The best of Mark Ritson: Part 2

5. Why does the London 2012 Olympic mascot look like a penis?

No-one had more fun at the 2012 Olympics than our branding columnist. Here he skewers the London organising committee committee for the creation of a logo that looked like a “giant male appendage” and goes on to explain why the design made all of us look like dicks. Read the column.

4. Please make the brand value humiliation stop

In the sea of press releases that surrounds the annual league tables of the world’s biggest brands, Ritson has stood out as being the only analyst who questions the ranking exercise itself, rather than merely the results. This 2012 column provoked defensive responses from all three big valuation firms and remains required reading on the topic of brand valuation. Read the column.

3. Pay up and embrace Twitter’s fake followers

The over-selling of social media is perhaps Ritson’s favourite subject matter. In this 2013 column he describes his efforts to cheat the system and acquire an army of fake followers on Twitter overnight. Read the column.

2. Coke Life is the harbinger of death for Coca-Cola

Last summer Ritson criticised the soft drinks giant on its first product launch under the Coke brand since 2006, seeing it as too much like the original to capture consumers looking for more natural ingredients. Coca-Cola Life has actually done well in sales terms since, but is that enough to save the company from the wider decline in fizzy drink consumption? Read the column.

1. Ernst & Young’s rebrand raises more than a snigger

In a gleeful column Ritson enjoys the juxtaposition of EY’s new logo with a pre-existing soft-core gay porno mag. He concludes that both organisations’ reputations are now at risk, for very different reasons. Read the column.

In case you missed it: ‘The best of Mark Ritson: Part 1‘