Holistic Retail Brand Experience.

October is a very busy month for me when it comes to birthdays and certainly not least my wife’s! Having not ventured down Chapel Street for quite some time, recently we both decided that Chapel Street this year would solve the usual question of “what would you like for your birthday?” in one foul retailing swoop.

With retail suffering possibly more than any other sector it makes you wonder sometimes how on earth certain retail brands survive, so this recent shopping experience was a rather enlightening one. Before venturing out I thought to myself, “what might the majority of these struggling retailers be doing doing to entice the customer firstly into the store and secondly convert that into a sale?”

Pretty much immediately I noticed a trend. This being that their brand expressions were so prominent in terms of their in-store dynamics and window displays which lead me to the conclusion; even though retail is struggling, some retailers are still investing huge amounts money not only on in-store visual merchandising to attract customers but also giving them a creative brand experience to remember once in the store.

One such experience that grabbed us was the Nike store. Yes, Nike’s a brand that has incredible budgets and has the ability to pretty much do as they please but we had no intention whatsoever in entering the store let alone purchasing anything. After being lured in by the window display and in-store dynamics (of which we were blown away by), a salesperson approached us asking if we required any assistance, we replied with the usual, “we’re just looking thanks” so duly left us alone – another tick! After a little more wandering around and checking out some of the hi-tech products we decided the time had come to ask for some expert advice. Cue the same salesperson and without going into the whole rigmarole we were professionally informed on what the best product would be for the type of activity that would be undertaken. No jargon, simply explained, properly measured, informed conversation and tried on. SOLD!

After the ‘Nike experience’ we ventured into another store who’s brand is nowhere near the magnitude of Nike’s nor has the reach or budget, but to be fair, their window display, in-store dynamics and visual merchandising nonetheless were pretty impressive. It was until we entered the store that our ‘retail brand experience’ was shattered, to the point that we pretty much walked out immediately even though this time (unlike Nike) we had plans in making a purchase. We were hassled from the second we walked in and the desperation of this salesperson not only to make a sale but his assumptions on us both was simply wrong! A lot of the hard work was done in getting us into the store but the in-store experience simply let us down.

I’m not saying that everyone needs to follow what we experienced at Nike but surely it can’t be that hard to train staff (even in the simplest of ways) on how to deal with a prospective customer, especially in this current climate. I’m only hoping that other potential customers weren’t subjected to this salesperson’s antics and for the brand’s sake this person was just having a bad day.

Check out some other retail experiences below that Sportsgirl have recently produced, let’s hope they have a similar in-store experience as Nike.

If you’re looking for your window displays, in-store dynamics and retail brand experience to increase your sales results then why not drop us a line.

Dominic Guthrie
Client Account Director

Brand recognition with clout!

Increasingly brands seem to be leveraging a realm of different spaces and as a result we’re noticing some pretty awesome and unbelievable art installations. In saying that there comes some risk for brands big or small to attempt these installations because if they get them wrong they’re going to have the exact opposite of the desired effect.

A branded piece of art (like any art) is so subjective and can be viewed in many ways ranging from too promotional, too imposing, too loud and often an intrusion into ‘public spaces.’

But of course when done right, this kind of brand experience (whether a brand or not) can work wonders for brand recognition or simply make people take a second look and think, that’s a great creative idea.

Mega brands such as adidas, BMW, Coca-Cola and Nike have been doing this type of branded art for years and very effectively and why not? their budgets are enormous! As huge recognised worldwide brands they often tend to take new and up-and-coming artists under their wings generating a huge online buzz not only for the brand but also for the piece of art, the location and of course the artist.

Nike’s 20 metre high, 4.75 tonne ‘Ball Man’ made of 5,500 Brazilian skill balls was an incredibly huge hit during the recent FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Created by Leicester based Ratcliffe Fowler Design using a 3D image of Carlos Tevez, it was the centerpiece of a Nike installation in Carlton Mall Atrium, Johannesburg. Thoughtfully the man was designed so that the skill balls remained virtually intact enabling them to be donated to the community after the closing of the exhibition.

