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“Eye-catching and ear-bashing.” That’s how Peter Carlson with the Washington Post described Matthew Lesko back in 2007.1

If you were watching cable TV in the late 90s (in the U.S.) you couldn’t escape Matthew Lesko. He was loud, relentless, and unforgettable. But beyond the bright suits littered with question marks and wild claims, his brand holds profound, though sometimes uncomfortable, lessons for modern marketers. Let’s unpack Lesko’s origin story and discover why the secret to effective advertising lies in assuming everyone is “brushing their teeth” at all times.

A Cringe Star Is Born

Matthew Lesko was finally successful in the early 80s—but bored.

After a couple of failed businesses in the ‘70s, Lesko found his niche. “Some company called and said they wanted to start a chain of pasta stores and wanted to know what’s the market for pasta. I found a guy in the Commerce Department who studies the pasta industry. That’s all he does.”2

Lesko began to organize the free information he gathered from government experts for $10k to “fat cats” at Fortune 500 companies, but he grew tired of “helping rich people.” He also decided that his next venture had to be fun. “If I fail, f– it, it doesn’t matter.”3

This was the inciting incident that created a 90s icon.

The business idea came next. Lesko decided to take the same approach he used for corporations and apply it to everyday people by publishing books. His process was straightforward: he would simply gather the information, paste it between a custom-designed cover, and give it a title. “I didn’t write a lick,” Lesko claims.

Next, Lesko would contact the local news in small towns and book interviews on their newscasts.

Matthew Lesko saw every TV appearance as a challenge to hijack attention. When an anchor announced, “Up next, Matthew Lesko to talk about government information,” he ran a scene in his head: the viewer, bored by anything related to “government programs,” finally had a chance to get up, flick on the bathroom light, and start brushing their teeth to get ready for the day, barely listening.

Lesko engineered his performance for this perceived reality. He aimed for a level of sheer, wild distraction that would force the viewer to stop—mid-brush—and shout around the corner, “What’s that asshole talking about?”

The final touch was the costume.

For years, Lesko’s suits would slowly start to get a bit quirky here and there, but no question marks yet. When he appeared on Letterman in 1990, he looked entirely different from the iconic image that would become fossilized in our collective memory by the end of the decade.

By 1998, to prepare for his first ad campaign, Lesko took the plunge and ditched his expensive corporate suit for the cheapest one he could find. Then, he hired someone at a mall kiosk to embroider question marks all over it.

Matthew Lesko’s Guide to Attention: Reach, Distinctiveness, and the Cost of Cringe

Matthew Lesko wasn’t likable. He had a shit product. He was tacky. But he’s been booked on Oprah, Larry King, and Letterman, and has sold over 3 million copies of 100 books, tapes, and DVDs.

Most advertisers look down on people like Matthew Lesko. No creativity. No product. No class. And they’re right.

But the industry would be wise to take a page out of his book, even if many of those pages should be crumpled up and thrown in the trash—“Kobe!”

What can advertisers learn from Matthew Lesko?

1. Use The “Bathroom Rule” As Your Guide

Brands need to be seen, heard, and—most crucially—remembered. In today’s distracted world, the challenge isn’t just delivering an ad; it’s designing one that cuts through the mental noise.

The key lesson from Matthew Lesko’s high-impact advertising is what I’m calling the “Bathroom Rule”: Always assume your audience is mentally (or literally) in the bathroom around the corner brushing their teeth, and find a way to instantly command attention.

Every Second Must Count

If your brand is investing valuable ad spend, you cannot afford to be ignored. Your absolute priority must be ensuring that every second of your ad is unmistakably branded. This means sacrificing the common advertising mistake of slow-burn “storytelling” or emotional build-up at the expense of early brand identification.

Whenever a distracted viewer glances up, scrolls past, or returns their attention, they must immediately encounter your brand assets—logo, jingle, mascot, sonic logo, packaging. If you delay your branding, you are wasting precious airtime and budget on an ad that will be forgotten.

The Distinctive Power of Sound

While visual distinctiveness is critical, audio is an often-underestimated tool for cutting through when eyes are diverted.

Lesko himself, despite not having a specific sonic logo or jingle, used an overwhelming vocal energy and persona that was instantly recognizable, even if you weren’t looking at his famous question mark suit. He achieved audio distinctiveness through sheer intensity.

Other audio tools include:

• Jingles - According to research from Distinctive Bat, they are the single most effective form of brand asset for achieving both “fame” and “uniqueness.”4

• Sonic Logos - A short audio cue at the beginning of and end of an ad can ensure immediate recognition, even if subconscious.

• Brand Mascots - Despite not typically thought of as an audio asset without their bodies to accompany them, brand mascots like the Geico Gecko’s, with his British voice is instantly recognizable on American radio and podcasts. The Pillsbury Doughboy’s iconic chuckle or Colonel Sanders’ Southern draw also transform simple characters into audio brand signatures.

Whether you are trying to cut through on video when viewers are literally in the bathroom, capture the attention of those mindlessly scrolling social media, or invest in audio-only platforms, you cannot afford to waste a single dollar of ad spend.

By rigorously adhering to the “Bathroom Rule,” you force a valuable check on every ad production: If they only hear or see a flicker, will they know it was us? If the answer is no, you haven’t invested. You’ve gambled.

2. Win With Brute-Force Mental Availability

Matthew Lesko’s omnipresence in the 1990s offers a blueprint for achieving mental availability—being easily thought of—that is profoundly relevant to today’s media environment. Though he operated in a simpler era, his strategy of saturation is the core lesson for cutting through modern clutter.

Lesko’s loud, repetitive, and wild persona, over the course of years, ensured his message was seen. Today, consumers are bombarded with up to 100 ads per day across fragmented platforms.5

To maintain a consistent presence on consumers’ screens, you must invest in maximum reach targeting all category buyers. When resources are limited, maximize the budget you do have toward this goal. Since roughly 95% of potential category buyers are not in market at any given time,6 sales activation and performance marketing efforts inevitably plateau. To sustain market share growth, you must also invest in long-term brand-building.

From Reach To Attention

Showing up is the essential first step, but it is not enough. Once you get in front of eyeballs, you have to make every second count. The reality is bleak: According to Karen Nelson-Field, 85% of ads fail to reach the 2.5-second attention threshold for effectiveness,7 and active resistance is high (e.g., 64–66% of video ads and 46% of podcast ads are skipped8).

A primary reason for this lack of attention is a lack of distinctive branding. Ipsos estimates that only around 15% of brand assets are “truly distinctive.”9 This is both bad and good news. It’s bad because, statistically, your current assets likely blend in. But it’s good because distinctiveness is arguably easier than ever to achieve.

Consistent creative devices and distinctive brand assets—or “fluent Devices,” as coined by System1 Group and Orlando Wood—have been on a steep decline in recent years, yet they are 23% more likely to generate very large market share gain, and 22% more likely to generate very large profit gain effects.10

The world is saturated with subtle, look-alike branding. Seize the opportunity to stand out. It’s time to invest in distinctiveness (I got your back). Matthew Lesko’s ultimate lesson is clear: Brute-force mental availability can sometimes overcome poor execution.

3. Be Careful Of Cringe

While Lesko achieved the essential goal of reach, his methods came at a steep price: inefficiency.

Lesko’s biggest error was systematically alienating the light buyer—the “workhorses” of brand growth responsible for half of a brand’s revenue.11 His cringe persona and the unbelievable claims about “free money”—which he admitted few people actually received, with a whopping 10% of buyers returning his products—actively repelled many in this massive group.

This failure is explained by the principle of “counter-argument,” a trap warned against by advertising psychologist Robert Heath.12

According to Heath, advertising that is overly emotional (like social purpose campaigns), aggressive, or unbelievable causes viewers to roll their eyes. This resistance makes them less likely to buy, not more.

