Store Brand Extravaganza: Foodland

August 30th, 2010 | by afiler

Meat Mondays: Chicken of the Sea

August 30th, 2010 | by Comrade Bunny

Since last Monday Star-Kist got a post, I thought it was only fair that we give some blog love to one of the other famous tuna brands: Chicken of the Sea.

Chicken of the Sea, Van Camp Seafood Company, Inc.

Chicken of the Sea, Ralston Purina Company

Chicken of the Sea, Tri-Union Seafoods, LLC

The mermaid ones are my favorites. It makes me think of the hilarity and horror of trying to explain to your children that they’re eating Ariel.

On Chicken of the Sea in general: some bright young ad man was sitting back in his “Mad Men” 50s office, sipping a martini, and trying to figure out how to up canned fish sales. “Well, fish isn’t something a Midwesterner knows…but how about associating it with something more familiar, like chicken? Hey, I got it!”

One Word Wednesday: Mermaid

August 25th, 2010 | by Comrade Bunny

Welcome to our inaugural One-Word Wednesday post! I chose mermaids because I found some cool designs while I was searching around for tuna trademarks. Nothing witty to say here. It’s just a pretty post this time.

[This post taught me a new word: "naiad". You can see it in the Design Codes field: "4.2.11: Sirens, naiads", and Wiktionary says that naiad means: "A female deity (nymph) associated with water, especially a spring, stream, or other fresh water." I suppose maybe that means that a naiad is the freshwater equivalent of a mermaid, which would be a great trademark, if say, you were bringing out Chicken of the Lake catfish as a complement to Chicken of the Sea tuna. — Andy]

Mermaid Design, Wilhelm Bleyle oHG

Mermaid Design, Ralston Purina Company

Mermaid Design, BFS Trading Inc.

Mermaid Design, Meilin Cosmetics Co. Ltd.

Mermaid Design

Store Brand Extravaganza #4: Bi-Rite

August 24th, 2010 | by afiler

Today’s store brand is Bi-Rite (the store brand of Bi-Rite stores), now owned by Supervalu. Bi-Rite breads used this red-white-and-blue scheme that seemed to be popular in the 1970s, as sort of a Gay [18]90s revival (as also seen in movies like Hello Dolly). I wrote earlier on this scheme in an Oddmart post about a Dewar’s ad.

Brand Bands, Part I

August 23rd, 2010 | by Comrade Bunny

This comes from a long, ridiculous discussion that started when someone looked at this massive trademark archive and said, “Man, these would make some awesome band names…”

This first batch was taken from a Proctor and Gamble trademark list.

Japanese women’s duo. Bubbles and water sprayed over the crowd during shows is a signature of the group.

An a capella nerdcore band out of MIT

A prog rock band that only puts out albums on vinyl. They started at Stanford U and were all high-achieving students that were angry because they wanted to go to MIT. The lead vocalist name is Roy Nesbitt. Nesbitt insists on writing lyrics in isolation in his dorm room and screams unintelligibly at anyone who should disturb his creative process.

Three psy-chill producers trying and failing to sound like Portishead.

Neo-shoegaze grunge rock out of Phoenix, AZ.

The all-female version of The Darkness, with fashion tips from David Bowie. The trio dresses in metallic leotards with gigantic retro-space shoulder pads.