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So you build an amazing company… You invest in branding to grow awareness and value in your brand over many years – Congrats, you’ve made the grade. But after all your hard work comes brand fatigue. Consumers start turning to the newest brand on the…

Friday Funny – Signs with a sense of humour. The business of business is enough to make most people lose their sense of humour, but there are some wonderful souls who keep their smiles-up through the rough and tumble, and when that humour is allowed…

Building Broader Brand Relationships is Good for Business. Many years ago, back when Apple was a personal computer business, Steve Jobs had a vision for Apple to play a valued part in more of the 1440 minutes in every person’s day than any other brand.…

Hyde Park July 1st, 2017 Green Day are the headline act to a sold out concert. Over 65,000 fans wait in anticipation… Queen’s 1975 hit, Bohemian Rhapsody, starts to play, and the audience creates the most spine tingling sing-a-long… an iconic song, over 40 years…

A Masterclass in New Retail Brand Mindset Following-on from their first collaboration in 2016, Alexander Wang and adidas have again steered clear of a standard retail approach. Last year’s collaboration was released through pop-up trucks in New York, London and Tokyo. Staying true to their…

Capturing the spirit of the KFC brand personality. KFC recently launched H.A.R.L.A.N.D. (Human Assisted Robotic Linguistic Animatronic Networked Device) He is a robot created to take drive-thru orders in order to celebrate National Fried Chicken Day. So firstly – yes; National Fried Chicken Day is…

The casting of Jodie Whittaker as the thirteenth doctor gives BBC sci-fi show a much needed brand jolt After 50 years, iconic British Sci-fi show finally gets female lead. The Time Lord from Gallifrey will regenerate later this year and history will be made. With…

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…

It doesn’t matter how much you spend on strategy, branding, creative, media or reputation if there’s something wrong with your culture. As Uber is currently proving. It’s impossible in today’s society to mask an internal culture with brand. Sooner or later the truth will out…

Your employees produce your products and deliver yours services, if they don’t embody the same values, behaviours and purpose as your organisation there will be a misalignment that will be felt by your customers. Your employer brand is how your current employees, perspective employees and…

So you want a website and you want it now. There are alot of easy ‘web page builders’ out there these days which allow you to create your website using the drag and drop method. That’s fine if you need to launch your site in…

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…

It would appear MasterChef Judge and restaurant king George Calumbaris has tarnished his personal brand when it was recently revealed nearly 200 staff at his restaurants have been underpaid $2.6 million. George Calombaris’ company underpaid 162 of the 430 current staff at his restaurants including…

As a marketeer I have recently started to notice the increase in meaningful marketing and the extent to which brands are seeking to create meaningful experiences that consumers can connect with and move people emotionally. Thank goodness, a change has been in the air for…

Today’s guest article has been penned by the very smart people at eatbigfish. eatbigfish is a strategic brand consultancy with a single focus: challenger thinking and behaviour. Founded by Adam Morgan after he wrote Eating the Big Fish – the book that popularised the term ‘challenger…

How should a brand react when a campaign gets this kind of backlash? Budweiser’s 2017 Superbowl commercial features the story of the beer company founder’s ambitious journey from Germany to America in pursuit of his dream: to brew the ‘King of Beers’. The story combines…

Has artificial intelligence come of age? Tech firm Vinclu has created the ultimate companion for a new generation of overworked Japanese. Her name is Azuma Hikari, and she’s the AI persona at the heart of Gatebox, a $2,500 product that acts as a home assistant…

Samsung’s new ad in India is a masterclass in localization for global brands. As more brands look to the huge markets in China and India with a mix of enthusiasm and consternation, Samsung’s latest ad campaign created for the Indian market is hitting the mark.…

  The NRL’s ongoing collaborative superhero campaign with comic brand Marvel continues with their new jerseys for 2017! Wether your a fanatic fan of Marvel AND/OR the NRL sport, you can’t deny it is a compelling campaign and shows the power of collaboration between two forceful brands…

I recently came across this pic in my Facebook feed; it’s of a label sown into garments produced by a small U.S. brand for sale in the French market. The translation from French says: Wash with warm water Use mild soap Dry flat Do not…

AFL Women’s League An Untapped Brand Sponsorship Treasure Chest. If  last Friday night’s opening game of the AFLW is any indication, the belief that there’s no interest in women’s sport is fading fast. Even the AFL themselves were not prepared for the crowds that came…

Custom Apple accessory maker 12 South has created a ‘New Mac Smell’ candle for this Christmas. While it’s got plenty of headlines for obvious reasons. For me it raises the question: What do sensory branding do you do? We’re all aware of brands that have…

Is the age of the Goliath brand over? Author Ben Zifkin’s book The Rise of the Craft Brand, set’s out a compelling case for why smaller, craft-focused brands are set to become a force in the changing world of commerce. The world of brands and…

Today’s post is an article written by Brandhook, good friends of ours and the sharpest brand research and insights agency around. As we all know, recently Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America, defying nearly every prediction and pre-poll. In the lead…

Micro Influencers can build your brand for less than you think. When most brand owners, managers and marketers think of social media influencers, they picture top shelf celebrities with millions of followers charging $100,000 per mention. And whilst these mega-stars are leveraging their huge followings…

