"Build Your Brand" - May 8, 2020

[Jim and Anita]

We smiled at many rabbits including the "hare" in 49 down and hoped it could hop around. It's good to know the rabbits are reproducing so well this spring. We only recently disposed of a foot pedal Singer sewing machine which we kept for many years as an end table because it was enclosed in a lovely oak cabinet. On the puzzle, we tried reinterpreting the horizontal clues to find other answers in the grid--such as "pricey at the pumps" to speak of pricey pump shoes which led to "Dior". But alas we were clueless.

[boharr]

It's funny how when a Brand name is not capitalized, it becomes so invisible!

Indeed

[Bob cruise director]

For those who are new to metas, Matt has done things like this before where the clues are integral to solving the meta. As I recall, there was one puzzle where you did not even have to complete the grid to solve the meta. That is why studying the creators past techniques is very valuable. Although as the brokers say "past performance is no guarantee of future results"

My observation is that for Matt, what is not in the grid is more often critical to solving the contest than what is. Mike on the other hand, almost always has the answer in the grid and most times, has a clue in the grid, cryptic often, but it is there.

Different styles of different clever creators.

That is why stumbling and fumbling on your own for a few weeks is a valuable learning experience. Also reading some of the rabbit holes that our veterans went down is also useful.

All is far in love and metas.

Hope all had a happy Mother's Day

[ChrisKochmanski]

IMHO a brand has been created when, upon hearing the name, you instantly associate with other words or adjectives; the name STANDS for something; it means something. Success is differentiating your brand from your competitors', in whatever sense that may be.

READ ONLY IF INTERESTED IN A DEFINITION OF "BRAND" ...

I've worked in the marketing field for 40+ years (now, in semi-retirement, only as a part-time copywriter), and I can tell you that you're close to 100% correct about what many of the branding experts define as a "brand." The long-time positioning and branding guru, Al Ries, typically defines brand as the word or simple phrase that a company, product, or service owns in the consumer's mind. So, for example, Apple = the coolest gadgets, Coca-Cola = the real thing, Federal Express used to mean "overnight" (now, as FedEx, they do tons more), Disney historically meant family entertainment, Harvard = America's first and most prestigious college (whether you believe the latter or not, there are many, many people who do), etc., etc., etc. So, yes, in my view too, Subway, Mustang, Target, Singer, and Life are all brands, whether as a company or product, and you've defined these brands pretty darn well.

Another common way these days to define brand is as "the whole experience" you have with a company, product, or service. So, for example, the way you're treated at Walt Disney World, and the way they answer the phones when you're making reservations at WDW, are big, big pieces of the brand.

We have a company here in Ann Arbor -- Zingerman's -- that, in every place you touch upon them (at Zingerman's Deli, Zingerman's Roadhouse, their bakery, creamery, coffee shop, mail order house, website, newsletter, corporate training classes, event venues, etc., etc., etc.) is a very distinct "Zingerman's" experience. Some people around here love Zingerman's; others don't like them at all, mainly because they're expensive. Zingerman's doesn't care much about the latter people. They segment the market to target the people who are willing to pay for the Zingerman's experience. This is competitive positioning, a key element of branding. Zingerman's gives up some consumers to get others, and builds their brand for those "others". (And BTW, successfully targeting consumers willing to pay a lot can be a very profitable strategy!)

Sorry I've prattled on. Possibly interesting to a few of you.

[boharr]

1. Insider trading. MGWCC subscribers had an edge here. The basic mechanism for this meta (one clue that applied to two entries) was also the mainspring of the most recent MGWCC. Maybe that’s why some MGWCC people were among the early solvers.

I think MGWCC subscribers had an edge here because, unrelated to any particular puzzles, this is one of Matt Gaffney's favorite meta mechanisms. If you're doing a Gaffney puzzle and the grid is yielding nothing, this is absolutely the mechanism you should be looking for. It comes up all the time.

A good tip. Thank you.

[boharr]

Unfortunately, I did not spend much time on the clues because I had some vague recollection of someone noting that Mike/Marie is more likely to put meta steps in the clues, while Matt G. is more likely to include the meta steps within the puzzle. Obviously that observation or my memory is faulty

This strikes a bell to me too.

[spotter]

I almost submitted ADOBE as my guess with it being 5 letters and used to build, as a brick. But I didn’t feel like refilling the grid to submit. It wouldn’t have felt right to me anyway.

[Meg]

If you have been recently stumped, I recommend this list Tina posted here over a year ago. Notice the last piece in section 3.


