Ventura Boulevard

SUPERBOWL: THE AUTO BRANDS

2012-02-03T16:06:00.004Z

Forget the football, we all know the Superbowl is all about the commercials. Ahead of Sunday’s big day, here are my top 5 Superbowl car commercials:

Chevrolet Camaro – "Happy Grad"

Honda CR-V – "Matthew’s Day Off"

Volkswagen – "The Dog Strikes Back"

Audi - "Vampire Party"

Chevrolet Silverado - "2012"

2011: Brand Heroes

2011-12-20T21:01:00.004Z

It might have been another tempestuous year for world politics and the global economy, but there were some fantastic brands doing great work in 2011. Here’s a look back at some of the highlights, and with particular reference to UK activity.

The G Word

It would be difficult to talk about some of the year’s biggest brand activities without mentioning Google. Google’s push to become a legitimate Facebook competitor went into overdrive this year, and whilst some of its activities – like launching its first social network, Google+ - have been quite subjective, they mark a vital shift in positioning the Google brand to own far more than just search. What’s more, 2012 will be an even more interesting year as G+ matures and evolves and Google launches a raft of other new products, like Google Wallet, which is already changing the way Android users shop online.

You Sound Like You’re From London

Frozen yoghurt brand Pinkberry said Hello London when it finally reached British shores with its very own store at Selfridges. Pinkberry wasn’t the only new American brand the Brits said hi to, with online newspaper brand The Huffington Post setting up shop in the UK.

Huffington Post UK extended its offering beyond the technology and culture publishing we’re accustomed too, with new departments like celebrity and entertainment, making HuffPost a bigger news and lifestyle destination, extending its appeal to the mass market.

Yo Yo! We’re Farming in Harmony

Organic yoghurt brand Yeo Valley launched a follow-up to last year's superb farming rap with an all-new music video based around their brand proposition ‘Live in Harmony’. Launching during the commercial breaks for X Factor, Yeo Valley revealed their very own boy band - who to be completely honest, wiped the floor of any of this year’s X Factor contestants. Great brand-building advertising like this, along with good quality products have helped to turn Yeo Valley into an FMCG success story of 2011. It’s everything we’ve come to expect from the surprisingly irreverent dairy brand, and with sales up at least 15% year on year, it’s been worth it.

Whilst on the subject of farming, The National Trust decided to bring Farmville to life with MyFarm, an online community of farmers built around one of their trust properties. For just £30, MyFarm offers people the chance to become real farmers on one of its properties in Cambridgeshire – helping to make decisions about livestock, feed, what to farm and the general running of the estate, as well as being able to visit in person.

Speedy Caffeine

Against a backdrop of the highest youth employment for a generation, Starbucks announced 200 new stores in the UK - most of which will be drive-thru outlets.

Good news for supercar brand Mclaren who returned with their first new model since 1994, the MP4-12C. Whilst it might sound like a microwave, this new supercar is anything but a domestic appliance. Taking on the might of the supercar world is no small feat, nor is its advanced Surrey factory or endorsement from Formula One racing driver Lewis Hamilton. 2012 looks set for another new Mclaren model, the MP4-27, which if the MP4-12C is anything to go by, won’t be a blender or a juicer either.

Over here, overpriced and oversold? The Americanization of the British brandscape:

2011-12-02T14:23:00.006Z

By blanketing London’s streets with American brands, are marketers forgetting the importance of brand experience, not just product availability?

London is one of the most culturally diverse cities on Earth with 1 in 3 residents born overseas. This makes it a great melting pot for global brands, so it’s no surprise that American companies have made some of the biggest impacts on this side of the pond.

It began in the 1970s and 1980s with McDonalds, Burger King and Gap, and in the 1990s with the introduction of Starbucks. But it was only in late 1990s and early 2000s that the UK’s love affair with American brands truly began, and beyond that of hamburgers or jeans. Today American brands are a huge part of the British retail landscape, with the likes of Abercrombie & Fitch, Anthropologie, Banana Republic, Costco, Hollister, Whole Foods Market, American Apparel, Chipotle Grill, Forever 21, Aldo, all making the UK their European base.

It’s interesting to see how some of America’s premium fashion and retail brands have made it big in the UK, whilst brands from other sectors fail, with American car brands and tech brands leaving Brits unimpressed and uninterested.

You only have to walk past London’s huge Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store on Savile Row to witness the huge appetite consumers have for the preppy clothing giant. But today, trips to Abercrombie & Fitch in London are avoided; the hoards of teenage girls from the Home Counties and the never ending supply of tourists makes it one of London’s busiest retail environments, which would be tolerable if it weren’t for the fact you’re purchasing an item you can buy in a quiet suburban American mall for half the price.

The ‘supply and demand’ Abercrombie has created by expecting customers to line up outside it’s A&F and Hollister stores has for some, had quite the negative impact on the brand – huge demand means huge crowds which therefore impacts on the quality of the experience, so whilst Abercrombie might have gone to extraordinary efforts to ensure the look, the smell, the image, the furniture, the visual merchandising (staff) is what you’d expect of any of its US stores, they didn’t bank on the tourist scrum and unpleasant experience of it just being too crowded.

It’s not just Abercrombie that’s falling short on experience. Doughnut brand, Krispy Kreme, originally a novelty in the UK, could only be purchased in Harrods when it first arrived. Now, thanks to a POS partnership with Tesco, every supermarket and garage forecourt has a Krispy Kreme POS and nobody’s convinced those donuts are fresh or appealing.

Starbucks has always prided itself on putting experience first, Howard Schultz, CEO once said,

"We believed very early on that people's interaction with the Starbucks experience was going to determine the success of the brand."

Starbucks is certainly one of America’s global success stories and the UK is no exception, but for all their talk of consistent experience, Starbucks is a prime example of an American brand that is not born equal. The sheer size of its operations makes consistent experiences and levels of service extremely difficult. Starbucks service in the UK falls short on its US counterparts – from the choice and freshness of products to the little touches from American Starbucks baristas – like asking for your name when ordering – that simply make it a much better experience over there.

Starbucks' recent announcement that it plans to open 200 more branches in the UK - predominantly drive-thru - will be an interesting move, providing an experience (drive-thru coffee) that has previously been overlooked by most coffee brands in the UK.

