“Blue is the color of trust.”

“Green is used when you want to look natural.”

“Red is an aggressive color.”

At some point, we were taught the meanings behind colors. But what if I told you those meanings aren’t universal?

Color is never just color. What appears as a simple wavelength of light carries centuries of meaning, shaped by religion, history, and cultural experience. A color that signifies celebration in one culture might represent mourning in another. For marketers, designers, and anyone communicating across cultural boundaries, understanding these differences isn’t just interesting; it’s essential

The Complexity Beneath the Surface

When we choose colors for a brand, a website, or a campaign, we rarely consider the cultural baggage those colors carry. But that baggage is real, and it varies dramatically across the globe.

Black: From Sophistication to Spirituality

Black demonstrates how a single color can hold contradictory meanings even within similar cultural contexts. In Western societies, black carries the weight of mourning and rebellion, but also sophistication and formality. Think of the little black dress or the black tie event.

Move to Africa, and black transforms into a symbol of age, wisdom, and masculinity: qualities revered and associated with maturity and knowledge. In China, black represents high quality and is considered a color for boys, while in Japan it evokes night, mystery, and the unknown.

Indian culture adds another layer, viewing black through the lens of evil and darkness, yet also apathy and negativity. Thai tradition associates black with unhappiness and bad luck. Each culture has processed this darkest of colors through its own historical and spiritual lens.

White: Weddings and Death

In Western cultures, white symbolizes purity, peace, and new beginnings, as seen in white wedding dresses and white doves. But in many Eastern cultures, including China, India, and Japan, white is the color of death and mourning. A Western company launching a product in an Asian market with pristine white packaging might inadvertently send a very different message from the one intended.

Yellow: Optimism Meets Caution

Yellow presents marketers with a fascinating challenge. In Western contexts, yellow radiates happiness, joy, and optimism: it’s literally sunshine. But it also signals caution (caution tape, warning signs) and energy.

Eastern cultures elevate yellow to a sacred status. In many Asian traditions, yellow is associated with sacredness, royalty, and power. Chinese culture associates yellow with nourishment, honor, and masculinity, while Indian traditions link it to merchants, sacredness, and peace.

In Europe, yellow is associated with hope, happiness, and risk, while in Africa it signifies wealth and high religious status. Thailand designates yellow as the color for Monday and associates it with Buddhism and royalty.

Green: Nature’s Color, Culture’s Variable

Green’s association with nature is nearly universal, but how cultures interpret that connection differs meaningfully. Western societies link green with nature, spring, and environmental consciousness, but also jealousy (as in “green with envy”).

In Eastern traditions, green represents new life, eternity, and wealth. Islamic cultures, in particular, revere green, associating it with fertility, strength, and luck. In Africa, green symbolizes growth and wealth, while in China, it connects to spring, youth, and fertility.

European interpretations add confidence and jealousy to the mix, while India sees green through the lens of Islam, hope, and nature. The environmental movement has given green new global associations with sustainability and eco-consciousness, but local cultural meanings still resonate strongly.

Blue: The Color of Trust…Usually

Blue is remarkably consistent across cultures as a symbol of trust, loyalty, and authority. Western brands have leveraged this for decades: think of the prevalence of blue in corporate logos, particularly in finance and technology.

But dig deeper, and variations emerge. In Western contexts, blue also represents sadness and depression (feeling “blue”). Eastern cultures associates blue with immortality, wealth, and self-cultivation. European traditions add truth and responsibility to the mix.

In Africa, blue means safety and protection, while in China it represents immortality and femininity. Japanese culture links blue with calm, dignity, and hope. Middle Eastern traditions associate blue with prestige, while in India it brings mercy, strength, and bravery.

Purple: Royalty’s Reach

Purple’s association with royalty and wealth stems from historical scarcity: purple dye was once extraordinarily expensive to produce. This meaning persists across many cultures, but with interesting variations.

Western traditions link purple with royalty, spirituality, and luxury. Eastern cultures add wealth, nobility, and sorrow to the mix. European interpretations emphasize royalty and power, while Africa sees purple as a symbol of healing, royalty, and creativity.

In China, purple means love and romance, while in Indian culture, it to sorrow and unhappiness. Japanese tradition associates purple with wealth, privilege, and good health. Italian culture links purple to death, mourning, and nobility: a reminder that even prestigious colors can carry darker associations.

Pink: The Gender Color That Wasn’t Always

Pink’s association with femininity in Western cultures is relatively recent: before the mid-20th century, pink was often considered a color for boys. Today, Western pink screams love, romance, and femininity, sometimes to the point of limiting its use in other contexts.

