Don’t you wish your laundry room looked like that? Give me some feedback here.  Who thinks this one is good/bad and why?

I think my favorite part of all of this is that they won a Lion for the work the general masses did to build the brand. Genius, effective communication by letting the public do the communicating… and we wonder why he won by a landslide.

Not a bad marketing position for a foodstuff comprised mainly of salt, a seasoning that for centuries has been used to wake up the flavor of food. I dig it, do you?

So I’m driving back from my random drug screening/dentist visit/eat as fast as you can morning and I end up behind a minivan, wrapped top-to-bottom in all types of colors and swathed in phone numbers, url’s, and email addresses. They even had a custom tag furthering the brand they were displaying. Not so odd to see these days, I know. The problem you might ask? They were driving 61 mph in the left lane causing, at one point, a school bus to pass on the right. That’s right; traffic on 540 northbound was piling up like you wouldn’t believe because someone’s Brand-mobile was driving like a horse’s behind.

This brings up a thought I’ve been mulling over ever since, causing me to hold up traffic even further and almost miss my exit… I didn’t say I was perfect and don’t judge me. I’m a brand guy. I live, breathe, eat, and sleep my personal brand as well as those brands near and dear to me. I establish and maintain brands for a living and I can’t remember a time when I had a discussion with a client over proper etiquette when living ones brand. This is an error of strategy.

Having experienced this particular faux paux I now realize the importance of living your brand even further. Yes, I am telling a pile of people about them but you’ll notice no reference to their name and I promise that every time I see that brand now I’ll remember a school bus having to drive around an idiot in a minivan. I don’t know about your brand but that’s not the image I want associated with my brand.

Bottom line, remember the message you’re sending out at all times. Live your brand well and reap the rewards of solid brand management.

Please, don’t force yourself to read on as I delve into the cluttered mind of the creative. I’m writing this primarily as therapy and in self-discovery. What is it that always keeps me going? What has changed in recent weeks? I’m I just exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally? The odd thing is that I can’t tell. I’m just in a funk.

Life is good. I’ve got a job, a beautiful fiancé, toys in the garage, and a yard to call my own, great step-kids-to-be and an awesome family. There is absolutely no reason for the detachment I’m feeling. All I’ve really wanted to do for days now is just sit in a quiet place and read without interruption.

It could be the meds I’ve been on. I’m typically not one to take pills but between pulled muscles, quitting smoking, and having oral surgery I’ve been on and off of a plethora of meds, most recently Oxycodon. It’s been a couple of days since I’ve taken one of those so maybe I’m coming down. I don’t know. I just feel like life is “going through the motions” right now and that’s not me.

I’m going to step away from this for a while and get over myself. Life is good and I’m good at it. I’m just slacking emotionally right now. I’ll get it together.

So they blow off any threat of sanctions or consideration to personal comfort and blow this thing up. The whole world puckers up and rolls up their sleeves, Rosie the riveter style and what do they do? Launch a couple of test missiles. There, that should solidify their intentions.

The funny thing is that they’re picking a fight while they’re learning. Most rational beings would try to get all the pieces working correctly before picking a fight on the world stage. It’s like getting in the ring with Mike Tyson because you made some boxing gloves out of old tee shirts and duct tape. And lest they forget they are surrounded by world powers on either side.
Come on psycho, use that head for something other than holding up those oversized, horrible sunglasses.

Analysts called the behavior of the stock a bit of a “levitating magic trick” in it’s hovering around the $1.50 mark but I don’t see it as magic. The American people were not about to lose faith in the great American motorcar company while the executives were still fighting. There was some belief that there would be a marginal rebound, even if it came through restructuring. This belief was fueled by the fact that those in power were still vested in their company.

Today’s act of cowardice for the grand profit of $315,000 (collectively… for 200,000 shares) is proof that the company is and has been run by dismissive incompetence. My Google Finance gadget says the stock is at $1.11 right now. Who knows, by the end of the day they might just hit that magic $0.02 and they can all go home. Arghhh…

Here’s the whole story…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090512/bs_nm/us_gm_shares

The word for the day is REPURPOSE!

Here’s the plan. I’m going to focus each of my site locales to a relatively specific topic set. This site will contain my ad critiques, rants, and raves – all ad, all the time. My hosted blog, http://www.jaythornton.net/blog will encompass what topics it has covered to date, life, cars, and good reads. My resume can be found at LinkedIn, images on Flickr, wedding stuff at http://www.ryandjay.com and all will be hubbed together through my website, http://www.jaythornton.net.

Sound like a slice of fried gold?