Also at the World Cup, Coca-Cola took advantage of the Crate Man craze and installed a 54-foot ‘crate fan’ in Cape Town at the Victoria and Albert Waterfront Harbour – it was built out of 2,500 Coke bottle crates and weighed 25 tonnes.

On the other foot take a look at the below that are purely original, fresh and fun – no associated brand but because they’re cool they create real viral attention.

If you’d like to see your brand create real viral attention why not give us a call, we’re ready to find a space to install your art and gain that recognition you’re after.

Dominic Guthrie
Client Account Director

Top 10 Typography Design Blogs
Recently in a blog I published ‘Top 10 Inspirational Brand Design Blogs’, I mentioned a huge issue faced by brand designers like myself, the difficulty of finding great brand design blogs for inspiration and knowledge of current trends. In the wake of that article I have had numerous requests and queries on which are my favorite typography design blogs going round. So since I am a man of the people, I have put together a list of my top 10 inspirational typography design blogs and websites in no particular order, enjoy!

Friends of Type
Friends of Type features original typographic design and lettering – strong fresh visual content – practically every day. The thing I enjoy the most about Friends of Type is that posts don’t over indulge on each great piece of typography shown. It is what it is. A piece of beauty.

Letman
Just so we are all the same page, this is not a blog. Letmans work is artform and a craft. His personalised style reflects his personality of quirky and fun. Here is a exert from Letmans website which pretty much sums up this wonderful talent.

“He is cuckoo about letters, he loves them, so far is certain. He is also one of those fellows who can read a chunky novel in a couple of hours, but that’s a different story. His designs are transparent, leaving room to breathe. Them letters got things to say, they are so clear it tickles your eye and make you blink. What is this colourful craft ? Letman’s letters are curious. His handmade style fits the boundries of typography like a universe on itself by lashing out to illustration, graffiti and graphic design. Letters are free entities to him. They are clear and cunning. Together they stand strong.”

Ministry of Type
The Ministry of Type is a blog by Aegir Hallmundur which provides a absolute passion for all things about type, typography, lettering, calligraphy and other related things. The Ministry of Type has huge variety of detailed blogs with lots of links. If you have time to read about typography, I highly recommend it.

Alex Trochut
Based in Barcelona, Alex Trochut’s illustrations, designs and typography are vibrant and wonderfully unique. Alex Trochut’s client’s include the likes of Nike, The Rolling Stones, Nixon, British Airways and Coca-Cola so you can see immediately that he is a sort out typographical master.

Type for you
Type for you is simply a blog about typography. Managed by Pedro Serrão and João Planche it comments on current trends and newly released fonts.

Typography Served
Typography Served is a collection of sites that showcase category-specific content from the Behance Network (the world’s leading platform for creative professionals across all industries). Projects featured on the served sites are selected by our curatorial team. It is a great resource for fresh new work from leading creative individuals from around the world.

Luke Lucas
Luke Lucas typographic designs are pure eye candy that you can eat with your eyes.

I love typography
It exists because John Boardley has a passion for typography, type design, and lettering. A comprehensive typography blog with information to burn.

Typography Daily
This blog is published by Mirko Humbert, a graphic and web designer from Switzerland. Typography Daily is a simple blog with quick information, pictures and links.

Jules Vernacular
The Jules Vernacular is a typographic selection of found type. A huge collection of typography usually photographed in the street.

I hope you enjoy this list of my Top 10 Typography Design Blogs as much as I do. If you’d like to receive some monthly inspiration, click here

Tim Wood
Design Creative

Last month the latest Nike Stadium location opened its doors – the Bowery Stadium in New York City.
Nike Stadiums reflect the trend of many brands (especially those in retail) towards what we call soft brand messaging. Unlike traditional advertising whose function is to deliver a sharp proposition that communicates a specific offer, soft brand messaging is all about giving people a brand experience to create a positive emotional bond with a brand. Brands we care about, brands we believe are a reflection of the way we wish ourselves to be seen own a distinctly unfair advantage when it comers to making conscious and unconsidered buying decisions. Whether buying a $5 burger to a $500k sports car, when it comes to the heart ruling the head, those brands we love hold the whip hand.

