from Patrick Davis Partners, the six priorities for the post-agency market:

1. Find your voice.
2. Engage with the semantic marketplace.
3. Return to humanist marketing.
4. Live the renaissance.
5. Champion social agenda marketing.
6. Build brand integrity.

And if I were to add a seventh priority, it would be to simply cultivate each of the previous six.  Finding, engaging, returning, living, championing, and building are wonderful starting points, ideas to help shift a brand in the right direction, but without cultivation, care, attention, and sustainability ideas can and will die.  So, hold true to the future of a more honest, more conscious, more open environment for us all.  Cultivate that ideal.  We can make it prosper.

The customizable, personalized iGoogle pages have had themes for a while now, so extending Google’s already masterful grasp on theming to Gmail appears to be nothing short of a logical progression.  And, as all things Google usually are, Gmail themes are really, really great!  But that’s not what is most interesting about this fresh Gmail experience.

Google has, arguably, one of the strongest brands worldwide.  Its name and colorfully lettered logo both conjure connotations of reliability, ease, and a quirky fun.  Google, although treating their products and solutions very seriously, has never taken itself too seriously.  It’s evident during every holiday or special occasion worldwide when Google alters their logo slightly to express the occassion visually.

There’s no rigidity with Google’s brand, even though there is a strength and it is consistently one of the most recognizalble.  Google’s brand, instead of demanding a rigid look and feel, relies moreso on its personality.  That personality, that emotional connection, the confidence in their brand are major reasons why they have such a strong presence and outstanding level of success.

And the fun-loving Google continues to extend that confidence with the release of Gmail themes, where a handful of the themes created haven’t just added to the Gmail logo, but have completely changed it entirely.  In what some may consider a risky branding move (losing a certain amount of brand identity), Google sees as a further extension of their core brand personality.  It’s this levity, this laid back confidence that empowers Google’s brand personality.  Simply put — Google is fun, Gmail is fun.. so have some fun with a fresh Gmail experience.

Each person to cross our path has the potential to teach. They offer a glimpse of a different life through their personal looking glass, one shaped by memory. With minds of limitless possibility, we absorb a wealth of insurmountable information, and still we cannot be everywhere, do everything, and know everyone. To truly understand the world we find ourselves in, we have to allow ourselves to see it through the eyes of others. We in turn, must share where we have been, what we have seen, and what we wish to become.

It is a beautiful November morning in West Hollywood. I should and could be at work, or in class, being productive. Instead, I am outside, bathed in a windy sunshine and I feel free for a little while, like I belong only to myself. For a few hours, I will practice kindness to the self and bask in its levity.

I walk a few blocks up the street an into an almost empty nail salon. It is eleven o’clock in the morning and no one else is there, expect Kim, the owner. Kim smiles up at me from behind tiny, rimmed glasses as I come in, and asks if I have time because she is alone today. Yes, I have time.

There are many reasons why I come back here. The first feeling I get when I walk into a space stays with me. My sister and I first discovered this salon a few months ago. It chants silently of warmth, like being invited into someone’s family space. We gone back, it became our place, we brought our brother with us, friends and now, I return alone. The walls are painted a rich orange, soft music plays, sunlight and a breeze rushes in from both the front and the back door. Often, Kim’s niece is there, along with her beautiful 4-year-old granddaughter. Her granddaughter eyes me curiously at first, like a new pet, not quite sure what to make of me, but soon she’s reading me from her notebook and telling me about her favorite colors, and piano lessons. I should try to remember to be this open, always.

It was my sister who taught me the beauty of this simple ritual. It does not come from a place of vanity, but from a need to relax and show stillness, kindness and care to the self. If I take the time to think why I continue to come back, I know it is because of the richness of the interaction. I could do my own nails, and I could go somewhere else, but I choose to come back here.

I’ve walked into other nails salons in the company of friends, and something in my chest constraints and sought to flee. Maybe it was the looks of disinterest painted on the faces of the women who reach newly lacquered claws into handbags that cost more than the women massaging their feet will make in the coming months. Maybe it was the tired looks of the workers who spoke among themselves in a language I could not understand. Guilt washed over me because even when I tried to break the language barrier, they were only able to smile back at me in a muted silence. I look down at my perfectly polished nails reflecting not wealth but a modest indulgence, and hide shame behind my eyes as I glance at the woman’s hands that just cradled mine in her own rough and cracked ones.

Kim and talk about our days, or past, we never loose eye contact. She is kind in her every gesture and strong in her feminine stance. We talked about our signs, and our Chinese horoscopes. She reminds me that Pisces rule the feet and I should take good care of them. Some days, 16 hours pass before I can enjoy the comfort of bare feet on hardwood floors. Kim pats my feet as if I were a little girl after they’ve been scrubbed and the nails painted to look like ripe cherries.

