One sure way to get people talking excitedly about your brand is to announce a name change. The chatter probably won’t be sympathetic — remember, everyone hates new names — but it’s worth millions in free publicity. Consider the news last week that Oscar Mayer, the 140-year-old processed-meat company, was…

Medium’s “Project Zen” is the latest moniker to capitalize on a meditative state. — How are you feeling right now? As in right now, reading this sentence on your screen? Medium, the platform that permits me (for a fee) to publish that sentence, hopes you’re having a “zen-like reading experience” thanks to some behind-the-scenes improvements on the site. “We’ve heard your feedback,” begins the…

A new feature film, BlackBerry, debuted at SXSW in March and will open in theaters nationally on May 12. Based on true events, the film tells the story of the rocky start, meteoric rise, and ignominious fall of the BlackBerry cellphone, which— years before the iPhone — permanently changed our…

A beauty brand promises an “effortless” “no-makeup” look. Just follow these eleven steps. A wardrobe consultant reveals the secret of “effortless” style: “time, experimentation, and practice.” A bestselling author’s latest book, Effortless, will teach you how to “make it easier to do what matters most” in 336 pages and dozens…

On April 30, 1993, computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee released the source code for the World Wide Web into the public domain. Thanks to CERN, the intergovernmental scientific organization based in Switzerland, we can still see what the first website looked like, all of its hyperlinks fully functional. But other links…

Sometime in early 2021, Instagram, in its algorithmic wisdom, began prodding me to follow something called Burma-Gram. For once, the algorithm was right: I loved the account. Burma-Gram didn’t use fancy tricks or filters. Each Burma-Gram post was a reel, and each reel followed the same format: Against a background…

For the roughly 250,000 people who will attend the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival over the next two April weekends, “Coachella” is synonymous with nonstop performances, revelry in the California desert, and picturesque Instagram opportunities. But for Goldenvoice, the festival’s promoter, the word “Coachella” has grimmer associations. Coachella means…

“We have to own the pure dot-com domain.” If I’ve heard it once in my career as a name developer, I’ve heard it a hundred times. It’s a zombie rule — a holdover from the late-1990s dot-com gold rush — that, sadly, has many founders and executives in its thrall…

Earlier this week, and just ahead of the brand’s 125th anniversary, Pepsi revealed its first brand redesign in 15 years. Company executives said the logo conveyed “boldness and confidence.” Fast Company called the brand refresh “the best Pepsi has looked in decades.” …