I’m very interested in the current trend invented by the sales and marketing people at America, Inc. by which days of the week are being branded.  Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, was invented during the 1960s, according to Wikipedia, which is right more times than people give it credit for.  Cyber Monday was invented around 2004 by the National Retail Federation, supposedly in response to their observation that online sales went up the Monday after Black Friday.

Did you buy anything on Cyber Monday? I didn’t, although around noon that day I experienced a tremendous urge to purchase something online. I didn’t understand why at the time, but now I do. It was the collective unconscious pulling me into a transaction it wanted to make. Thank goodness I took a nap instead, or I might have sprung for that Barcalounger.

I find myself liking this meta-branding that’s being done for us. It means all the pesky decision-making that usually goes into shopping and buying as individuals is eliminated, and we can simply plunge into the warm, sticky group mind for such important issues. I think other days should be coined for a variety of purposes. Indeed, a day without branding should be anathema to us. What would we do on such a day? Who would lead us to the appropriate trough?

Some suggestions:

• Tough It Out Tuesday: Specials are offered to people who want to spend whatever money they have on discretionary items, even though they’ve fallen on hard times.
• Wacky Wall Street Wednesday: The third Wednesday in every month is given over to the purchase of stocks and bonds. Brokerages could offer special deals to make the day worthy of its new positioning.
• Think About Other People Thursday: We’d take one Thursday every year to consider the situations of people other than ourselves. What a concept!
• Foreclosure Friday: Banks offer cheap homes left vacant by their irresponsible lending practices.
• Suck-It-Up Saturday: One day a year, we recognize the difficulties faced by those whose bonuses are suddenly only eight digits long.

This is only the beginning. Days could be the recipients of multiple brands, of course. Cyber Monday only comes once a year, leaving plenty of room for Mortgage Monday or Madoff Monday, depending. Whole months could also be branded — how have we lived this long without Over-Leveraged October?

I’ll be honest with you. I have mixed feelings now about this whole Bing thing. David Pogue in the New York Times gives Bing The Search Engine a nice little writeup in the paper today, saying that “in many ways, Bing is better.”

A few months ago, that would have been about me. Now it’s not. It’s about this other guy. I’m happy for him and all that. But what good is that doing for all the other Bings who used to be the Bings that people thought about when they thought about Bings?

My friends have said that this whole hyper-awareness of anything Bing will be a positive thing for this particular Bing. And it’s true… there are more of you commenting on my thoughts here in this space. The only problem is, your comments aren’t about anything germane to any other subject than Bing The Search Engine, which from now on I think I’ll just call BingTSE, or perhaps Bingtsey, for short. Your comments tend to be things like, “I hate the threading,” or “there are certain aspects of its algorithm I like.”

That’s very interesting, I am sure. But not to me. I mean, what does it do for me personally? Like you, that’s essentially first, second and third on the list of what I care about.

Most depressing to me, the original Bing, is what’s happened on Google. I feared it would be this way, and those fears have been realized. Before Bingtsey came along, if you searched “Bing” it was all about me and Bing Crosby. There was also a Chinese doctor who got his share of hits, and when Steve Bing acted up in some way he was there too. Now the whole front page is about boring stuff pertaining to Bingtsey and his pals. I don’t mean it’s boring in itself, but since it doesn’t pertain to me, Bing, it is ipso facto less interesting than anything that does.

More importantly, it doesn’t help my brand one bit.

I am somewhat mollified by a couple of things. First, I remember that little paper clip that Microsoft (MSFT) tried to introduce into our Windows universe a few years ago. He died. What was his name? Bob? Ned? Fred? Ed? Nobody misses him, in any event. Second, I never bet against Google. True, they are right now showing lack of competitive acumen by allowing their Bing search results to be dominated by their rival. But in the end, will Bingtsey oust the Goog (GOOG)? In other words, I know that I’m going to be around until they drag me kicking and screaming onto the obit page. Can we say the same for Bingtsey?

It’s just possible, in short, that in the end I may well be the last Bing standing. Time will tell. Meanwhile, I’m ready for Chrome. Perhaps you are too. I wonder what the guys who make the real, shiny stuff are feeling about it right about now.

Just a quick note this morning. I was shocked to see the outpouring of bitterness and grief that has attended the death of the Marshall Field’s brand, which Macy’s (M) has apparently defenestrated. You may find said exhalations of regret and anger in response to a prior post on this site, the one inquiring what you believe to be the biggest business stories of 2007.

A huge number of you took the opportunity to expound on this story of a brand retired by its new corporate master. And not in any bogus, organized way, either. One by one, each by each, you line up to yell at Macy’s for depriving you of a brand that you loved and lost.

When I was a boy growing up outside Chicago, I have a sweet memory of the long days of boredom my parents would impose upon me. We would go downtown for the day. While there, we would (if I was lucky) visit the Museum of Science and Industry, which I loved, or, if I was less fortunate, the Art Institute, which made me feel like lying down on the cool marble floor and dozing. Somewhere in there, my mother would insist on a visit to Marshall Field’s. I imagine, and I may be wrong here, that we had lunch there, lunch being the centerpiece of any day for my mother.

What I remember most clearly was the way she said those words: Marshall Field’s. I’m not sure what we shopped for there. I have no idea whether her reverence for the brand was well-founded, even. Not even the names of Bergdorf Goodman or Tiffany (TIF) had the same heft for my mom. Marshall Field’s meant quality. It meant, for her, entering a world of class and calm and civility.

There were other stores that had the same weight, most of which are gone now. I recall that Best & Co. was a very big deal. My mom got me a little hat from there. It was made of felt. I wonder where it is now.

My first car was a Studebaker Lark. My first electric guitar? A Hagstrom. My first beer? Schlitz.

The brands that mark our lives are like everything else. They feel permanent, like signposts that will never confuse us, never alter with time. And then one day they are gone.

We can rail against the motion of the sun and moon. We can bemoan the passing of those things that were meant to last forever. And we can remember what it was like to enter the portals of Marshall Field’s in the great big city that made us feel so small, and wonder what mall, what superstore, what online shopping site will ever be able make our moms, or anybody else’s, feel quite that happy and elegant again.