Eastern cultures take a different view, with pink representing marriage and feminine qualities, as well as tenderness. European traditions associate pink with flirtation, sensitivity, and femininity. In Africa, pink means femininity, mildness, and spirituality.

In Chinese culture, pink is associated with joy and love, while in Indian traditions, it is linked to celebrations and weddings. Thai culture associates pink with Tuesday, and Japanese tradition links it to spring, femininity, and good health.

Red: Universal Intensity, Divergent Meanings

Red might be the most universally intense color, but what that intensity means varies dramatically. In Western contexts, red signals danger and anger, but also stop signs and blood: warnings that demand attention. Yet it’s also the color of passion, romance, and femininity (particularly when shifted toward pink).

Eastern cultures have embraced red with far more positive associations. In China, red means prosperity, good fortune, happiness, and celebration: it dominates weddings and festivals. Indian culture links red with purity, love, sensuality, and wealth, while in Japan it represents life, passion, and strength.

For marketers, this creates both opportunity and risk. A red “call to action” button might perform differently in Shanghai than in Stockholm, not just because of design preferences, but because of deeply embedded cultural associations.

Orange: Energy Across Borders

Orange pulses with energy in nearly every cultural context, though the specific qualities attributed to that energy vary. Western cultures see orange as representing vitality, excitement, and adventure: it’s an active, dynamic color.

Eastern traditions associate orange with happiness, good fortune, and spirituality, particularly through its connection to Buddhism. Indian culture emphasizes orange’s sacred nature through its association with purity, courage, and sacrifice.

In Africa, orange symbolizes energy and enthusiasm, while in China it represents harvest, warmth, and vitality. Japanese culture links orange to love, happiness, and courage. Brazilian traditions see orange as a symbol of vitality, warmth, and passion.

Brown: The Overlooked Neutral

Brown often gets overlooked in discussions of color symbolism, but it carries significant meaning across cultures. Western societies associate brown with comfort, stability, and nature: it’s earthy and practical.

Eastern traditions link brown to earth and mourning, while European cultures see it as representing masculinity. In Africa, brown symbolizes the color of the land itself, connecting to place and identity.

Chinese culture associates brown with earth, stability, and reliability, while Indian traditions see brown as a symbol of mourning. Thai culture associates brown with simplicity, and Japanese tradition links it to earth, strength, and durability.

Why This Matters for Visual Marketing

Understanding color symbolism isn’t about memorizing a chart: it’s about recognizing that meaning is constructed, not inherent. The same color can tell completely different stories depending on who’s looking at it.

For marketers and designers working across cultural boundaries, this creates several imperatives:

Research is non-negotiable. Before launching a campaign in a new market, understand the local color associations. What works in New York might fall flat (or worse, offend) in New Delhi.

Context matters more than rules. While cultural color associations are real, they don’t operate in isolation. A color’s meaning shifts based on how it’s used, what it’s paired with, and what the overall message conveys.

Globalization is creating hybrid meanings. Younger, more globally connected audiences often hold both traditional and Western color associations simultaneously. A Chinese millennial might associate red with both celebration and danger, depending on context.

Test, don’t assume. Even with research, the only way to know how a color choice will perform is to test it with real audience members from the target culture.

The Future of Color in Global Marketing

As our world becomes more connected, color symbolism is evolving. Some meanings are globalizing: green’s association with environmental sustainability, for instance, transcends many cultural boundaries. Others are hybridizing, with younger generations holding multiple, sometimes contradictory color associations.

The rise of digital design has also created new considerations. Colors render differently on screens than in print, and screen settings vary globally. A carefully chosen shade of red might appear quite different to viewers across regions and devices.

Yet despite these changes, deep cultural associations with color persist. They’re embedded in language (feeling blue, green with envy, seeing red), in ritual (white weddings, red envelopes, orange robes), and in centuries of shared meaning-making.

Designing with Cultural Intelligence

The most sophisticated approach to color in global marketing isn’t to avoid cultural meaning but to engage with it thoughtfully. This might mean:

• Creating region-specific versions of campaigns that honor local color associations
• Choosing colors that carry positive associations across multiple target cultures
• Using color in ways that transcend cultural specificity: through emotion, contrast, or hierarchy
• Pairing color choices with other cultural signals that help clarify intended meaning

Color is one of the most powerful tools in the visual marketer’s toolkit. But like any powerful tool, it requires skill and understanding to use well. The same red that energizes a Chinese New Year campaign could signal danger in a Western context. The white used to symbolize purity in Western wedding dresses often signifies mourning in many Eastern traditions.