The Nike Stadiums serve as ‘creative salons’,  where art, sports and customer community experiences sing together in harmony with the Nike brand voice. The first installation in the Bowery Stadium is called ‘Order and Progress’. Order and Progress is a celebration of Brazilian soccer through the eyes of the NYC creative community. Opening night featured the premier of a multi-media piece entitled ‘Everything is Practice’, a short film with Spike Lee directed by Jake Sumner and photography by Nabil Elderkin, as well as a piece by Brazilian born, NYC raised creative Allen Benedikt. With the ‘Stadium’ concept, Nike have created a community forum, rich in brand personality, and perfect for brand storytelling.

The basement serves as another creative salon but with a more functional purpose in mind, with a real locker room stacked along an entire wall. The space was created as a hub for New Yorkers involved in local sports programs. Serving as an inspiring meeting place, the traditional locker room is flipped on its head with an explosion of paints created by artist Jack Greer. Along the other wall are illustrations by Gianluigi Toccafondo titled ‘Heroes of Speed’.

At an all important functional level, the space will be the new home of the Bowery Stadium sports programs, including the NYC Bridge Runners, Goodtimes FC soccer league, NRF, and the WNW – don’t you just love those sports acronyms. At the heart of this Nike brand experience the emotional benefit intersects with the functional benefit, which is where the strongest emotional bonds are created.

Nike’s Bowery Stadium opens to the public Thursday to Sundays from 12 to 7pm, at 276 Bowery in Manhattan. Check it out if you’re in town – BYO gym gear.

If you look after brand spaces that could do with a good dose of emotional connection, get in touch – the conversation will be as valuable as it is enlightening.

David Ansett, Brandamentalist
For daily updates of our brand thinking, follow me on Twitter
Brand Designer

We found-out about this on a cool little web site called High Snobiety.

The Third Chapter in our Comprehensive Trend Report
Over the last two Mondays we’ve published the first two sections of our research report into trends in visual language. Each Monday for the next four weeks we’ll publish another chapter. This week’s chapter focuses on trends in brand visual language of ‘Affordable Luxury’, ‘the Cult of Personality’ and ‘Urban Attitude’.

Trends in the visual language of brand identity are driven by many factors from the ‘me-too-ism’ of designers and their clients mimicking the visual language of market leaders, to new and emerging trends such as ‘sustainability’ that draw a similar and en-mass visual response from designers all over the world. Over the past 12 months we have collected more than five thousand different brand expressions spanning almost every major industry and category of the western world.

The brand expressions we tracked included existing, new and refined brand identities, product packaging, newspaper, magazine and billboard ads. The scale and breadth of these brand expressions allowed us to identify the major brand visual language trends of a broad range of market leaders for the last year. Whilst the majority of the examples presented in this report are recent, many trends are not in themselves new. It is our interpretation of the groundswell of take-up of a trend and the influence exerted within their market by the brands involved, that leads us to define the most compelling and influential trends.

What’s the value of a Trend Report?
All brands project an image through their visual language. It is up to each brand to make conscious and informed decisions about exactly what they wish their visual language to communicate relative to the competition and to their market’s perceptions.The report includes hundreds of examples of brands and their visual language to illustrate examples of brands who leverage trends to their advantage, as well as examples of those who follow trends to their disadvantage. The examples cross industries from fashion to food, from transport to telecommunications and everything in between, as well as markets from Australia to Asia, from Europe to the Middle East and the U.S.

