Not too many posts ago I briefly divulged into how I would identify myself as a brand. Feeling unsatisfied, I decided to try out an exercise I found online. First, describe yourself in under 10 words, then under 5 words, then with 1 single word.

Under 10 words: An enthusiastic, competitive airhead with a minor inferiority complex. 

Under 5 words: The Journey > The Destination

1 word: Abstruse

As I anticipated, this proved to me quite difficult and I still felt unsatisfied. I grabbed my friend Ari Kogan, and made a quick questionnaire for both of us. Given the categories, choose the appropriate brand that best describes you. These are not necessarily our favorite brands, but rather ones that would be closest associated to our characteristics/personalities. Here is what we came up with:

Soda:

Travis: Dr. Dynamite (Dr. Pepper knockoff)

Ari: Jones Soda

Beer: 

T: Corona w/o Lime

A: Deschutes Cascade Ale

Car:

T: Mazda RX 8

A: Subaru Forester 

Clothing Company:

T: Reef

A: Nike

Color:

T: Light Blue

A: Dark Green

Sandwich Shop:

T: Big Town Hero

A: CHeBA Hut

Website:

T: CollegeHumor.com/SportsPickle.com

A: Reddit

Instrument:

T: Trumpet

A: Banjo

Band/Artist:

T: Linkin Park

A: Gorillaz

City:

T: Solana Beach, CA

A: Curitiba, Brazil

Next, through unbiased eyes we looked at the answers to each of these categories and chose to create an overall brand persona for who these “unknown” individuals.

Travis(written by Ari): 20-something year old beach bum. Cut and dry

Ari(written by Travis): This person enjoys traveling, extensively. Having a diverse cultural background has shaped their outgoing, adventurous lifestyle. They are unique in the sense that they do not follow the popular trends of our society, but finds comfort within a group of similar non-conforming activists. Their love for technology allows them to keep evolving and never be satisfied with only the choices presented to them.

After looking at this, I have a much better perspective on what kind of brands are synonymous with myself and even who I am as a person. With this newfound information, I can see how having certain characteristics can influence other people’s objective viewpoints.

I thoroughly enjoyed mixing things up for this post and plan to do more collaborative pieces in the near future. 

SPECIAL THANKS TO ARI KOGAN

You know the old adage: “What Happens in Vegas… Stays in Vegas.”

Since I am currently residing in the famed Sin City for a baseball tournament, I felt it would be important to share my thoughts on the Brand of Las Vegas. 

For decades, this city has been a luxurious getaway for adults looking to unwind or get a little crazy. This place literally has it all. So far I have seen a scantily clad clown roller-blading, uncontested views of the surrounding desert, a lion, a tiger, a man dressed as a bear, and enough lightbulbs to make Edison vomit in his grave.

The infamous “What Happens Here…” campaign plays into this unique mindset and does it so subtly, only those with Vegas Stories can share the excitement/embarrassment. It’s a don’t ask, don’t tell/Be who you wanna be adventure. Where, and I advise you to use this cautiously, anything goes…. As long as you follow the Code.

Here are some of the better ones:

And my favorites:

Adobe is a powerful beast. They create products that make amateurs, like me, seem like highly paid professionals with the things we can concoct. Their intricate technological developments are accompanied by easy to follow step by step instruction booklets that allow any literate individual to compose anything from beautiful works to well-organized data.

I was assigned the task to design a magazine cover and spread for my Journalism class. After a solid 3 days of hard work and no prior knowledge of Adobe InDesign (the program I used), I was able to accomplish this:

MARCH MADNESS IS HERE!!!!!

The time when brackets become the single most important things in our lives. Models adorn themselves in the hottest fashionable bracket-wear, famous rapper Big Boi tweets endlessly about his admiration for brackets, the lovable comedian Kevin Hart does an improv on the seemingly endless trend, and the simple pattern becomes embedded within every aspect of pop culture we can fit within a 2 minute promo.

Maybe not — but a fan can dream, can’t he?

College Basketball enthusiasts will drool over the idea of branding the “bracket” within our everyday lives. The intensity of the trend may seem redundant due to the current Linsanity that is taking the media world by storm. However, since many fans take their brackets so seriously, their world may as well be trademarked by the new world order of the March Madness Bracket.

Major League Baseball’s image today is one of the most controversial in the history of the sport. A large factor to this slow downward spiral is the fact that Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) have become so prevalent that many fans, even players and coaches alike, view its abuse as cheating. Period.

PEDs and other factors such as a barely significant All-star game and a growing longing for better role models in the sport have proven that the MLB is in dire need of a PR makeover.

The recent blockbuster Moneyball has provided unprecedented insight into the world of underground baseball statistics, sabermetrics. A Kansan janitor created this ingenious analysis of baseball in 1977 by the name of Bill James. He and his buddies created new and more accurate baseball stats to measure the actual worth of a player to his team. Since RBIs and ERAs can be deceiving on measuring how valuable a player is, stats like Runs Created = [(Hits + Walks)*(Total Bases)]/(At-Bats + Walks) show a more in-depth look into how players can create opportunities for their team.

For example, “In 1942, Johnny Pesky had 620 at-bats, 205 hits, 42 walks, and 258 total bases; using the formula, he created 96 runs for his team. Dick Stuart in 1960 had 532 at-bats with 160 at-bats, 34 walks, and 309 total bases for 106 runs created. The conclusion is that Stuart in 1960 was a slightly better hitter than Pesky in 1942 since he created a few more runs for his team.” (Source: Albert)

There have been hundreds of new statistics created that, if bought into, can produce efficiency in ways that conventional team-building will not. This innovative mindset can help corral many no-name ballplayers into the starting lineups of MLB teams, creating a new group of underdogs for fans to get to know. These underdogs, in theory, will also understand the concept of sabermetrics. They will also understand the reason for implementing a the concept into the MLB, for the obvious reasons of winning as many games as possible and moving past the “old” era of juiced baseball, in theory. These underdogs will stray far from the old ways of cheating to inflate numbers and become ideal role-models for young ballplayers across the globe to love and adore. Thus, creating a new and promising image for the MLB to leech onto for the future and regain its once former glory. In theory, of course. 

Sure, modern science science pretty much guarantees that PEDs will eventually become undetectable and may end up changing the sport forever, but hopefully with the continuing support of sabermetrics the sport can regain its former glory in the eyes of Americans and worldwide fans.

Last November, my friends and I participating in raising a whopping $24.50 for prostate cancer by growing upper-lip warmers. 

According to Movember’s website:

“Once registered at www.movember.com, men start Movember 1st clean shaven. For the rest of the month, these selfless and generous men, known as Mo Bros, groom, trim and wax their way into the annals of fine moustachery. Supported by the women in their lives, Mo Sistas, Movember Mo Bros raise funds by seeking out sponsorship for their Mo-growing efforts.

Mo Bros effectively become walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November. Through their actions and words they raise awareness by prompting private and public conversation around the often ignored issue of men’s health. 

At the end of the month, Mo Bros and Mo Sistas celebrate their gallantry and valor by either throwing their own Movember party or attending one of the infamous Gala Partés held around the world by Movember, for Movember.”

Their ads are tremendously hilarious and creative. This video is one of my personal favorites.