Seeing Color Clearly

Perhaps the most important lesson from international color symbolism is humility. What seems obvious to us (that blue means calm, or pink means feminine, or black means formal) is actually a learned cultural association. Someone from a different culture might look at the same color and see something entirely different, not because they’re wrong but because they’ve learned a different visual language.

For those of us working in visual communication, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is to move beyond our own cultural assumptions and truly understand how our work will be received across different contexts. The opportunity is to create work that speaks meaningfully to people across cultural boundaries, honoring rather than ignoring the rich tapestry of meaning that color carries.

Color may be universal: every culture has access to the same visible spectrum. But meaning is cultural, specific, and deeply human. Understanding that distinction is what separates good visual communication from great visual communication.

And in our increasingly connected world, that understanding has never been more valuable.

Get the International Color Symbolism Slides!

If you are interested in having all the slides in one easy-to-review package, check it out!

This color breakdown originally appeared in the book, The Visual Marketer.

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The post 10 Colors That Mean Different Things Around the World appeared first on Jim MacLeod.

But did you know that you can use Canva to make Nano Banana give you the images you want?

1. Open an image in Canva.

2. Draw a rectangle (R key) highlighting the area you want to modify.

3. Change the rectangle color to transparent/none and the border to green.

4. Add a text box (T key) and write what you want changed.

5. Select the image, rectangle, and instruction box.

6. Right-click to pull up menu and select Download Selection

7. Then go to Nano Banana and start a new conversation.

8. Add your image and include the prompt:

Read the green text in the image and make the modifications. Remove the green text and boxes.

9. Wait a few seconds and check out your new image!

It’s that easy.

You can also run multiple commands at the same time.

If you’re looking for more control and you have Photoshop, the beta version of Photoshop (27.0.1) has the ability to use Nano Banana as your generative AI model when editing photos.

The post Use Canva to Guide Nano Banana: A Simple Step-by-Step Tutorial appeared first on Jim MacLeod.

Back when I was deep in the design world, people would say nice things about my work. But it always made me uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do with the praise. I’d smile or nod, then quickly shift the attention elsewhere.

Some of that might come from growing up in New England. We’re not exactly known for being expressive with praise. We’ll compliment the weather before we compliment a person. And when we do, it usually comes with a side of sarcasm. Patriots fans might be the exception, but even they’ve gone quiet lately.

For a while, I had an incredible team around me. When people complimented something we produced, I’d redirect the credit. It was true, the team had done amazing work. But it also helped me avoid the discomfort of taking credit myself. I liked doing great work, but I didn’t really want the spotlight.

The Compliment That Stuck

Then something happened that stuck with me.

An old boss reached out years after we had worked together. Out of nowhere, he mentioned how much he appreciated the marketing work I’d done back then. It was thoughtful. It was specific. And it landed in a way most compliments never did.

I kept thinking about it. It stayed with me for the rest of the day.

Eventually I realized why.

That compliment came with no strings attached.

It wasn’t the opening act for a request. He didn’t follow it up with a favor. He wasn’t trying to recruit me for a last-minute project or ask for a referral or slip in a pitch. He just wanted to say something kind. That was it.

And it hit me how rare that actually is.

So many compliments we receive at work are transactional. A softener before a hard ask. A setup before more work. A spoonful of sugar before the medicine. You start to associate compliments with obligation. And after a while, you stop hearing the praise at all.

Even worse, you start to resent it. You hear a compliment and brace yourself for what’s coming next.

There’s also a whole category of praise that feels obligatory. The kind that comes from people close to you who are just trying to be supportive. It’s kind, but it’s not always grounded in your actual work. You thank them, but deep down you know it doesn’t carry the same weight.

That message from my old boss felt different. It felt earned. And it felt free.

A Compliment Without a Catch

Since then, I’ve tried to pay closer attention to how and when I give praise. I’ve caught myself holding back at times, afraid it might come across as disingenuous. Or I’ve let skepticism creep in, thinking compliments are just fluff. But when someone does meaningful work, saying something kind and specific is one of the easiest ways to show respect.

So here’s something to think about. When was the last time you gave someone a compliment with nothing attached?

No follow-up. No ask. No agenda.

Just a simple note to say, “Hey, I saw what you did, and I thought it was great.”

If you’re in a position to give praise, let it stand on its own. Generous, honest recognition matters. It helps people feel seen. And often, it sticks with them longer than you’d expect.

My only ask today is this: pick someone whose work you respect. Send them a note. A message. A quick comment. Just tell them what you appreciate.

