02.10.10
Like bumping into an old friend
Currently I’m in the market for a new TV, so last week whilst I was shopping at Victoria Gardens, I popped into Dick Smith to see what they had on offer. On the way in I was greeted by a familiar face, Dick himself. See they’ve yet to rebrand this store with the new identity. As you may know, last year Dick Smith rebranded (some stores anyway). Now much has been said about the design of the new brandmark and I don’t mean to get into the issues it may have or lecture the designers who created it – what I do want to talk about is the brand personality and what I see as a missed opportunity. Seeing the old identity in all its glory reminded me of what has been lost.
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02.09.10
The Demise of Unique Brand Design
Sadly these days unique and fresh brand identity design is the exception rather than the rule. As more brands seek to become global, the trend has been for the visual language of their brand images to become more and more similar. Global branding firm Landor’s recent 2010 Trend Forecast agrees that ‘A global homogenization of design is taking place, with design blogs and online portfolios as the major culprits.’ They say ‘Companies need to rely less heavily on testing and research, which tend to nullify originality. Brands can’t just follow the herd and hope to succeed.’ And they predict ‘We’ll find larger companies willing to take risks, break the rules, and appear imperfect. Shaking up the status quo will be considered far better than disappearing into oblivion.’
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02.08.10
All Brands Have Meaning
Whether carefully and strategically considered or by default, all brands hold associated meanings in the market place. Well considered brands establish a competitive brand proposition (their brand strategy) with layers of meaning to both differentiate themselves from their competitors and to connect with their audience. These brand reinforce their meaning through all of their actions or brand touch points. As a brand agency we help brands to define their meaning and create the brand design for all their communications in order to create a consistent association with these layers of meaning in the minds of their customers.
Apple Vs Microsoft
Today we compare the brand associations of consumer technology icons Apple & Microsoft.
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02.05.10
Working for a creative brand agency I’ve always valued remarkable advertising and marketing. One particular stand-out for me was Veet’s “Goodbye Bush” ad that ran as a quarter page in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and Melbourne’s Herald Sun in January 2009. The ad was forwarded in a viral frenzy to family, friends (myself being one of them) and colleagues around the globe, by 3pm the same day had made it’s way back in the in-boxes of staff where the campaign had started – Euro RSCG’s Sydney office.
So what was it that made this ad so remarkable it created a life of its own?
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02.04.10
Creating Brand Identity for Local Government
Since 1995 we have been continually engaged with defining, designing and communicating brands in the local government space. We’ve worked with more than a dozen different Local Government organisations on hundreds of projects of all sizes and all manner of description. Not-so-long ago we were invited to share that experience with a group of Victorian Marketers who all work within Local Government organisations. We put together a presentation outlining our philosophy to building brands for these unique organisations, it was titled; ‘Br@#nd is not a Four Letter Word. The title was coined as a response to the approach many Local Government organisations take to the branding process – almost too afraid to publicly discuss the project. We worked with one client over many years who implored us to “never use the ‘B’ word in front of the Councillors or Senior Execs.”
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02.03.10
The Code of Great Annual Reporting
For 20 years we have been developing corporate brands and communications. Our work has seen
us decode much of the brand and corporate communication landscape, working for businesses across all sectors operating in national and international markets.
AR:ReView is the culmination of us turning our decoding methodology towards defining the a market oriented criteria for creating annual reporting content to global best practice standards.
As we lead the thinking for our clients on their brand definition and communication, we see AR:ReView as a natural extension of how their brands connect with their shareholders and stakeholders, answering the questions:
• How can shareholder reporting be more informative
and accessible?
• How can we best provide the information investors and the market value, in a format that is more engaging, more functional, and easier to understand? Read the rest of this entry »
02.03.10
When advertising and the Customer Break-Up
When it comes to brands, the old adage of the customer is always right is pretty much spot-on. Maybe it’d be more accurate to say the Customer is never wrong. With traditional ad campaigns no longer connecting with their audience at the same emotional level, it’s time for clients and agencies to say “it’s not you, it’s me” and really mean it.
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02.02.10
A Knock-Out Brand Canvas
We’ve written many times before about the failure of most retail brands to leverage the window space of new stores whilst they’re preparing to open. “What a ripper of a brand canvas to leave blank!” we shout in frustration. “Why wouldn’t you fill those newspaper-covered frames with some fancy brand statement to delight and create anticipation for your upcoming store opening?”
Well thank the Lord we’ve been heard – and by the savvy branders at food franchise Mad Mex no-less. These guys have cooked-up a feast of brand personality, seasoned with bold and unique visual language rich in brand story telling. Check-out the eye popping windows of their soon to be opened Chapel Street store in Melbourne, Australia:
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02.01.10
All Brands Have Meaning
Whether carefully and strategically considered or by default, all brands hold associated meanings in the market place. Well considered brands establish a competitive brand proposition (their brand strategy) with layers of meaning to both differentiate themselves from their competitors and to connect with their audience. These brand reinforce their meaning through all of their actions or brand touch points. As a brand agency we help brands to define their meaning and create the brand design for all their communications in order to create a consistent association with these layers of meaning in the minds of their customers.
A Snapshot of Brand Association
The clever people at Brand Tags have been busy collecting a comprehensive list of more than 1.7 million associations that people have with brands. The result is a unique opportunity for those brands to compare the meaning and messages of their brand communication strategy with the brand associations of a cross section of the market.
Audi Vs BMW
Today we compare the brand associations of German Luxury, Automotive brands Audi & BMW.
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01.29.10
Branding a place or a region is no different to product or service branding – you have to own something that is distinctive and compelling to your target market. However, when it comes to regional branding there is an added complication. You have to balance the competing needs of a diverse set of stakeholders because the people and businesses that make up the region simply do not always see the world through the same lens. Different mental models, different types and sizes of businesses, different levels of self interest and all that before one even layers in the different egos at play. A lot of stakeholders and lot of emotion makes for interesting branding.
With such a diverse range of stakeholders, the developers of regional brands need to adopt a strategic and pragmatic approach. For a start there needs to be recognition that not all stakeholders will be of equal value in building a world famous regional brand, that the 80:20 rule is well and truly alive. Certainly the team we worked with on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia understood this point. Led by the regional Development Board, the regional branding process started with identifying those businesses that were considered mission critical to being on-board. Clearly your preference is to have everyone on board, but it can also be a very liberating feeling if instead you identify the 20% of stakeholders who will give you 80% of the bang, you can then immediately narrow your focus. And of course the law of attraction always works, enlist the shakers and movers and others will want to jump on board anyway. Once you have the right people involved there is a need to explore what makes up the region, what makes it a special place. Is it nature’s gifts, is it food producers, is it the unique experiences on offer, is it wine, is it a combination.
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