#11 Post by Tina » Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:59 pm
A while ago, I wrote a list of tips to help in solving metas. I meant to share it and get other people's input on it, but I never got around to it. Anyway, here it is:

1. Look at the THEME ENTRIES.
Do they have SOMETHING IN COMMON?
Can the entries (or part of the entries) be ANAGRAMMED to something?
Do the INITIAL LETTERS mean anything? Do they spell out a word? Do they suggest something like airport codes, state abbreviations, or chemical element symbols?
What about the FIRST FEW LETTERS of each entry?
Do the FINAL LETTERS or MIDDLE LETTERS mean anything?
Are there SYNONYMS or ANTONYMS that are important?
RHYMES, PUNS, SIMILES, or other FIGURES OF SPEECH or WORDPLAY?
Can a word PRECEDE OR FOLLOW the entries?
Can a PREFIX or SUFFIX be added to all the entries? Or can any letters be added anywhere?
Do the entries SUGGEST something, like a three-word acronym, a number, a person, etc?
Are the theme entries HOMOPHONES or HOMONYMS of something?
Look at the LETTERS in the words. Is there anything interesting, like double letters?
Are there HIDDEN WORDS inside the entries?
Anything hidden BACKWARDS in the entries?
Look at the entries that INTERSECT the theme entries.
Can you CHANGE ONE LETTER to make another word or name?

2. Look at the GRID ITSELF.
Is the grid UNUSUALLY LARGE?
Is the grid an UNUSUAL SHAPE?
Check the DISTRIBUTION OF LETTER FREQUENCY. Are some letters missing? Are there more rare letters than usual?
Is there an unusual amount of DOUBLE LETTERS?
Are some LETTERS CONCENTRATED in a certain area?
Anything unusual about the LENGTHS OF THE ENTRIES?
Are there any DIAGONAL words?
Can you form any SHAPES in the grid with certain letters?
Any interesting JUXTAPOSITIONS of letters?
Anything significant about the BLACK SPACES?
Any words hidden in STAIR-STEP or BOGGLE fashion?

3. Look at the CLUES
Anything interesting about the WORDS IN THE CLUES? For example, lots of proper names, acronyms, dates, place names?
Is anything WEIRDLY CLUED?
Are some clues UNUSUALLY LONG?
Do some clues contain EXTRANEOUS INFORMATION?
Do the FIRST LETTERS of the clues spell anything?
Are the BLANKS, QUOTES, or PARENTHESES important?
Are the NUMBERS OF THE CLUES significant?
Could the definitions apply to MORE THAN ONE GRID ENTRY?

4. Look at the NON-THEME GRID ENTRIES
Anything interesting?
Anything that relates to the theme?
Can any words be extended beyond the grid?
Any interesting word intersections?

5. Other things to think about:
– Constructors often use ROMAN NUMERALS, GREEK LETTERS, AIRPORT CODES, ATOMIC NUMBERS and SYMBOLS, STATE ABBREVIATIONS,
– Sometimes a square is a REBUS, occupied by a symbol or more than one letter.

[JoeS]

The first answer I entered was UPA, and I thought, "Ooo, by changing one letter, that could be UPS!" Off to the races with INN (CNN), ART (ATT), RIA (RCA) ... which almost led to COSTCO ... except for the pesky vowels. I was also struck by the similarity in structure of "RIPUP" and "ONEON," which almost made PIER ONE. And who killed brain cells pondering how to use BSIX?

I was convinced BSIX was a pointer to 28A or 32A and became interested in all the IN pairs, thinking I could follow them somehow to the next layer. I wasted an enormous amount of time. (If IN was the way in, was EGRESS the way out?)

[Geoduck]

Filled in the grid & thought I had strong scent of the answer, but was no where close. The rabbit hole, below, had me chasing several repeated character strings.

I'm adding a new rule to my TOP TEN Dos & Don'ts: Don't chase repeated character strings.


20200508 WSJCC BYB JRrh#3 106.gif

Yup, this is the warren of rabbit holes that tripped me up.

Among other things.

[Nycerjohnnie]

The comments on WSJ are pretty funny. People are...angry??

[boharr]

The comments on WSJ are pretty funny. People are...angry??

Generally, that's a pretty unfriendly place. Unlike here.

[DrTom]

Indeed, I saw the Gaffney arc when I went to do the MGWCC after I did WSJ. I saved what I thought was the harder one for last and this time was wrong. Of course if you think of it the Two for Two was also a variant of that mechanism. Still Bird has a point, if you are a frequent solver, and you also do the MGWCC you will have an advantage. By the same token anyone who had done HORSEPLAY by Mike Schenk had a leg up for KING ME. I think the over-riding similarity is that the more of these you do the more of these you will get. It’s the same in any contest where you are “pitted” against someone, though I hate to think of this as adversarial. So, noobs, don’t despair just get solving. Try other METAs, do lots of crosswords, and by all means practice your PUNting!

