The
Toniq
October 24,
2025
2025
The Afterlife of Brands: Why Some Names Never Really Die.
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
Some brands seem too big to fail. Their names are stitched into culture, their logos stamped into memory. And yet, even giants fall. They go bankrupt, disappear from shelves, or fade quietly into nostalgia. But the interesting thing is that some of them don’t stay gone.
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October 23,
2025
2025
When Hate Hijacks Your Logo
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
You can design a logo to mean strength, unity, or excellence, but meaning is a living thing. It grows, shifts, and mutates based on who uses it and how often it is seen.
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October 22,
2025
2025
The Faces Brands Wear
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
And that’s the point of words. They are here to allow us to communicate, and yet, they are clever and silly, obscure and misleading. Words are living, breathing creatures that can be tamed or explored in their tameless moods.
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October 21,
2025
2025
When Words Resist: Language, AI, and Human Nuance
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
Language functions in much the same way. The words we choose are shaped by who we are in that moment, who we are speaking to, and the context in which we speak. The same thought can be expressed in a thousand ways, each variant conveying subtle shades of meaning.
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October 20,
2025
2025
The Quiet Power of Brands That Actually Get People
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
Most brands don’t get people. Not because they’re bad at what they do—but because they’re stuck in a cycle of performance.
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October 17,
2025
2025
Branding, Typos, and Other Disasters That Teach You Everything
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
Words communicate more than meaning—they communicate tone. Are you friendly? Approachable? Professional? Clever? Sophisticated? Or, heaven forbid, careless? A single word can convey warmth, confidence, humor, or, if mishandled, confusion and even embarrassment.
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October 16,
2025
2025
Love, Algorithms, and Tabby: Why Humans Are Falling for AI Companions
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
But why? Why are people, men and women, falling for an algorithm and hitching their lives to a chatbot? Why are people willing to bend reality to “be with” a machine?
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October 15,
2025
2025
The Brand Glow-Up: What ‘Overnight Success’ Really Looks Like
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
They glow up like humans do—with messy, awkward adolescence, questionable decisions, a few cringe-worthy moments, and then a decade of slow, steady transformation that suddenly looks effortless from the outside.
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October 14,
2025
2025
From Names to Brands: The Power of Trademarks
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
A trademark isn’t just a name or a logo. It’s a symbol that connects your business to a promise in the customer’s mind. When people see it, they should think, “Ah, this comes from that company I trust—or at least, that company I recognize.”
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October 13,
2025
2025
AI Slop and the Death of Trust: What Deepfakes Mean for Brands
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
But if you think it’s bad for normal people and clueless world leaders, what does this influx of AI slop do to brands? How do brands fight against the deepfake? And what if they don’t?
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October 10,
2025
2025
Eponymous Brands: How Iconic Names Became the Product
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
How does this happen? How does a brand not just sell a product but become the word for the thing itself? That’s what we’re diving into today. We’re talking Kleenexes, Legos, Velcro, and more—why they matter, how they got there.
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October 9,
2025
2025
The Art of Brand War
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
In business, battles are fought with spreadsheets and strategy decks, billboards, tweets, and viral campaigns. Every brand has a battlefield—customers’ attention, loyalty, and trust—and some go all-in, risking everything to claim victory.
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October 8,
2025
2025
How Brands Recover From Mistakes: Turning Failure Into Resilience
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
Do brands make mistakes? Absolutely. The stakes might be higher and the spotlight brighter, but a brand slip-up is really just a collective version of the mistakes we all make as individuals.
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October 7,
2025
2025
The Power of Brand Silence: Why Pausing Speaks Louder
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
Just like a person, a brand can’t always rely on constant talking to exist or be understood. In fact, sometimes the act of speaking less—or pausing entirely—can reveal more than any campaign or post ever could.
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October 6,
2025
2025
The Animal Inside Your Brand
By
Paul Kiernan
Paul Kiernan
Thinking of a brand as an animal is more than a playful exercise; it’s a way to visualize its personality, values, and instincts.
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