That kind of compliment can change how someone sees their own work. And it might mean more than you know.

The post Do You Give Compliments Without an Ask? appeared first on Jim MacLeod.

You know the one. It’s that moment when you open your presentation and realize your slides look like they were made by someone who still loves a 1990s clipart collection. Meanwhile, the person presenting after you has slides that look like they belong in a design portfolio.

This happens more often than anyone wants to admit. Marketing teams everywhere are asking the same question: could switching from PowerPoint to Canva finally solve our design problems, or are we just trading one set of headaches for another?

The answer isn’t simple, but it’s worth understanding.

The Design Reality Check

Canva destroys PowerPoint on visual appeal. This isn’t even close.

Canva’s templates look contemporary and polished right out of the box. They understand color theory, typography, and white space in ways that make your content look professional without requiring a design degree. PowerPoint’s templates, while improved, still carry the DNA of corporate presentations from the early 2000s.

Here’s what most people miss: PowerPoint gives you significantly more granular control over design elements. If you know what you’re doing, you can create stunning presentations in PowerPoint. The problem is that most people don’t know what they’re doing, and PowerPoint doesn’t help you learn.

Canva acts like a design safety net. It’s nearly impossible to create something that looks terrible because the platform guides you toward good design choices (though it’s not impossible, as many people can prove). PowerPoint assumes you already know how to make those choices.

Presentation vs. Deck

One thing I want to clarify: There is a difference between a presentation and a deck.

• Presentations are made to be inspirational and aspirational. Think of them as main-stage keynotes. You’re trying to get the viewer to change their mindset.

• Decks are made to transfer information. You’re trying to get the viewer to learn something.

The design and content needs to be different depending on the audience and what you want them to take away. I’ve designed presentations and decks for speakers all around the world. In fact, I used to travel with speakers so they could tweak until the last minute. The audience and situation dictates which type of slides you should build.

Collaboration Gets Interesting

Canva’s collaboration features feel natural and intuitive. Real-time editing, simple sharing links, and comment systems that actually work. When you’re working with external partners or clients, Canva removes friction from the approval process.

PowerPoint’s collaboration works well if everyone lives in the Microsoft ecosystem. Version control is solid, co-authoring is smooth, and the integration with Teams makes feedback cycles efficient. But the moment you need to share with someone outside your Microsoft bubble, things get clunky fast.

Most teams discover this pattern: Canva wins for external collaboration, PowerPoint wins for internal teamwork. The question is which scenario dominates your workflow.

Enterprise Features That Matter

Enterprise buyers often dismiss Canva as a “consumer tool,” but that’s outdated thinking.

Canva’s enterprise features have matured significantly. Brand kits let you lock down fonts, colors, logos, and templates across your organization. Admin controls rival what you’d expect from traditional enterprise software. The platform now handles compliance, user management, and brand governance at scale.

PowerPoint’s enterprise strength remains integration. If your organization runs on Microsoft infrastructure, PowerPoint slides become part of a larger workflow that includes email, documents, project management, and file storage. Everything connects seamlessly.

The deciding factor isn’t feature parity. It’s whether you want a design-first tool that integrates adequately with your existing systems, or an adequate design tool that integrates perfectly with your Microsoft environment.

Performance Under Pressure

PowerPoint is fast, reliable, and works offline. When you’re in a conference room with spotty Wi-Fi making last-minute edits before a critical presentation, PowerPoint just works. No loading screens, no connection dependency, no performance hiccups.

Canva’s web-based architecture is both its strength and weakness. You get automatic updates, cloud storage, and device flexibility, but you’re dependent on internet connectivity and browser performance. Complex presentations with multiple high-resolution images can feel sluggish, especially on older hardware.

For teams that present frequently in various locations and conditions, PowerPoint’s offline reliability becomes a competitive advantage.

Costs Get Complicated

PowerPoint comes with Office 365, which most organizations already have. The marginal cost of using PowerPoint is essentially zero.

Canva Pro runs about $15 monthly per user, which seems reasonable until you multiply it across a marketing team. The calculation gets complicated when you realize many teams need fewer total design tools once they commit to Canva.

PowerPoint users often supplement with additional design software for social media, print materials, and web graphics. Canva handles all of these use cases within a single platform. The true cost comparison requires looking at your entire design tool stack, not just presentation software.

Canva’s More-Than-Presentations Advantage

Once your team learns Canva for presentations, they can create social media posts, email headers, print collateral, videos, web banners, and marketing materials without switching platforms. The design skills transfer across formats seamlessly.

