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.

The Phoenix is Rising
Driving to a meeting this morning I passed the Phoenix Organics‘ delivery truck. Actually I passed many delivery trucks, multiple fleet cars, and numerous company vans  – but the point is I only noticed one – and the pointiest bit of the point is I only remembered one. And that of course was the Phoenix Organics‘ delivery truck. Phoenix is a brand with personality and the confidence to express themselves – their bottle caps cheekily chirp ‘Think Before You Drink’. Most importantly, Phoenix is not a brand trying to be many things to many people, and in brand communication, this focus and clarity provides great advantage in the marketplace.

Every Business has a Bunch of Blank Canvases
Every business, no matter what location, size or market has blank canvases that are unique. The trick is to spot them.

I recommend setting aside an hour to list each and every brand touch point for your business, whether that be where your brand touches your clients or customers, your staff or your suppliers. Examples of brand touch points include: Your web site, delivery truck, brochures, ads, store interior, signage, office interior, staff uniforms, etc. etc. and etc. These are all the places where your brand touches the people who are responsible for your businesses success.

Once you have your list, look at the way you deliver each of the brand touches:
• Are there different places you could advertise where your target market can find you and where your competition is not?
• Is your delivery van or staff car a driving billboard?
• Does your office or store have any physical opportunities to promote what you do?
• Have you introduced your product or services to influential media, bloggers or locals for them to fall in love with?

Some business people are wired to identify the blank canvases for their brands. It’s as if they see the world through brand canvas tinted glasses. Carolyn Cresswell from Carmen’s Fine Foods, Kristina Karlsen from Kikki-K, Naomi Simson from Red Balloon Days, and Virgin’s Richard Branson are all naturals when it comes to spotting and leveraging blank brand canvases.

Your challenge is to learn how to see the blank canvases for your business and its brand so that you’re ready and able to spot the opportunities whenever and wherever they arise.

If you’d like to come have a chat with us about identifying your brand’s the blank canvases, why not get in touch? We’d love to show you how it’s done.

David Ansett, Brandamentalist
If you’d like daily updates of our brand thinking, you can follow me on Twitter here.

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.

Challenging the marketplace
What makes this brand stand-out though is more than just a name that challenges the status quot of the market. Another Bloody Water know what it means to be a challenger brand, entering a market with a number of daunting players already in-place. The very brand DNA of Another Bloody Water is coded with a challenger mentality. From the name, to the brand voice, to the way they take their product to market, Another Bloody Water seeks to stand out from the bottled water pack.

Banging-on About Blank Canvases
And that’s where blank canvases come-in. We’ve written about blank canvases before, we’ve been banging-on about them for months, and here’s a brand who intuitively understands their value. For a business like Another Bloody Water who will never have the marketing budget to compete head-on with the big brands in their space, blank canvases provide them the opportunity to make a splash, stand out and cut through.

When Another Bloody Water deliver their product they don’t use a bog-standard truck, they don’t even use a truck with their corporate image painted on its side. Like all else about the brand, when it comes to their delivery truck, Another Bloody Water have thought beyond the expected to the remarkable.

Watching the Grass Grow
The Another Bloody Water delivery trucks are covered from head to wheel-arch in fake turf with the brand name mowed-right into the sides. Simple enough an idea – but they’re often the best ideas after-all. The result is quite remarkable. Having come-across these trucks on their delivery rounds, they stand-out as a wonderfully entertaining break from the usual city traffic. There’s something compelling about the site of ‘fresh green grass’ that seems to somehow underscore the purity of the water – without either making any such statement or obeying the laws of logic.

As a creative brand agency, we salute Another Bloody Water and the mindset that’s enabled them to build such a remarkable brand presence through smart strategy rather than big spending. If you’d like to find out how your brand can take the same approach to success, why not get in touch – we’d love to have a conversation.

