Archive for January, 2010

01.29.10

Regional Branding – You have to own something

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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01.27.10

Forum5 – A Talented Brand Design Partnership

A New Model of Talent Management
Forum5 represents the next generation of artist and talent management company founded by Mark Richardson in collaboration with global media company; Fremantle Media. Mark’s background was in running some of the biggest record labels in the world, representing
many of the biggest names in music internationally. Mark’s vision for Forum5, was a new kind of talent management based on the understanding that in the age of shared and social technology, the talent creating the content holds the power, and the ideal management relationship is an entrepreneurial partnership. With Fremantle Media’s backing,
Forum5 was launched in 2008 and has found much success with the new model of talent partnership, quickly growing to represent local talent from the television, music, food and lifestyle industries.

A New Level of Brand Clarity
We worked with Mark to help Forum5 develop absolute clarity around their brand definition and differentiated market proposition. We designed a brand story book and helped form a new language to communicate the new Forum5 offer to market, staff and potential talent partners. Forum5′s brand essence of ‘Partnering to Build Talent Equity’ focused on Marks unique value proposition and formed the starting point for our creative brand expression.

A New Brand Identity
The Forum5 brand mark locks the number 5 within the word ‘Forum’ to illustrate the focus on talent partnerships in a simple and memorable form. The word-mark is simple and graphic allowing it to work across many different applications and to be ‘dialed-up’ or ‘dialed-down’ in prominence depending on the piece of communication and the talent brands it would be appearing with.

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01.27.10

Stunning Visual – BBC’s 2010 Winter Olympics Promo

Simply Stunning Animation
The BBC has built a reputation over many years for creating stunning station and special program promos. Their animation promoting the upcoming Vancouver Winter Olympics is no exception. BAFTA winning Director Marc Craste worked with designer Jon Klassen and Studio AKA in creating the stunning spot and several title sequences. The 40 second short animated film tells a rich fable of a legendary quest in which an Inuit hero retrieves a spiritual stone that has been taken by a giant bear from a mystical totem.  In the process of his mission our hero draws on his skills in a series of challenging & physically brutal Olympic style sports to recover the precious ice locked stone, thus restoring light and peace to his dark and troubled world.’ Watch this beautiful ad after the jump…

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01.26.10

Our Gelati Sky brand design featured in German Magazine

International Interest
The most recent edition of German magazine Verpackungs-Rundschau has featured an article on the Gelati Sky brand image and packaging written by our peers at Brand Union. In 2008 we began working with local Gelati Maestro Paul Scalisi to develop a brand strategy, brand story, visual identity and packaging for his premium, Italian inspired gelati brand; Gelati Sky.

It Looks as Good as it Tastes
The result has been mouth watering for Paul as well as for us with plenty of voracious interest from stockists as well as designers & design publications from all over the world. Before Christmas Paul was contacted by a supermarket chain in Paris who wished to order some product on the strength of the brand and its packaging alone.

Here’s a copy of the recent article – if your German’s up to it, have a read. Read the rest of this entry »

01.25.10

Cadbury takeover – does the customer care?

The news last week that Cadbury had agreed to put the Kraft takeover to shareholders created predictably intense debate in both the UK and here in Australia.

For me, ignoring the issues being discussed by the city commentators, the takeover raises the interesting question of whether this might damage an iconic brand in the eyes of the consumer and will the Cadbury brand strategy change in the future.

Let me declare an affinity with the brand up front. I’m from Birmingham, the home of Cadbury. Cadbury was a point of pride for my home city. I feel very protective of the brand.

Cadbury & Kraft

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01.22.10

Abercrombie & Fitch – a Brand Association Snapshot

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 the 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.

Today’s snapshot is of fashion brand Abercrombie & Fitch
As we might expect, the greatest level of association is with their brand-mark – the A&F Moose – but from there it gets pretty interesting.

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01.20.10

People Power – Leveraging your Greatest Asset

Re-branding Recruitment

For four decades McAthur has forged an enviable reputation as a multi-specialist National recruitment company focusing on executive, permanent, temporary and consulting solutions for clients. As a 40 year-old business undergoing generational change, the time was right to re-frame the McArthur brand, its go-to-market proposition and its brand image.

McArthur as a business had evolved organically as had its brand visual language. The re-branding program was as much about creating a spirited and contemporary visual language as it was about developing systems to ensure a consistent and organised message unifying state offices and consolidating unified brand communication to the market.

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01.18.10

Intel’s Brand Strategy – Make Remarkable Ads

There Are Ads & There Are Brand Ads
Not all ads are born equal, and not all ads have the same role in life. Most ads come with a consumer proposition, buy this product with these features for this once-only price. And then there are the brand ads, those that choose to communicate an attribute or personality of a brand. Whichever way you define them however, precious few ads can be described as remarkable.

So There We Were On New Years Eve…
Over the recent Christmas and New Years break we spent much time relaxing with family and friends, that wonderful amount of time when the ‘big ticket’ conversations are exhausted and small talk takes over. During the break we had not one, not two, but three different conversations with different groups of people in which the new Intel ads were discussed. So much were they touted that on my return I just had to visit Google to check them out for myself.

YouTube Preview Image

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01.15.10

Brand Gesture – Pura Light Start

For the last 6 or 7 weeks leading into the Christmas break the Pura Light Start milk brand were running an interesting campaign each Friday in the Melbourne Age newspaper. The brand has the positioning line…’taste the good life’ and the campaign has been built around a neat little brand gesture of publishing a lift out titled the The Good Life Guide – a dozen different interesting things you could choose to do in or around Melbourne on the weekend. They always provide a good mix of sedate and active suggestions, something for everybody.

Pura Banner

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