In the 1990s, Lesko succeeded only because his immense reach on cheap cable time compensated for his inherently low conversion rate. Heath suggests using “covert emotion”—subtle, enjoyable branding (such as the Geico Gecko)—to build brand association without generating the audience resistance that destroyed Lesko’s efficiency.

Where Is Matthew Lesko Now?

So, where is Matthew Lesko now? Still doing his thing.

I actually met Matthew Lesko back in 2011. He was promoting a documentary someone else made about him. Both his documentary and my own were selections in the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival. Lesko’s documentary was eventually picked up by Vice and released a few years later. Mine was not.*

In person, Lasko was far less cloying. Dare I say, he was even pleasant to talk to. I don’t remember what we talked about for those couple of minutes, but at the time, I hadn’t seen him on my TV in a decade or longer. In fact, he hasn’t reappeared on my TV screen since.

Lesko’s reliance on traditional ad spend seems to have ended shortly after the early 2000s. By 2007, he was already contacting freelancers on Craigslist to produce cheaper ads. But he’s proven to be a media chameleon. At 82, he’s found a new home on YouTube, where his channel has over 340,000 subscribers. In fact, he’s so active that he uploaded a new video while I was writing this.

*The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival is one of the most prestigious documentary film festivals in the world, but my film—which was just a college project—was selected as part of a showcase of local documentaries made in Arkansas.

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We know distinctive brand assets—logos, brand mascots, jingles, taglines, etc.—drive growth... in consumer brands. But I often think about how distinctiveness shows up outside of products and services.

Horror Classics vs. Christmas Classics

A few years ago, I analyzed how Christmas movies grow. I looked at the highest-grossing films (adjusted for inflation), opening weekend performance, and surveys of today’s most beloved holiday classics. A few patterns stood out:

• Opening weekend predicted long-term success.

• Critical acclaim barely mattered—Home Alone 2 has an abysmal Rotten Tomatoes score. For shame!

• Star power helped enormously.

• Sequels almost always performed well.

• Box office flops often found new life as annual TV staples (A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life) during a time with far fewer options than today.

Most importantly, pre-existing fame and uniqueness drove success. Rudolph built on the popularity of the song, The Santa Clause leveraged perhaps the most famous and instantly recognizable “mascot” of all time—Santa—and other films drew on well-known characters from other genres, like the Muppets or Charlie Brown. The only truly original hit was Home Alone—even its producers were blindsided by its success on opening weekend.

In other words, Christmas movie success relied on:

• Mental availability: pre-existing iconic characters, sequels, songs

• Physical availability: marketing budgets, opening weekend sales, VHS/DVD distribution, and yearly TV reruns

In every film, distinctiveness played a critical role in its success, but ultimately, that distinctiveness was not built from scratch.

Horror films flip that logic. Their success rarely starts with familiarity—it starts with distinctiveness. The most famous franchises launched with something radically unique: a sound, a mask, or a memorable line.

Christmas films relied on distinctiveness, but it was inherited. Santa’s red suit, flying reindeer, Charlie Brown’s yellow-and-black shirt—all existed before the films. Horror had to invent its assets from scratch: masks, costumes, theme songs, and villains were born on screen.

Horror Classics vs. Consumer Brands

A great filmmaker knows how to captivate an audience; a great brander knows how to be remembered. Filmmakers often overlook the commercial power of distinctiveness, focusing instead on emotional impact. Branders frequently do the same—but without the same payoff. For filmmakers, emotion is the goal. For brands, it’s a means to an end. And audiences know the difference.

Viewers accept that films are meant to move them, even if they also make money. No one expects that from a brand. Brands don’t get two hours of attention—they get seconds. That’s why distinctiveness works differently in each world.

In branding, distinctiveness is much less an artistic choice and more a deliberate tool for recognition. A logo doesn’t need to make you feel something in the moment; it just needs to trigger everything you already feel toward the brand. The Apple logo doesn’t need to look innovative or inspire emotion on its own—if not for the brand built around it, it could just as easily belong to an elementary school.

Filmmaking is different. Its distinctive assets—like a mask or theme song—have to do something on their own. A Halloween mask has to be both scary and memorable. A score has to reinforce the emotion as it unfolds. But filmmakers could learn something from brand science, too. The most iconic movies, especially horror films, don’t rely on emotion alone—they build instantly recognizable cues that burn into memory. A mask, a sound, an iconic movie line. Deliberate distinctiveness doesn’t dull emotion—it anchors it, making sure the feeling lasts long after the credits roll.

Types of Distinctive Brand Assets In Film

This article isn’t about how Halloween movies grow, but how they were born—and how accidents of design became enduring assets. Horror films with unusual visual or audio traits were far more likely to become classics or evolve into franchises. Many of those traits were chosen on a whim, yet became inseparable from the films’ identity.

Just like consumer brands, horror films rely on recognizable cues to stay in memory. Their distinctive brand assets just take different forms:

• Mascots → Costumes

• Taglines → Famous movie lines and film taglines

• Jingles → Theme songs

• Advertising styles → visual motifs

• Logos → Movie posters

Both films and brands rely on repetition and distinctiveness to anchor these cues in memory—the difference is in how those cues are created. Filmmakers often stumble into them, while brands try to engineer them.

I’d love to see more filmmakers take a page from marketing science and design their distinctiveness deliberately, rather than by accident.

But enough theory—let’s get to the real reason you clicked on this article: the backstories behind these iconic Halloween assets.

Brand Assets: Costumes

Brand mascots are known to be one of the most powerful assets for consumer brands. The same can definitely be said for the costumes that made horror classics famous.

Ghostface - Scream

In the Scream franchise, the killers target teens whose deaths follow the “unwritten rules” of classic horror movies—rules like never have sex, never drink or do drugs, and never say “I’ll be right back.” Each murder plays out as both a parody and a tribute to the slasher genre’s clichés, turning the film itself into a self-aware commentary on horror tropes.

“Ghostface” is the costume worn by various killers throughout the Scream franchise. Within the film, it had to be something any would-be killer could buy off the rack—ordinary enough to be believable, but eerie enough to stick in memory. That’s almost exactly how Marianne Maddalena, one of the film’s producers, discovered it in real life—though the story was far more accidental.

Three weeks before shooting, Wes Craven, Maddalena, and the rest of the Scream team were still struggling to design the mask that would become the star of the film.

Then, during a location scout, Maddalena stumbled upon it by accident—sitting on a chair in a boy’s bedroom in one of the houses they were considering for the shoot.1 It was the exact mask that would end up in the final film, though with a white shroud. She’d stumbled onto the “Wailing Ghost” mask, made by the costume company Fun World.

She ran downstairs to show the team, ecstatic. They weren’t impressed. “No, we’re going to make our own,” they replied. Somehow, no one seemed to grasp just how absurdly lucky it was—that the perfect mask they’d been struggling to create was simply sitting there, waiting, while they were out scouting for a house.

The team resisted the found mask for another couple of weeks, until Maddalena raised it again, hoping the homeowner still had it. Craven finally relented: “Ok… but I want to make some alterations.”

There was still one obstacle—the rights belonged to Fun World, the mask’s producer. Dimension executive Cary Granat initiated negotiations that same day. Meanwhile, the crew experimented with altered versions. When shooting began, they used a slightly modified mask, but soon realized the original worked best and went back to replace the shots with the Fun World version. By now, the rights to Ghostface must be worth millions. Scream only paid around $30,000 for them.

The rest of the costume was also a challenge. According to Maddalena, Craven was “not a happy camper” when he first read the script, which only described the killer as wearing a “ghostly white mask.” He worried: “How do you hide the feet? How do you hide the hands?”

