A recent advertisement caught my ear because it involved financial services offered by a guy named Charles Hughes a/k/a Chuck Hughes and the catchy marketing phrase Trade Like Chuck:
It instantly reminded me of a piece I wrote in 2010 called: Exposing Two-Face Brands. One of the branding truncation examples I wrote about
As you know, we’ve spun a lot of fabric over the last few years on the topic of brand and trademark truncation. Marketers seem to love the informality, emotionality, and efficiency of truncated brand names. I suppose trademark types love them too, since they can have the tendency to spin off a variety of
I’m not talking about brands that say one thing and do another. I’m not talking about brands that don’t live up to their promise. I’m literally talking about brands with two faces. One face may be confident, complicated, technical, professional, and/or formal. Let’s call him, Stephen. The other face might be friendly, simple, approachable, engaging, and/or informal