Quack stats say Belgians care about branding. Perhaps.

"Shoppers vote with feet after Belgian supermarket removes Unilever products" says the headline in Marketing Magazine - apparently almost a third of supermarket chain Delhaize's shoppers will head off to where they can get their hands on lovely Unilever bits.

Er, or will they?

As of the survey taking place, Delhaize hadn't actually taken ANYTHING off its shelves - that only happens this week. So the survey only looked at intentions, rather than reality.

Judging from the article, it looks like the question might have been slightly loaded as well: "... 31% of Delhaize shoppers had decided to shop elsewhere for Unilever goods..." (emphasis mine). If the survery was asking specifically about Unilever goods, how many people actually know what they're buying is Unilever? I don't, much of the time, and I would class myself as more interested than most.

A commenter on the article makes similar points - and also raises the suggestion that almost 70% of shoppers really DON'T care about Unilever going AWOL.

Gotta love them surveys...

Pepsi: really IS the centre of the universe

Covering the marketing and advertising sector, I have come to terms with the fact that the "bullshit quotient" of much of what I write about will be higher than the global average.

But then there's the Pepsi rebrand.

Oh sweet lord.

So apparently Pepsi actually is the centre of the universe, a fact hitherto suspected only by senior Pepsi execs, and possibly an eight-year-old.

But the internal briefing document [PDF] detailing the genesis of Pepsi's new logo - basically just like the old logo, but wonkier - tells us that, in fact, most of the history of the universe, planet Earth, and humanity's art and culture and science, has been leading to the moment of sheer joy and epiphany that is the Pepsi logo - including gravity.



More highlights on Gawker, if you can't be bothered with the whole, hillarious, briefing document.

How NOT to brand, ladies and gents.

Delaware: the next Dubai Media City?

Delaware, the most boring state in America according to a thousand jokes, should reinvent itself as a major media hub - taking Dubai Media City as its model, according to a Delaware website.

Now, now, come on. Stop laughing at the back there...

Despite its reputation for tedium, Delaware has played the commerce game pretty cannily in the past, as the article above makes clear. Vast numbers of US corporations, especially finance-based firms, use Delaware as their base thanks to the lenient tax laws.

Could it do the same for media? And if it does, why Dubai as its model?

Well judging by the Communitypub.com piece, the author has probably not been to Dubai Media City. While all the points he makes - freedom to publish, facilities for freelancers, tax-free income, etc - are true, strictly speaking, the reality on the ground is somewhat... different.

Add to that the competition just up the coast from New York - in contrast to Dubai's virgin territory - and the idea of DMC II: This Time It's In Delaware starts to look a little more fanciful.

But perhaps the most interesting thing to note is, yet again, Dubai's almost supernatural powers of brand building have claimed another mind.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - whatever else you say about the place, you have to hand it to Dubai on the marketing front, especially outside the UAE itself.

Spoof branding II

More from the emails:

Spoof branding I

One good thing about the economic crisis - lots of good jokes.

From an email doing the rounds, some spoof logos, retouched to be more appropriate for the current circumstances:









(no idea if these have gone round before, but they're amusing so they're going up)