The team experimented with a black turtleneck and other ideas before settling on a… white robe?

Once again, Maddalena provided the crucial suggestion, recommending a black robe for maximum scare factor—an idea that would stick.

Michael Myers - Halloween

Halloween was shot on a shoestring budget, yet went on to become the highest-grossing independent film of all time when it was released in 1978.

In the film, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital to kill his sister, after murdering the rest of their family as a boy. In the script, the adult killer was described as having a “blank face.”

With almost no money for props, Tommy Lee Wallace was sent to find a mask at a local costume shop—and stumbled upon a Captain Kirk mask from Star Trek.

According to William Shatner, the mask Wallace found was actually a replica of a “death mask” used on the Star Trek set—a placeholder so Shatner wouldn’t need to be on set for scenes where his character had to look older or altered in some way.

Wallace modified the mask by cutting larger eye holes, removing the eyebrows and sideburns, painting the face white, and darkening the hair.

The crew tested two options: a sad clown mask, which everyone agreed was “eerie,” and the altered Captain Kirk mask. When someone tried the latter on, the reaction was instant. “We were all like, ‘oh, fuck me,’” Wallace recalled. The Kirk mask was terrifying—and instantly iconic.

As for the rest of the costume, the origin wasn’t nearly as random as the mask. Myers’ dark grey coveralls came straight from the story itself—he kills a mechanic early in the film and takes his clothes as his own.

Jason Vorhees - Friday The 13th

If you’re like me, you might forget that Jason’s iconic hockey mask didn’t appear until Friday the 13th Part III.

In the first film, the killer murders several teenage counselors trying to reopen an abandoned summer camp in 1980 after a tragic incident decades earlier. In Part II—which takes place five years after the first film—Jason Voorhees picks up where things left off, killing more teenagers at the same camp. Part III begins right after, with Jason murdering a shop owner, stealing his clothes, and continuing his rampage at a nearby lake house.

The filmmakers have openly admitted they borrowed the whole Friday the 13th concept from Halloween, so it’s fitting they borrowed that detail too—having the killer take the clothes of someone he’d just murdered. To be fair, it’s also a pretty practical move when you need new clothes and you’re committed to killing teenagers.

Of course, no one talks about Jason’s costume from the neck down. Whereas Michael Myers’ coveralls are fairly distinct, Jason’s green button down and jeans are pretty generic and have changed a lot over the years. What really makes Jason Vorhees an iconic movie mascot is his hockey mask.

In Friday the 13th Part II, Jason wore a sack over his head. By Part III, the script said he’d wear a mask—but no one had decided what kind.

During a lighting test one day, director Steve Miner needed Jason in frame, but no one wanted to bother with makeup. So, they grabbed the first mask they could find. As luck would have it, the film’s 3D effects supervisor, Martin Jay Sadoff—a die-hard hockey player—had his hockey gear with him on set that day. Inside his bag was a Detroit Red Wings goalie mask. They threw it on Richard Brooker (who played Jason) just for the test.2

It worked. Miner instantly loved the look, but the mask was too small. The crew enlarged it, made new molds, and production assistant Terry Ballard added red triangles, new holes, and subtle changes to make it unique. What started as a lazy workaround during a lighting check became one of the most iconic masks in movie history.

Hannibal Lector - Silence Of The Lambs

In The Silence of the Lambs, Dr. Hannibal Lecter—a brilliant psychiatrist and convicted cannibal—is held in a maximum-security psychiatric facility for the criminally insane. Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee played by Jodie Foster, is sent to interview him in hopes of gaining insight into the mind of another serial killer known as Buffalo Bill.

The mask makes its appearance during Lecter’s transfer from Baltimore State Hospital to a temporary holding cell inside a Tennessee courthouse. The transfer is arranged after he agrees to help Starling and the FBI with the case. To prevent him from biting or attacking anyone, the guards restrain him with a straightjacket and fit him with the now-iconic muzzle-like mask.

It’s the only time in the series that Lecter wears the mask, but the image was chilling enough to make it instantly iconic and one of the most recognizable visuals in film history.

Like the Scream mask, coming up with Lector’s iconic mask took trial and error. Kristi Zea, the production designer for The Silence of the Lambs, called it “an interesting dilemma.”3

Costume designer Colleen Atwood and the team tried a range of ideas—some genuinely creepy, others unintentionally funny. Hopkins tested several different masks, including fencing-style grids and medical restraints, but none felt right.

@alltherightmoviesAnthony Hopkins screen testing his Hannibal Lecter mask options for THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

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Eventually, they decided to make something original. The plan was to give the mask a smooth finish, but when the fiberglass prototype arrived, it looked rough and weathered, almost like dried leather or skin. They kept it that way, and that unfinished sample became the final mask seen in the film.

Freddy Krueger - A Nightmare On Elm Street

Inspired by news reports of a Cambodian refugee who mysteriously died in his sleep after suffering recurring nightmares—a phenomenon that reportedly affected others in the same community—A Nightmare on Elm Street follows a group of teenagers in Springwood, Ohio, hunted in their dreams by Freddy Krueger, a burned man with a glove of razor blades. What happens in their dreams kills them in real life, forcing them to stay awake just to survive.

By 1982, after the success of Halloween and Friday the 13th, the slasher genre was already crowded. Wes Craven wanted to make something different—something psychological. He also wanted to do what most slasher directors avoided: show the killer’s face.

The Fedora

Freddy’s fedora came from Craven’s own childhood. One night, as a boy, he woke to see a drunk man wearing a fedora standing on the sidewalk outside his window, staring up at him. “He just basically somehow knew I was up there,” Craven recalled. “He looked right into my eyes.” Craven ducked out of sight, then looked again after what felt like hours—the man was still there, only now he was walking slowly backward down the street while keeping eye contact. Then he turned the corner—toward the entrance of Craven’s apartment building. Moments later, Craven heard the door open downstairs. He grabbed a baseball bat with his brother, but found no one. That image stayed with him.4

The Sweater

The red-and-green sweater was chosen more scientifically. Craven had read in Scientific American that red and green were the most clashing color combination to the human eye. It seemed fitting for a horror film.5

The Knife Glove

Freddy’s bladed glove was part instinct, part biology. Craven wanted to combine humanity’s primal fear of claws and sharp edges with one of its most evolved traits: hands. But the prop itself was dangerous—according to mechanical effects designer Jim Doyle, “Every time someone put it on, they hurt themselves. If you closed your fist, the blades cut your forearm.”

The Face

Freddy’s grotesque burns came from a slice of pizza. Makeup artist David Miller recalled: “The final design for Freddy was based on a pepperoni pizza. I was having dinner one night, playing with the cheese and pepperoni, and I realized—I’d just made Freddy’s face.”

Sam - Trick R’ Treat

You’ve probably started seeing Sam more often in recent years, appearing alongside more well-known Halloween characters in decorations and displays. If you’re not a horror fan, though, you might not know who he is.

Sam is the pint-sized enforcer from Trick ’r Treat, a film structured as an anthology of Halloween stories. He punishes anyone who fails to honor the spirit of the holiday, serving as a unifying thread across the film’s separate tales.

What makes Sam unique is that he may be the only truly intentional “mascot” created for a horror film. He was designed by writer-director Michael Dougherty for his NYU animated thesis film, Season’s Greetings. According to Dougherty in a documentary interview about the film, his goal was straightforward: “Every holiday has a cool mascot. Halloween is the only one that didn’t. There are iconic images, but not a single mascot character.”6

For authenticity, Sam was played by a real 7-year-old, giving his movements a natural, childlike quality. As for what truly lurks beneath the costume—you’ll have to watch the film to see the surprise for yourself.