Smart Pop-Up Marketing must be on brand and buzzworthy. The payback for investing in a pop-up experience for brands really kicks-in when the concept has an element that powerfully connects with the brand’s strategic positioning, and doubly-so when the concept is news and viral worthy.…

While most brands were trying to compete with the biggest discounts to standout over the Black Friday weekend, Patagonia continued to use its brand to guide true differentiation. Black Friday, Cyber Monday combine to be one biggest consumer shopping events of the year and it’s…

For brands obsessed with branded content Burberry has just upped the ante significantly. English fashion brand Burberry has released a three-minute trailer for an epic but non-existent movie about the brand and it’s fabulous. Burberry takes brand storytelling to another level. The faux trailer promotes…

Why lululemon is the new breed of brand A few years back I recall seeing a former Nike VP of women’s wear speak. She was asked what was the biggest change she’d seen in that category during her time at Nike. Her answer was the…

How much are consumers really noticing your brand? In 2004 Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons shared the Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology, awarded for ‘achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think’, for the experiment they completed at Harvard that inspired The…

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.…

Optus is the second largest telecommunications provider in Australia offering mobile, fixed, and broadband services to consumer and business customers. It has repositioned itself in the market with a flexible rebrand. You may remember their recent rebrand back in 2013 that received many mixed reviews and…

Beautiful Brand Engagement – Fendi’s 90 Year Celebration kicked off last week at the iconic Trevi Fountain in Rome. In 2012 Fendi spent US$2.2m to fund the restoration of Trevi Fountain. The local fashion brand paid for the crumbling fountain’s crucial maintenance in exchange for…

Less Car Showroom – More Inspiring Brand Experience On my trip this month to Paris I was struck by a new addition to the glitzy end of the Champs Elysees shopping strip – Car Galleries. Within a few blocks of this uber expensive retail real…

For all brands authenticity is one of the real hot buttons in their efforts to connect with consumers and build highly engaged relationships. Brands are telling their story at every opportunity, spruiking provenance, craftsmanship and history – regardless of whether they’re a start-up or a…

Are you distracting your customers and deterring them from buying what they really want on your site?     For the holiday season, the team at Google Analytics thought it would be helpful (and fun) to demonstrate how missteps on the digital shelf play out in real…

  The Science of Brand Influence Here at Truly Deeply we bang-on a lot about brand experiences and why they are so important for brand engagement. The science behind this phenomena is what we call the Dopamine effect. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter (a chemical in…

What traits are important for a successful social media influencer? In the world of social media, an influencer is a individual who has the power to make others believe that they need a certain product or service because of their real (or perhaps perceived) authority, relationship with the…

Does virtual reality present the next big challenge for brands? Could life get any busier? We’re already bombarded by thousands of messages – brand/news/social every hour. Will the brave new world of hyper, virtual reality make our life simpler, or even more cluttered? The promise…

By its nature, a boutique brand built on super relevant experiences is intrinsically linked to one location. Brand and independence are often at odds, but W Hotels seems to have cracked the code of how to scale luxury experiences and having a clearly defined brand…

Second Life Toys, a Japanese organisation hoping to raise awareness about organ donation, has come up with a brilliant concept. A unique and creative way of communicating the difficult of issue of organ donation to sick children, capturing global attention.

Influencer marketing is a powerful way to share your brand’s message with a targeted audience. One of the strongest marketing trends to emerge in recent times is influencer marketing, which involves recruiting influential social media people to promote you through their blogs, Youtube channels and…

Australian business ‘Green and Clean’ sells bottled Australian air to China The Chinese markets growing demand for all things Australian continues to boom, from iron ore, to real estate, to baby formula and now Australian air. With China’s emerging middle class becoming increasingly worried about…

Need to get your brand noticed but don’t have the resources to get the word out by traditional means?  The Challenger Project in the UK is published by eatbigfish, a strategic brand consultancy with a single focus: challenger thinking and behavior. I love the way these…

There’s been a burst of innovation to the fitness categories in the last number of years which has been both inspiring from a brand perspective and also motivating from a get up off your ass and sweat a little perspective too! What is playing out…

Managing brand reputation is becoming increasingly challenging A plumber in the US state of Texas is suing a car dealer for US$1m after a truck he traded-in appeared in a propaganda video from Syrian rebels in an attack on the city of Aleppo. When he…

Global hotel brand AccorHotels taps into key consumer trend to build brand affinity In the highly competitive world of hotel brand loyalty the battle is raging for the hearts of consumers. Air bnb – the worlds largest hospitality brand that doesn’t own a single room,…

Will putting a trademark on hashtags restrict its ability to be successful? In recent times, brands have increasingly been using their own bespoke hashtags to communicate with customers. As the use of hashtags becomes more common, hashtag trademark applications filed have followed suite. The words…

As Instagram announces its changes to their timeline, are brands already planning for the future? Instagram have recently announced they will be gradually rolling out a new algorithm based timeline replacing the existing chronological format, with a broad roll out expected in the coming months.…

New times equal new challenges for re-branding Over the last twenty years we’ve been working with business to re-position and refresh their brands the most significant change we’ve witnessed is the internet. Not such a ground breaking thought I know; the net has forever changed…

99 designs‘ business model puts emphasis on quantity over quality with their multiple designers and claims of “incredible results”, as designers compete to give you a “great custom design solution”.  Yes, I said COMPETE. With 4 offices in Australia, USA, Germany and Brazil, 99 designs…