Blog

By Category


Branding Lost In Translation

IKEA prove that even the branding experts occasionally stuff-up. They say to err is human, and the branding folks at IKEA Bahrain have given us a refreshing reminder of how true that really is. IKEA as a global brand has a reputation for being well…

Read more »

The Future of Retail Branding for 2020 & Beyond

The changing face of consumer behavior raises a red flag for retail brands. When I think back even just a decade ago, the demands of retail customers were not so different from the decades before. Essentially most retailers could add a functional web site and…

Read more »

A Lesson in Retail from Hanoi’s Shoe Street

Is this the toughest retail environment on the planet? On a trip to Vietnam this month I spent a couple of days sweltering through the streets of Hanoi Old Town. The mercury hit 37 degrees and the humidity was thick enough to cut with a…

Read more »

Retail Brand Whole Foods Trials Convenience Format in NYC.

Retail Leader Tweaks Brand to Stay in Front. Recently US retail brand Whole Foods launched a new convenience format of their grocery store model. Since Amazon bought the business the upmarket grocery retailer has been active in trialing new formats aimed at different niches to…

Read more »

How Rebranding Transforms Retail Street Appeal to Drive Increased Sales

Measuring the positive impact of rebranding. One of the challenges for many businesses looking to rebrand is establishing hard metrics to measure impact and return on investment. We always like our clients to come to a branding project with clarity on what these metrics may…

Read more »

Global shopping centre giant Westfield’s vision for the future of retail

The future of shopping centre retail – A disruptive view. Global entertainment brand Cirque du Soleil announced their plans recently to launch a family entertainment concept inside a Canadian shopping centre. The move reflects the shift in retail thinking as consumer continue to evolve the…

Read more »

A lesson in Branding from online retailer Brandless – #ironic.

Another Retail Disruptor Gets Physical. US online retailer; ‘Brandless’ made waves this week when it opened it’s first physical pop-up in West Hollywood, LA. The proposition of this retailer is an unbranded (plain label) $3-everything approach, taking the private label mindset and disrupting it. Brandless…

Read more »

Merry Christmas from Truly Deeply (and UK retailer John Lewis)

We’ve continued the tradition of sharing our favorite Christmas TV commercials. The festive season is not only an important time for brands to reach-out to their customers to garner their pre-Christmas purchasing, but it’s also a time that audiences are more open to emotionally connecting…

Read more »

Department store Myer shows their branding game can still hit a winner

Anyone who’s ever worn heels for a day at the races, the idea of taking them off before you start the long trip home has enormous appeal. At this year’s carnival, Myer were giving away comfortable, practical, and not completely unstylish, branded slides – manna…

Read more »

Why physical stores are still so important for retail brands in the digital age

Global Retailer Aldo  – Bricks & Mortar Believers Global footwear retailer Aldo has seen amazing growth to more than 2,600 stores in 100 countries. Senior Vice President of Aldo Group, Nick Martire co-founded the Aldo Product Services division which generated $1 billion in retail sales…

Read more »

Three Ways Retailers Are Scaring Away Ready-to-Buy Customers

The way customers buy has changed I recently read a great article on Curalate by Jarred Shelley, Head of Content Strategy that captured one of the great challenges fro retail brands in today’s ever-changed marketplace. The article talks through a shopping experience that is reflective…

Read more »

What Amazon’s Australian launch means for local retail brands

With Amazon’s launch into the Australian market around the corner, the picture of what that means for Australian consumers and retailers is becoming clearer. For Australian consumers, Amazon is likely to wind-up offering everything from fresh and non perishable groceries, beauty products, wine, clothing and…

Read more »

KolesWorth – Revealing the layers of successful SME branding

There’s more to branding than meets the eye Recently a small, independent supermarket opened at our local shopping strip. I was immediately drawn to the name and brand identity which are  naively unethical and amusing in equal measures. It turns out this is the fifth…

Read more »

Woolworths free fruit for kids campaign builds on their differentiated brand proposition

Deliciously Good Brand Differentiation Australian Supermarket brand Woolworths have teamed up with celebrity endorser and fresh food campaigner; Jamie Oliver to introduce their latest in store brand initiative – fresh fruit. Launched in-store and driven by an above the line TVC campaign, Woolworths have come…

Read more »

Retail Brand Theatre – Buenos Aires beautiful bookstore

Brand theatre proves the perfect differentiator for this Buenos Aires retailer. Found in the Barrio Norte neighborhood of Buenos Aires is this stunning bookshop called El Ateneo Grand Splendid. The bookshop is the latest incarnation of the Grand Splendid Theater, which was built in 1919.…

Read more »

The 4 critical numbers to understanding changing consumer behavior for brands

Customer Evolution – The Important Numbers for the Future of Retail Brands Recently I attended a presentation on Global Trends in Retail put on by PWC. One of the speakers was Dr Violet Lazarevic from Monash Business Schools ‘Australian Consumer, Retail, and Services’ Research Unit…

Read more »

Australian Retailer Target loses $2b of Goodwill and Brand Value

Brand irrelevance leads to evaporating brand value Australian retailer Target has struggled in recent years to maintain a valued, differentiated consumer proposition in the market.  As competitive pricing has become a table stake rather than an active brand differentiator, mid-market retailers like Target (and the…

Read more »

The Simplicity of Being Nude – A Brand Delivering the Bare Minimum

Taking a Nude approach. Domestic glassware brand all about simplicity. Nude is a new domestic glassware brand that insists “simple is beautiful”. Nude want to appeal to a younger target market and brings a fresh new angle to a pretty out-dated and fair to say boring industry…

Read more »

American Apparel is Bringing Sexy Back

American Apparel returns to its roots in an attempt to revive the brand American Apparel, the Los Angeles based clothing manufacturer and retailer known for basic apparel and risqué marketing campaigns, has decided to bring sexy back, and propel it back to being at the…

Read more »

Disruptive online retailer the surprise buyer of Dick Smith brand

Ruslan Kogan to Revitalize Dick Smith Retail Brand It’d be tough to find two hotter topics in the world of brand and marketing than ‘new thinking brands disrupting’ and ‘old thinking brands imploding’. The latest move by Australian online retailer Kogan combines both. The move…

Read more »

The world's best Christmas windows from 2015

As we blow the remnants of Christmas cobwebs from our brains and prepare to launch into 2016, we thought we’d indulge in a last little taste of the festive season. With retailers around the world looking to squeeze every last drop of Christmas cheer from…

Read more »

Bland Identity – Microsoft Launches their New Brand Identity Design

A Branding Challenge for market Leaders Microsoft has launched the latest evolution of their brand mark at the opening of its new store in Boston. The task of keeping a brand’s visual language fresh and relevant to the market is critical (we recently wrote a…

Read more »

Nike Masters the 80:20 Rule of Branding

Not all brand activities are born equal. This is a brand principle that Nike know better than most brands as the recent release of the ‘Nike sole’. The Nike sole has been developed to fit onto the ‘flex-run’ prosthetic running blade, designed for by Nike…

Read more »

25 Killer Custom Typefaces – A Brand Design Asset

Building Your Brand’s Visual Properties When creating a corporate image for our clients brands, we focus on building unique brand properties that can be leveraged to become brand assets. A brand’s typeface is one of the visual properties we incorporate into the brand design process,…

Read more »