Brand Envy Pure and Simple
Yeah I know we bang-on a bit about Lego and the extraordinary level of loyalty, even obsession the brand creates. But we wouldn’t if there weren’t so many great examples of passion for the brand, a level of passion most businesses can only stand-by and admire with envy.
A US film maker has recently created a Lego stop-animation film to… you guessed it – propose to his girlfriend.
The 26th of January each year represents Australia’s official national day and marks the anniversary of the first fleet sailing into Sydney back in 1788. For many it brings great joy, largely because it provides a day off work to share time with families and friends, not to mention the odd cold beer – and if Sam Kekovich and the Meat and Livestock Authority get their way a good feed of Australian farmed lamb. Given we are in the midst of a lovely summer, and for a sports mad community enjoying the Australian Open tennis and a test cricket match against India, along with the fact that most Australian’s have a job to return to the next day (with unemployment running at about 5.2%) one could be forgiven for feeling pretty good about life down under.
2012 will continue to be a tough environment for retailers. Consumers have no reason to throw off their new found sense of caution and propensity to put saving ahead of spending. If anything 2012 may produce even more reasons for them to retreat with some recent news of the financial services sector spruiking the need to lay off workers, and a sense that flat retail sales is placing huge pressure on retailers to reduce costs.
We always say you either get branding or you don’t. There is no real middle ground. It was therefore a pleasure to visit our mate Lester Marshall from the Coffin Bay Oyster Farm just before Christmas. Lester farms oysters in Australia’s premium seafood area on the Eyre Peninsula. Internationally recognised for their quality, flavour and size, Coffin Bay is South Australia’s most famous oyster growing location. This is largely because the waterways surrounding Coffin Bay are constantly being nourished from the nutrient-rich seawater and up welling from the Southern Ocean. It is a remarkable area, amazing oysters and Lester is doing his best to tell the world about it.
The Power of a Perfect Image
I’m the first to admit, I’m about as far from a vegetarian as you can be. Sure I haven’t reconciled the issues surrounding animal cruelty and a tasty dinner at my favorite restaurant – but when it comes to an appreciation of powerful visual communication I have absolute clarity. So when I saw these images over the weekend from a recent Meat Out protest in Germany I was moved to applaud the power of their visual communication.
The art of brand management in today’s economic climate presents huge challenges. In Australia, the theory is that we have missed a recession, but we have been left with a hugely cautious consumer and a distinctly two speed economy. Managing the challenges of a ‘value’ conscious consumers and the relentless intensity of hungry competitors, both domestically and overseas is tough. The battlefront has been complicated with the fragmentation of media and the growth of the digital world. There is an awful lot for brand managers to get their head around.
There is little wonder that many food related brand owners are shaking their heads at the moment, when on top of all this they face total abuse, well certainly a lack of love, from their intermediaries. We have read a lot about the market power of the two major supermarket chains, Coles and Woolworths, their push into private label and the leverage of their clout with respect to new line fees, discounts and promotional support. I thought up until recently I had a fix on the extent of it all, so I was blown away to hear the latest iteration of screw the food brand owner from the third player in the category, Metcash.
Brand Differentiation by Design
One of my all-time favorite brands is Australian stationery retailer kikki.k. As brand developers with a passion for retail, here at Truly Deeply we love brands that clearly and confidently differentiate themselves from the competitive marketplace. Even more impressive are those brands we call ‘Category Creators’, whose vision and innovation see them create a whole new segment of the market in which they dominate. It was Jerry Garci of the psychedelic rock band Grateful Dead who summed-it-up best when he said: You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.
But the highest of all praise goes to those brands who achieve all this through the power of design – and kikki.k is one of those brands.
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Nothing’s Colder than an Ex.
The Truly Deeply brand team were enjoying a Friday arvo pub lunch up at The Clarendon a couple of weeks ago when one of our guys spotted a point of sale promo for Ex-wife Bitter. The brand name was so brilliant, at first impression we assumed it to be a made-up brand. But we were delighted to discover there really is a beer brand called Ex-wife bitter, and the brand language just got better with the tag line of ‘nothing’s colder than an ex’.
As we enjoyed our chicken parmas and pub steak sangas, we reflected on the brand building power of an extraordinary brand name. Few brand names create the memorable talk-ability as inspired as Ex-wife Bitter, and for a consumer brand like a beer, talk-ability goes a long way to launching a new brand and building market share. Especially for small brands lacking substantial marketing budgets, the ability to create a powerful brand asset like a name with this much kick is an opportunity to really punch above your weight. In the modern blokey world that is the majority of the market for beer brands this piece of inspired brand naming was always going to be a winner.
Dave Ansett, Brandamentalist
Creator of Brilliant Brand Names, not ex-wives
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A Case Study of the Pitfalls of Branding with Social Media
Iconic Australian airline Qantas can’t seem to do anything right just now. Hot on the heels of grounding the airline to break-up an industrial dispute and leaving thousands of irate customers in the lurch, Qantas came up with a nice little social media campaign idea to help restore its battered reputation. The thing so many brands continue to fail to grasp is that social media is no free kick. As a channel for communicating with customers, social media interactions follow the same rules as every other human interaction. If it seems like a dumb thing to say to your customer face-to-face, then it’s going to seem just as dumb in social media, only the damage can be a million-fold greater.
