It's June, everyone, and you know what that means: every brand is gay. During Pride month, rainbows are everywhere: in store windows, overlaid on brand logos, and streaming off of a Chipotle Pride float that reads, "¿Homo estás?"

But what role, if any, should brands play during Pride? John Olson, a designer and queer artist/performer, jumps into The Brand Hole to talk about the give and take between queer communities being seen by mainstream culture and being pandered to. 

This week, we welcome animator and satanic-panic enthusiast Smo to the show (Smomotion.com). This story has everything: the makers of Tide PODS, rumors of funneling millions of dollars to the Church of Satan, Geraldo AND Phil Donahue, and...Amway. We explore a weird (and very long!) chapter in P&G's management of its brand reputation, and talk about all the ways that the 80s branded us all satanists in one way or another.

More info:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/procter-gamble-satan-conspiracy-theory

Last episode, we covered the rich backstories of some of the most iconic brand mascots. This episode, we get into some of the stranger characters (The Noid), the suuuuuper racist ones, and the sexiest mascots of all time—at least to special guest Robert Dean (beingdean.com) and host Caitlin Barrett. You might be attracted to different mascots, but we can all agree that at one point in our lives, we've felt sexual attraction to a brand mascot. That's capitalism, baby!

Poppin' Fresh. Horatio Magellan Crunch. Ernest J. Keebler. The characters that brands invent to sell us shit, yet somehow become part of our childhoods, our culture, and, in some cases, our kinks (thanks for being so open minded, Chester Cheetah). 

We welcome back comedian Robert Dean (beingdean.com) to talk through some of his suspicions on the history of Mr. Peanut, the darkness of Chuck E. Cheeze's origin story, and the sad desperation of the Hamburglar. Back in two weeks with mascots that are racist, sexy, and just plain strange. 

Dan Hendrickson of Volum8 is back in The Brand Hole this week with more on digital accessibility. Whose job is it to "own" accessibility in an organization? How do you start to have these conversations at work? Where can you learn more? And, finally, is it possible to hate Comic Sans without being ableist?

It turns out, there's more brands can do to be accessible than avoid yellow type on white (though that's still bad too). Dan Hendrickson of Volum8 (www.volum8.com) invited The Brand Hole up to Montgomery, NY, to learn the basics of accessibility in the digital world.

Back in two weeks with part 2, where Dan talks about how to actually do this, and whose job it should be to make this a part of the work you do (hint: if you're reading this, it's probably your job).  

Holy 50th episode. It's crammed full of the professional advice you crave, and the returning guests you can't get enough of: Amanda Munilla, Paula Pou, Anjelica Triola, Emma Cofer, and Mike Preston. 

Stick around for the end to hear about some upcoming changes to the format of The Brand Hole, and an amazing compilation of theme song versions that James Sparber put together, as a gift to us all. 

Brand strategist Michael Mitchell flew all the way from Singapore to record this episode about what's going on with branding in Southeast Asia...and Caitlin messed up the recording quality.

Huge apologies for the tinny sound—tune it out, you'll hear all about what you might find if you move 10,000 miles away to work in branding, the mistaken assumptions brands (and people) have about being relevant within the many cultures that make up Southeast Asia and beyond, and all the good food Michael gets to eat that we don't have in the U.S.