Brand Assets: Theme Songs

Jingles are another powerful distinctive brand asset for consumer brands. The same can be said for movie theme songs and motifs.

“Tubular Bells” - The Exorcist

Tubular Bells is best known as the theme from The Exorcist, but it actually comes from a groundbreaking instrumental progressive rock album written by Mike Oldfield, who began composing it at just 17. Its unusual 15/8 time signature was virtually unheard of in rock at the time, and its mix of bells and slowed-down electric guitars helped pave the way for the New Age music movement.7

When director William Friedkin was searching for a score for The Exorcist, he’d commissioned music he didn’t like. He wanted something “akin to Brahms’ Lullaby” to evoke a sense of childhood. After consulting the head of Warner Bros., he was sent to the studio’s music library down the hall, where he discovered Tubular Bells. Warner Bros. had little interest in the album, so Friedkin acquired the rights himself.8 When The Exorcist premiered, the album exploded in popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time.

“I Got 5 On It” - Us

Us (2019), from Key & Peele co-creator turned horror auteur Jordan Peele, follows a vacationing family terrorized by another family that looks exactly like them. It’s only been six years since its release, but the comparisons between Peele and Hitchcock already feel earned—and I’d bet Get Out, Us, and Nope will all be considered classics within the decade.

The film is loaded with instantly recognizable visual cues—from gloved hands wielding scissors to the now-iconic red coveralls, which feel like a modern extension of a horror villain tradition. But one of its most striking cues is actually auditory: the main theme, a haunting horror remix of Luniz’s 1995 hit “I’ve Got 5 On It.”

The remix wasn’t originally made for the film itself—it was composed for the official trailer by Michael Abels. Audience reaction was so strong that Peele decided to integrate it as the film’s central musical motif. He had long felt the song carried an eerie undertone. In an interview about his choice for the trailer, he said, “I love songs that have a great feeling but also a haunting element to them, and I feel like the beat in that song has this inherent cryptic energy, almost reminiscent of the Nightmare on Elm Street soundtrack.”9

Interestingly, in an episode of The Empire Film Podcast, Peele revealed that the final fight scene was originally filmed with Pas de Deux from The Nutcracker as its score, highlighting how the film’s music evolved into the memorable, unsettling motif audiences now associate with Us.10

Since discovering the eerie potency of I’ve Got 5 On It, Peele has continued the trend—turning the 80s pop hit Sunglasses at Night into a haunting motif in his most recent film Nope, weaving it through the film’s most suspenseful moments. The collaboration between Jordan Peele and composer Michael Abels has already drawn comparisons to Steven Spielberg and John Williams… by Spielberg himself.11

Ch, Ch, Ch, Ah, Ah, Ah (Actually Ki, Ki, Ki, Ma, Ma, Ma) - Friday The 13th

In the original Friday the 13th, several scenes are shot from the killer’s perspective, with a subtle camera wobble to convey the viewpoint. On a practical level, composer Harry Manfredini created a musical motif to immediately signal whose eyes the audience was seeing through—so viewers knew within seconds it was the killer’s perspective.

The sounds in that iconic motif were debated for years—until Manfredini finally clarified what was being said.

Spoiler warning: Skip to the next section on movie lines if you don’t want the original film’s ending spoiled.

In the story, the tragic incident at the heart of the plot is the drowning of a young boy, Jason, at the camp. He was thrown into the lake and went undiscovered due to the negligence of the counselors. The killer in the first film—who Jason Vorhees succeeds in later installments—is his mother, Pamela Vorhees.

Toward the film’s climax, Pamela chases a teenage girl and utters, in a childlike voice, “Kill her, mommy.” This suggests she is hearing her son’s voice in her head as she hunts her victims.

Manfredini used that line as the basis for Jason’s motif. He took the first two letters of the first and last words of Pamela’s hallucination—“Ki…ma”—recorded them himself, and then distorted them into the haunting audio cue that became synonymous with the series. The motif signals that, with every kill, Pamela is guided by the imagined voice of her son.

Brand Assets: Movie Lines

Certain movie lines stick in our minds long after the credits roll, becoming shorthand for the film itself. Like distinctive brand assets, they instantly trigger recognition and recall, carrying the story—and the emotion—of the movie in just a few words.

Most movie lines get misattributed or forgotten over time. These are unmistakable.

“Here’s Johnny” - The Shining

The Shining has no mascot, franchise, or a particularly strong theme song, yet it’s often hailed as one of the greatest horror films ever made. Few would argue that Stanley Kubrick isn’t a genius or that this isn’t among his best work.

The film follows Jack Torrence, a man hired to be the caretaker of a sprawling ski resort. He brings his wife and young son, hoping the isolation will help him finish his latest novel. Meanwhile, his son begins experiencing supernatural phenomena and discovers he is telepathic, able to sense a mysterious force called “the shining.” Over time, Jack slowly descends into madness, culminating in a murderous rampage against his own family.

According to a study that tracked viewers’ heart rates and asked them to rate the films that scared them most, the scariest movie moment of all time is Jack Nicholson’s “Here’s Johnny” scene. Jack bursts through a door, peers through the splintered hole, and grins maniacally while chasing his wife and son with an ax.12

That line became legendary thanks to Nicholson’s improvisation—he ad-libbed it on the spot. There’s a clever cultural layer, too: in 1980, audiences would have instantly recognized the reference to The Tonight Show, which opened with Ed McMahon—perhaps better known to some 90s kids from The Price Is Right—calling out, “Here’s Johnny!” before Johnny Carson appeared through a rainbow-colored curtain. Kubrick twists that cheerful, familiar phrase into pure terror.13

“It’s Alive!” - Frankenstein

The line “It’s alive!” is famously shouted by Dr. Frankenstein after his creation springs to life. In Mary Shelley’s original novel, Frankenstein reacts with terror and revulsion, recoiling from what he has made. The 1931 film flips that reaction: here, he exclaims with pride and triumph, celebrating his achievement rather than fearing it.

The line is often spoofed with a thunderclap immediately following it—but that iconic punch was partly a workaround. The original line continued: “In the name of God, now I know what it feels like to BE God!” This second half was censored to secure a seal from the Production Code Administration (PCA), which deemed it offensive to Christian audiences. To hide the excised line, the filmmakers used a jump cut and a loud clap of thunder immediately after “It’s alive!”

Before the censorship, the film had attempted to placate the PCA with an opening narration describing Frankenstein as “a man of science who sought to create a man after his own image without reckoning upon God.” It wasn’t enough. The second half of the line was removed, and remained unknown to the public until it was rediscovered in the 1980s.14

“I Ate His Liver With Some Fava Beans And A Nice Chianti” - Silence Of The Lambs

When Hannibal Lecter warns Clarice Starling not to “test me,” he recounts the fate of the last person who did—a census taker, murdered and served as a meal. He chillingly adds that he “ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”

Even more unsettling than the idea of a human liver with fava beans and a fine chianti is the hiss Anthony Hopkins adds at the end. That chilling sound wasn’t scripted; Hopkins had been joking around with the hiss on set, and its inclusion here turned it into one of the most unnerving touches in cinematic history.15

There’s another layer to the line. Reddit sleuths have noted that liver, fava beans, and wine—all high in tyramine—can dangerously interact with monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), a drug that could have treated Lecter’s own condition. The implication being that Lecter was likely off his meds when he killed the census taker.16 Whether the filmmakers included this detail knowingly remains unknown.

The Power Of Unplanned Creativity

From masks and costumes to theme songs and unforgettable lines, horror films show how powerful distinctive assets can be—sometimes by accident, sometimes by design. Unlike consumer brands, which carefully engineer recognition, many of these iconic horror cues were improvised, stumbled upon, or discovered by sheer luck. And yet, they endure, becoming instantly recognizable shorthand for the films themselves.