PowerPoint excels at presentations but doesn’t extend naturally to other marketing materials. You can create templates and graphics in PowerPoint (I’ve built everything from white papers to social media templates for clients), but it requires workarounds and doesn’t feel natural.

Teams that embrace Canva often find themselves consolidating their design workflow around a single platform. Teams that stick with PowerPoint usually maintain separate tools for different design needs.

Learning Curves and Adoption

PowerPoint benefits from familiarity. Most professionals have been using it for years, even if they haven’t mastered its capabilities. Training costs are minimal because the basics are already known.

Canva requires learning new workflows, but the learning curve is gentler. The interface is intuitive, and the design guidance helps users improve their skills naturally. Teams often find that their overall design quality improves faster with Canva, even accounting for the initial learning period.

The adoption challenge with Canva isn’t technical complexity. It’s convincing teams to change established workflows and file management practices.

Other Options Worth Considering

Before we get to the final verdict, let’s acknowledge the alternatives that might actually fit your needs better than either PowerPoint or Canva.

Google Slides deserves serious consideration if you’re already living in Google Workspace. It handles collaboration better than PowerPoint and costs less than Canva Pro, but the design capabilities sit somewhere between the two. The real advantage is seamless integration with Google Drive, Sheets, and Docs. For teams that prioritize collaboration over design polish, Google Slides often hits the sweet spot.

Figma Slides is the new kid on the block that’s getting attention from design-forward teams. It brings Figma’s powerful design capabilities to presentations, which means you can create genuinely custom, brand-consistent decks. The learning curve is steeper, but if your team already uses Figma for other design work, it eliminates the need to switch between tools. Early adopters love the precision and flexibility, but it’s probably overkill for most business presentations. But designers don’t love to give edit access to non-designers, so that’s a battle that will have to be fought.

Gamma takes an AI-first approach that automatically generates presentation content and designs based on your prompts. It’s fascinating technology that can create decent presentations quickly, but you sacrifice control for convenience. Worth testing if you create a lot of similar presentations and want to speed up your workflow.

Keynote remains the best option if you’re Mac-native and prioritize smooth animations and transitions. The design capabilities rival Canva, and the performance is excellent, but you’re locked into the Apple ecosystem. Great for creative presentations, limiting for mixed-device teams.

Miro is making an interesting play in the presentation space by turning collaborative whiteboards into presentation slides. If your team already uses Miro for brainstorming and project planning, its presentation feature lets you turn those sessions directly into slides without switching tools. The visual thinking approach works well for workshops and strategic presentations, but it’s overkill for standard business decks. Worth considering if you want your presentations to feel more like interactive sessions than traditional slide shows.

Most teams pick between PowerPoint, Canva, and Google Slides because they cover 90% of use cases. The specialty tools like Figma Slides and Gamma solve specific problems but aren’t general-purpose solutions.

Which One Should You Choose?

Stay with PowerPoint if you’re deeply integrated with Microsoft systems, present data-heavy content regularly, need guaranteed offline access, or already have strong design capabilities within your team.

Switch to Canva if you want consistently professional-looking presentations without hiring designers, create diverse marketing materials beyond presentations, collaborate frequently with external partners, or find that PowerPoint’s limitations frustrate your team’s creative goals.

Many successful teams use both strategically: Canva for day-to-day marketing materials and client-facing presentations, PowerPoint for internal reports and data-heavy stakeholder meetings.

Bottom Line

The best presentation tool is the one your team uses consistently and effectively. A well-executed PowerPoint presentation beats a mediocre Canva deck every time. It’s not the tool, it’s the person using the tools.

Choose based on your team’s skills, workflow requirements, and collaboration patterns. Commit to the decision and focus on creating presentations that respect your audience’s time and attention.

The design quality of your presentations matters, but not as much as the quality of your ideas and the clarity of your communication. Pick the tool that helps your team communicate better, then get back to work on what you’re actually trying to say.

Jim MacLeod has travelled the world working with in-demand speakers, helping craft their presentations and decks to the delight of tens of thousands.

How can I help your next speech?

The post PowerPoint vs. Canva: When and Why to Make the Switch appeared first on Jim MacLeod.

This past week I had the honor of attending the fourth annual Content Entrepreneur Expo (CEX), hosted by The Tilt and Lulu.

People need to identify what AI can’t do, and lean into that. Whether it was being more crazy (​Mark Schaefer​), attracting humans rather than algorithms (​Wil Reynolds​), taking time to be mindful of your work (​Ann Handley​), using repetition to build your brand (​Jay Clouse​ and ​Joe Pulizzi​), or identifying that 10x efforts lead to 100x results (​Andy Crestodina​), there are so many ways to get your product or service to stand out.