Of course, not all American brands have ventured across the pond, and there are some that could offer something rather different to UK consumers. For example, quirky US grocery chain, Trader Joes, offers cheap yet good quality products in a fun store environment that always manages to feel independent where so many American chain box stores don’t. And whichever city you’re in, you can be sure Trader Joes reflects the neighbourhood in some way, shape or form. Trader Joes would certainly make an interesting alternative to the ambiguous UK supermarket scene where you either shop cheap (Asda, Tesco) or shop quality (Waitrose, M&S) – Trader Joes could offer us both.

Starbucks’ service and Abercrombie’s overcrowding aside, there are some seriously promising examples of American brands getting product, service and experience just right for the UK market. Texas-based organic grocery brand Whole Foods Market has tapped into the burgeoning American expat community in leafy parts of west and north London, plus they’ve spread east into Stoke Newington in London’s up and coming East End - an area that is arguably the UK’s answer to Brooklyn. At the other end of the spectrum, wholesale brand, Costco, has struck a cord with British consumers and businesses looking to save money by buying in bulk – something the giant American firm knows all about. And with further expansion from the likes of youth fashion brands like Forever 21 and Aldo, it really would seem Britain’s love affair with American brands is far from over.

#Occupy: The Brand

2011-11-18T18:56:00.004Z

It’s been fascinating to watch the speed in which the global Occupy protests have spread across the world, and how in so many ways, #Occupy has been one of 2011’s most high-profile brands.

But, all successful brands need a clear proposition; a rallying cry to their customers and their stakeholders that succinctly demonstrates who they are, what they do and what they believe. From what I've seen, #Occupy doesn’t do any of this, and for that reason I think it’s a real shame. With so many good intentions, Occupy could be so much more. As a protest, it seems to spin so much varied propaganda against governments, corporations and “The Man” that people are unsure whether the Occupy movement is anti-capitalist, anti-government, anti-war or all of the above.

Take over a bank-owned building? Set up a campsite outside a national landmark? The “99 percent” certainly don’t relate to any of this. Occupy should be more like TED and less like Greenpeace; focused on engaging with people across the world, not tactical and gimmicky PR stunts which generate headlines and not a lot else.

Ultimately, Occupy isn’t a very good brand. It doesn’t relate to as many people as it would like to. It is therefore, perhaps more a meme – no more effective than the likes of Angry Birds or Rebecca Black – and in time, it too will grow tired and be little more than an archived headline.

Smashing Stuff

2011-11-01T10:56:00.001Z

Smashable Brands

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Niche engineering or engineering niches?

2011-08-04T19:28:00.002+01:00

Whatever happened to simple choice?

Whether you’re ordering a coffee, picking laundry detergent or purchasing a new car, the sheer volume of consumer choice today can be overwhelming and complicated.

Look at the car industry. Today you can choose from an enormous array of vehicles in hundreds of shapes sizes from city cars, superminis, family hatchbacks, saloons, estates, crossovers, estate MPVs, SUV estates, mini MPVs, midi-MPVs, people-carriers, SUVs, compact SUVs, mid-size SUVS, full-size SUVs, pick-ups, pick-up SUVs, SAVs, urban activity vehicles, grand tourers, convertibles, roadsters, sports cars, supercars, hypercars. The list goes on.

Even Audi, a brand I personally hold in great esteem, is well and truly in on plugging any perceived gap in the marketplace. They currently sell three sizes of SUV, Q3, Q5 and Q7 with talk of more SUVs to plug the gaps – including an “SUV convertible”. They sell something like 45 different bodyshapes. That’s before the millions of possible colour, trim, engine and spec combinations. All this makes visiting an Audi showroom a mind-boggling affair.

Back in the 1970s, if you wanted a new car, you picked either a three box saloon (sedan), a hatchback or an estate (station wagon) and if you were single a two seater sports car. If you lived on a farm you had a Land Rover.

It’s not just the automotive industry. I was at a Starbucks in a motorway service station in Northern England last month when a fellow customer asked for “a coffee”. The Starbucks guy looked confused and perplexed.

All this choice also comes at a cost. Most brands can’t do choice without letting something slip, be it product quality or customer service. There’s fine line between a product being tailored to us and it just becoming overwhelmingly complex. Perhaps it’s time to go back to doing fewer things really well.

+Brand

2011-07-20T09:14:00.003+01:00

Google’s first foray into the world of social networking, Google+, has already reached an impressive 10 million users. Impressive, when you consider it’s reached that figure in just 2 weeks, when it’s taken the location-sharing app, Foursquare, over 2 years to reach the same number of users.

But beyond the hype and the staggering pace of growth, Google has been quick to discourage brands from signing up to G+ just yet, asking businesses to wait for the business-specific Google+ for Brands which launches later this year. Once that’s available what might Google+ be able to offer brands and businesses?

Making it personal
Google+ fosters one on one interaction. We’ve heard social companies say that before but with G+, relationships and circle segmentation is largely personal - you cannot see the name or the description of a Circle you’re in, neither can you see who else is in a fellow circle.

Tailored engagement
Because circles on G+ are largely private so can the relationships be between users and brands. Unlike Facebook, where brands can be ‘liked’ sometimes for the wrong reasons (be it social kudos, peer pressure) or retweeted publically on Twitter, maybe in a bid to get some free stuff. Google+ can create truthful, useful engagement directly between users and brands by directly share tailored information, services and experiences with one another. There’s no audience and no pretence, just direct interaction.

The key thing for me about G+ is that shouldn’t be positioned compete too aggressively with Facebook and Twitter. As a network, it has a great opportunity to collaborate and learn from users’ full social graph, from their tweets, the friends they have on Facebook, their photos of Flickr, the style in which they write their blog posts, if Google is smart enough.

Google+ may represent a great opportunity for brands but we don’t yet know whether it will rely upon a user specifically requesting to ‘Circle’ a brand and if a user is prepared to do that, then it’s likely they’ve already got a good relationship, one which isn’t unique to Google+.

Ni hao, Luxury.

2011-07-12T12:14:00.002+01:00

China's contagious love affair with luxury brands

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Gone in 60 Seconds

2011-06-28T08:23:00.004+01:00

1 minute on the internet, fantastically visualised by Go-Globe

People-fying Brands

2011-06-22T15:58:00.008+01:00

Companies talk endlessly about how "human" their brands are.

But what if brands actually were people, what would they be like? Young or old? Male or female? Straight? Gay? Liberal? Conservative? Would they have a quirky sense of humour or would they bore you to death if you sat next to them at a dinner party?

What ever type of person they'd would be, it's certain that brand personalities have evolved far beyond just creating a perception or a desired image - brands now have to live up to their reality, across every experience, every action, every touchpoint, every single day. A list of 'brand values' in an annual report simply won't cut it anymore.

Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once said,

"Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own"

Just like us, if brands try to be something they’re not, we can instantly see straight through them. We live in an age of real-time interpretation - being trustworthy and real are the two most important qualities any organization should aspire to.

Consumers are smarter than brands, if you don’t align what you say with what you do, they'll find you out soon enough.

Match, Set, Brand.

2011-06-20T14:07:00.007+01:00

The 125th Wimbledon Tennis Championships kick off this week, so as ever, it’s not just the sporting activities I’ll be playing close attention to, but also the brands getting in on the act. Who's likely to waste our time distracting us from some decent tennis and who will get stuck right in and make the most of this great British event?

Polo Ralph Lauren
Ralph Lauren's fifth year at the helm of all things fashion-related at Wimbledon. With a navy blue jacket, polo shirt and shorts adorned with '125th’ on the collar and the 125th logo on the arm, the ballboys and ballgirls look suitably spiffing.
Ralph Lauren

Sony

Sony’s first year as “Official 3D Partner” means the 2011 Wimbledon finals will become the first Grand Slam tennis to be broadcast in 3D. Sony have also created a Wimbledon version of their legendary bouncy ball ad for the Bravia using, you guessed it, tennis balls. Although it's a slight shame they've used CGI, but perhaps the residents of leafy SW19 may have had a few things to say about 1,000 tennis balls flying down their streets. Let's hope the 3D broadcast makes up for it.
Bounc3d.com

Evian

If last year's Evian branded VIP suite is anything to go by, there will be T4 presenters galore and plenty of free lobster, but nothing for tennis fans or mere mortals.

Pass the champagne and strawberries and let's begin!

Range Anxiety.

2011-06-04T10:00:00.008+01:00

With the news that Nissan's much-hyped all-electric Leaf isn't meeting its sales targets, can we admit the green bubble is finally bursting?

We know "green" technology (or rather "green" marketing) is big business for car manufacturers but the reality is becoming ever more disappointing. Consumers want to lessen their carbon footprint. Governments provide tax breaks and incentives for electric cars. Great, until your realise these cars are paid for, er, by the tax payer, or you as you're also know as.

In London, local councils are squandering thousands of pounds on rows of plug-in parking spaces which could otherwise be used for the thousands of existing cars on the road.

In the US, why did Nissan think selling an electric car with a 100 mile range would be appeal to anyone beyond the Hollywood Champagne Socialists? It makes no sense when you consider how many Americans have to contend with a daily 100 mile+ return commute. Sitting at the side of the 405 out of juice really isn't a pleasant prospect.

Governments need to stop chasing the electric dream and better support companies like Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and Peugeot in their efforts to create Diesel Hybrid technology - better MPG than a Prius, better performance than a regular Diesel, and cars that aren't styled like a slug in a hair shirt.

It's safe to say the internal combustion engine isn't dead just yet folks.

The Brazilian brands making waves around the world

2011-05-06T15:44:00.006+01:00

Havaianas
Could Havaianas be the world’s favourite Brazilian brand?
Fun, funky and affordable, Havaianas encapsulates everything the world might expect from a Brazilian brand – colourful, vibrant but most of all, incredibly inclusive – a brand that has something for everyone. It’s also not just overseas where Havaianas are in demand, a third of Brazilians are estimated to go through at least one pair a year.
www.havaianas.com

Melissa Shoes
This sexy Brazilian footwear company has been taking the fashion world by storm for nearly 30 years. Melissa shoes are made from eco-friendly mono materials that can be disassembled and recycled, attracting the likes of Jean Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood to design their own special edition ranges. Not only that, the brand’s vibrant artistic displays in-store are as just as much the essence of the brand as the shoes themselves with Melissa continuing to grow its loyal fanbase which includes the likes of Katy Perry and Dita von Teese.
www.melissashoes.com.br

Petrobras
Petrobras may be the largest organization in Latin America and one of the world’s largest energy companies, but it's also one of the most collaborative, placing great importance in Brazil’s cultural production, helping to fund films, theatre plays and scholarly works - making Petrobras the largest sponsor of culture in Brazil since the 1990s.

Petrobras' most recent collaboration with magazine and image site Lomography sees the brand inviting people from all over the world to submit images of what energy means to them, creating a huge user-generated images around the concept of energy. This isn't glossy greenwash but real photography from all corners of the world. Have a look at some of the shots.
Petrobras + Lomography

Sagatiba
We’re all familiar with the rise of Cuba’s rum-based Mojito and its Brazilian cousin, the Caipirinha, is becoming a popular alternative. The Caipirinha uses Brazil’s sugar-cane spirit, Cachaça as its foundation. Sagatiba - the young spirit company is reinventing Cachaça for a new generation, continuing to build its profile in the UK and US as a premium spirit – headed up by an iconic ad campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi.
www.sagatiba.com

I take thee Brand™

2011-04-27T09:54:00.005+01:00

The Royal Wedding. I couldn’t let this epic event pass by without a post or use it as opportunity to decorate the blog. Whilst we’re inundated with TV specials on Wills and Kate and the Royal Family, it’s not just the world’s media screens that are obsessed with the Royal Wedding, brands too have been getting on the action - but is it a patriotic celebration or just one giant marketing bonanza?

We’ve all seen T Mobile’s wedding dance viral, and over the past few months we’ve been subjected to some truly obscure Royal Wedding inspired marketing ploys. In fact, there is barely seems a sector not in producing something in tune with this right Royal event.

Highlights include the the commemorative Oyster card holder, the right royal Burger King crown and the limited Royal Wedding gnomes from B&Q which are sure to bring some joy to your garden. If you're feeling hungry and thirsty, surely the infinitely classy ‘Prince William’ champagne should quench your thirst and when you reach for the bread you'll discover Hovis' packaging has gone all Union Jack on us.

But it’s not all patriotic tat and Royalist merchandise. Away from all the chintz and commemorative plates, there are some pretty subtle Royal brand connections where big bucks are likely to be made. In fact, premium fashion brands Reiss and Whistles have already seen a boost in sales from “Kate Middleton effect”, and Jon Zammett, Audi’s Head of PR will be attending the wedding ceremony - the luxury German car brand has been a long-term favourite with the Royal family with Kate, William, Harry, Charles, Camilla and even the Queen currently owning or leasing an Audi.

