Our very own Derek Carroll (Truly Deeply Creative Director and tech-guru) was interviewed for a feature on businesses adopting the benefits of cloud technology in a recent feature in The Age newspaper. At Truly Deeply we’ve had our head in the cloud from the early days – but always keeping our feet on the ground (as they say).
Stand-out Retail Brand Design
Sure retail brands are facing a tough stretch, where attracting the attention of new customers and engaging with them sufficiently to turn them into brand loyalists is tougher than squeezing the proverbial blood from a stone. But every now and again we are reminded of the power of thinking big – figuratively if-not literally – of visualizing a brand experience that will stand-out from the crowd, project your brand beyond the ordinary and create the remarkable. And that’s precisely what Airigami did when they created a 200 foot long acrocanthosaurus–a dinosaur from the early cretaceous period re-created from balloons.
I like to think that I’m an ethical consumer, but brands don’t half make it difficult to make informed choices! There is a growing movement by shoppers to vote with their dollar, but sadly we are deliberately and routinely misled by brands, with ambiguous claims and deceptive designs. From innocuous labelling of palm oil as ‘vegetable oil’ to the proliferation of sham certification logos and the bastardisation of the word ‘organic’, we are shamefully misinformed about the products we buy. Read the rest of this entry »
A study last year by Harvard Business School concluded that consumers care, that they will pay more for clothes that represent fair-labour practices. However, most brands will only embark on a strategy of full disclosure if compelled to by consumers. And despite the Harvard research findings, I really do not believe there are enough consumers who are willing to make a stand against exploitation. The garment factory collapse that killed more than 800 workers in Bangladesh last month is testimony to magnitude of such exploitation. Read the rest of this entry »
Adobe recently announced its decision to discontinue the Creative Suite product, in light of the positive response to their recently implemented Creative Cloud – a subscription based service to their programs. Adobe had previously acknowledged that they were uncertain of how long these two products would coexist, so the decision comes as little surprise. But that hasn’t stopped people within the creative community voicing their opinions on the matter, myself included. I’ve been a staunch user of Adobe products going as far back as the days of when I used to slap naff photoshop effects on all my early student work. So here is my two cents. Read the rest of this entry »
Recently, I discovered an inspiring short animated film – A Cautionary Tail. It is a 14 minutes film about a girl born with a tail that expresses her emotions. As a child, her parents celebrate their daughter’s eloquent, athletic appendage, and her tail inspires magical make-believe adventures with her friends. As she grows up, however, the young woman faces pressure to fit in, and must choose between conformity and self-expression. Read the rest of this entry »
Creating Relevant, Cutting Edge Retail Branding Doesn’t Mean Reinventing the Wheel
In 2012 fashion retail brand Burberry launched their remodeled store at 121 Regent St London. But what at first glance looks like a traditional retail re-fit is -on closer inspection – a blueprint for reinventing a brand experience inspiring for retailers across every category.
Stand Back, its the Multi Proposition Super Brand
The first thing I have to admit is we didn’t create this brand – it’s not one of ours, but what the hell – something this cool should be celebrated all the same. And a truly clever bit of brand building it is too. Who Gives A Crap is a new entrant into the established toilet paper category, a category typically viewed as a commodity with undifferentiated product offerings. And-yet against this less than inspiring backdrop we have an inspiring challenger brand with the DNA to make a significant splash in the market.
Wine critic Huon Hooke in The Age 3/5 suggests that Penfolds Grange may be regarded as Australia’s greatest wine by some, and that the 2008 vintage is one of the best, alongside 2006, 1996 and 1990. In wine terms he says impressive things about Grange – its ability to build great complexity of flavour over many years of cellaring. The top vintages age well for 50 years, and the ’08 will be one of those. According to Huon the full payoff is the wonderful aroma and flavour nuances that build over time, and the 2008 needs 15 to 20 years, minimum. Personally I do not have the time, but this is not about me.
Call it a team sport, but cricket needs big individual brands amongst its players if it wishes to maximise its appeal with the Australian public. Unfortunately, the Australian Cricket Board is inadvertently doing every thing in its power to diminish the impact of individual personal brands. The strategy adopted over the last summer whereby the selectors insisted on a rotation policy, which had players, particularly bowlers, being rested despite strong performances. Regardless of whether it had merit from an injury perspective, it meant that supporters of cricket never really got to establish a connection with the players. This particularly a problem when you have a crop of new players attempting to establish themselves with the team and the public. Read the rest of this entry »
