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Match flips the dating proposition in cheeky new campaign

USA dating site Match creates a bold outdoor campaign that takes a me first approach. The dating app market is massive but also largely undifferentiated. That’s why this latest campaign from Match in the USA caught my eye. Rather than promising to find ‘the one’,…

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The Price / Differentiation Matrix and why your brand needs to master it.

Are you missing this important dimension of your brand strategy? Price has always been a key dimension of brand building. Ever since E. Jerome McCarthy identified the Four P’s of marketing (Price, Product, Place and Promotion) brands have understood the relationship between price and brand…

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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…

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Morrison and Shorten fail to build brand differentiation

Spot the difference: Neither of the leaders has an engaging or distinctive personal brand. While the polls have consistently pointed towards a narrow win for Labor, they also highlighted very small differences in whom Australians prefer as their PM. The last Newspoll before the election…

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Volvo Brand Walks the Talk on Sustainability.

In branding, doing is more important than saying. How do you build a unique and valued dimension to your brand proposition, one that connects your values with those of your core audience? You walk the talk, demonstrating your beliefs through remarkable brand gestures. It’s not…

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The 3 golden brand rules to standing out in a crowded market

The strategic brand thinking at the heart of every successful brand. Over the weekend I was having a conversation for the thousandth time with the owner of a relatively new, fast growth business who I realized was hearing it for the first time. The conversation…

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Stabilo Boss campaign creates powerful brand storytelling

Bright idea highlights incredible women and rewrites history After a disgraceful week of politics, we’ve lost another Prime Minister but perhaps the real loss in the fallout is Julie Bishop. So it’s quite fitting that I came across this campaign from Stabilo Boss. Created by…

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Bonds ad campaign breaking female stereotypes with ‘The Queendom’

New Bonds ‘Originals’ brand messaging on female stereotype’s in their recent ad campaign ‘The Queendom’ is an inspiring piece of brand communication strategy and a refreshing change in women’s underwear marketing. Powerful and playful, the ad is set in remote Australian ‘bushland’ known as ‘The…

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A $243 sandwich: the positioning power of ultra premium product

Don Wagyu leverages premium positioning to stand-out in a crowded food market. I recently read about a new fast casual Japanese Sandwich concept from New York called Don Wagyu. The article I read spoke about their hero product, The Ozaki, a wagyu beef sandwich that…

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Repositioning of the Royal Brand

Repositioning the Royal brand so it remains relevant is no doubt a strategy the British Monarchy are comfortable pursuing if the recent wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and her presence in the Royal Family is any indication to go by. I was one…

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The first steps to creating a new brand. Part One.

We’re constantly working with start-ups and entrepreneurs looking to get their brand up and running on limited funding. Wondering what they can do to guarantee value from the process and for ways to use the budget as efficiently as possible. So over my next two…

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A legal imperative to rebrand and differentiate

It’s been a busy month for new business in Truly Deeply, which we’re all loving. Lots of new clients, new projects and interesting branding challenges for us to tackle. But one new business meeting in particular stands out at the moment, not because the size…

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Brand leadership for Australia

Brand leaders Every great brand we’ve created or worked with over the years has had one thing in common: great brand leadership. That is the individual or individuals who have the vision for what they want that organisation to be and use brand to tell…

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What P.T. Barnum taught me about branding

Of Show Business & Branding A good mate of mine sent me an email this morning with a link to the trailer of The Greatest Showman, the first feature film of her great friend Michael Gracey. She was proud as punch and so she should…

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Smells Different. Demeter leverages the romance of everyday experiences.

Fragrance brand bucks category norms to standout in highly competitive fragrance category. Demeter continues to defy the age old art of using sex, glamour and mystique to sell fragrance. Instead, the brand uses everyday experiences as their inspiration. The US fragrance company has just released…

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Why Consumers Love a Brand that Stands for Something

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…

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Volley roots for change and outplays them all

Grass Roots campaign clearly differentiates and revives the brand Iconic Australian footwear brand Volley’s ‘grassroots’ campaign is doing wonders for the brand. Until recently, Volley was perhaps one of those brands that you might have questioned whether it still existed. Not any more. Volley are…

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Patagonia continues to differentiate by living their brand beliefs

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…

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The Psychology Behind the World’s Most Recognizable Brand Sounds

