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The Branded and Gilded Life

Connecting the not-so-obvious branding dots

Marketing is a never-ending set of experiments to understand human behavior. It"s still opaque even after billions are spent every year. Predicting human behavior is like the horizon - visible yet hard to reach ideascape.substack.com

business marketing

All Episodes

6:05

The endless library

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2022/04/24

How much is a petabyte?More than you can read or see in a whole lifetime.Since 1996, the Internet Archive has put together the combined output of humanity in knowledge, thought and action.75 years of pulp fiction are part of the collections.Just in case anyone thinks that all it has are classics of literature only a few people read.We have this image of a library in our head.A quiet place filled with books where we spend hours learning about things.Or falling in love, going by the number of movies

6:04

Will a college bet on its students?

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2022/04/17

There's no guarantee a college graduate is going to get a job.However, the cost of education continues to rise every year.The Bloom Institute of Technology is going in the opposite direction.Tuitions can be paid from income earned after graduation. Or upfront.The institute teaches courses in data sciences and full stack web. And instead of interviews, companies can try out students for a month without paying themIt's like bypassing the interview process altogether to see if the student delivers.A

6:34

The single title bookshop

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2022/04/10

The extreme opposite of AmazonOnly one title is on sale in this bookstore at a time.Where else but Japan?In Ginza, in a single room, Morioka Shoten, transforms book retailing to high art.The clientele is invited to interact with authors and absorb the creative atmosphere around the title.Book readings and interactions with the author are all part of the package.The books are changed only once a weekThat limits the number of titles to just over 50 in a single year - which makes every book an

The nail-biting option

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2022/04/03

If you chew on your nails, don't bother reading this.A nail cutter is the last thing you need because your teeth do the job just as effectively.The humble nail cutter is standard in households.Stainless steel with concave clipper blades and a functional design. It's a lot like the office clip. The look hasn't been updated in decades.The slightly rough pattern on the back to smooth out the snipped nail edges is also standard.But have you noticed how it is always easier to cut the nails on your left

5:37

Can you program your clothes?

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2022/03/27

What if you could change the patterns on the clothes you are wearing?Simply by tapping a few places.This was demonstrated at the CES booth in 2015A model wore 'clothes' that changed right in front of the bystanders.It was more like she was wearing strips of panels and not cloth.The clothes were under this and they didn't change colour.The idea was to demonstrate that it was possible to get designs to change based on what was programmed into fabrics.Would people actually prefer to wear clothes that

6:28

The $500 million mistake

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2022/03/20

It's the single biggest mistake made by a bank.Citibank transferred $500 million instead of $ 5 million, acting as an agent for Revlon.It was part of an ongoing repayment plan.It was like any other transaction - except that the term used in the form was misunderstoodThe error was detected a day later - by then, it was too lateA tale of bad UI.High value transactions like these pass through three levels of approval. And the box ticked seemed to be the right one. So, everyone concerned approved

5:30

The Onion becomes a French Fry

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2022/03/13

They couldn't be more differentAn onion and a potato.But a restaurant in the US has managed to fry onions in a way that makes it irresistible.It's not the familiar onion rings.Dipped into batter and then deep fried.There is no batter here.It looks like a sunflower you can eat with the right dip.There are several origin stories.But it begins with an onion sliced deep in several directions but not all the way through.Calls for some slick technique and preparation.Expect it to arrive on hotel menus as

5:57

Games. Now playing at a theatre near you

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2022/03/06

The pandemic threw movie theaters into steep decline.Through lockdowns and social distancing norms, it looked as if theaters would have a hard time springing back.But they have an asset no home theater can replicateA 650 ft screen.The older games would not have stood up to this level of magnification.But the new generation has amazing graphics that are rarely exploited to their full potential.That's where the idea clicked.A group of competitive X Boxers approached a closed movie theater in

Needles for billionaires

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2022/02/27

Skyscrapers that stick out like needles on the New York skyline.The haunt of the well-heeled crowd.Looking for the perfect address in the middle of the swankiest neighborhoods.But large vacant spaces were hard to come by.And so, architects designed dazzling needles going as high as 1400 feet into the air.Promoted as marvels of design and engineering.The needles would tower over the older remnants of the neighborhood.And they got across zoning locations that limited the height of buildings by going