
If you’re seeing this comic king in a movie that was made in the past ten years it’s probably a Wes Anderson movie. Of the last fifteen film projects Murray has done four have been with Anderson. It was his role in “Rushmore” that made him an indie-film darling with such directors as …

The world’s greatest organizations don’t build sustainable growth with accounting schemes. Instead, they harness the unwieldy power of human emotions

by Jim Clifton
Excerpted from Follow This Path (Warner Books, 2002)
I am still haunted by a two-inch graph that appeared last year in The Economist. Although the graph is small and very simple, it could be the most important business story this executive has ever seen. I cannot understand why it was not on the front page of every newspaper in America.
Maybe everyone knows why except me. Here is the graph. …

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Niels Bohr once noted that “prediction is very difficult, especially about the future,” but then he didn’t have access to predictive loyalty metrics. Happily, we do. And, as they measure the direction and velocity of consumer values 12 to 18 months in advance of the marketplace and consumer articulations of category needs and expectations, they identify future trends with uncanny accuracy.
Having examined these measures, we offer 10 trends for marketers for 2010 that will have direct consequences to the success – or failure – of next year’s branding and …

Remember Squidoo? Founded by current CEO and famous marketing guru Seth Godin, the service allows Internet users to generate rich, topical web pages (dubbed ‘lenses’) to serve as a hub for information, videos, links etc. centered around any given subject. The concept is similar to what companies like HubPages, Mahalo and Helium are all about.
Now Squidoo is looking to monetize the web service directly – rather then depend on on-site advertising – by persuading brands to pay for management of their respective lenses.
In a blog post, Godin shares more …

FROM the outside, there is nothing playful about the drab, two-story Lego Idea House here, where designers gather in whitewashed rooms to dream up new toys. But upstairs, behind a series of locked doors accessible only to employees with special passes, is a chamber that might as well be toy heaven for kids — and more than a few adults.
Multicolored Lego creations in every imaginable size and shape spill from the shelves, from Indiana Jones’s biplane to Darth Vader’s fighter. Boxes stamped “confidential” hold potential future blockbusters, like Buzz …

Someone suggested this to me before, within the context of investing in movies:

nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the american public
nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the american public
nobody ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the american public

This is sad, very very sad.
Food for thought. So as the entrepreneur is alone in a garage or a basement or some sort, or – in more modern times – in a internet cafe and is struck by a Flash of Genius, and nobody around her “gets …

From: NetflixPrize.com

This is Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer at Netflix.
To everyone who participated in the Netflix Prize: You’ve made this a truly remarkable contest and you’ve brought great innovation to the field. We applaud you for your contributions and we hope you’ve enjoyed the journey. We look forward to announcing a winner of the $1M Grand Prize in late September.
And, like so many great movies, there will be a sequel.
The advances spurred by the Netflix Prize have so impressed us that we’re planning …

Graphic designers (UnderConsideration LLC), authors, and Internet instigators Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio recently closed their influential design blog Speak Up and left New York to set up shop in Austin, Texas. Besides the fact that their mortgage now nets them double the square-footage, not much has changed for the husband-and-wife team: They still run several blogs, including the popular branding blog Brand New, work for clients, and write books, including their newest, Graphic Design Referenced, published by Rockport. The highly-visual guide highlights the industry’s technical terms, historical moments, …

For individuals: Refill your bottle with clean sustainable water on the go.
For businesses: Become part of the network.
Spread the karma
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{Photography by Randy Son Of Robert’s}

http://www.youshouldhaveseenthis.com/

Apple just rejected the Google Voice iPhone application from App Store distribution, the most recent in a long line of questionable moves, and the message is clear: If you want a device that won’t lock you out of innovation, skip the iPhone.
There’s no question that this brilliant little piece of hardware has sparked a revolution in the world of mobile computing and cellphones, and, likewise, there’s no question that consumers have benefited from that. I’ve been a believer in the iPhone from the start (hell, I even co-wrote a …

This July, the American Institute of Architects forecasted steep declines in nonresidential construction spending through 2010. Spending is projected to decrease by 16 percent this year and another 12 percent in 2010. With less money flowing through the industry, high-end design projects are likely to be scaled back; architects, builders and regular folk are opting for retrofits with more practical design. While the demand may be turning to minimal and frugal architecture, unusual design still holds a place for museums and other prominent locations, primarily because it is so …