Here is a collection of what I learned at the conference.

This week had another career first: My first book signing!

Thanks to the folks at Tilt Publishing and Lulu, I was able to sign a bunch of books for folks who wanted to learn more about The Visual Marketer. It was fun talking about what I learned and what they’ll learn when they read the book.

If you weren’t at CEX and want a copy, let’s make a deal:
For the digital version, use promo code: CEX25 to get the digital edition for $1.99 at my site.
Or, if you’re interested in the paperback, use promo code FreeS to get free shipping on the paperback.

Offer good until Sept 12th, 2025.

If you wanted to see the process behind how I drew the portraits on my iPad, I’ve included the Procreate video here:

The post Do What AI Can’t (and other learnings from CEX 25) appeared first on Jim MacLeod.

Except, when every day is a holiday, none of them feel special.

Kevin Feige, Marvel’s chief architect, has admitted the content pipeline thinned the magic. Star Wars saw streaming fatigue after 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯’s breakout. Pixar, once synonymous with “must-see in theaters,” skipped big screens with films like 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘭 and 𝘛𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘙𝘦𝘥. These choices may have kept subscribers engaged in the short term, but they eroded the premium positioning these brands had spent decades building.

𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧: Scarcity isn’t the enemy. It’s the secret ingredient.

𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐧𝐞𝐲’𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐭: 𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐐𝐮𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐐𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲

Now, Disney is pulling back the throttle. The new playbook focuses on fewer, bigger moments.

Marvel: Two TV series and two to three films a year, tighter storytelling, trusted directors, and tentpoles like 𝘈𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴: 𝘋𝘰𝘰𝘮𝘴𝘥𝘢𝘺 and 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘴.

Star Wars: Less binge, more box office. Theatrical events like 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯 & 𝘎𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘶 (2026) and 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳 (2027) take the spotlight, with select prestige series like 𝘈𝘩𝘴𝘰𝘬𝘢.

Pixar: Back to red-carpet status, pairing theatrical releases with theme park synergy and merchandise that feels like part of the experience.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐭’𝐬 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤

1. Restore Scarcity and Anticipation
   Every release should feel like a date circled in red, not just “Thursday content.”
2. Reinforce Signature Experiences
   Cinema as the “home field” for Star Wars and Pixar; Marvel stories that stand alone but feed the big arcs.
3. Celebrate Legacy Without Getting Stuck in It
   Keep proven voices, but allow smart evolution.
4. Deepen Fan Engagement
   Move past Comic-Con. Think interactive storytelling, fan challenges, and physical/digital hybrids.
5. Integrate with Parks and Products
   Every major release should connect to something you can ride, wear, or hold.
6. Make Merchandising Aspirational
   Products should feel like cultural signals, not just collectibles.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞

Disney’s pivot is a reminder to all marketers: attention is finite. Constant availability kills urgency and flattens perceived value.

For senior marketers managing powerful IP, the challenge isn’t more touchpoints. It’s making each one count. If Disney can reframe these franchises as rare, can’t-miss cultural moments, they’ll protect the brands and position them for another decade of dominance

Because when everything is “special,” nothing is. Get scarcity right, and the world will line up.

The post The Disney+ Curse: When “More” Became “Meh,” and How Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar Can Bounce Back appeared first on Jim MacLeod.

On my birthday in 2013, I got a gift I didn’t want: news that we had been acquired.

Acquisitions are a chaotic time. There is a lot of uncertainty because decisions must be made in numerous areas of the business. There can be a rush to claim power, and things can get messy if communication isn’t clear.

While at Extreme Networks, I led creative and digital teams through several acquisitions. The advantage of doing this work multiple times is that our team got really good at knowing what had to be done, in what order, and then executing on that plan.

The first acquisition was the biggest project I ever worked on, but we’ll come back to that.

The second acquisition was pretty straightforward. We were acquiring the wireless business unit from Zebra, which Zebra had previously purchased from Motorola. These poor people were acquired twice in a short amount of time. They hadn’t even finished their previous acquisition before they were sold off to Extreme.

Our job was to rebrand all of the Zebra wireless content so it was all branded as Extreme. It was then posted to all the proper places such as the marketing website, the customer portal, communities, and more. Myself and a few others from the marketing leadership team flew out to Chicago to meet with the Zebra marketing team to outline what both teams needed and what our process would look like.

