Unless you’ve been living under a rock since New Year’s, you have no doubt gained wind of the latest trend to overtake viral pop culture: The Harlem Shake.

If there was one lesson brands should have learned from 2012, it was to steer clear of political controversy. From corporations like Chick-Fil-A, to nonprofits like Susan G. Komen for the Cure, to personal brands like Ted Nugent, the result of allowing politics to influence brand gestures in today’s hyper-reactive chatter-sphere seems to be precarious at best, and damaging at worst.

As far as singing shows go, there are plenty of factors that have led me to prefer The Voiceover, say, American Idol. To list a couple: the contestants can actually sing, while the judges are sometimes capable of semi-intelligent comments (with the notable exception of Christina Aguilera—more on this in a moment).

Should every experience be branded? Siegel+Gale’s experience guru, Thomas Mueller, defines a compelling brand experience as “that truly delightful moment when you realize a brand delivers on its promise repeatedly and consistently, because of an impeccable and invisible orchestration of people, interactions, and technology.”

It’s that time of year again—the dog days of summer, the last week of August, the calm before the storm. New Yorkers hit the Hamptons, Bostonians migrate to the Cape. All across the country, we seek those final, relaxing days of refuge and solace before Labor Day marks the return to reality.

The moment HBO entered my life was unforgettable. It was the early ‘80s when my parents first got a subscription, but I can still vividly remember watching the intro sequence for the first time; that iconic, 3-letter block flying through a fantastical cityscape before taking off into the night sky—a clear metaphor, thinking back now, of reaching for the stars.

What makes a compelling brand experience? It’s a question we ask ourselves here at Siegel+Gale every day. But with too many possible answers to fathom, I decided to go straight to the source and ask our own customer experience guru, Thomas Mueller, for a one-sentence response. Here’s what he said:

OK branding community and beyond, there’s something I need to talk about…Is it just me, or is it safe to say that Under Armour has quietly become ubiquitous in America today? It seems wherever you go—the airport, the movies, the park, EVERYWHERE—you’re bound to encounter that unbelievably simple yet somehow magnetic logo . Forget about the Nike swoosh or the Adidas three stripes; there’s a new athletic icon in town that’s quickly becoming the identity stamp of choice for today’s masses.

With the new network television season in full swing, it’s been hard not to notice a particular penchant for brand nostalgia. The media has made much ado about primetime’s latest pair of memory-lane efforts, NBC’s The Playboy Club and ABC’s Pan Am (although in typical fashion that very same media has now universally panned the shows that it did so much to hype). Some say these series are just riding on the coattails of Mad Men and the cult-like fascination it has secured for everything ’60s (see Banana Republic’s Mad Men Collection—yikes!).

By now we’ve all heard about the latest ailment afflicting modern civilization, the insidious condition known as…Facebook Fatigue!!

Now don’t get me wrong—I think the staggering success of Facebook, with its three-quarters of a billion users amassed in just eight years, is truly one of the great business stories of our time. But considering how widespread and at times fuming the general malaise has become, it strikes me that Facebook might just be the least-loved popular brand in recent history.