Valuable Insights for all Owners and managers of Brands
An understanding and mastery of the trends in brand visual language will allow business to ‘tune’ their brand’s image to ensure they’re consistently communicating the right messages to the right people. For every organisation seeking to best manage their brand identity, these trends must be part of the consideration process. For each brand there will be advantages and disadvantages to leveraging the cues and meaning inherent in these trends. The big question you should be considering is this; ‘does the trend provide an opportunity to leverage a set of visual cues to communicate the perfect brand messages to your market, or has the trend become so widely adopted as to compromise the uniqueness of the brands who follow it?’

Download Chapter Three
of our Trend Report

Over the last two Mondays we published the first two sections of our report into trends in visual language. Each Monday for the next four weeks we’ll publish another chapter. This week’s chapter focuses on trends in brand visual language related to ‘Affordable Luxury’, ‘the Cult of Personality’ and ‘Urban Attitude’.

Click here to download Chapter Three of our Brand Visual Language Trend Report.

Or click here to download Chapter Two of our Trend Report.

You can also click here to download the First Chapter of the Trend Report.

© 2010 Truly Deeply. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. We’re delighted for you to share, blog or publish extracts of our articles, on the condition that Storm Design & Brand DNA are properly credited (and linked to) as the source, and that you include our URL: trulydeeply.com.au

For further information, questions and enquirers, contact us.

David Ansett, Brandamentalist
For daily updates of our brand thinking, follow me on Twitter
Brand Designer

Flicking through the news today I came across a post on John Gruber’s Daring Fireball blog. Canon is beginning the process of acquisition for the .canon top level domain name. Based on the new generic Top Level Domain (gTDL) registration system which will allow a company name, brand name, geographic region, or service type to be used as a gTLD within website and e-mail addresses. The new system is expected to be approved in the second half of next year from then on you can expect to see all the major international brands doing the same. It wont be long before we see .nike, .coke and .apple

Whilst having your own, on-brand gTDL will soon become the must-have brand device, it wont come cheap. It’ll cost around US$200k and up to set up a gTLD. If the name is disputed it starts getting really expensive or, heaven forbid,  it’s a contested name with several interested parties, think .cars, .music, etc. then it involves a bidding process. Companies could end up spending multi-millions to acquire a gTDL.

It’s all very new and exciting, but the real question is; will it be worth it for brands? It’s probably a no brainer for brands like Canon, Nike and Coke. Relative to the value of the Coke brand,the gTDL investment makes sense, from the perspective of protection alone. But like every brand expression you have to ask how much can you leverage it. Is there a better way to leverage a couple of hundred k on your brand? Ask yourself this question: How often do you type in a URL? or do you just type a name into Google. The answer to those curly questions will be a good starting point to establishing whether you and your brand should jump aboard the gTDL train.

If you’d like to talk about the best way to leverage your budget for brand building, or the brave, new world of brands on-line give us a call

Derek Carroll
Director of Design

Today it’s more critical than ever for businesses to differentiate themselves from their competitors and make memorable connections with their audience by creating unique, recognisable brands.

Colour in Brand Design
Every touch point of a brand plays a vital role in brand recall, but the brand mark is the heart and soul of a brand’s image. Whilst it’s the interplay between colour, typeface, and symbol that creates a brand mark, colour is registered by the brain before either images or typography. A University of Loyola, Maryland study recently found the correct use of colour could increase brand recognition by up to 80%.

Standing out from the crowd
As awareness of branding grows and more businesses invest in their brand’s identity, colour is becoming more important for companies looking to differentiate themselves visually. Consider the success of Heinz Green ketchup. In the first seven months following its introduction more than 10 million bottles were sold. The result was the highest sales increase in the brand’s history, all because of a simple color change. Apple introduced colourful iMacs into a marketplace where colour had not been seen before. The Apple brand was the first to say, “It doesn’t have to be beige”. The iMacs reinvigorated a brand that had suffered $1.8 billion of losses in two years.

A World of Colour
Colour also provides communication cues for brand attributes such as traditional or cutting edge, calm or excited, as well as cultural cues, cues about environmental credibility, cues about political affiliations and a plethora of other meanings. In the world of brand design, choice and use of colour provides the potential for a wealth of carefully crafted and powerfully communicated messages about your brand.