The third and fourth acquisitions were challenging because they occurred simultaneously. Three weeks after Extreme announced its intention to acquire Avaya’s networking business, Extreme announced it was also acquiring Brocade’s SRA (switching, routing, and analytics) business. At one point, I flew out to San Jose, CA, to attend a three-hour planning meeting at Brocade.

We worked with both teams to ensure that all assets were rebranded and live on the website by the time the deal was signed and the press release was issued. Our comms team had a master spreadsheet that tracked every touchpoint along the way.

We were lucky to have great partners on the other side of these acquisitions because they knew where everything was and what needed to come over to be rebranded.

These were easy compared to the first acquisition.

Start from Scratch

The first acquisition, the one that landed on my birthday, was the largest and most daunting. I had been working as the creative services manager at Enterasys when it was announced that we were being acquired by Extreme. Long story short, our CMO, Vala Afshar, was named CMO of the new combined company. This was good because it meant I would be leading the creative efforts during the transition and beyond.

Our new CEO informed Vala that once the deal closed, we had 90 days to come up with a new visual identity and rebrand everything. A few years earlier, this CEO had been the CMO of Apple, so he knew about doing the impossible.

At Enterasys, we were 10-15 days away from launching our new site when news broke that we were being acquired. Now, we needed to update the design and development to reflect this new company that was twice the size. We re-engaged the design agency (Fresh Tilled Soil) and the development agency (Convertiv). For new work, we brought in a branding agency (Tank) and a video agency (IndieWhip, now The Video Bros) to help create the new face of our company.

Coordinating all of this work, along with updating everything with the Enterasys or Extreme logo – from business cards to tradeshow booths to data sheets – meant that we didn’t sleep much during the early part of 2014.

Process

When I started at Enterasys, my first order of business was getting all the source files from our agencies and establishing a system to catalog them and the work that needed to be done.

Here’s how we kept our heads above water:

• Centralized storage: We used Box to house all creative assets.
• Asset numbering: Every file got a unique ID, so edits were clean and traceable.
• Process discipline: We tracked version history and ownership to avoid confusion.

During the Enterasys acquisition, one of the marketing managers on the Extreme side asked if I had worked at an agency. I had, but I wanted to know why she asked that. She said she could tell by how I organized the process, tracking system, and files.

We had hundreds of pieces of collateral that needed to be dropped into new templates. I’m still so thankful that we had a dedicated team of designers who would work tirelessly to get all of that work accomplished. We knew what time the lights automatically went out in the building (10:00pm) and what time they turn on (6:00am). We basically lived on delivery food and soda for a couple of months.

Results

The acquisitions became a reset button for our branding. We were able to:

• Clean up and standardize all marketing collateral
• Rebuild product documentation in new templates
• Launch a fresh, on-brand website on day one
• Avoid the awkward “old logo” phase completely

Oh, also on day one, we launched the new website, announced a partnership with the NFL, launched our biggest product in years, and had an analyst panel livestreamed from our Salem, NH office.

Pre-announcements

One thing that you don’t often hear about is the work that goes into the initial acquisition announcement. If either company is a public company, which Extreme is, it means that there could be insider trading if the acquisition information falls into the wrong hands. I would have to sign a form saying I wouldn’t tell anyone the information I had, and I couldn’t buy or sell any stock related to the deal.

It also meant I couldn’t tell my team what was going on.

This was tricky since we all worked on the same source files and the same website. I remember with the later announcements having to make staging pages on our website in areas that my web manager wouldn’t see. I would get it approved, back it up, then delete it. Once the press release went out, I would turn on those pages and push the announcements on social (I also oversaw digital and social, in addition to creative).

People choose unhappiness over uncertainty – Tim Ferriss

Having done this work multiple times means I know the most important parts: Communication and planning. The biggest part of any acquisition is being as transparent as possible with everyone affected by this. Acquisitions often come with layoffs … sorry, I meant efficiency improvements. People understandably freak out about this. If you can get people to stop worrying, they’re able to focus on the monumental task ahead of them. That’s where planning comes in.

What makes a rebrand during acquisition successful?

• Transparent communication: Fear thrives in silence. Share what you can, early and often.
• Solid planning: Know what needs to be done, in what order, and by whom.
• Expect hiccups: Aligning priorities across teams is hard. Plan for it.
• Build trust: The goodwill you bank now will save you when deadlines tighten.

Projects of this magnitude require a lot of people to do the right thing when they’re supposed to. Just remember that your priorities may not align with their priorities.

This is where building trust and being a good partner will help more than you could imagine. There were times when I had to call in big favors in order to hit some deliverable timelines. Most of the time, I’d hear things like, “You’ve bailed me out so many times, whatever you need.”