My thoughts, as an atheist are that if I’m happy to buy Easter eggs and Christmas puddings, then I don’t have to be Royalist to enjoy the spirit of the Royal Wedding, and if you so happen to have shares in a number champagne producers and pottery makers, then you’ll likely enjoy the event even more.

Sure it’s a giant marketing bonanza designed to flog more odious union jack pillows and those damn Keep Calm and Carry On posters, but at the end of the day - it’s also just a guy and girl getting married, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

May contain artificial brands

2011-03-24T22:51:00.009Z

Nearly 3 years ago, in the midst of the global recession, grocery retailer Tesco launched a range of products with their own brand names, with innocuous names like Daisy washing up liquid, Creamfields dairy products and Country Barn cereals.

With the launch of Tesco's Yoo yoghurt brand this week, it would appear it's not just a combative marketing offensive for the credit crunch, but a long-term strategy for Tesco to steal market share from big brand name competitors.

The new Yoo brand yoghurt range is designed to take on the might of Muller and Danone with Tesco claiming Yoo products will be 20% cheaper. But are artificial brands really good for brand loyalty and shouldn't retailers like Tesco be investing in their own brand rather than an artificial name?

Customers want honesty and transparency from retailers, not further choice and confusion in an already oversaturated marketplace.

William Smith doesn't shop at Tesco.

Is the Big Society brand in the bargain bin?

2011-03-03T21:05:00.006Z

I hope not.

According to British Prime Minister David Cameron, the aim of the Big Society is to "promote community empowerment, open up public services and encourage social action."

But it’s easy to see why so many people view the Big Society brand merely as political packaging for extensive budget cuts and huge job losses in post-recession Britain.

But that’s not how we should view it. Take politics out of the equation. With an unstable economy and doom and gloom on every corner, this is a chance for people to start thinking about themselves and others. Becoming more social; more open, more honest. You don't have to give up your time and start charity work. Just get to know your neighbours and rediscover what it means to be a community.

It’s why Rachel Botsman is championing Collaborative Consumption and why Arthur Potts Dawson launched The People’s Supermarket.

Sure, the Big Society is about being collaborative but it's also a huge opportunity for all of us to be more entrepreneurial. Treat your life like a start-up business and start thinking big.

Teamwork, visualised.

2011-02-19T23:21:00.010Z

What makes a good team? The question posed in the London office of Wolff Olins last week, visualised by Geetika Alok.

Happy Marketing Day ❤

2011-02-13T16:27:00.006Z

M&Ms USA

Baci Italy

HMV UK

What are the three most middle-class cars?

2011-02-11T22:11:00.006Z

A simple enough question you may think, but on further analysis fraught with complications.

The Volvo estate
The Volvo estate has been the perennial family car of choice for the middle-classes, kept for years and treated like one of the family. The weathered Brittany Ferries GB sticker is a timely reminder of French holidays in the Loire and the Dordogne and the BASC sticker and dog guard are visual signs that a pair of Spaniels or Labradors also call this Volvo their own. The ‘Keep Hunting’ sticker confirms their allegiance to British traditions and the well-used Waitrose bags for life are naturally the green ones you get when you sign up for Price Check.

The Volkswagen Golf
Most middle-classes have owned a Volkswagen Golf at some point their life - the hatchback of choice for the reasonably well-heeled since the 1980s (when Princess Di had one). The Golf may have once been Mummy’s car (bought new) but has been passed down to son or daughter – several hoodies (mostly Jack Wills and Exeter University hockey team) adorn the back seat with enough pashminas to open a Liberty store. Belonging to a University of Exeter graduate, there’s the obligatory spoof-Carlsberg Exeter sticker and the black and white Cornish flag stuck hastily on the boot. These Cornish references slightly juxtapose against the newly-acquired Hammersmith & Fulham parking permit now the Golf’s owner has moved to London to undertake an internship in PR.

The Lexus RX400 Hybrid
The newer middle-classes - expats and urban meedja families – might choose something newer and more socially-conscious, like a Lexus RX400 Hybrid. The battle scars on the bodywork – path of the course on the Hampstead school run. The glovebox full of Camden Council parking tickets are all a breach of human rights, having been earned for stopping on a double yellow line to pick Child A up from piano class in Kentish Town.

As for me?
Fulfilling many brand/design consultancy stereotypes, I drive an Audi TT – but beneath the glossy black exterior, there’s a pair of ancient green Hunter wellies in the boot and Radio 4 on the Audi Concert stereo. All of which slightly jars against the “cool young professional” look I may have been going for.

___

This my guest post for the Middle Class Handbook from Friday 11 February. The Middle Class Handbook an illustrated field guide to Britain's new middle class tribes.

The 3six5

2011-01-26T22:11:00.005Z

Yesterday was my turn to take part in the 3six5 project:

Everyday for 365 days, a different person will write an entry about their experience that day. It doesn't have to be about a specific topic, the key is that it somehow relates to what is happening in the world that day and how it relates to them. By doing so, starting from January 1 to December 31 of 2010, we will have a snapshot of the entire year, told from the perspective of 365 individual voices.365 days will be made available and volunteers from across the country will be able to pick a date of their choice (see below). There is no guarantee that any day will be better than others, because no one can predict the future. Regardless if the selected day in 2010 brings something newsworthy, everyone has a short story to tell that will help create the experience of living through a year in this country.

You can see my day here and sign up yourself at www.the3six5.com

Celebrity Employment

2011-01-25T22:27:00.013Z

Celebrity Endorsement is so 2010. In 2011, it's all about Celebrity Employment.

Name: Victoria Beckham
Job: Creative Design Executive, Range Rover

Being the massive car geek that I am, I was sneaky enough to go along to Range Rover’s 40th Birthday Party at the Kensington Palace Orangery last July (albeit told to stand with the sweaty motoring journalists rather than the A-listers). It was here that Victoria Beckham was revealed as Creative Design Executive for the new baby Range Rover, the Evoque.

There was significant criticism over her appointment but actually I think it’s the perfect combination. Victoria’s fashion range is one of the most classy and effortless brands out there. She’s also incredibly well qualified for the position – both she and husband David have owned countless Range Rovers over the years. She knows the brand inside out, and has the creative nous to add a new dimension to the classic brand, and subsequently reinvent it for a new generation. Good luck to her.

Name: Will.I.Am
Job: Director of Creative Innovation, Intel

Yesterday at a glitzy event in Anaheim, Will.I.Am’s was revealed as Intel’s new Director of Creative Innovation - certainly a ‘ba - ba ba baa’ moment. Here's what Intel had to say:

“It's imperative that Intel and our innovations are kept in front of the global youth culture that embraces new devices and new forms of communication and entertainment."