We talk about the economy and the dwindling number of new clients coming in, the regulars who maintain a vigilant loyalty. Kim moved to the US from Vietnam 20 years ago, and she has not gone back since, but others of her family have. She shares a common, repeat nightmare with many political refugees, like my mom. In their terror lulled dreams, they return to their country of birth, and are not allowed to leave. My mom has not gone home in 20 years. I asked her what she misses the most, she smiles, a sad reminiscent look takes over, and she tells me she misses everything, even a particular piece of broken tile on the street.

Kim’s childhood friend owned the salon before her, and Kim took over it 17 years ago. In Vietnam before the bombing leveled her home, she ran her own store. After the communist takeover, her husband was kept in prison for 7 years until coming to the US. Each morning, Kim’s husband drops her off at 8:30 in the morning, and 12 hours later they go home together. The salon isn’t always packed, and it is made to feel like a second home. Kim, her niece, and her friend, the only other employees, brings books to read, they watch TV, they drink tea sent from Vietnam, and share in the lives and the stories of the men and women who walk through their front doors.

We sit across from each other, the sky changes with the clouds, as we watch the neighborhood pass by. Much has changed Kim tells me. In 20 years many of the privately owned shops have closed, locals have relocated because the rents have keep up a steady incline, and real estate developers wage a constant war with the City of West Hollywood in hopes of buying out entire blocks they aim to turn into condominiums.

I spent and hour and a half with Kim today. I would gladly pay to just sit here and watch the stories flutter into existence behind Kim’s brown eyes rimmed with a blue halo. Next week, I will return not because I have to get my nails done, but because I have such a need to understand and feel the world around me, and there are so many things I have not yet done, and places I have only visited in someone else memory. Kim tells me her granddaughter asked about me again. It makes me smile to know she thinks of the woman so earnest in telling her to keep writing. I have the feeling she will. We lend pieces of our lives to those who are open to receive them, in them we will live forever.

It was last June when we saw our first Cabana Cachaca ad, and triggering our first blog in response. The dramatic black and white ad features the model’s completely bare ass as the centerpiece, making it a startling ad to find in a magazine that featured a child star on the cover.

Since then, the campaign has raised eyebrows with its racy ads, some of which had to be taken down and cropped to make them suitable for the public. All of the ads feature totally naked models posturing in high heels, leaving nothing to the imagination as they flashed tan-lines and Brazilian wax jobs. The website is even more graphic, and it starts to seem ironic that the only part of the model they won’t show is her head. Faceless models sound familiar? Yeah, it reminded us of Tom Ford and one of his perfume ads, too.

But there’s a difference here. Tom was selling cologne, a beauty product, and he didn’t try to classify the product as a depiction of a national identity. He could equate the product with whatever ideal he wanted, and not worry about offending the truly authentic.

Apparently when the folks that branded Cabana Cachaca penned the slogan “Authentically Brasilian”, they didn’t think the truly authentic Brazilians would mind being equated with a waxing procedure. Apparently, when their client New York business man Matti Anttila said he wanted to make a distinctive, high-quality spirit that showcased the best in Brazilian technique and tradition, they didn’t think that mission was good enough. “Authenticity and quality”, were the exact words their client used when he described what his product stood for. “Nah, let’s throw some naked ass in there to get attention!” must have been the logic they used, and it caused them to stray so far from the brand’s original, truly authentic Brazilian identity as a traditional product only made in Brazil.

In the debate over the ads, some have argued that Brazilians have no problem being associated with a beautiful woman. They are known for their gorgeous women, and proud of it. But the ad isn’t celebrating the woman and her beauty, it’s objectifying it. The model is headless, need we say more? And the problem with objectifying something is it can turn to a stereotype fast. How can we Americans pride ourselves on being politically correct and respectful of other cultures if we’re equating an “authentic” national identity with girls groomed for sex? Cabana Cachaca features the slogan above a girl’s bare ass: “When you want nothing standing between you and a good time”. On a socially-conscious level, this ad campaign sucks.

A reader left this comment in response to the ads:

“As an American married to a Brazilian and having traveled many times to that country, I can definitely say they are a lot more open there than here when it comes to sex, but this is such a stereotype that is ridiculous and insulting. It is the same as using Tony Soprano’s stereotype to advertise Italian products.”

A lot of brands throw around the term “authentic”, and the word is slowly losing its meaning. We can say one thing for sure: Brazilian-waxed booty arched in the air to sell alcohol certainly doesn’t count.