David Ansett, Brandamentalist
If you’d like daily updates of our brand thinking, you can follow me on Twitter here.
Graphic Design Melbourne

The Power of Blank Canvases
Recently we wrote about the power of blank canvases to provide businesses of all sizes with a marketing advantage. We used the example of retailers, who religiously cover the windows of their newly-leased stores with newspaper rather than recognising the potential of that property as a powerful brand canvas.

On the weekend I passed a local retailer-to-be who had possibly read our article, but definitely seen the opportunity. I snapped a pic of their windows which show that whilst doing something is better than doing nothing with your marketing – sometimes it isn’t a whole lot better.

‘Who? What? Who?’ the windows shout out to the passing traffic. ‘Very good questions’ shout back the traffic to the vacant store, ‘but we were hoping you could tell us.’

Spotting a Blank Canvas
In the same strip of shops is a great little business called Gourmet Kids. Gourmet Kids runs Children’s birthday parties where the kids get to roll-up their sleeves and bake cookies from scratch. It’s a huge hit, but as you can see from the pic below, getting much stand-out presence for your brand in a busy strip shopping environment is never easy.

Next door to Gourmet Kids is Fulbry’s outdoor and building supply. Fulbry’s is a local institution and has been located in the same spot for as long as anyone can remember and the huge painted ad for Fulbry’s on the side of what is now the Gourmet Kids store has been there for just as long.

The thing is, after decades Fulbry’s is moving. There are plans for a new development on the Fulbry site – but of greater interest is the huge brand canvas that is about to become a great opportunity for Gourmet Kids. As soon as the move was announced, my advice would have been to get the landlords on the phone and negotiate to replace the huge Fulbry ad with an equally huge, bold Gourmet Kids ad (even if it was just until the development was built). Quite possibly this could be the single greatest opportunity Gourmet Kids will ever come across to promote their brand and their business.

And Another One
Standing out in a busy retail strip with parked cars and a multitude of distractions is always a challenge, but there are often opportunities to stand out if you can see them. Recently Gourmet Kids started to capture the ‘waiting parents’ market. What a great business move. If you’ve ever dropped kids at a party you know the drill – ‘what do I do on a Sunday afternoon for an hour-or-so until I need to be back to pick-up junior?’

Gourmet kids have solved the parental problem by adding a cafe service. New tables on the footpath outside the shop mean parents can hang about, enjoy a relaxed coffee and chat with other waiting parents until the party’s over. Talk about capturing a captive audience. But beyond creating a new revenue stream for the business, Gourmet Kids have created a new blank canvas – literally. All they need to do now is to invest in a modest sum to have their branding added and their great idea becomes a marketing brainwave.

Every Business has a Bunch of Blank Canvases
Every business, no matter what location, size or market has blank canvases that are unique. The trick is to spot them.

I recommend setting aside an hour to list each and every brand touch point for your business, whether that be where your brand touches your clients or customers, your staff or your suppliers. Examples of brand touch points include: Your web site, delivery truck, brochures, ads, store interior, signage, office interior, staff uniforms, etc. etc. and etc. These are all the places where your brand touches the people who are responsible for your businesses success.

Once you have your list, look at the way you deliver each of the brand touches:
• Are there different places you could advertise where your target market can find you and where your competition is not?
• Is your delivery van or staff car a driving billboard?
• Does your office or store have any physical opportunities to promote what you do?
• Have you introduced your product or services to influential media, bloggers or locals for them to fall in love with?

Some business people are wired to identify the blank canvases for their brands. It’s as if they see the world through brand canvas tinted glasses. Carolyn Cresswell from Carmen’s Fine Foods, Kristina Karlsen from Kikki-K, Naomi Simson from Red Balloon Days, and Virgin’s Richard Branson are all naturals when it comes to spotting and leveraging blank brand canvases.

Your challenge is to learn how to see the blank canvases for your business and its brand so that you’re ready and able to spot the opportunities whenever and wherever they arise.

If you’d like to come have a chat with us about identifying your brand’s the blank canvases, why not get in touch? We’d love to show you how it’s done.

David Ansett, Brandamentalist
If you’d like daily updates of our brand thinking, you can follow me on Twitter here.