soulsight®

It's no secret that, with today's economy, consumers are more price conscious and private label products are on the rise and moving away from generic packaging. Enter No Name, the private label of Canadian grocery giant Loblaw, originally launched in 1978 and reborn in 2009.

We've been noticing a minimalist trend, but what do you think? Can basic, simple-looking packaging and "no name" still leave its mark among consumers?

The logo for the upcoming Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) was recently unveiled despite not launching until January 1. It seems to me that the message here is loud and clear:

Oprah is officially taking over the world.

Here are a few of our other thoughts...

Frito-Lay has decided to discontinue the biodegradable bag they developed for their Sun Chips brand (only 18 months into the program) because consumers didn't appreciate the noise it made when handled and complained en mass – further proving that the double edged sword of social media cuts deep.

Quite sad, but I think an important lesson can be learned from this.

Innovation for innovation's sake is never the best way to go, but it really cements how important employing consumer research and insights are to the success of any brand innovation. Consumers may say they want green products, but brands may need to look deeper into the psychographics to uncover whether they are willing to pay for it, understand it, or sacrifice for it. In this case, consumers were happy...

From Tom Fishburne (who is brilliant by the way):

...Indiana Jones "jumped the shark" in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when Indiana was hit by a nuclear weapon blast while hiding in a lead-lined fridge. While the fridge was hurled a great distance and everything else was obliterated, Indiana emerged unscathed. This lead to a similar expression, "Nuking the Fridge", which was one of the top buzz words of 2008.

Brands and businesses "jump the shark" and "nuke the fridge" all the time, often in a desperate attempt to reignite growth. They abandon what made them successful and drive...