Unknown among the common people but influential in the global economy sphere, Nooyi is no one else but the chairman and CEO of Pepsico. She symbolizes the voice of the Indian woman, perceived as the engine of growth within the Indian society, with altruistic ideals (development of sanitation in the world, improvement of sustainable agricultures) expressed on the stage of the world.

A better place for corporations and its loyal subjects. For their project to be viable I guess either you adopt affordable prices following their third world markets (initiated by Bill Gates) or you increase their propensity for consumption. For the later to happen, Nooyi (through Pepsico) has provided readily available treats (fortified nutritional products) to distribute among poorer economies.

In Nooyi’s “Business call to action” campaign, she promotes innovative business models. In her action program, she advocates passionately conservation of natural resources (especially water) as a guiding goal. In the back of her mind, Pepsico’s interests.

So we should stay aware of our surroundings when Mrs Nooyi speaks with the business jargon. It’s one thing to address a patronizing message with “we understand you” to the local population, it’s another thing to articulate growth in percentage. Associating humanistic concepts with rates, volumes and percentages is indecent and antisocial.

Pepsico made a conscious choice by choosing a woman to lead, praying on the cultural “mother figure”, an equal right recognition in quest of the third world market domination. In business every decision has its rationalization. Nooyi is ardently encouraging rigid sanitation and conservation of water in those markets. Does this respond to her conglomerate’s needs? Firstly because 90% of soft drinks are made with water, secondly because when Pepsico exports its holding to foreign markets, it has to supply itself from the markets’ resources and adapt its policy to the governmental directives. Go figure…

To refer to Nooyi’s native country, let’s just underline the fact that Pepsi was denounced to carry in its soft drinks 35 times more pesticide residues in India than in Europe, what must we conclude?  A laxer safety policy when it comes to deal with the health of poorest countries?

Just a thought…

Isn’t the choice of Nooyi to represent Pepsico, their best asset to any controversial outbursts in one of the fastest growing markets?

In promotion you will find the latest fashionable gadget “Nintendo DS” (a portable double screen video game console). To the image of  the Blackberry or the iPhone, its design was strategically thought to target, by dressing up according to the desideratas, the diktat of fashion, attempting to appeal to the stereotypical frivolous side of women!

Playing on this stereotype, let’s not forget women already carry in their over-burdoned handbags:
• a lipstick (to revive their face)
• a day line cream (to moisture their precious skin against the damaging actions of external factors, bla, bla, bla…)
• a phone to be connected to their royal subjects
• a comb (to reflect their impeccability)
• a power bar (to fight against hunger and fat surplus)
• Lactobacillus Acidophilus and Bifidus (to be “aware” and healthy)

… why in the hell would they need to add more physical and mental weight to their daily hardship?

The press pressure is unbearable enough! It’s a daily struggle to fight the dictatorship of magazines that celebrate women by dictating the flavor of their individuality, for the sake of what? Being hip?

So to get us hooked, Nintendo launched its campaign by offering women in its “Bags to Riches” manipulative formula to establish a relationship, to try freely a Nintendo DS for a month from the online handbags rental store.

If the idea may increase the rate of the secretions of the masculine gender salivary glands, I emit certain reservations about its impact on women’s excitement stimuli. But who am I to give such statement, will you say? And, you would be right! To my surprise, at the opening day Bags to Riches site registered 37,000 hits.

Given that only 10% of the gaming population are women, why this attempt to connect women to video games? Given that most of women reject the oversexualization of the characters, the violence, why to prevail a niche where women’s emotional attachments are non-existent? Should Nintendo have picked another product but video games maybe women would have identified themselves!

As for me, my handbag is a physical continuity of myself but definitely not me!

Levine suffering from a migraine rushes to a clinic to be given her appropriate treatment and ends up with a gangrened arm, after an injection of Phenergan that was supposed to counteract the nauseous side-effect of her pain medication, Demercol.

Everything would have been a simple routine if a physician assistant instead of practicing a missed “IV push” (intravenous) had administer the product through an intramuscular injection or an intravenous drip. The result was an inevitable amputation of her arm.

After rough argumentations opposing the plaintiff and the defendant, the Court acknowledged Wyeth’s failure to warn about the dangerous interaction between the Phenergan and the arterial blood.

The issue for x, y, z victims like Levine of any injuries linked to any products, any companies, is to determine their liability on one hand, and on the other hand to demonstrate the unability to sue whom it may concern for the damages, in the present case, Wyeth.

To the help of the injured consumers remains their right to justice. On the other side of the bar, pharmaceutical companies like Wyeth dispose of the “pre-emption” secret weapon, a doctrine that bars the consumer against any judiciary pursuits.