Recognisable Brands Test
Most of the most recognisable brands in the world rely on colour as a key factor in their instant recognition. Below are snapshots of twenty of the world’s most recognisable brand marks cropped to show a clear representation of their brand colours, but only a fraction of their logotype of symbol. Test yourself to see how many of the brands you can identify with colour being the primary visual driver.

The answers
01. Heineken
02. adidas
03. Toyota
04. British Airways
05. BP
06. Google
07. BMW
08. Vodafone
09. Ford
10. McDonald’s
11. Coca Cola
12. Olympic Games
13. Microsoft
14. IBM
15. Nike
16. Pepsi
17. GE
18. Qantas
19. Nokia
20. Virgin

So how’d you go?
18 or more correct: You’re brand obsessed (you’d fit in well around here)
15-17 correct: You’re pretty brand aware (and probably addicted to TV)
10-14 correct: Observation skills are not your strength – likely to leave home wearing different coloured socks
9 or less correct: You’re suffering brand avoidance – might be worth getting checked-out for colour blindness

If you’d like to talk to some people who spend way too much of their life eating, sleeping, thinking about the role of colour in developing a highly recognisable and unforgettable brand identity give us a call.

Cassandra Gill, Design Director.

All Brands Have Meaning
Whether carefully and strategically considered or by default, all brands hold associated meanings in the minds of the market place. Well considered brands establish a competitive brand proposition (their brand strategy) with layers of meaning to both differentiate themselves from their competitors and to connect with their audience. These brands reinforce their meaning through all of their actions or brand touch points and their brand design. As a brand agency we help brands to define their meaning and create their unique brand design for all their communications in order to create a consistent association with these layers of meaning in the hearts and minds of their customers.

adidas Vs Nike
Today we compare the brand associations of spots apparel icons adidas & Nike.

A Snapshot of Brand Association
The clever people at Brand Tags have been busy collecting a comprehensive list of more than 1.7 million associations that people from around the globe have with brands. The result is a unique opportunity for those brands to compare the meaning and messages of their brand communication strategy with the brand associations of a cross section of the market.

A Comparison of Brand Associations
As to be expected, both brands have a high level of association with terms such as ‘shoes’ and ‘sports’, but interestingly, from their they depart into some interesting and differentiated territory. Both by design and through unintended association, the two sports apparel brands have quite distinctive meanings with the market. Interestingly adidas‘ German heritage has a strong association, where-as Nike is seen as a global brand without a clear link to any particular country.
What I find most astounding is given the insane amount of investment these two brands, but especially Nike plow into endorsements for the highest profile athletes on the planet, only Nike with Jordan at No.8 retain any significant brand association relative to these other more dominant associations.

The adidas Brand
adidas is clearly associated with soccer. The predominance of the association with the word ‘soccer’ suggests the associations have a North American (and possibly Australian) skew as most of the globe refers to the world game as football. Perhaps as a result of its European (German) heritage – certainly be strategic design, adidas (always spelled with a lower case ‘a’) has a stronger link to football than to any other sport. adidas’ German heritage too is recognized with a strong association, linking the brand to the positive aspects of quality and European history.
The first association with adidas‘ visual language comes-in at brand association No. 7 with the word ‘stripes’. This suggests adidas has the potential to strengthen the role their stipes plays in theri brand communication to increase the level of association with their proprietary visual property.