This, of course, is Intel-speak for "we're down with the kids"

I must admit, like Victoria, Will.I.Am is someone that actually uses Intel products in his daily role and the perfect ambassador.

Name: Lady Gaga
Job: Creative Director, Polaroid

And finally, how could we forget Lady Gaga who was revealed as one of Polaroid's Creative Directors. Here's what Polaroid said:

"On Saturday April 17th, Lady Gaga, the Polaroid Creative Director, led a creative team meeting in Tokyo to collaborate on designs for upcoming co-branded products. Tokyo was an inspirational setting for the meeting, and Lady Gaga was truly visionary in her role. The excitement for these upcoming products was palpable, the joy and spirit of Lady Gaga touched everyone in the room. We can’t wait to share more about the creative process and these one-of-a-kind products."

I must go, I need to add the three of them on LinkedIn.

Animated.

2011-01-19T21:36:00.004Z

Some of my favourite animations over the past year:

Mercedes-Benz GLK

GLK webspecial from zeitguised on Vimeo.

Aol.

Aol. rebrand from zeitguised on Vimeo.

Massive Attack - Splitting the Atom

Massive Attack - Splitting the Atom directed by Edouard Salier from edouard salier on Vimeo.

Up down

2011-01-08T10:59:00.003Z

I wish the Met Office and the BBC would tailor weather reports for convertible drivers.

Brande Latte

2011-01-05T21:45:00.007Z

I really like the new Starbucks logo. Less shouty, more subtle branding fits well with the times and positions the brand well for extension into non-coffee products.

Much like the yellow arches of McDonalds or the dark red star of Pret a Manger, Starbucks is demonstrating what a smashable and truly iconic brand it is.

Plenty more of this in 2011.

Snow Business

2010-12-30T19:31:00.007Z

Unless you’ve lived under a massive rock for the past month, you’ll be acutely aware of the icy wintry weather that’s plagued Europe for most of December and more recently, the North East Seaboard in the US.

Flight delays, traffic chaos, icy pavements and closed stores have brought misery to millions of people during the Holiday season.

But, the doom and gloom aside, some brands seem to have come across rather well in the wintry weather and used it to their advantage.

As ever, it’s two classy British brands that have showed a stiff upper lip and cavalier attitude to the snow.

John Lewis

As we all started slipping on pavements and freezing our bottoms off with cracked water pipes; the range of scarves, coats and boots at John Lewis were more appealing than ever. “The harsh winter weather seems to be here to stay, you might want to invest in a thick winter coat and a pile of cosy jumpers.”

Land Rover

The snow also showed how inept most people are at driving in the snow, that's if they could even get their car off the drive. According to Land Rover’s brand director, John Edwards, interest in Land Rover products were up a third this month and the website received tens of thousands of extra hits. What’s more (pushing all the PR buttons), the 4x4 manufacturer loaned some of its capable vehicles to the emergency services to help out.

Some might argue these brands are trying to profit from nature’s unpredictability, but by reacting to what’s going on in their consumers' world, brands can understand us better and ultimately develop a closer connection and better products.

Happy snowman-building and best wishes for 2011.

NY snow image courtesy of Christopher Schoenbohm on Flickr.

2011

2010-12-21T09:34:00.019Z

Rather than spiel yet another list of "11 trends for 2011" like so many other blogs out there (some great, some not so), here’s a slightly more informal collection of the things I'd like to see more of in 2011. There’s no rigorous research, naval-gazing or extensive consumer testing here; just my take on the world we live in and some of the things I’ve picked up on.

1. Social Quality Control

I want fewer Facebook friends, but ones I really care about. In 2011, it's time to implement some social quality control - only be friends with people you actually care about and want to talk to. Old acquaintances from old schools you never cared for and spying on your ex feels forced and intrusive.

I know a growing number of people who have deleted their Facebook accounts and rebuilt with only a very few selected friends and family, implementing stringent quality control. As Facebook reaches maturity, the days of the sporadic add-anyone-from-school mentality are gone. Brands are sensing this mood too.

Burger King’s 2009 Whopper Sacrifice campaign gained a lot of exposure. It was an incredibly simple idea; delete 10 friends on Facebook (let’s be honest, we probably have more than 10 online ‘friends’ we’d be happy to delete) and get a free Whopper. Tangible benefit. Happy consumer. Job done.

Then there was the Pringles Oversharers campaign. Observing that most of the stuff people share online is totally ridiculous, Pringles identified they should start sharing things that are really worth sharing, like of course, a certain tube-based snack.

I want 2011 to be the year when we decide too much information really is too much information.

2. The Real Thing

BMW used augmented reality to launch the new Z4 last year, followed very shortly by most of its competitors, including Audi with their A1 app. I think it’s great that these brands are working to adopt exciting new technology as part of a major global product launch.

But, somehow they’re getting a bit distracted in all the tech, when what they should be doing is investing in the real experience. The issue I have with BMW is that the augmented reality technology they’ve used isn’t good enough to show off the new Z4 in all it’s glory.

It's not as glossy as an old school 3D TV/Cinema ad or, more importantly, how the car looks, sounds and drives on a free track day that BMW could've held for their online community and loyal fanbase.

Last week I went to complimentary 3 hour off-roading experience in the new Range Rover, courtesy of the lovely people at Land Rover UK. No amount of clever online vehicle configurators or innovative campaign ideas can compete with actually driving the car down a 45 degree angle to showcase the vehicle.

Less technology for technology's sake, and more real experiences.

3. More Location, Location, Location

In 2009, we already saw a shift in social from 'what I’m doing' to 'where I am'. But a year on, very few brands have been able to properly monetise location-based beyond simple benefits like a free cup of coffee for every 10 Foursquare check-ins.

2011 needs to see more adoption of Foursquare, Facebook Places and the like. Crucially, beyond the usual urban areas to provincial towns and rural communities.

4. Proof in the Pudding

In today's transparent culture, no amount of glossy, fluffy branding and marketing hype can hide a truly bad product. Quite simply, the proof is in the pudding.

Make a great product; people will want it and talk about it. Do fantastic stuff. Do the right thing. Employ smart, conscientious and passionate people. Train these people. Invest in them. If they feel passionate about the brand, so will consumers.

Merry Christmas x

Heroes & Villains 2010

2010-12-10T10:51:00.028Z

Who were the superstar brands that solved war, famine and disease and who caused untold pain, misery and suffering? Ok, so no brand was quite that extreme, but which brands did good and bad in 2010; who were the Heroes and who were the Villains?