Whether it’s Michael Myers’ altered Captain Kirk mask, Jason Vorhees’ goalie helmet, or Hannibal Lecter’s muzzle, these assets demonstrate that distinctiveness—when repeated and reinforced—anchors a story in our memory. Audiences don’t need a full two-hour explanation; a single visual, sound, or line can trigger the entire narrative in an instant.

The lesson isn’t just for filmmakers to lean on marketing science to manufacture memorable assets. Branders could take a page from the horror playbook: embrace a little randomness, experiment under constraints, and leave room for accidents. Sometimes the quirkiest, most improvised choices become the elements people remember most. Unplanned creativity, when recognized and amplified, can create assets that are far more memorable—and iconic—than anything fully scripted.

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“Pringles’ original intention was to make tennis balls... But on the day the rubber was supposed to show up, a truckload of potatoes came.

Pringles is a laid-back company, so they just said ‘F*ck it, cut em up!’”

Or so goes the joke by the late comedian Mitch Hedberg.

Pringles wasn’t founded by a tennis ball company—but it was created by a soap manufacturer. And the story only gets stranger from there.

In fact, Pringles might be the most over-engineered snack ever made: a lab-built chip developed in the 1950s by a chemist who, decades later, requested to be buried in one of its cans.

From a failed taste test and early competitor backlash over semantics that required the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to intervene, to a pre-fame Brad Pitt cameo and a Wikipedia prank that accidentally renamed its mascot, this is the bizarre history of one of the world’s most recognizable snack brands.

The Signature Shape

In the mid-1950s, Procter & Gamble—known mostly for soap at the time—tasked a chemist named Fredric J. Baur with fixing everything wrong with potato chips. He set out to create one that wouldn’t break so easily, wasn’t greasy, stayed fresh longer, and didn’t need to be shipped in a bag of air.1

At the time, P&G had just begun expanding into food and quickly became the world’s largest supplier of frying oil to chip makers. Making their own chip seemed logical. But by 1958, the project was shelved. Baur had nailed the shape and texture—but not the taste.

He was still so proud of the design that decades later he asked to be buried in a Pringles can. His family thought he was kidding. He wasn’t. When he died in 2008 at 89, they fulfilled his request.

In the mid-1960s, P&G revived the perfect potato project with chemist Alexander Liepa. But the machine that made Pringles possible came from a different kind of mind entirely: Gene Wolfe, a Catholic science fiction writer who also worked as an engineer at the time. Wolfe, best known for The Book of the New Sun and praised by writers like Neil Gaiman as one of the genre’s masters, helped design the system that baked the chips into their signature hyperbolic paraboloid shape.2

By 1968, after a few test launches, Pringles finally hit the market. But the road from development to market testing wasn’t easy.

The Origin Of The Name

The brand’s early challenges weren’t limited to the chips themselves. Naming the chip would prove to be a roller coaster ride as well.

There are a few competing stories about how Pringles got its name. The most credible comes from P&G itself. In a 1969 interview with the Chicago Daily News Service about a trademark dispute (more on that in a bit), the company said the name was pulled “out of a hat.”3 They liked that it sounded like a family name and felt familiar enough to make people less wary of their “newfangled” potato chips.

Another theory suggests the brand was named after Mark Pringle, an engineer who once patented a device in the 1930s that was later used in Pringles production.

And then there’s the story that two P&G ad guys came up with the name after driving past Pringles Drive in Cincinnati.4 Whichever story you believe, one thing’s clear: none of it involved the kind of brand strategy theater we’d see today.

Problems With The Name

When Pringles hit test markets, trouble started immediately—the name was already taken. General Foods had trademarked “Pringles” for a popcorn-based chip of their own.

P&G didn’t have much leverage. P&G had tested the product without filing a trademark, leaving them blindsided. The companies eventually settled, with General Foods renaming their product. P&G never accused them of espionage outright, but given the era’s snack wars, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think they locked down the name just to make P&G pay for it.

Ironically, decades later, Pringles toyed with releasing a popcorn version of their chip—a full-circle moment that never quite popped.

But the headaches didn’t stop there. At launch, the full name was “Pringles Newfangled Potato Chips.” Competitors quickly cried foul, arguing Pringles weren’t “real” potato chips since they were made from potato dough, not cut potatoes.

In 1975, the FDA agreed: Pringles didn’t meet the oddly specific definition of a “potato chip.” The brand was forced to call them “potato crisps” or include the disclaimer “made from dried potatoes” anywhere the word “chip” appeared.5

The label they fought to keep in the ’70s was one they’d argue against in 2008.

That year, the UK introduced a 17% value-added tax on “potato crisps” (the British term for chips) and any snacks made from potatoes. Pringles’ lawyers argued the brand shouldn’t qualify because the chips were only 42% potato and that their shape “is not found in nature.” The High Court actually agreed, but an appeal later overturned the ruling, and P&G had to pay up.6

“Once You Pop”

Pringles’ marketing history had as many false starts as the product itself. After a few weak taglines and failed jingles—including a 1989 ad starring an unknown Brad Pitt—Pringles struck gold in the ’90s with one of the most memorable lines in advertising.

What started out as “Once you pop, you can’t stop,” became “Once you pop, the fun don’t stop” by the late ’90s.

After the 2000s, Pringles went mostly quiet, pulling back on ad spend. Then in 2022, they came back loud—with their biggest budget in years. It was a perfect setup for nostalgia and resurrecting old brand cues. Instead, in true modern fashion, Pringles got restless and tried to fix what wasn’t broken with a new tagline: “Mind Popping.”

At the time, one expert posited to Marketing Interactive the change may have been because the old line clashed with today’s ”mindful eating concepts.”

Wow. I need a minute to process how far gone the ad industry is.

According Grey London, the agency behind the change, “Mind Popping” was inspired by “mind-blowing” trivia they uncovered about Pringles—like how sci-fi author Gene Wolf helped invent its baking machine, the universe supposedly mirrors its shape, and the chip “perfectly fits the tongue.”7

Despite being billed as Pringles’ new permanent tagline—not just a campaign line—“Mind Popping” was short-lived. Since then, the brand has bounced back with a few standout Super Bowl ads that leaned on the brand’s other strengths—the mascot and shape of the can. I ranked those spots #3 in my annual Super Bowl Winners and Losers lists in 2023 and 2024, and #7 in 2025. Still, Pringles hasn’t brought back its most recognizable line.

Mr. Pringle (AKA Mr. Pringles, AKA Mr. P, AKA Julius Pringles)

The Pringles mascot has been part of the brand since day one—first as a logo, then, by 1973, appearing in at least one campaign as a spokesperson named “Mr. Pringle.”

The logo was designed to depict an old-fashioned baker, matching the Pringles name, which P&G thought sounded like a family name. His head was shaped like a Pringles chip.

John Oliver once joked that Mr. Pringles looked like “a hard-boiled egg disguised as Tom Selleck.” And if you’ve ever wondered what the rest of his body looks like, Oliver did too.

After the comedian pressed Pringles to reveal his mysterious body, the company finally responded. I doubt John Oliver was impressed—they had a perfect setup and still managed to make it unfunny.

“Mr. Pringles” has largely stayed the same over the years. Things didn’t get truly interesting until 2013.

Before 2013, the Pringles mascot didn’t have a first name—he was just “Mr. Pringle.” The idea for a new name started in 2006, when two college friends, watching American football, joked about what the Pringles man might be called. When football player Julius Peppers came on screen, they cracked up imagining his name as “Julius Pringles.”

