The Minnesota History Center is currently promoting its Toys of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s exhibit — my favorite promotional billboard is the one captured above, featuring none other than Gumby.

I can still remember my Gumby toy and watching the Gumby Show as a young child along with the Davey & Goliath television

We’ve spilled a lot of digital ink on the importance of “look for” advertising when a brand owner wants to legally own a non-traditional trademark like a single color, or perhaps the shape of a product, or even product packaging or containers, among other potential non-traditional marks.

So, when

There is no point to spending money on advertising if those experiencing it don’t understand who’s communicating about what brand, right?

So, as drivers quickly pass by this attractive roadside billboard sign, how do they know who put out the ad? There must be a brand signature, right?

Certainly there can be no signature or

Twitter seems to be going strong, despite early questions about whether it would ever shed the notion of being a waste of time, as evidenced by this currently running billboard ad:

To the extent this billboard looks familiar (admittedly a more diminutive glass here), you might recall my questions about it three years ago: Marketing

Passing by a roadside billboard recently (below is a miniature version I found in the Minneapolis skyway system), my first thought was, wow, McDonald’s is getting into the juicy lucy business:

Until more focus revealed that State Farm Insurance is the one behind the ad. Look familiar?

No doubt burgers and car insurance are

Remember how important it is to stay on the right side of the suggestive/descriptive line when it comes to making proper use of a brand name?

We have cautioned about the danger of “taking a suggestive name, mark, or tag-line, and using it descriptively in a sentence on labels, packaging, ad copy, or the Internet,”