HEROES

Two of the Brand Heroes featured here are British brands (by heritage, not necessarily current ownership). There’s clearly a powerful trend emerging that continues to see luxury British brands being reinvented for a new generation and a new world order.
2010 was no exception.

Heroes are brands that have stood out; brands that understand what they stand for in the market and create products and services that are both differentiating and relevant.

Burberry

A couple of years ago, if you mentioned Burberry to most British consumers, chav culture with characters such as Little Britain’s miscreant, Vicky Pollard, would probably be the first thought to spring to mind.

How things have changed. The classic British luxury fashion brand is back on true form thanks to increased investment in all things digital and huge demand from high growth markets, most notably China.

But, it’s not just in luxury-loving Asia where Burberry has excelled. In Europe and the US, Burberry has seen plenty of brand-building activity, a lot of which has been in digital. A new online shopping interface, high profile campaigns with Emma Watson, The Art of The Trench, as well as the creation of their own branded content, including Burberry Acoustic, a platform to showcase up and coming talent from the music industry.

In fact, I’ve worked closely with London-based band Patch William over last few months, who were fortunate to be invited to shoot their own Burberry Acoustic video and to also have their track, Skinny White Boy, featured on the official Burberry London Fashion Week soundtrack. For me, this is a first hand example of how Burberry is engaging with its audience and attracting a new generation to the brand.

It’s clearly a strategy that has paid off for Burberry with revenue up 18% this year and 3 million Facebook fans, the highest of any luxury brand.

@Burberry on Twitter
www.burberry.com
______________________________________________________

Lotus

The Norfolk-based sports car manufacturer has seen something of a rebirth this year. Like so many British car brands, Lotus has had a rather tempestuous journey, but with secured investment from Malaysia there’s a future ahead for this brand.

This was cemented in 2010 with four exciting new concept cars revealed, all of which are likely to go into production.
The models show a dramatic new direction for the firm, building on its racing heritage but reinventing the Lotus range.

"There's a fine balance between acknowledging the greatness of the past whilst at the same time rapidly leaping forward to the future”

Dany Bahar, Lotus CEO

Whilst Lotus also featured in this year’s Cool Brands list alongside other British sports car brand Aston Martin, there’s something about the Lotus brand that’s a bit more accessible, especially where price is concerned. This coupled with extensive investment in engineering and technology with a striking and bold new design direction, makes Lotus look very promising indeed.

@LotusCars on Twitter
www.lotuscars.com
______________________________________________________

FitFlop

The toning footwear brand that promises consumers to get a workout while you walk has had an exceptional year. Whilst some consumers might have found the original FitFlop designs rather large and cumbersome, word quickly spread of the health benefits of FitFlop.

In 2010, FitFlop expanded its range of footwear as the brand matures with new styles for women, men and kids. Most notable is the MukLuk, an Ugg-style boot which The Times Style team described as “hot” and selling out.

Given that ‘Wellthy’ is becoming an important trend and consideration, brands like FitFlop are well poised to take advantage of the new aspirationally-healthy consumer and grow in popularity and broaden its appeal.

@FitFlop on Twitter
www.fitflop.com

Image courtesy Heavenlyy on Flickr

______________________________________________________

VILLAINS

And now for the bad stuff. Brands don’t get it right all the time, but with these Villains, it’s not just what went wrong, it’s how they handled their crisis and went about putting things right that told the biggest story.

BP

You couldn’t compile a list of Brand Villains without featuring BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. An accident that causes thousands of gallons of oil to pump out into the ocean, destroying habitats and injuring wildlife is one thing, but it’s a whole other thing being slow to respond and take responsibility.

BP’s poor public relations quickly made the brand Public Enemy No. 1 in the United States, with fictitious BP Global PR Twitter account attracting more followers than BP’s official Twitter feed. It is BP's response, rather than its actions, that will make Deepwater Horizon go down in history as the world’s biggest PR fail to date.

@BPGlobalPR on Twitter
______________________________________________________

British Airways

Strikes, strikes and you guessed it, more strikes.
With BA staff and Chief Exec Willy Walsh embroiled in a bitter and very public feud over pay, passengers were left caught in the middle wondering whether they'd be able to take off or even get home. Whether people agreed with Walsh or the striking BA staff, the one thing they did agree on is that the competitor airlines weren’t striking. The strikes cost BA £98 million.
______________________________________________________

Toyota

At the beginning of 2010, Toyota found itself unstuck, or rather its brake pedals stuck. Toyota issued a worldwide recall of millions of cars following a spate of accidents in the US, believed to be caused by accelerator pedals getting stuck under floor mats.

Whether or not the politicians on Capitol Hill tried to make an example of this Japanese brand in a bid to boost poor sales of domestic US brands is neither here nor there. The fact is, some vehicles did have faults and Toyota did try to cover it up.

Toyota’s high profile campaign to make things right was open, honest and got issues fixed on thousands of cars. Brands don’t always get it right, but it’s how they handle mistakes that says the most. Toyota probably isn’t so much a villain, but has definitely blotted its copy paper.

Image courtesy Lets Bike It on Flickr

Yulevertising

2010-12-07T09:35:00.012Z

Ho, ho, ho!

If you hadn’t noticed from the blog graphics and my Twitter background, I rather like Christmas.

Here's a stocking full of festive brand delights showing what the advertising world is doing this Christmas to peddle their goods to seasonal shoppers around the world. Crucially, there isn’t a Heston Blumenthal Christmas pudding or hideous ‘Here come the girls’ Boots ad in sight.

Dodge United States

In the UK, car brands don’t really do Christmas advertising. But in the United States, seasonal end of year sales are big business for car manufacturers. This year’s witty Dodge ad features Michael C Hall (of Dexter fame) narrating.

Credit Mutuel France

This ad for French high street bank, Credit Mutuel, caused outrage in France. The art direction is nothing special, but shows a father telling his middle-aged son that Father Christmas doesn't exist, drawing a parallel with commission-based financial advisors.

If the concept wasn't controversial enough, the ad was only supposed to air after 8.30pm, but instead aired during a 5pm family showing of Rataouille on TF1. Oops. Better shoot the Planner De Media.

Disclaimer: this is just an advert, you and I both know that Father Christmas is in fact real.

Amazon Kindle United States

This is so much better than the UK advertising for the Kindle. Sure, it's cheesy but it's also true to the brand. It gets the message across quickly, isn't too overtly festive and demonstrates the infinite possibilities of the product.