Start by being helpful. That’s how you earn the trust you’ll need when the impossible shows up on your to-do list.

Read further

Want a deeper dive? Kapost did a write-up on how we managed the later acquisitions, and I shared more about rebranding after the Enterasys acquisition on my blog.

If this helped you, follow me for more lessons from the creative trenches.

The post What Happens When Your Company Gets Acquired (And You’re in Charge of the Brand) appeared first on Jim MacLeod.

What Is Marketing Design?

Marketing design applies graphic design principles to business goals. It combines a recognizable visual identity with strategic communication, ensuring every touchpoint, from emails to billboards, is not only consistent but persuasive. As The Visual Marketer puts it, visuals are the connective tissue that transform scattered marketing messages into a single, cohesive brand story.

Design for Action vs. Design for Memory

Design for performance marketing is all about driving action: subscribe, buy, sign up, click. Every layout decision should focus on conversion: removing friction, emphasizing calls to action, and guiding the viewer’s eye deliberately to encourage the desired action.

Design for brand marketing, on the other hand, is about creating mental bookmarks. It’s designed to be recalled later when someone is ready to choose. The visuals here emphasize emotion, storytelling, and repetition, helping people feel something about your brand and remember it when they need you. Tying your brand to emotions will

“I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those two things.” – Lindon Leader

Where Marketing Design Shows Up

Marketing design touches nearly every part of your customer journey. A few key areas:

• Email marketing: Clear layouts and strong CTAs to drive clicks and engagement.
• Landing pages and websites: Focused, intuitive designs that guide visitors toward conversion.
• Digital ads: Quick-hit visuals that stop the scroll and prompt immediate action.
• Print advertising and merch: Physical touchpoints that strengthen brand recognition and trust.
• Social media assets: Engaging visuals that build awareness and reinforce your brand personality over time.

Why Marketing Design Matters

Strong marketing design isn’t a “nice to have” — it’s a business growth tool.

• It builds memory: Repetition and consistency make your brand recognizable and memorable.
• It creates emotional connections: Visual storytelling connects deeper than copy alone.
• It drives sales: Even the best messaging is ineffective without design that grabs attention and guides the user to act.
• People remember 65% of visual content three days later, compared to only 10% of information heard or read without visuals.

What Great Marketing Design Looks Like

Clear Visual Hierarchy

Guide your audience’s eyes intentionally — from headline, to benefits, to the next step. Remove distractions and make it obvious what to do.

Strong Visual Value Proposition

Communicate why someone should choose you instantly. As The Visual Marketer explains, visuals can deliver your brand promise faster than words ever could.

Consistency

Use the same colors, typography, and styles across all assets. Consistency builds trust and signals professionalism.

Emotional Impact

Don’t just inform, make people feel something. Emotionally charged visuals are more memorable and more persuasive.

Practical Design Tips

1. Codify your style: A clear brand style guide prevents inconsistencies and speeds up production.
2. Design for your audience’s journey: Tailor visuals depending on whether you’re targeting awareness, consideration, or decision stages.
3. Stay relevant, not trendy: Experiment in campaigns, but maintain core visual elements to anchor your identity.
4. Keep your message front and center: Beautiful design without clear messaging is wasted effort.

Design Is More Than Decoration

In today’s hyper-saturated world, “pretty” isn’t enough. Design must work. It must guide, persuade, and stay with your audience long after they scroll past. Whether you’re pushing a high-converting landing page or building an unforgettable brand moment, the ultimate goal remains the same: to move people.

Design is more than decoration because it carries the weight of your brand’s promise and personality. When done right, design clarifies your message and makes your value unmistakable. It guides the viewer through a story, from understanding a problem to recognizing your solution, and does so in seconds. Every shape, color, and type choice works together to either build trust or erode it. If your visuals are inconsistent or purely ornamental, they create confusion instead of confidence.

Moreover, design influences perception before logic has a chance to catch up. Studies show that people form an impression of your brand in as little as 50 milliseconds. That means your design is often the first … and sometimes only … chance to prove your relevance and credibility. Beautiful design that serves no strategic purpose might get likes, but it won’t convert visitors or build brand loyalty. Effective design, on the other hand, feels intuitive, authentic, and purposeful. It moves your audience in the direction you intend, whether that’s clicking a button or remembering your name weeks later.

“Styles come and go. Good design is a language, not a style.” — Massimo Vignelli

Ready to make your design do more than look good?

Let’s turn your visuals into true business assets — crafted to drive action, create connections, and keep your brand top of mind. Because marketing design isn’t about decoration. It’s about results.

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