The power of sound in brand differentiation In the battle for customers, brands have long engaged the senses in order to create unique and identifiable properties  they can own in the minds of their customers. All brands strategically or otherwise set-out to own a concept…

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Fitbit after sales builds positive brand differentiation and loyalty

How after sales contributes to brand reputation After sales is often non-existent, designed to minimise costs, or simply not a priority for many brands – but it should be. With more and more consumers reading reviews online before purchasing, after sales service is becoming an…

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Why I love being a brand manager at Truly Deeply

  Have you thought about switching to brand? For any account handler / client service person looking to scratch an itch in their career path, in particular those working in traditional advertising big agencies, I’d love to give some accounts of my perspective in my…

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Brilliant brand storytelling from Burberry takes branded content to a new level

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…

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Uber trades cars for horses for Cup weekend

It still gets me three years into living in Melbourne, that Victorians get a day off work, to gamble on horses, but hey, I’m happy to not have to come in tomorrow. While I will be avoiding the crowds personally and enjoying a day off, I’ve…

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Six Degrees – Rebranding a key recruitment provider for the future

Leveraging brand to stay fresh when you’re at the top of your game. Six Degrees Executive is a specialist search consultancy, focused on the recruitment of mid-level to executive professionals across multiple industries. The business over the past 10 years have immersed themselves to become…

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Kodak rides the modern nostalgia trend to resurrect its brand

The once iconic photography brand is back with new products and its 1971 brand icon. After more than decade, Kodak are hoping to revive some brand nostalgia and engage a new generation. As a counter trend to the digital evolution, just about anything analogue in…

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No differentiation. Wesfarmers continues to cannibalise their brands.

Target gives up on brand differentiation and becomes another Kmart The remarkable turnaround of Kmart in the past few years has left its competitors scrambling to compete. The strategy has achieved its goal of killing Big W. However, in the fight, Westfarmers has also severally…

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lululemon continue to differentiate with community

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…

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100 years of brand differentiation – Audi stays ahead of the curve

“There’s no point in pushing forward if you’re always going the same way as everyone else”. This is a great line from a recent Audi ad which demonstrates the power of always putting yourself where your competitors aren’t and offering something different to your market. Audi…

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Is Apple’s attempt to distance itself from China brand spin or brand craft

Apple’s ‘Made in China’ Brand Messaging Maybe I’m a little late to the party, but on the weekend I notices for the first time the small print on the back of my iPhone 6 which says: ‘Designed by Apple in California Assembled in China’. I…

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Brand differentiation: Lye back and think of Iceland

Enjoy Our Nature’s explosive Icelandic condom packaging. As a brand agency with differentiation at our core, we’re always looking for unique ways to help brands standout from the pack. We salute brands who see the world differently, so we couldn’t go past this brand packaging…

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Standing out from the clutter to find true brand differentiation

On average consumers receive on average 3,000 marketing messages everyday, you’re no longer just competing against your direct competitors you’re competing against all messages that bombard people’s lives in order to get noticed. By offering the same, product, features and benefits as your competitors you…

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Branding, invisible gorillas and the art of standing out

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…

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Brand differentiation: Sometimes you just need an asshole.

Asshole or hero? Donate Life takes boldly different approach to organ donation. We often talk about the importance of brands being brave and different to truly standout and that’s just what Donate Life America has done with its latest campaign. The World’s biggest asshole dials…

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How American Baseball taught us the Golden Rule of Brand Differentiation.

Differentiation works in Major League Baseball too. Re-reading Marty Neumeier’s book ‘Zag’ this week, I was fascinated by the story of America’s shortest ever professional baseball, Willie Keeler. Wee Willie, as he was known back in the good ol’ politically incorrect days of the 1890s…

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Time for Telstra rethink its brand proposition as it comes under attack again

Once again Telstra’s public relations team is frantically working to deal another brand attack, this time from Choice. The problem for Telstra is their network performance is not just core to the brand, it is really everything the brand stands for. Telstra needs to urgently…

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Milk brands need genuine brand differentiation to survive

Time for Lion Group to step up. It’s milk brands, including PURA and Dairy Farmers are suffering from no real brand differentiation and now they are fighting a legal as well as marketing battle. For decades, full cream milk has been just been milk. The…

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