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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…

Does this amusing parody of brand story telling diminish the effectiveness of this branding approach? OK, so we’re the first ones to rave about the virtues of authentic brand story telling. We love to discover a passionate, artisan craftsman sitting at the heart of a…

From boring and monotonous to creative and exciting – the success story of Samsung Mobile Thinking back to a decade ago, when consumers thought about Samsung, the image of a true technology and innovation company would spring to mind. Fast forward to now, Samsung represents a…

When was the lat time you heard a really good story… from a brand? It’s part of the way we’re wired that we relate to stories with a level of engagement and emotion that is simply not attainable for functional messaging. And whilst all brands…

When is a car more than a brand? Never! Specially when we don’t want to talk about the car, but we still have to sell them? Volkswagen latest campaign #morethanacar focused directly on the value of brand heritage to stir the emotions in the car…

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.

The 2016 Olympic Games in Rio is all about bringing people together and celebrating the environment. A closer look into the design of the logo, by Fred Gelli. The 2016 Olympic Games are fast approaching and this year it will be held in Rio De Janeiro in Brazil…

Loved brands are profitable brands Is the whole ‘Loved Brands’ thing a fluffy piece of feelgood PR from the branding community or a commercially savvy strategy? That so much cynicism surrounds the brand industry must be a reflection of the inability of the industry to…

If you’ve got a positive brand association, flaunt it! Brand placements in feature films is big business. Brand owners like auto maker FCA who own Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, Ram and FIAT brands in the US market clearly see a Hollywood blockbusters as an A grade engagement…

Big food’s short term thinking on sugar Every day there seems to be more and more information surfacing about the activities of major food brands in response to the obesity epidemic the western world is facing. There’s little doubt they’re using their financial muscle and…

Brand engagement remains critical for challenger brands. We love when one of our brands takes flight. The task for any brand that seeks to challenge their market is how to stand apart when engaging through mainstream media. TVCs for example are a high cost/high risk/high…

Bulgarian architect Yasena Popover’s unique view of everyday objects reminds us there is always room for creative expression of you subject no matter how mundane they may seem. Taking ordinary objects, ordinary brands she transforms them using recoloured photography into beautifully complex works of art.…

Disruptive Brand Building – Simple and Effective A recent newspaper article caught my eye with the headline; ‘Melbourne woman gives birth in the back of Uber car in New York’. From a brand perspective there’s plenty to find fascinating here; Would this article have been written if…

Creating an ad to capture the spirit of a place is one hell of a task. Only slightly easier than creating the overarching place brand. Having worked on more than a few place branding projects, I fully comprehend the challenge of competing attributes and stakeholders.…

NYC design pair Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman combine to create this ripping side project. They describe what they’ve created as: “We all use so much shit. We collect shit, buy shit, steal shit, trade shit and then throw shit away. So what happens with…

WWF Visual Identity Re-Design Adds to the Brand Messaging In a clever piece of brand identity design extension, designer; Yana Makarevich uses the existing shapes of the iconic WWF panda into three other endangered species animal silhouettes. Whilst none of the new three animals has…

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…

A High Class Brand Problem So what do you do when you’re the global market leader? When your brand and packaging is recognized in almost every corner of the world? When your product and brand already command a premium price? What on earth do you…

Welcome to the New Retail Era The world of retail is changing more rapidly than ever. On-line stores compete with off-line stores, fashion boutiques feature new ranges every month, and it seems almost everything can be made in China for next to nothing, creating undifferentiated…

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…

All Brands Have Meaning Whether carefully and strategically considered or by default, all brands hold associated meanings in 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…