The teddy bear is more than 120 years old. Soft toys are one of the oldest, most crowded, and most price-driven categories in consumer goods, full of cheap lookalikes and characters licensed from film franchises. Asked to name a category where brand power goes to die, plush would be a reasonable answer.
Albertsons, the grocery chain, is in trouble. In December 2024, federal and Washington state court rulings blocked its proposed $24.6 billion merger with Kroger, leaving Albertsons to compete on its own in a highly competitive, volatile business. Nearly two years later, the problems have not disappeared. In its October 13, 2026 earnings release, Albertsons reported a 0.8% decline in identical sales, $52 million in quarterly net income and a comprehensive business review intended to accelerate...
The clearest sign a company may need to rebrand isn’t an outdated identity. It is a growing distance between what the business has become and what the market still believes it to be.
A Conversation With Dr. Derrick Daye on Positioning, AI and the Brand Work That Matters. Dr. Derrick Daye has spent more than two decades helping leadership teams connect brand strategy to business performance. As Founder and Managing Partner of The Blake Project and Publisher of Branding Strategy Insider, he has advised more than 250 B2C and B2B brands and organizations across more than 40 industries, including Abbott, Coca-Cola, Intel, Nestlé, Deloitte AI, EA Sports, LexisNexis,...
Corporate jargon is pretty miserable. Executives use euphemisms and empty phrases to cover up the truth. Reading an earnings report is sometimes the equivalent of nails scratching on a blackboard. The generic puffery of language – employed to dull our senses and calm our expectations – is numbing.
