There’s been plenty of news coverage lately of H1N1. The same H1N1 that just half a year ago was popularly known as “swine flu”, but that name doesn’t seem to be thrown around anymore. The rebranding was conducted by the government, and I’m guessing it followed a successful lobbying effort by pork manufacturers, who have lost significant revenue from the misconception that you can contract swine flu by eating pork.

Branding is hugely important, especially in a culture of three-second attention spans (brought about by our need for instant gratification). In fact, if done successfully, a good product branding will make you believe it’s been like that all along. Most famously, Coca-cola gave Christmas the form it has today, having invented a bearded, grandfather-like Santa Claus in his funny costume and sprinkled red and white all over the place.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 23:28 and is filed under clever. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.