Legendary Japanese Sushi Chief Jiro Ono is considered the world’s greatest Sushi chiefs. Japan has declared him a national treasure and his humble 10 seat restaurant located in a Tokyo subway station has been awarded 3 Michelin stars. At 85 he is the subject of a documentary film by David Gelb. A story of working life, family and the quest for culinary artistic perfection.
The Kiwi Sceptics is part tourism campaign, part airline campaign and part dig at stubborn Aussies. The premise is to take Australians with unfavorable opinions of New Zealand and trick them into traveling across the ditch to change their minds. It is a lovely case of well executed brand story telling, twisting cliches and misconceptions, all told through the eyes of characters that are easily related to and reflecting stereotypes that are at times scarily honest (for an Aussie). The campaign is by Air New Zealand, but you would be forgiven for mistaking it for a New Zealand tourism piece, which is an interesting platform, leveraging creative brand positioning, Air New Zealand is promoting and supporting their own national identity, their own people and their own culture, which is a lot more than some national carriers some can boast.
In Australia, retailers continue to struggle. A two speed economy and continuing frugality amongst consumers looks like being around for some time into the future. Data released by the Reserve Bank at the beginning of this week indicates that credit and debit card transactions shows the average credit card limit grew only 0.7 % over the past year, the slowest growth on record over the past 17 years. The Age on March 13 also reported Commsec’s Economist Craig James as stating ‘…the new age of consumer conservatism shows no signs of ending. Consumers are likely to maintain their preference for value shopping, keeping the pressure on margins.’
As with all designers I have a soft spot for info-graphics, something that pares down a topic to the salient points and presents them with great visuals to better explain what could be a comlicated topic. So naturally I love this beauty by Linda Dong. She explains the issues with Fracking, a very poignant topic in Australia at the moment, in such a simple and economic style, it’s beautiful. Read the rest of this entry »
Deck the Halls with Branded Beach Towels
Australian newspaper ‘The Age’ recently published an article on Corporate Gift Giving in their Executive Style lift-out in time for Christmas. For most companies, this gesture of Christmas giving for staff and for clients tends to follow an age-old path of logos on golf towels. As an expensive exercise, the opportunity to create indelible brand gestures at this time of year is often missed. The Age asked Truly Deeply Founder David Ansett for his perspective on this seasonal sticky question.
You can check the article written by Sylvia Pennington on-line here: Merry Christmas here’s an iPad.
A Tantalizing Brand Challenge
Melbourne is one of the great food cities of the world. Big statement I know – but having traveled through more than two dozen cities in different countries, through Europe and Asia over the last couple of years, I feel I’m well positioned to make the call. What a challenge then to create a brand each year for the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival.
Leveraging the Brand Magic of Art.
For many brands, especially those who are business to consumer/customer brands, the great challenge is to creatively engage with your audience.
Retail Branding in Living Colour
McDonald’s in the US is set to launch an in-store TV channel featuring; local school sports, movie previews and heartwarming human interest stories
Street art of Continental Europe.
On my recent trip to Europe the rich quality and diversity of the street art caught my eye. In my mind there’s no doubt that stencil, spray and paste-up art has matured to become it’s own credible art form. The visual language of the art I saw was hugely varied in form, style and message. I snapped a stack of what I came across and hope you enjoy it.
A Beautifully Executed Re-branding Project.
We were engaged with Jean Hailes to conduct a full brand re-design, starting with the strategic framework and outputting all brand identity collateral. In a little under two decades Jean Hailes has developed a significant standing in the women’s health sector. But it also understands that it needs to continue to proactively develop the direction of the Jean Hailes brand. A direction that would further solidify Jean Hailes as the authority in women’s health to deliver cutting edge research and medical services for their clients. The result – a beautifully designed re-brand for this not-for profit in women’s health.
