Twitter continues to set the news agenda and prove how fast the message can spread and galvanise public debate. It also highlights the importance of monitoring and participating in the conversation about your brand and being ready to respond appropriately, particularly when you are caught up in the cross-fire.

More and more, it seems consumers are holding brands accountable and judging them on the company they keep. Brands need to be ready to protect themselves from the attack and use the opportunity to strengthen the relationship with their audiences.

This week we’ve seen Qantas fall victim to their flawed social media strategy (if they indeed had one) and now a radio network, as well as its sponsors are being put to the test.

Kyle Sandilands, 2Day FM’s leading on-air talent (I use the word loosely here) launched a tirade of personal abuse at a journalist yesterday that soon had many innocent bystanders caught up in the fire.

Within minutes of Sandilands on-air comments twitter was heaving with people venting their disapproval. Several hash-tags linked to the story instantly become the top trends and are still trending heavily today, including #VileKyle.

Aside from the damage to SouthernCross Austereo (owners of 2Day FM and Fox FM), sponsors of Sandilands’ programme were also directly targeted on twitter with many agreeing to demands to withdraw their advertising support.

Holden, then The Good Guys moved quickly to assure their customers that they did not support Sandilands’ comments and he does not reflect their brand values.

Other sponsors stayed silent. They were either not aware of the discussion or more likely, not sure how to respond.

All day, there were tweets from Vodafone customers threatening to cancel their phone contracts. Late last night, they responded with this tweet;

A day later, there are still several brands that haven’t responded and are they are continuing to be targeted and called to account by the public.

Living your brand values through the experience you provide is essential, but it’s not just what you do that matters. More and more, people are judging brands on the company they keep and this needs to also align to your brand values.

This has always been important. Twitter, if used intelligently just enables brands to listen and engage in the conversation. In doing so, brands have the ability to build a much closer relationship with their customers which has to be a good thing.

If you missed Sandilands in action, here it is; Karl Sandilands on air rant

For those who want to complain to ACMA about Sandilands’ conduct here is the form: click here – this is also one of the most popular tweeted link! It seems that Austereo will have a lot of traffic on their site but they will probably only really start to listen as the sponsors drop off and if the ratings follow.

Update: Charge.org has also informed us of a petition that they are running to get Sandilands dumped from radio. The petition was started by Emily Hehir and they claim to have 9,000 in less than 24 hours. You can find the details here.

Unfortunately, the interest in the station is probably having the opposite effect with more people tuning in who wouldn’t normally listen.

Michael Hughes
Director of Brand Strategy

Truly Deeply Brand continued Social Responsibility
Last Wednesday night saw us at Truly Deeply kick off of our Tenth Annual Art with Heart charity art show. This year we had 40 artists who generously donated a whopping 90 paintings/artworks to raise money for  Swags For Homeless. Swags For Homeless are a Melbourne based not-for-profit organisation that provides Backpack Beds to the homeless – an interim crisis measure (emergency relief) for those turned away from shelters.

We transformed the studio into a gallery where we welcomed more than 150 clients, friends and artists who enjoyed soaking up the creative atmosphere. The bidding for the paintings was extremely enthusiastic, with favorites amongst the crowd being highly sought after. With 53 items being sold on the night, and the mystery envelopes and silent auction items being snapped up, the success of the night is surely to be a positive one.

We have already received kind words from several parties in relation to the night, but the best one was from Swags for Homeless’ Lisa Clark. This is why year after year we do Art with Heart;

Hi Emma & the whole Truly Deeply Team,

Thank you again for all your efforts on Wednesday – we are very grateful to be part of your 10th Art Auction. There was a great community spirit amongst all those that attended and it was great to have another opportunity to highlight the plight of those on our streets.

Well done – you should all be very satisfied with your efforts to help the community.

