It's "de-Scottishify." According to Paul McFedries, it's a verb for rebranding a product or company "to play down or remove its Scottish connotations." The earliest citation comes from an Agence France Presse story on Sept. 13: "A manufacturer of Harris Tweed has dropped the word "Scottish" from its U.S. marketing campaign amid fears of a consumer backlash over the release of the Lockerbie bomber, a report said Monday. ... 'We have been getting a lot of feedback and we have had to de Scottishify the image of the brand. If he had not been released, we …

Julian Dailly, director of valuation in Interbrand's London office, writes an interesting companion piece as part of the firm's "Best Global Brands 2009" report (download PDF). He leads with Amazon's "1-Click" feature as a exemplar of a small action that significantly drives up the value of the brand. "Small change creates the most impact when individuals collaborate, teamwork focuses on quality not quantity, and organizations think more entrepreneurially about the long-term," Dailly writes. "Ultimately, when it comes to brand value, small changes can only create a big impact if marketers are bold enough to stand up …

Just six days after TGI Friday launched its new marketing character, Woody, with a Facebook promotion promising a free Jack Daniel's burger or chicken sandwich to his first 500,000 "friends," the goal was met, Noreen O'Leary reports. It hadn't expected to hit the mark for a month. It quickly became clear that Woody's friends who joined after the 500,000 level was hit were unhappy they weren't getting a coupon for the freebie. Some people accused Woody, billed as the chain's "No. 1 fan," of working for TGIF; and complained about the use of marketing ploys in social media. …

Microsoft is trying hard to increase its share in the markets where its brands are also-rans such as search, digital media players and mobile, reports Larry Magid. He also says that, after testing Windows 7 for several weeks, it's good enough to "help keep some Windows users from defecting" to the Macintosh OS. In search, Microsoft's new Bing engine grew 22.1% in August from the previous month and now has 10.7% of all U.S. searches, according to Nielsen. (But part of that came out of the hide of Yahoo, which is in the process of adopting Bing as its …

New ads for liquor brands such as Ketel One, Chivas Regal, and 1800 Tequila celebrate the "no-nonsense, pre-metrosexual glory of the 'Mad Men' era," writes Jeremy Mullman. That also would be before the current recession, which has put a damper on pink cocktails of the "Sex and the City" era. "It's a reaction to the pink cosmos as much as anything," confirms Dan Fietsam, chief creative officer at Energy BBDO. Not coincidentally, his agency created the "Damn Right Your Dad Drank It" platform for Canadian Club and "Guys Never Change" campaign for Jim Beam. Add to that the …