Since the corporatocracy uses the “pre-emption” argumentative shield to protect itself against its own deficiency, what are the victims’ resorts to infringe their debilitating effects? Which law allows the consumer to be fairly represented, or at least be covered at the example of multinationals? To prevent such inequity shouldn’t the FDA, the tampoon between the multinationals and the consumers, be more rigorous to whatever product piercing the market? To reduce such prejudice towards the consumer shouldn’t Courts set an example to the eyes of big companies’ abusive dictatorships?

In November, the Supreme Court will rule on the trial Levine vs. Wyeth. Will it privilege David or Goliath?

To be continued…

Usually we utilize the environment to meet and serve our desiderata, with Green Microgym, the aesthete that we all are (in mind at least!), conscious of the image that we ideally project of our repressive society, will pamper one’s body by giving back to the environment, not in the common way by trashing regardless of its influence on the biosphere but with an eye on the future.

Maybe too aware of the beauty of their environment, of the fragility of their natural heritage Oregon’s lovers and activists vow such dedication to their state, region of glaciated cascade volcanoes, rainforests, prairies, plateau, mountains (Mount Hood), basins with the prestigious Crater Lake, that to perfect their Adonis look, to improve their health without disastrous repercussions, the solution will rhyme with Green Microgym.

As a cliche in the collective mind, to be eco-friendly not only do we have to reduce the harmfulness of our impact but also to save energy, in that perspective Green Microgym with its fitness new formula sets the customer as a cog of the cycling, recycling process, mechanism. Alternative energies such as wind, sun considered as the primary sources couple harmoniously with the human energy, new in the agenda.

“Pedal energy”, “wind generating-bikes”, “energy-saving ceiling fans”, “paperless billing” everything is studied at its detail for the health of the environment and the comfort of the customer. Environment is king now! Where is the old adage, first the customer?

Giving that we pursue the minimum use of energy, let’s embrace its spiral by endorsing a more minimalist behavior consisting in exercising outdoors? No treadmills state-of-the-art energy-saving but challenging mountainous escarpments, no wind generating-bikes but the principle of the wheel and strong muscles, no floors made with recyclable materials but soft and shocks absorbent forests’ paths, no Green Microgym but open air… Wouldn’t our planet breathe better without?

Recent Coke slogans over the last couple years have put an emphasis on “The Coke Side of Life”: less about the taste, per se, than the lifestyle. A great post by MediaPost talks about how “the strongest brands evoke a visceral response, beyond the reach of reason” (and taste too, apparently). Coke/Pepsi blind-test studies show a majority of individuals overwhelmingly preferring Pepsi over Coke (and you thought those Pepsi Challenge commercials were just a marketing ploy!)

Essentially, if carbonated sugar water was all about taste, Pepsi would – should – win out, every time. But with Coke overwhelmingly beating Pepsi in the market for cola, clearly there’s another aspect at work: brand loyalty and the power of the mind over the body. Create a strong enough relationship between a consumer and his cola and no matter what the taste-tests say, consumers will prefer the brand they think is better. A 1985 campaign by Coca-Cola to launch “New Coke,” a sweeter, closer-to-Pepsi version of cola ended disastrously, despite individuals unanimously preferring the taste in consumer research tests: Coke underestimated the brand loyalty among diehard Coke Classic fans – particularly brand loyalty amongst those in the Southeast, Coke’s home territory (personally, I don’t know how this could have slipped past them: a century’s passed since the Civil War, but if you went solely according to the number of civil war renactments still going on, you’d think it happened yesterday – bearing testimony to the alive-and-fighting Southern spirit and their continual hold on all things they consider part of their regional identity. And Coke Classic has clearly become one of them.

It’s pretty scary how, with the right branding, we can develop the same kind of death-grip loyalty to a company that transcends even our conception of the product itself. It’s the kind of “ism” usually reserved for nations or religion.

Not if you’re in New Zealand, where consulting expert Brigid Hardy’s new B_E_E (Beauty Engineered for Ever) line of household cleaning products has been making customers blush and buy at high rates. Hardy started researching why eco-friendly brands weren’t considered “cool”, and designed the line to fill the need for a designer earth-friendly, high-quality cleaning product. The products come in clear white bottles, with simple, stylish design that emphasizes their eye-grabbing lines. Says the makers of B_E_E:

 “We believe being green doesn’t mean you have to compromise on beauty and performance. So everything we do is designed for pleasure, function and the environment.” 

Um, so when are these saucy little cleaners making it to the Western Hemisphere???