On an unrelated not, no MarkL you did not create a monster, you just created the spark that brought it to life and your able assistant (MajorDomoIgor) threw the switch. HE’S ALIVE!!

Finally, and you had to know someone would go here, and you had to guess it would be me: It appears that many were horsing around with Mustang, Singer had many hemmed in, and an additional few were carted away by Target while some got toasted by Subway. However, Life was the downfall for far too many, just another unfortunate tale of a cereal killer. OK, I am now going to retire to my Adobe Abode so I’ll a bid you adieu.

[tigerfly222]

2. ... Recurring letters. These distracted me for quite a while: OATS, TOASTerovens, ROAST, COASTal, COASTer. And especially — sHOPPIngcart crossed with HIPPO. APU/UPA. Two BEANs in the clues. (Where was Joe Ross's Top Ten advice when i needed it?) Also distracting was . . .

I get suckered into some form of this rabbit hole Every. Single. Week.
Recurring letter strings (surely it's a sign!), small words that fit into larger words (maybe the leftover letters spell something!), grid answers that seem connected by some kind of cockamamie word ladder or other filament (or figment) of my imagination.
OATS/TOAST/ROAST: Check. (and in the same vein it especially doesn't help that an "oast" is a form of oven used to dry hops for making beer)
ART/EARTH/IN PART/CART: Check. Hoo boy, that one sent me flailing for hours.
APU/UPA: Check.
HIPPO/sHOPPIng: Yup.
OPT/OPTIC, EON/ONE ON, RIA/ERIA/ARIA...

Never once have these tricks yielded the correct answer. It's to the point where I'm wondering if the puzzle creators do it on purpose to throw us off the scent.

The two occurrences of "bean" in the clues just seemed too coincidental to be ignored and sent me hunting down all clues that shared a common word (not counting articles and conjunctions). Seemed like it could be a legit gimmick. If you counted "request/requested" there were actually 8 pairs of them, which seemed like more than enough fodder for spelling something, until I realized that "Didn't need to know that" matched up with both "Didn't exempt" and "No need to rush" and so I tossed out the whole idea in disgust.

[Richard]

I did not get it. I think it was great. Would have been very happy if I had gotten it. Went down too many rabbit holes to mention.

Yes it was hard but still very clever.

[cbarbee002]

Hats off to those who correctly solved this meta.

[tigerfly222]

We have a company here in Ann Arbor -- Zingerman's -- that, in every place you touch upon them (at Zingerman's Deli, Zingerman's Roadhouse, their bakery, creamery, coffee shop, mail order house, website, newsletter, corporate training classes, event venues, etc., etc., etc.) is a very distinct "Zingerman's" experience. Some people around here love Zingerman's; others don't like them at all, mainly because they're expensive. Zingerman's doesn't care much about the latter people. They segment the market to target the people who are willing to pay for the Zingerman's experience. This is competitive positioning, a key element of branding. Zingerman's gives up some consumers to get others, and builds their brand for those "others". (And BTW, successfully targeting consumers willing to pay a lot can be a very profitable strategy!)

I love Zingerman's! When I lived in Chicago, after being a mail-order catalog customer of theirs for a few years, I found myself driving through Michigan on a business trip, so I made a special pit stop in Ann Arbor to get the in-person experience.

[KayW]

Being a former smoker, I saw 24D "Kool's (cigarette brand) backers" while working on the grid. But that was the only one that stood out, so I dismissed finding a "brand" in the clues.

I had Kool on my list for the longest time, too!!

And I also tried to bring in the long down answers when I first started tieing the brand clues to the theme clues. So I first paired "useful tool when you're hitting a target" to OP-ED COLUMN. It took a long time for me to shake that one loose.

[MarkL]

Being a former smoker, I saw 24D "Kool's (cigarette brand) backers" while working on the grid. But that was the only one that stood out, so I dismissed finding a "brand" in the clues.

I had Kool on my list for the longest time, too!!

And I also tried to bring in the long down answers when I first started tieing the brand clues to the theme clues. So I first paired "useful tool when you're hitting a target" to OP-ED COLUMN. It took a long time for me to shake that one loose.

WORD was hiding in plain sight, as well. That's a tougher sell as a brand, and had no other redeeming values!

Love the avatar!!!

[Streroto]

Being a former smoker, I saw 24D "Kool's (cigarette brand) backers" while working on the grid. But that was the only one that stood out, so I dismissed finding a "brand" in the clues.

Yes, that threw me off for a while too.