Creating Retail Brand Differentiation through the Power of Artistic Creativity.
French fashion company Hermès have established a reputation for creative collaborations with international designers to create remarkable window displays for their stores in order to promote their line of products in an artistic way. Like many premium brands before them, Hermé understand the power of art in differentiating themselves from the high gloss, high production value brand imagery of their competitors.
Posts Tagged ‘Corporate Image’
Over the weekend, Coles launched their much-hyped ‘flybuys’ campaign and introduced their new brand ambassador, Dawn French.
This continues their strategy of using celebrities as the face of the brand. It has worked in the past, but is Dawn the right ambassador?
Amazon downunder
For the first time, the world’s largest online retailer is looking to set up a warehouse on Australian shores. In a move that is likely to make our local retailers tense, Amazon are looking to Asia-Pacific to extend their distribution network. However it is not yet known what this means for consumers purchasing from the retailer and in turn the impact it will have on the market. Faster delivery time is likely, but could it also mean cheaper products?
Storm in a Chicken Bucket
First published in National Times
A Guest post by Melbourne-based writer James Schloeffel
We now know that Colonel Sanders’ poultry empire isn’t just about dishing out greasy chicken and fake potato. It is also racist. At least that is what some American YouTube viewers and parts of the mainstream American press would have you believe.
Our March branding article for The Melbourne Review — Private Label Needs Public Disclosure

This year we began writing a regular column on branding for The Melbourne Review. This second of our articles explores the impact of private label brands on the retail landscape.
Whichever way you cut it, the growth in private label brands is going to continue within Australian supermarkets.
Consumers in Australia are increasingly seeing private label products as representing great value. A recent AC Nielsen research report into the power of private label brands globally found an average of 69% of all respondents agreed that ‘supermarket own brands are usually extremely good value for money’. In Australia 81% shared this sentiment.
The recent re-branding exercise by Australian company OneSteel is a great reminder of the limitations imposed by using literal product or service category terms in the brand name. OneSteel as a name clearly declares to the world that it was in the ‘steel’ business, and hence from a communication perspective it is direct and unencumbered. The difficulty is when a business such as OneSteel over time morph’s into different corporate beast, doing more more and more things unrelated to steel. This can be rather problematic when you are trying to convey to investors and other stakeholders that you believe you have an exciting future outside steel.
The Next Digital Generation
If you think texting while walking is dangerous, just wait until everyone starts wearing Google’s futuristic, internet-connected glasses. Directions to your destination appear literally before your eyes. You can talk to friends over video chat, take a photo or even buy a few things online as you walk around. The glasses will be able to do anything a smartphone or tablet computer does now — and then some. Google gave a glimpse of “Project Glass” in a video and blog post last week. Still in an early prototype stage, the glasses open up endless possibilities — as well as challenges to safety, privacy and fashion sensibility. The prototypes have a sleek wrap-around look and appear nothing like clunky 3-D glasses. But if Google isn’t careful, they could be dismissed as a kind of Bluetooth earpiece of the future, a fashion faux-pas where bulky looks outweigh marginal utility.
Where do you go when you own the home furnishings market?
The Swedish brand famous for its affordable furniture and accessories has come up with a genuine game changer — an IKEA house in which you can put all that IKEA furniture. An architectural firm in Oregon has collaborated with furniture giant IKEA to come up with a flat-pack home costing just US$86,500.










