Every time I open my computer these days another monstrosity makes me choke on my cocopops. On Monday it was reading the loony-tunes head of Saatchi and Saatchi talk about “war as a brand” (see below). Today I started to read Wally Olins – another eminence of design and communications universe – reply to the question, “Where would you say is branding going?” on a website called Design and Emotion. Wally replies that “charity….is the ultimate brand. Just because the brand has got no functional content at all. It only exists emotionally. And I think that is a very interesting phenomenon that is going to happen. Because as people get richer, and I am talking about in the West, then there will come a time where you have several houses, or several cars, etc. How many more things can you have? So people will begin to get their satisfaction increasingly from emotion, self-image if you like, of being nice, of being good, of behaving properly”. Now Wally is a great man – after all, he helped me publish my first book – but really: I won’t make it through many more breakfasts if barmy brand boosters keep saying stuff like this.