TAC Australia

Ok, a slight break from the consumer brands and something a bit serious but no less topical, this is Victoria's Transport Accident Commission (TAC) Christmas campaign. Despite the distinct lack of any Christmasness, I've featured this campaign because it really breaks from the guilt-inducing, horrific images we now expect of public service messages. Instead, TAC are taking an aggressive 'there is no escape' attitude to speeders - stating that they will catch 20,000 drivers before the new year. Tough stuff.

Disneyland Hong Kong

Lots of green screen action in this Disney Christmas overload, complete with er, a Disney 'Pet Shop' and winking teddy bear. I love the unashamedly open attitude consumers have to brands in South East Asia.

Merry Christmas x

Lemon.

2010-12-01T17:16:00.018Z

My first car was a Polo.

Three cars later and whilst I'm driving something a bit flashier and more expensive, I still hold Olop in high esteem (the most observant amongst you will realise Olop spells Polo backwards) simply because it was the toughest car I've ever owned. 80,000 miles and all it ever needed was new tires and a couple of oil changes.

The latest model appears to be an evolution of all that's made the Polo a success; honest, well-built, respectable. Not sexy, not exciting, but tough. For the latest ad campaign, DDB teamed up with Jonathan Glazer, the director behind the successful 1998 Polo commercial, Protection.

I like DDB. I like Jonathan Glazer. DDB has produced some of the best advertising in the last sixty years and Glazer has redefined so many great brands, but this latest piece, I'm not so sure of. The ad features Argentinean Tango world champion Gasper Godoy and his partner Manuella Rossi, the world number two, dancing to Don’t Stop by hip hop artist Roc C.

My biggest thought is, why isn't this a SEAT advert? After all, SEAT is Volkswagen's cheaper, sportier stablemate, part of the same Group. The SEAT Ibiza is closely based upon the Polo; sharing engines and chassis but with sportier lines and a slightly lower price tag, making it more accessible to the infamous yoof market.

With strong Spanish roots, the SEAT brand proposition is all about Latin passion with its values being "sporty, design-driven and young" whereas Volkswagen is about rock solid reliability and respectability. Where SEAT is a fiery red, VW is a firm, cool grey. You get the idea. This latest commercial sets out to redefine the Polo but simply confuses people, muddling Volkswagen's identity and purpose in the market.

It's unlikely this is going to shift any more Polos to monied students or grandmothers in middle England, but that's probably not what DDB, Glazer and VW set out to achieve. They wanted to challenge the perceptions of the VW brand, but in doing so, might have forgotten just what that VW badge really symbolises.

Brand Colours

2010-11-23T09:32:00.005Z

Some of the strongest, most smashable brands don't need words or graphics, they simply own their colour. Given the importance brands play in our lives, I've long wondered if Dulux or Crown would ever create a branded colour chart. Ferrari Red or easyJet Orange would sure beat something as innocuous as Moroccan Sunrise.

What's in a name?

2010-11-11T14:01:00.011Z

Rather a lot as it so happens. After Renault's successful court case against French families of 'Zoe Renault' over the naming of its new supermini the Zoe, which brands haven't been quite as successful in naming their products and who didn't do their homework?

Mitsubishi Pajero
In a land long before Google Translate, also known as "the 1980s", this Japanese car manufacturer chose to name its new 4x4 the Pajero. Any Spanish speakers amongst you will know this directly translates as 'wanker'. Although, given the type of folk who drive these dated colossal SUVs, Pajero might not be such a bad choice afterall. European versions were later named Shogun.

Latte
Surely there can't be any problems naming a product after the Italian for milk. Latte should evoke visions of enjoying a creamy, delicious coffee in a sundrenched piazza in Milan or Rome. Not if you're German, where latte is a slang term for an erect male member. I wouldn't recommend ordering a Grande Latte in a Berlin branch of Starbucks any time soon.

Dell Streak
When I first heard about the Dell Streak, I genuinely thought this was an April Fools Joke. Are the Dell marketing people actually taking the mickey? A computer firm not famed for its particularly sexy or reliable or efficient computers taking on the might of Apple's iPad tablet as well as BlackBerry smartphones with a product named after soiled underpants? Fraid so.

When it comes to global brand names, it really pays to know every market inside out.

Extra tuition

2010-11-03T13:50:00.006Z

Instead of forking out £9,000 in tuition fees you could...

Buy a brand new Volkswagen Polo

Buy 1,803 copies of Aleksandr Orlov’s autobiography, A Simples Life

Buy a business class round-the-world plane ticket

Save £27,000 over 3 years for a 20% mortgage deposit on a £135,000 home

Buy 900 copies of Tony Blair's signature off Cherie on eBay

X Factor: The Ultimate FMCG

2010-10-30T17:36:00.005+01:00

For a third of the year, The X Factor grips British television. From bitchy backstage tabloid tales to the domination of the music chart, love it or loathe it, X Factor has an undeniably strong hold on the nation.

Hosting an average 10 million viewers on Saturday and Sunday nights, we’re clearly obsessed by the pomp and puffery of the shows, from Gamu-gate to the quest for best dressed with Dannii vs. Cheryl in the style stakes and of course, the hilarious, sorry, beleaguered stories of how poor / lonely / awful / single mum the contestants lives were before being ‘discovered’ by Simon Cowell and his army of merry men.

But, once you quickly overcome that this television show has never been about music or talent in the traditional sense, everything seems a lot clearer. This is pure entertainment marketing; these contestants aren’t artists or musicians but brands. They are here to be packaged and delivered with aplomb in the marketplace. Mass-market appeal and a clear target market creates an instant fanbase.

With the X Factor franchise set to launch in the United States next year, its presence is only set to grow and your tolerance with it. Embrace it, take it with a pinch, or rather, a ton of salt and you might just enjoy it, but judging by the number of viewers, you probably already are.

The Age of Differentiation

2010-10-20T11:18:00.002+01:00

A unique brand positioning simply isn’t enough anymore.

Brands of every calibre, and in every marketplace, are desperately searching for the point of differentiation from their competitors. So many brands claim to have a unique point-of-view, their ‘own way of doing things’, thinking that they have developed a product that changes the game or that they have infiltrated a previously unexplored market.

But, it’s no longer just about the positioning and the product, true differentiation comes from engagement and experience too. How you engage consumers is just as important as how you engage employees at the core of the brand as this influences the whole brand experience.

