The Beginning

I have been thinking about this for some time.. creating and maintaining a blog about brands, branding, who's doing what well and who's not. How the advance of technology is affecting brands and what brands need to do to keep customers interested in their brands, now that people aren't paying as much attention to advertising.

So now I've got some time, I'm putting my thoughts down for me to read and perhaps for you to read, I don't know yet if I'm going to go public with my musings?

Whilst contemplating this blog today, I had eaten a rather delicious Tiger Baguette from Tesco. Intrigued by the flavour I started to wonder what the ingredients were, having suffered numerous food intollerances in the past (they do disappear, but that's another story). Horrified to note, that there were no ingredients listed on the product, nor could I find any online, which got me wondering... is this legal????

Anyway, as I am very interested in the power of context and how it effects brands and here is a little story about the context in which shook my faith in a store at which I'd just purchased, eaten, liked, and raved about on Twitter.

Whilst watching a video on New China, I heard the expression 'returning turtle', which I thought was an odd phrase having previously read in Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue, that 'turtle' was the most offensive swear word to call someone in China. So I Googled 'turtles china' to find out what it meant, and there at #5 was a petition against the sale of live turtles in China's Tesco stores.

This took me away from my original reason for searching but I clicked. Why had I not noticed the stories above on the same topic? Because I was already thinking Tesco's. Had I not had a particular like for turtles after swimming with them in Australia, would I have clicked? Possibly not.

Now I am dismayed at the supermarket chain at the top, and bottom of my road and want to know more about Tesco and their brand ethics. That is a single example of the power of context and how Brands need to be extra careful.