Alcohol has long been subject to high taxes but if you are a fizzy drinks or soda brand these are worrying times, as events in California unfold and further pressure is put on your business Last May the City Council in Richmond, California agreed to put a measure on their November ballot to charge businesses [...]

On my drive home the other day I chanced upon a talk on Radio 4’s Four Thought: architect Ali Mangera on ‘The Future of Shopping’. Given the closely-connected futures of the urban environment and shopping behaviour this made for some interesting listening. In 2010 Mangera’s firm won a competition to design a new Tesco store [...]

Brand consistency, especially of your masterbrand logo, and its maintenance by the ‘brand police’ is one of the “rules” of good branding,  but as the Google Doodles have shown to the hundreds of millions who regularly see them there are always exceptions to the rules of branding. As the article on the BBC site explains [...]

If the entire human population stepped on a scale, the weight would be 316 million tons, or 632 billion pounds, a recent study reveals. So, every pound you gain or lose moves the weight scale up or down.

We all know that the name of a product or service can have a significant impact on whether it succeeds. A good name can differentiate, position, communicate personality and more. Just think of Innocent, Agent Provocateur or Orange. Many institutions were caught napping when the financial crisis struck in 2008, from regulators to ratings agencies [...]

A really inspiring take on charity in a modern age caught my eye recently: http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/03/29/how-to-become-a-superhero-or%E2%80%A6why-i-would-never-donate-to-a-major-charity/?goback=%2Egmp_3840823%2Egde_3840823_member_48938284 This got me thinking about how the smallest of changes in behaviour can have the biggest impact. After all, if behavioural economics has taught us anything it is that change is hard, it doesn’t happen overnight and often comprises a series of [...]

How many times a day do you open the refrigerator? Perhaps you should start counting from now on because: “On average, a person opens the refrigerator 22 times per day”. Source: BBC 2 Factoids  

In this series we will be exploring the greatest misuse of insights. Taking a look at brands and products that have got it wrong and examining the core insight behind the move. First up is an example from Molson Coors… In March 2012, Molson Coors announced the first-ever line extension for Coors Light, Coors Light [...]