The most distinctively unique associations with the adidas brand flow from the fountain of cool. With the association of ‘sneakers’ and No.4 and ‘Cool’ at No.6 we get a sense of the level of cred adidas has developed strategically over the years. Further association with Rappers Run DMC is reflected further down the list of brand associations due to the preference of Run DMC for wearing the sports shoe and their track; ‘My adidas’.
adidas continue to imbue their brand with cool through creative collaborations with musicians and artistssuch as longtime partner, French artist Fafi. Using adidas products as the canvas for her well-known, whimsical graphics, Fafi brings her street styles to an adidas range of footwear and apparel for girls.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Nike Brand
The association of the Nike brand are enough to make any brand designer proud as punch. The two strongest Nike brand associations are ‘Swoosh’ and ‘Just do it’, reflecting just how effective Nike has been in establishing and owning these two unique brand properties. Regardless of what follows, we have to acknowledge any brand who achieves that level of recognition of identity and positioning.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’d like some help to define the meaning for your brand and create your communications in order to create a consistent association with these layers of meaning in the minds of their customers, why not drop us a line?

David Ansett, Brandamentalist
For regular updates of our brand thinking follow me on Twitter.
Brand Designers

He’s still the talk of the town, state, country and the world.

Eldrick Tont Woods known simply as Tiger Woods is arguably the greatest sports person of all time and is widely noted as the worlds first billionaire athlete.

After his arrival in Melbourne on Tuesday to compete in the Australian Masters at Kingston Heath Golf Club the media pursuit has been nothing short of relentless and as you can imagine has generated much fan fair on and off the golf course – put it this way, a door list was required for the media turnout during his first media conference at Kingston Heath with the room having to be resized to accommodate the throng of journalists and photographers.
I find it incredible that one person (one brand ETW) can generate so much interest and do so much not only for a sport but an economy.

It’s common knowledge that Tiger Woods’ appearance fee to play in the JB Were Australian Masters is reputedly $US3 million ($AUD3.2 million) with half this to be paid by the Victorian taxpayers – a small amount when you look at the economic benefit that’s expected to be generated for the State. At the press conference Premier Brumby said it was “fantastic for sport, fantastic for golf and fantastic for our state of Vctoria” but also went as far as to say that “we now estimate the economic benefit to Victoria will comfortably exceed the $19 million forecast,” and also said that “35 per cent of the 100,000 ticket sales has gone to overseas and interstate visitors”. It must be noted that I wrote this blog prior to Tiger winning the Gold Jacket (image) and Premier Brumby’s interview on Channel 9 to which he said, “the economic benefit to the State has super seeded all expectations and we’re now at looking a figure around the $25 – $30 million mark”. All this from one brand – Tiger Woods.

On the flip side it’s amazing to see what happens when Tiger isn’t on the playing circuit – notably when he was out after having knee surgery. I was reading an article written by Bob Grant from Grant Marketing and the findings are simply quite remarkable and he quotes, “we can’t blame Tiger for poor sales of Buick and the downfall of GM, but it is noteworthy that the viewership of the Buick International was down 57% without Tiger participating in the tournament” and he goes further to say
“I believe the Tiger Woods brand effect supports that a strong brand brings positive results, and when that brand is absent, companies and products suffer negative results. In today’s economy it is more important than ever to maintain a strong brand strategy”. So from my reckoning there’s an enormous amount to lose when Tiger’s not around but an enormous amount to gain when he is!

Not only is the economic benefit a massive win-fall for the State but we must also look at what the Tiger Woods’ brand is doing for golf in general. All week driving ranges and public golf courses have been booked to capacity (up by 300%) and golf equipment and merchandise sales have been at an all time high. Furthermore, there are some 360 golf clubs statewide who are all riding this Tiger wave hoping that the social golfer will take the plunge and join one of these clubs. Geoff Ogilvy (one of the Country’s best current golfers) told the media that he too is inspired by Tiger and that his appearance at the Masters has no doubt raised the profile of golf not only in the State but Australia wide.

Australian Golf and the state of the economy are certainly not out of the woods yet (pun intended) but we must acknowledge the fact that when Tiger Woods drives (sorry flies) out of Melbourne he has basically generated an incredible amount of interest in the sport and generated some $19-$30 million into the Victorian economy.

If you’d like to talk with us about how we can help make your brand drive and avoid any bunkers give us a call.

Dominic Guthrie
Senior Account Director