A public service announcement

Before you invest a small fortune (or a large one) into developing brand equity, it might be a good idea do a little investigation into what your brand name is associating you with.

LONDON (Reuters) - A chain of retail stores in Britain has withdrawn the sale of beds named Lolita and designed for six-year-old girls after furious parents pointed out that the name was synonymous with sexually active pre-teens.

That's why every marketing firm should have at least one poor ink-stained wretch who majored in English. Someone with a lit background would have caught this.

Put more broadly, there is no substitute for a broad liberal education, whether formal or informal. All the marketing and sociology classes in the world would not have prevented this snafu. But a solid understanding of literature and the great writers of the last century would have saved the company from this incalculable gaffe.

I think they should apologize profusely immediately rename the product. To Aqualung.

Juicy Couture could not be reached for comment.

--Jason Van Steenwyk