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?

This is a great series that inspires me to be a champion for what I work on daily, step outside the day-to-day process, and really analyze the entire objective of the projects I manage to affect a  better result.

The Dark Side of Design

There is something really nasty about the Design Industry; something many know of but never really spoke of. In our ever-competitive society, we always seem to celebrate the winners, and outcast the losers. We often talk about the one that made it to the top and leave no space for second place.

Just like in our Design world it is all about our award winning designs, the big budget projects, and the ones that the client and consumers love. However we never talk about our setbacks, the projects we hate, the ones that failed the engineering tests, and the ones that got away. We never like to talk about this so-called “Dark Side of Design”.

I like to share with you a number of real life scenarios that shows how the world of design can be a pure hellhole. I like to talk about how money seems to overcome morality and sensibility. Facing the “Dark Side of Design” head on is neither easy or fun.

1. You will have to design something you hate
Designing something you hate is something you never really consider when you get out of school. It just does not register. You love design and you love your work so it is not conceivable that you would have to design something you hate. It will happen, so be prepared and bask in the frustration.

2. You will have to work with someone you hate
You will get assigned to that snot nosed designer that can’t design for nuts but can kiss ass like there is no tomorrow. When it happens at work you suddenly realize why your boss is not paying you his salary in addition to yours. Worst he may be your manager.

Not only that, but you might have to work with a client or business partner that treats you like that piece of dirt under his/her shoe. That person may be unreasonable, belittle you, and hate everything you give him. Unfortunately, the only thing you can do is swallow your pride and turn the other cheek.

3. You will have to make a decision between giving consumers what they want or what they need
The majority of design work, sad to say, is all about feeding consumerism. The reality is that your designs are often not necessary, nor what people need. In school they teach you to study your consumer, identify their needs, and design for them. However do you really think that person needs another chair, laptop or mobile phone? I’m sure you can do a great job, but will it be right? What about sustainability? When does that happen or does it ever happen at all? You will suddenly realize there are forces at play that are beyond your control, and you will have to decide if this is the right career path for you.

4. You will not be able to distinguish between night and day
You will work hard. Sure, you thought you worked hard in school to graduate at the top of the class, but you will never work so hard in your life when you are a designer in the trenches. So hard that you cannot tell the difference between night and day. You will do it because you have to. You will do it because you care. Needless to say, you will hate it.

5. You will never have clear brief
In the real world everyone knows what a brief is, but nobody really knows what a brief is. You will have to face the fact that there is no such thing as a clear brief. It is also never the straightforward design process you learned in school. You will hop back and forth through changes so many times you will think you are a trick pony. What is worst, the schedule will not move because of someone elses “briefing” mistake.

6. You will be made responsible for a design that has failed
It is too easy. Product does not sell? Blame the designer. Product cannot be engineered? Blame the designer. Suddenly you will be in everyone’s “cross hairs” and be blamed for everything. Remember though designers make suggestions. The people who pay for the designs are the ones who own the designs, thus responsible for the outcome. This leads me to my next point.

7. You will never own your designs anymore
What was a great solo effort in school, will now becomes everyone’s baby. You will pour your heart and soul into a design to only get it taken from you and passed off to someone else. Your design idea would be lost, modified, “raped” and even killed. Not only that, there will be projects that will have so many people working on it, that nobody owns or wants to own it.

8. You will hate design
One morning you will drag your tired body through multiple all-nighters to present your work to an unappreciative client, and you will tell yourself something along those lines of “I hate design”.

finish reading here