Do You Know These Products Even Without Their Visual Branding?

Brand strategist Andrew Miller is on a mission: "Every day for 100 days, I will paint one branded object white, removing all visual branding, reducing the object to its purest form." I'm thinking most CMOs would veto that particular brand strategy, so luckily Miller isn't suggesting it to clients of his employer, Carbone Smolan in New York. Instead he launched "Brand Spirit," a personal Tumblr. Among the 10 objects he's displayed so far: a Tabasco bottle (hot sauce goes frosty), a penny (so that's what a graying Lincoln would've looked like) and a Wite-Out bottle (only a can of white paint would be more ironic). Miller says the project "can be interpreted as a celebration of the brands I chose, or as a criticism of consumer society." Sort of a gray area—excellent! He continues: "The white object allows your mind to rest. Some people 'paint' the branding back on the object, other people see the object as having a new meaning." In some instances, notably the tape dispenser, the process distills meaning, leaving form and function unfettered by commercialism's gaudy guise. Other items, like the New York subway card, blur into the background and appear almost meaningless, which, coincidentally, is how folks taking the train home to Flatbush generally view their lives. Moving forward, Miller plans to "play with this the sequence of objects. The first time I tried this was with Sharpie one day, Wite-Out to clean up the mess on the following day." So perhaps we'll see a Big Mac (it would taste exactly the same covered in paint, I wager), followed by napkins (if Miller uses plain white, he'll save a few pennies on art supplies). More images after the jump. Via PSFK.