Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind: the branding impetus
Girvin office lobby | Seattle Exploring the concept of Zen in the construct of branding In working with teams, on the implications of their brand, the process is inevitably collaborative. How can I, or Girvin, completely understand without comprehending where the...
Marketing 3.0 | Inspiration, brand, books and storytelling
Examining the concept of brand books -- selling the story, the magazine, that brands own The idea of brands that publish their own books isn't new. I can recall the early days of Abercrombie & Fitch and some of their wildly outrageous "brand books". Girvin's...
Minimalism in packaging expression: 28 examples of simple elegance
© 2008 Sam Carter & Patrick Gunn Collections 1896 Ginger Beer Exploring restrained packaging design vocabularies in brand. We've been working on packaging, up north in Canada. And in exploring the idea of messaging, in the context of container expression -- shelf...
Human Brands | Ken Stuart and Seattle BioMed
Image credit: Matt Hagen Exploring the concept of human branding, foundational leadership, evolution and Seattle BioMed. Working in a long string of partnerships, with founding board members, executive committees and scientists, from the early 2000s, then 2004, then...
WHAMO! The Frisbee brand and passage: Walter Frederick Morrison
Authentic brand simplicity: Frisbee, an American classic The Frisbee was one of those progressively personal, explored brand creations -- enthrallments that went from basic object, a toy for a kid; elementary school student, and an obsession of flinging skills; in...
Human Brands | Innovation and the Auteur Model of Brand Creation
Steve Jobs, iPad and the persona of innovation. In the past, I've explored the idea of the human brand, a persona driven organization type that focuses on the character of central leadership in defining brand approaches to enterprise and marketing expression. The idea...
The fragrance of truth | exploring the emotionality of scent in brand and consciousness
Paramount Studios Are you telling the truth - do you smell right? The smell and taste of things remain poised a long time . . . and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection. (Proust, 1913/1928, p....
The Script | the calligraphy of the mind
The nature of the scripted hand, gesture and the fluent link to the mind I was talking to Steven Heller, the former Creative Director of the New York Times, and a person of astonishing connections and scholarship in the real of the history of design, author of more...
Sex Acts | Branding strategies for Safe(r) Sex
Global brand erection: the next position(ing) Okay, so it's Valentine's Day -- some levity, please. I do have a curiosity about the marketing of sex and the relations therein. It's a tough challenge, a complicated demographic positioning, albeit fraught with emotional...
Boys will be boys | Tween brand development
An emerging positioning: be a man, smell good. During an earlier brand development and product innovation program at P&G, Girvin created a product that was designed to speak to young men -- and those just following behind, the tweens, to explore and build on the...