One of the friends, Justin Shillock, who was an active Wikipedia contributor, added the name to the Pringles page as a joke. The edit was caught and deleted a year later, but Shillock put it back. With his established reputation on Wikipedia, it went unquestioned until 2012, when Kellogg’s acquired Pringles from P&G and an employee began using the name “Julius Pringles” in marketing campaigns, unaware it was fabricated.8 By 2013, the company officially renamed their mascot Julius Pringles, though today he’s often called “Mr. P” (not to be confused with Master P).

After a brief moment in the spotlight in 2013, the mascot receded again—until 2020, when Jones Knowles Ritchie overhauled the logo, streamlining it for screens while keeping it instantly recognizable.

Recent Pringles Mascot Moves

Recently, Pringles has started leaning into their mascot more. In 2024, Chris Pratt starred in a Super Bowl ad as a fictionalized version of Mr. P—first joking that he looked like the Pringles guy, then eventually being cast by his agent to play the character in a mock movie about the mascot. It’d be fun if they made it a recurring thing, like KFC does with Colonel Sanders—rotating different celebrities in the role. Maybe, while they’re at it, they could finally embrace his first name and stop calling him “Mr. P?”

In 2025, Pringles brought the mascot back for the Super Bowl, this time featuring a gag where celebrity mustaches flew off their faces after someone who ran out of Pringles blew into the can.

Unfortunately, the ad probably didn’t land as effectively as intended. By coincidence, Little Caesar’s ran a similar spot where Eugene Levy’s eyebrows flew off, and with viewers’ attention divided, it’s easy to see how the two could be confused.

Pringles deserves credit for finally leaning into their logo and turning him into a playable mascot. Marketing scientists and mascot lovers should be proud.

Pringles didn’t start as a gimmick, a tennis ball, or a carefully orchestrated brand strategy—it was the product of chemistry, accidents, and a bit of chaos. From a chemist obsessed with shape, to trademark battles, FDA debates, viral Wikipedia pranks, and a mascot with more names than most people, the story of Pringles is as over-engineered and oddly fascinating as the snack itself.

It’s a reminder that some of the most enduring brands aren’t built with post-it notes and whiteboards—they’re built in laboratories, courtroom settlements, marketing misfires, and the occasional happy accident. And in the case of Pringles, all those quirks added up to a can that’s instantly recognizable around the world, proving that sometimes, the weirdest stories make the strongest brands.

What is “Meaningless Distinctiveness?”

Before we get into examples, let’s talk about meaningless distinctiveness—because it’s often misunderstood.

When the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute talks about meaningless distinctiveness, they are referring to distinctive brand assets—logos, colors, mascots, jingles—and names* that stand out precisely because they seem randomly chosen or disconnected from the category.

The goal is to build brands so distinctive no competitor can—or would even think to—copy them. Imitation isn’t always deliberate. Assets that feel unnatural or irrelevant to the category are less likely to be mimicked, even by accident.

*Ehrenberg-Bass doesn’t specifically include names in its discussion of “meaningless distinctiveness,” but the same logic applies.

The issue is that both “meaningless” and “distinctiveness” get twisted (even Jenni Romaniuk of the Institute believes the term “meaningless” falls short).

Meaningless doesn’t mean “no meaning”—it means “no category meaning,” and often no business meaning at all.

Everything has meaning. “Meaningless” here just means no meaning in a market context. For example, apples have no obvious link to tech—even if plenty of people, including Apple themselves, have tried to connect the two after the fact.*

*There are plenty of myths about Apple’s name and logo, but they are all post-rationalization. According to Steve Jobs’ biography, he chose it after visiting an apple orchard while on a fruitarian kick. He liked that it was “fun, spirited, and not intimidating.” That’s it. Apple only made the knowledge connection after picking the name, with their first Isaac Newton logo. Less than a year later, they scrapped it—and never went back to that idea.

Additionally, designers often claim “the logo’s simplicity reflects the product’s simplicity.” In reality, it’s simple because they hired a designer who understood that simple logos work. That’s true across the board—iconic logos tend to be simple, and most logos get simplified over time.

Distinctiveness isn’t differentiation, and it’s not at odds with it.*

Distinctiveness is about unmistakable brand assets—like the Geico Gecko, Lacoste’s crocodile, Wendy’s name/square patties.

Differentiation is about perceived differences (features, benefits, positioning, personality, pricing, etc.)—like Geico’s playfulness, Lacoste’s polo association, Wendy’s “fresh never frozen” line.

While both can contribute significantly to brand growth, distinctiveness has one particular advantage over differentiation. It is legally ownable. Geico owns its gecko, Lacoste its crocodile, and Wendy’s its name. By contrast, Geico’s playfulness used to stand out—now every insurer tries it. Lacoste invented the polo shirt—but today, they’re one of many brands making them. Wendy’s tagline was stolen from KFC.†

Other factors—timing, scale, distribution—matter more than meaningless distinctiveness, and differentiation can drive growth. But brands with some level of meaningless distinctiveness dominate Interbrand’s Top 100 for a reason. It’s durable, memorable, and hard to copy.

Now to the examples.

*Some frame distinctiveness and differentiation as either/or, but meaningless distinctiveness can reinforce any differentiation strategy. Even the “brand love” crowd can’t deny that many of their favorites—Starbucks, Apple, Suburu—lean on meaningless distinctiveness.

†It’s significant that Wendy’s blatantly stole their tagline from KFC because burger chains don’t just compete with other burger chains—they compete with chicken, pizza, and coffee shops too.

Famous Examples of Meaningless Distinctiveness:

1. The Lacoste Crocodile:

In 1923, Lacoste’s tennis star founder René Lacoste bet his coach he could win a crocodile skin suitcase after a Davis Cup match in Boston. Later, a journalist referred to him as “the crocodile.” The symbol stuck.

2. The Coca-Cola Polar Bears:

The Coca-Cola Polar Bears were first used in a 1922 French poster of a polar bear giving the sun a cold Coca-Cola. This was likely a strategic choice to emphasize Coke as a cold drink on a hot day. However, throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, the polar bears shed their original message and took on the meaning of Christmas. The exact opposite of a hot day. Since their transition into a Christmas symbol, there is no link between the iconic polar bears and its category.

3. Coca-Cola’s Bottle Shape:

Speaking of Coca-Cola, they have always been at the forefront of distinctiveness for distinctiveness sake. In 1915, they asked bottle manufacturer, The Root Glass Company, to design something “so distinct that you would recognize it by feel in the dark or lying broken on the ground”.

Now that’s a proper design brief in my opinion.

4. The Geico Gecko:

GEICO stands for Government Employees’ Insurance Company. In 1999, the creative team at Martin Agency was hired to create a “mental shortcut” for the brand.

According to Per Neel Williams, SVP and group creative director at Martin, the Geico Gecko wasn’t intended to endure as a distinctive brand asset long-term. It was an idea for a single campaign.

“It was just, ‘Oh, Gecko sounds like Geico.’ The original concept was about the Gecko being annoyed because people kept calling him thinking he was Geico and they were trying to get car insurance.”

Since then, Martin Agency has spent 30 years helping Geico reinforce the gecko. Originally created for car insurance, the mascot’s meaninglessness makes it easy to stretch across products—car, motorcycle, home, even pet insurance.

5. The Guinness Harp:

The harp has been a symbol of Ireland since the 13th century. In 1862, Guinness based their logo on a specific 14th century harp called the “Brian Boru Harp” to honor their Irish heritage.

Ironically, the Guinness harp, a symbol steeped in Irish history, now adorns Guinness Blonde American Lager, a testament to the adaptability of brand assets that have become meaningless for most over time.

6. The MGM Lion:

A publicist for Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Howard Dietz, chose the MGM lion as a nod to his alma mater, Columbia University. 6 lions have served as the mascot since 1916.