Kind Regards
Lisa Clark

(Lachlan, Jenna and David)

(Simon & Gina McNamara)

Art with Heart started out as a way for us at Truly Deeply to combine our creative talents as brand designers with our belief that we should each play a part in making the world a better place. As a brand strategy and design agency the one resource we have at our disposal is our creativity and that of the broader creative community we belong to. Art With Heart was launched in 2002 as a way for us to leverage our creative talents for social benefit. We fleshed-out a concept that would be at the same time a great event for our clients and community and a way to raise money for a worthy local cause.

Each year we select a new cause to raise money for. Now in its tenth year, Art With Heart has raised more than $150,000 for charities including The Lighthouse Foundation, OVCA, Brainwave, The Australian Childhood Foundation, Whitelion, Mercycare, St Vinnie’s Soup Kitchen, Melbourne Citymission’s Breakfast Club and Worawa Aboriginal Girls College.

(The Gang from Artisan)

Art with Heart Past Three Years
In the past three years we have had huge success thanks to the generosity of artists, friends and sponsors.

In 2008 we raised just over $26,000 for St Vinnie’s Soup Kitchen, enough to pay for an additional Soup van to provide food, drink and comfort to Melbourne’s homeless 365 days-a-year;

In 2009 we raised over $24,000 for Melbourne Citymission’s Breakfast Club, this funding would allow the Breakfast Club to provide breakfast for another 60 primary school children in need for the entire 2010 school year;

In 2010 we raised over $28,000 for Worawa Aboriginal Girls College – Worawa caters for Indigenous girls in the middle years of schooling (Years 7-10). Worawa was established as a response to the needs of Aboriginal students and difficulties these students experience within the mainstream educational system.

We look forward to selling the remaining pieces of art over the next month so please keep an eye out here if you are interested. We’d also like to say a big thank you to our generous sponsors who donate good and services in support of the event year after year – we couldn’t work our magic without them.

(David Ansett, Lisa Clark, Peter Singline and Emma Ferris)

Our Sponsors
Dr Print
Corporate Express

Our Supporters
Sally Ferris Catering
Port Melbourne Bowling Club
Swinburne University of Technology TAFE
Marilyn Spenser
Bonnie Eichelberger
Caitlin Mills
Lauren Nixon
John Wooley
Flynn Dunton
Tim Austin
Scott Austin
All our artists
Family & friends

Auction Items
Addicted To Quilts
Identity Matters
Mance Design

Mystery Envelopes
Aesop
At Your Service Home Hardware
Carman’s
Chandon
Chimmy’s
Dan Murphy’s
Gelati Sky
Heidi Museum of Modern Art
kikki.K
Little Bertha
Luna Park
Maggie Beer
Meredith Dairy
Michi Girl
Penguin Group
Peninsular Hot Springs
Puffing Billy
Railway Club Hotel
sixfootsix
Third Draw Down
Vodafone
VRC

Thanks to all involved for making the tenth Art with Heart such a huge success. The total for this years Art with Heart is still being calculated (and will be announced shortly), but it will surely follow the trend of the past years successes. If you are interested in being a part of our Art with Heart community through either donating a piece of your artwork, sponsorship or attending our event, please feel free to contact us at weare@trulydeeply.com.au

The Team at Truly Deeply
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It’s all about brand design for customer connection.
For brands looking to create bold and memorable brand gestures it’s all about finding a time and place to connect with their target market in a way that adds value to their lives. vodafone has just developed its ‘VIP recharging truck’, a solution for mobile charging at outdoor and multi-day festivals throughout the UK.

The Recharging Truck can handle an impressive 2,000 handheld devices at once. It features a large compartment that pulls out from the truck with individual cubbyholes inside and will provide a ‘money can’t buy’ service to its vodafone customers at these outdoor festivals and events throughout the UK over summer. We love the the exterior of the truck which features a graphic of the british flag – a top notch bit of brand communications design if ever I’ve seen one.

Dave Ansett, Brandamentalist
Designer of high voltage Brands
For monthly updates of our thinking, click here to receive our free Brand Newsletter

We found this little beauty on thenextweb
all images courtesy of nextweb

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.