This week I had the pleasure of joining in the celebration of 50 years in the property development industry by one Bert Dennis, founder of Australian property group, The Dennis Family Corporation. I have always found Bert an inspiration and it was a delight to hear him in full flight reflecting on his time in the property game. He came from very humble beginnings and through his talents, resilience and integrity has created a very successful business turning over $300 million plus annually with an exemplary model of an enduring family business.
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?
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.
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.
All Logos Files are Not Born Equal
After recently explaining yet again why the jpeg of a logo, taken from the website, can’t be used for a brochure, I thought it might be useful, valuable and insightful for someone to write this down. So here we are. Trying not to get all technical, I’m going to explain as clearly as I can, the difference between the different kinds of files. Hopefully this will save both clients and designers lots of time and heartache.
Different File Types
Most popular image files break down into two basic groups Bitmap or Vector.
We Love a Good Blank Canvas
As a brand agency, there’s not much we love more than a great blank brand canvas that’s been spotted and transformed into a glowing gesture of brand communication. When we talk to our clients (and anyone else who’ll listen) about sharpening their brand strategy, we are always big-on identifying the blank canvases that provide the opportunity to leverage your brand in remarkable ways.
We Love a Good Delivery Truck
Whilst there’s nothing new about well branded delivery trucks, there are still few examples of these moving billboards being used as canvases for brand expression. The cost to transform even a single delivery truck for a small business into a bold brand gesture is minimal, yet the investment in creative brand expression has the potential for grand pay-off.
I have never experienced the pull of an authentic brand quite like I did years ago when I purchased a pair of riding boots. At the time I was an Economics teacher at a Melbourne High School, commuting to school on a motor bike and feeling the need for some foot wear that was a little more robust. I have a few frugal genes in my DNA (you would only have to have met my father to understand where they had come from) and as I ventured out on a buying excursion for some boots these genes kicked in. I arrived home with a pair of elastic sided riding boots that I had purchased from an Army disposals store – they appeared well made, looked a lot like the famous Australian boot brand RM Williams and were, you guessed it, a lot lot cheaper than RM Williams boots.
However, from day one I new that I had made a mistake. The boots I acquired were simply a cheap imitation of the brand I truly aspired to own. They made feel like the great pretender, when what I really wanted was to share in the romance of the rugged outback image of the RM Williams brand. The boots I had purchased delivered functionally, but they stood for nothing at an emotional level – in fact worse than that, each time I pulled them on I felt emotionally depleted. In branding there is no substitute for authenticity, no matter how good the imitation the wearer always feels a little second rate!
We love where our office is located in South Melbourne. Interesting cafés, pubs, restaurants, shopping and a great market. We share the district with a lot of other creative businesses and a lot of brothels. Someone on the team mentioned that they heard a discussion on the radio recently that said South Melbourne had something like 39 brothels. They are dotted every where and to most of us we simply ‘see no evil, do no evil’. They are present on the one hand and invisible on the other.
So in this taxing (from an imaginative and financial perspective) gift giving season we thought it was a touch of genius by a near by brothel, the Melbourne Colosseum, to take some of the mystique out of their value proposition. In every market price is an important variable in the value equation, so why not put out a board with prices clearly communicating the price of sex. I mean there are many in the advertising game who say that sex sells, but not many actually know what sex sells for! But then again what are those long lunches all about?
Now I must say we could not find any promotional material from the Melbourne Colosseum touting Gift Vouchers, but we thought it may be of assistance to those shopping for the person who is hard to buy for to know what it would cost to give them something very different. It is a scary thought, certainly not politically correct, but it would give you bragging rights over Christmas lunch. And we all know when it comes to brand experiences bragging rights are important.
Peter Singline
Brand Scientist
What Makes a Brand Ad?
Most of the ads we see on TV have a marketing focus, that is their intent is to highlight a USP – Unique Selling Proposition such as a product or service feature of offer to compel their audience into purchasing. Some ads take a higher level approach aimed at creating indelible impressions of their UBP – Unique Brand Proposition.
As a Brand Design Agency based in Melbourne, Australia we have a love of, a bias towards, and an expertise in the creative expression of brand strategy. On that basis we’ve selected the five ads we think tell the best brand stories.
Strongbow Cider
Where apple growing tradition meets cider making magic.
Mission Impossible
Could there be a more difficult market segment for brands to differentiate themselves than water. On the surface it would seem to be brand mission impossible, but over the last fifteen years we’ve seen water become a hotly contested market place. In this time we’ve seen an evolution from water brands battling on the purity of their product both sparkling and still based on geographic heritage, then water brands positioning around brand personality, and most recently the launch of a new category of Vitamin waters.
Another Bloody Water
A new competitor launched into the fray a few years ago with the apt brand name of ‘Another Bloody Water.’ Launching with a brand strategy that included a bold brand personality and the lovable brand personality attribute of being able to laugh at itself and the market it belongs to, Another Bloody water successfully grabbed a share of the retail bottled water market.