7. “Jake from State Farm” and the State Farm Sonic Logo:

The original “Jake From State Farm” was a real employee of the company, Jake Stone. Like the GEICO gecko, “Jake From State Farm” was meant to be a one-off character until State Farm hired an actor, Kevin Miles, to transition “Jake” into a distinctive brand asset.

“Jake from State Farm” is not their only distinctive brand asset aside from their logo.

In a stroke of genius, State Farm’s cliché jingle of the 1980s (“Like a Good Neighbor State Farm Is There”) has evolved into a campaign in the 2000s featuring customers singing the jingle’s lyrics before an agent magically appears. Today, the jingle is now a timeless sonic logo, paired with Kevin Miles speaking the lyrics.

8. Colonel Sanders:

Harland Sanders had a tumultuous career marked by numerous brawls, a literal shootout with a competitor, business ventures, and several shifts in employment. Despite his roller coaster of tensions with others, in 1935, he was commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel, a title awarded for his local popularity. After bouncing through various failed ventures, he eventually found success franchising his fried chicken recipe, founding KFC, which grew into a global brand.

“Colonel Sanders” understood showmanship, distinctiveness, and consistency. He began leaning into his title of colonel in 1950 and began dressing as a “southern gentleman.” He wore the same outfit every day in public during the last 20 years of his life. He even dyed his mustache and goatee to match his hair.

Since his death in 1980, KFC has turned the real-life Colonel into a rotating brand mascot. His image has been repackaged as everything from a cartoon to a marketing gimmick, played by a revolving cast of celebrities—Jim Gaffigan, Ray Liotta, Jason Alexander, even Reba McEntire.

9. The Budweiser Clydesdales:

The original Budweiser Clydesdales came from Shea’s Brewery. August A. Busch Jr. bought them in 1933 after Shea’s had used them to promote their own beer.

Busch Jr. gave them to his father to mark the end of Prohibition. It started as a prank: Busch Jr. said he’d bought his father a car, then rolled up with a hitch of Clydesdales instead.

Hitched to a red, white, and gold wagon, they hauled the first case of post-Prohibition Budweiser through the streets of St. Louis. After that, the horses toured the country, delivering beer to President Roosevelt and Al Smith, the former New York governor who helped bring Prohibition down.

Today, the Budweiser Clydesdales show up at the Super Bowl as a distinctive asset that can actually carry emotion. Most brand assets can’t pull that off; they haven’t been around long enough or used consistently enough to earn it.

10. Dominos:

Domino’s Pizza experienced a fortuitous discovery when a delivery driver suggested the name “Domino's,” once the founder discovered the previous name, “Dominick’s,” had trademark issues.

11. Caterpillar:

The early steam tractors of the 1890s were heavy and their wheels would sink into the ground. One of the founders of Holt Manufacturing, Benjamin Holt, attempted to solve this problem by wrapping planks around the wheels. When company photographer Charles Clements commented that the machine looked like a caterpillar when viewed upside-down through his camera, Holt seized on the metaphor and the company was named.

Even though Caterpillar now goes by CAT—and most people will never need to buy construction equipment—the full name still lives in almost every American’s head.

12. Ronald McDonald

In 1963, years after “Bozo” vanished from TV, Willard Scott—who played Bozo—introduced “Ronald McDonald, the Happy Hamburger Clown” in local D.C. spots.

The ads worked. Two years later, circus performer Coco the Clown reworked the look for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and a spot during 1965’s equivalent of the Super Bowl.

Despite calls from childhood obesity groups to retire him, McDonald’s hasn’t budged. Hard to blame them. One survey found 96% of U.S. schoolchildren recognize Ronald.

13. The Duracell Bunny

You read that right. The Energizer Bunny started out as the Duracell Bunny.

From 1973 through the late ’80s, Duracell ran its “Drumming Bunny” (a different rendition of an elephant above) ads—then let the trademark lapse in 1988. Energizer swooped in with a parody, and the rest is branding history.*

*Just because Energizer swiped a distinctive brand asset doesn’t mean you can. Even when brands temporarily use a competitor’s assets to take shots, they usually end up boosting the other brand’s recall. Most people won’t catch the nuance. Best case, both brands—or the whole category—get a bump. Worst case, only the target does, especially if they’re much bigger. Energizer pulled it off because Duracell didn’t fight back, and Energizer had the advertising budget to keep the pink bunny front and center ever since.

Just five years after the last Duracell Bunny ad aired, Energizer gaslit the U.S. into forgetting Duracell ever had one. Their ads positioned the “Energizer Bunny” (a phrase they hammered) against a fake rival, SuperVolt—a thinly veiled stand-in for Duracell—that failed to launch a mascot.

Meanwhile, in the UK, Duracell never dropped the pink bunny…

In 1992, Duracell and Energizer split bunny rights: Energizer got the U.S., Duracell kept Europe. But in 2016, Energizer sued after spotting Duracell’s bunny on battery packs in U.S. stores—claiming Duracell was dodging the agreement by funneling in European stock. Duracell blamed rogue importers.

Lawyers have been tied up for thirty years over the rights to a pink bunny. That’s how valuable meaningless distinctiveness can be.

Also, can you imagine the Mandela Effect on people who have lived in the U.S. and Europe?

14. The Morton Salt Girl

What have you always seen in the image above? Just a girl in an umbrella?

Did you ever catch the most important detail? The salt pouring out behind her?

The Morton Salt girl was created to address a problem Morton uniquely solved: salt caking from humidity. In 1911, caking was a major issue until Morton added magnesium carbonate, an anti-caking agent. In 1914, when brainstorming for their first ad campaign, N.W. Ayer pitched several ideas, all of which were rejected. It was a backup idea that stuck—a girl in the rain with salt pouring out, paired with the slogan "When it rains, it pours." It emphasized that Morton Salt didn't cake, even in the rain.

Today, all salt brands add magnesium carbonate—another example showing that differentiation can't be "owned" for long. The girl no longer carries a message. She's become meaningless over time,* with most never noticing the salt pouring out.

*The same can be said for NBC’s Peacock which was first created to highlight NBC’s color TV. Once a visual representation of a differentiator, now just a bit of branding trivia.

15. Adidas (Name and Logos)

In 1924, Adolf and Rudolf Dassler opened a shoe shop: Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik (“Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory”). They were the only company in the world making spiked shoes for athletes.

Despite being actual Nazi Party members (not what passes as a "Nazi" today), their business took off when Jesse Owens, a black track and field athlete, wore their shoes at the 1936 Olympics. However, in 1949, the brothers had a falling out and launched separate companies.

Adolf started Adidas. Why “Adidas”? Simple. Adolf’s nickname was “Adi,” and his last name started with “Das.” That’s it. No strategy decks. No naming consultants.

Rudolf, his brother, started Ruda (combining “Ru” and “Da”).

Ruda didn’t stick, however. A few months later, the company was renamed Puma.

The Adidas logo has a similar history of “Adi” Dassler making decisions somewhat randomly.

The original logo (shown above within the brown shapw) was an illustration of a shoe with three stripes. Why three? Adolf tested different stripe counts and found three showed up best in photos.*

*If you’ve read my article Design Has A Brand Strategy Problem, you’ll remember Paul Rand used the same practical considerations for the IBM logo.

After dropping the shoe illustration, Adidas used a plain wordmark until 1972, when they expanded into clothing. That’s when the “trefoil” logo was introduced. It was floral-inspired while maintaining the same 3 lines from before.

In 1989, the “Equipment” logo was designed to reflect how the three stripes looked from inside an Adidas shoe.

So there it is. A nickname mashup, some basic visibility tests, and a dash of Nazi family drama; that’s the origin of Adidas’s meaningless name and logos.

16. Shell

Before Shell became a global energy giant, it was built on—yes—seashells.

In 1833, Marcus Samuel sold antiques, then moved into oriental shells, which were trending in interior design. Demand grew so much he began importing them from the Far East.

Samuel never entered the energy business himself—he died in 1870. But his sons expanded his import/export seashell business into oil, commissioning the first tanker to pass through the Suez Canal, which changed the industry.

Standard Oil, their main competitor, sold kerosene in distinctive blue cans. To stand out, the Samuel brothers used red cans and renamed their father’s company “Shell.”*

*I wasn’t able to track down examples of the original cans, but I’d love to see them.

17. McDonald’s Arches

The Golden Arches weren’t born from deep symbolism or clever strategy; they were born from a desire to stand out.

Richard McDonald sketched two simple half-circle arches because he thought they’d be distinctive and visible. Several architects rejected the idea (they didn’t like the idea of their client pitching architecture ideas) before the brothers hired Stanley Meston, who—along with his assistant Charles Fish—turned the crude sketch into a sleek, modern design.

Later, McDonald’s head of design noticed that when viewed at an angle, the structural arches vaguely resembled the letter “M.” That visual coincidence became the logo in 1962.

Marketers love to slap meaning onto brand assets that were really just designed to get noticed. The Golden Arches are a prime example.

When McDonald's considered removing them, marketing consultant Louis Cheskin argued they had to stay—not because they were distinctive and had already won hard-earned recognition, but because of his own research on their Freudian appeal. Cheskin compared them to "mother McDonald's breasts," suggesting their subconscious connection to breasts symbolized homemade food.

Designers love to apply psychology to McDonald’s, too. Despite zero evidence that color psychology influenced their choice of red and yellow, design influencers insist McDonald’s colors were picked to spark appetite or excitement.

It’s the same old story: marketers and designers make up complex psychological meanings for brand assets that were never meant to carry any.

18. KitKat

Mark Ritson uses KitKat to illustrate his concept of “relative differentiation”—the idea that brands can appear more differentiated from competitors, even if their differentiators aren’t truly unique. To make his point, he often highlights KitKat’s relentless marketing, positioning itself as the snack for “taking a break.”

I think there are far better examples Ritson could use to illustrate his point than KitKat.

Ritson is right that KitKat has attempted to differentiate themselves in this way. KitKat was originally created for workers at the Rowntree factory,. The bar was designed as a quick, convenient treat during breaks. The two-finger design, perfect for breaking in half, made it shareable and practical. Over time, the brand reinforced the "break" messaging in its advertising, tying KitKat to moments of rest.

But here’s the thing: I’m not convinced most consumers connect KitKat with “taking a break.” It’s more likely they think of it as “breaking chocolate apart.”

This is where the line between relative differentiation and meaningless distinctiveness can blur. KitKat’s breakable design is distinctive, but does it still carry the original “rest” meaning, or is it just a quirky, memorable feature with no real practical use?

I’d love to see some research on this. Although I’m not sure you could isolate the effect—ask people which brand reminds them of “taking a break” and they'll likely say KitKat, primed by the jingle and the physical act of snapping it apart, even if they’d never made the association before.

I’m also doubtful that saving part of your KitKat for later or sharing it is a real differentiator. Sure, some people might do it, but does it drive purchases? To me, KitKat is just another option for “tasty chocolate with a crispy texture,” like Twix or Crunch bars. The main differences? Ingredients and slight texture variations.

What stands out to me most is KitKat’s distinctiveness—its red packaging, unique shape, name, and that jingle.*

Then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe people do choose KitKat for “taking breaks” or sharing. All I know is the few friends I’ve asked about it have never made that connection.

*Speaking of which, they really need to bring the jingle back. Their current generic approach is far less sticky. I believe the iconic jingle does less to reinforce the “taking a break” idea and more to boost the chocolate’s distinctiveness—its texture, split design, and the act of breaking it apart. The jingle also reinforces the KitKat name far more than their current campaigns. It locks the brand name into the melody, making it instantly recognizable by sound alone—even The Office riffed on how stuck-in-your-head the KitKat name gets.

19: The Elmer’s Glue Bull

Got glue? Borden, a dairy company, did in 1951.

Why would a dairy company start making glue? Early glue used casein—the same protein found in milk. It wasn’t completely out of nowhere. Neither was Elmer the Bull.

Gail Borden had already reshaped the dairy industry in the 1800s by inventing the first commercial method for condensing milk. After his death, the New York Condensed Milk Company—later renamed Borden—pioneered glass bottles for liquid milk.

Then came the buying spree. Riding the success of their condensed milk, Borden bought 200 companies in three years. These days, at least in Wisconsin where I live, Borden’s mostly still known for its condensed milk. You can find their liquid milk in some U.S. stores, but in the 1940s, Borden was the name in milk.

Elsie the Cow debuted in 1936. Today, a cow mascot would disappear into the noise—cows are the default for dairy. But in the 1930s and ’40s, there weren’t many dairy mascots, so Elsie had the space to stand out. The yellow flowers around her neck helped, sure, but she worked because Borden pushed her hard. They turned her into a national campaign—billboards, magazines, parades—and even gave her a husband.

Elmer started as a background character in Borden’s milk ads—usually fixing things around the house. When Borden launched a chemical division, they saw what Elsie had done for their milk and reused the playbook. Elmer became the mascot. When they rolled out their glue, they named it after him.

Unlike Elsie, Elmer had no built-in relevance to its category. He only made sense because of his connection with Borden milk and marriage to Elsie. And that’s exactly why he worked.

If Borden milk and Elmer’s Glue launched today, Elsie would blend in. Elmer wouldn’t.

20. Liberty Mutual’s Limu Emu & Doug

So far, we’ve looked at “meaningless” brand assets that were born with meaning—then lost it over time.

Let’s end with one that started meaningless on purpose: Limu Emu & Doug.

The campaign came from Goodby Silverstein & Partners—the same agency behind “Got Milk?” According to Liberty Mutual’s CMO Jenna Lebel, the emu and his human sidekick were one of a dozen random ideas. “We were truly open to all types of spokescharacters during the exploration phase of campaign development.” Other ideas included a talking pigeon in yellow pants and a misunderstood T. rex trying to live a normal life. Limu Emu & Doug just happened to test better.

“Limu” is short for Liberty Mutual. “Emu” rhymed. “Doug” was picked from a name list. That’s about as far as the strategy went. Sure, there’s a loose concept—the two act like crime-fighting partners, and the crime is overpaying for car insurance—but the idea wasn’t born from some deep brand framework. It came from creative instinct.

Since their debut during COVID, Limu and Doug have spun off side characters, like the “Liberty Biberty” guy—played by a real-life soap star who first appeared in a spot where he botched Doug’s lines while auditioning to steal his role. Now he has his own campaign where he corrects a toddler who says “Liberty” correctly—by insisting, “No, it’s Biberty.” That campaign drops the “Liberty Biberty” guy into the same setup Liberty Mutual’s been using for over a decade—actors delivering flat, generic testimonies pretending to relate to what we’re going through, all set in front of the Statue of Liberty. It might not be the funniest ad, but it’s certainly an improvement.

The insurance industry’s been riding the randomness wave ever since Geico accidentally struck gold with the Gecko in the late ’90s. Since then: Flo, The General, the Aflac Duck. Even Geico couldn’t help themselves—they followed the Gecko with cavemen and a camel yelling “Hump Day.”

None of these mascots are tied to insurance—or to anything people typically associate with it: safety, preparedness, fear, accidents, service. And that’s exactly why they work.

Conclusion

Meaningless distinctiveness stands the test of time. These names and assets—whether logos, jingles, package shapes, or mascots—are disconnected from the category they represent, making them harder to imitate, even inadvertently.

Most were created with intent. But today, customers don’t notice or care. Whatever meaning they once had is long gone.

And that’s why they work.