Delivering a unique positioning, a consistent brand experience and genuine customer and employee engagement, time and time again, is what sets the great from the good.

Wisteria Lane? Try Consumer Lane

2010-10-19T08:55:00.013+01:00

Brands and entertainment
If it means bigger budgets and better quality, shouldn’t we welcome product placement with open arms?

The rise of the home TV recorder from providers such as Sky and Virgin in the UK and Dish, HBO and TimeWarner in the US has, for many brands, signalled the death of primetime advertising.

According to Mintel, ‘84% of Americans fast forward through the commercials when they’re watching TV on a digital video recorder.’

This makes advertisers reluctant to pay over the odds for primetime slots, particularly when exposure can no longer be guaranteed when with just one click of the fast forward button all is lost.

This leaves brands with fewer channels of guaranteed exposure making product placement an increasingly more attractive and effective option.

I have been an advocate of product placement for years. I believe if it is carried out thoughtfully, brands can be carefully embedded into a production without sacrificing production value. In fact, product placement doesn’t just help big companies sell more stuff, it has the ability to enhance our viewing experience.

Brands make it real

The cars on our drives, the clothes on our backs and the food in our fridge is all branded. Brands are part of our lives, so why wouldn’t they be part of the characters’ lives we watch in movies and on TV? ABC’s Desperate Housewives has been one of the best examples of product placement in recent years and, to their credit, the writers and advertisers have made it work with the packaging of the show.

The middle class, suburban environment has made for a highly popular television series (now in its seventh season) providing countless opportunities for brands. With families and couples of every age (a street full of almost exclusively ABC1 households) providing a seemingly endless array of marketing possibilities from furniture, automotive, fashion, FMCG right through to wallpaper and paint brands.

The producers and product placers on programmes such as Desperate Housewives have gone to the effort of placing ‘the right car’ with ‘the right character’ and by doing so, have added a sense of realism to the show. Eerily perfect housewife Brie Van De Kamp drives a Lexus Hybrid, Edie Britt (character now deceased) fornicated over many sporty 2 seater convertibles whilst soccer mom Lynette Scavo drives a seven seater Ford Flex, and high-flying businessman Carlos Solis, the new Mercedes E.

In fact, the producers have even picked up elements of brand loyalty. Teri Hatcher’s character, Susan Myer, is on her third Volvo in the show, having driven two previous generation Volvos, and with Volvo North America using the show as the ultimate platform to launch the XC60 crossover SUV with Susan driving up and down Wisteria Lane in a fetching red model before it was even on sale in the US.

In fact, Ford Motor Company has been one of the largest sponsors of the show and has used the Desperate Housewives franchise to flog many of its brands, from Volvo, Aston Martin, Mazda and Ford. Nissan, Toyota and Lexus have been in on the action too.

We mentioned successful (and frighteningly perfect) businesswoman,Brie van de Kamp driving the seemingly perfect (if a little insipid) Lexus LS400 Hybrid. In fact, in Season 5, there was a thorough 38 seconds of footage with Brie regaling to her neighbours the merits of the automatic tailgate.

Bigger budgets, better quality

As studios face ever more limited budgets, the extra investment brought in from brands isn’t just a fleeting temptation, but a real and prevalent requirement. Brands will pay big bucks for exposure and the extra income means producers have increased budgets to play with. In return, we get more ‘real’ and believable characters and increased production value.

Get used to it

Whether you like it or not, brands are going to play a greater role in the interests of entertaining us, whether its traditional product placement or even the shift to total advertiser-funded programming. Provided they know how to enhance our experience rather than detract, it’s time to get on board.

Extra padding

2010-09-27T11:22:00.008+01:00

Having just got my hands on an iPad (3 months late, early adopter I'm probably not) I have to echo the views of so many in my utter love for Flipboard - it really makes the iPad. It's not just the beautifully executed design and customisable element, it's the fact it makes utter bollocks statuses Facebook and pointless Tweets look so deeply professional. Well done people.

TT be or not TT be

2010-09-16T12:11:00.003+01:00

TT be.

Following a highly-successful social media campaign, Audi USA will launch the new TT RS in the United States at some point next year.
The campaign sought to raise awareness and gauge support of the high performance RS model in a bid to bring it to American shores.

“With performance and agility rooted in Audi motorsports success, the TT RS is truly an emotional sports car,” explained Johan de Nysschen, President, Audi of America. “That emotion became abundantly clear as we explored interest across the country.”

The campaign led to a petition of over 11,500 signatures via Audi USA’s Facebook and Twitter pages in support - proof that really important things really do get done online.

Bears vs. Cows

2010-09-10T16:35:00.009+01:00

Adland's animals du jour strike fear into minds of the Andrex puppy and Dulux sheepdog. Wait til they see the IKEA cats, that will really freak them.

Nissan Leaf - TBWA\Chiat\Day

Tippex - Buzzman

Muller - VCCP

Anchor - CHI&Partners

Brand Name (Un)originality

2010-08-16T22:11:00.003+01:00

Oversaturated marketplaces are breeding grounds for generic and convoluted naming options. Unsurprisingly, the 4x4 / SUV market is no exception. If you’ve ever had to market one of these ‘urbanproof’ 'built for the city' ‘driving machines’ which 'go beyond', you’ll recognise the difficulty presented. Which names stand out and buck the uniform trend?

What a load of bollocks

2010-08-12T19:57:00.013+01:00

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a plannery type person in the comms industry or not, the wonderful Tweeter @madeupstats presents a humourous reflection of society that we all know exists through, as the name would suggest, made up statistics.

The sentiment ‘many a true word said in jest’ has never been so accurate.

Worth a follow.

"Toto, I don't think we're in Los Angeles anymore"

2010-07-30T19:47:00.011+01:00

A photo from a recent trip back in California with Libby. The baron landscape of Mono Lake combined with my sense of adventure provided the perfect composition. All achieved by accident, of course (I don't use GPS / Sat Nav).

The Curse of the British Incumbent

2010-07-27T21:18:00.009+01:00

2010 has already proved to be a pretty miserable year for some of Britain’s most recognizable brands. With union disputes and subsequent strikes at British Airways, more unsatisfied workers at BT and the ongoing fallout for BP from the Deepwater Horizon disaster; the word tempestuous almost seems too light a word to describe the situation.

So, what’s the biggest problem with these brands? How are they innovating? Are they prepared for the future? These are giant organizations but are they competitive enough?

Going nowhere with BA
British Airways staff seem to have been on strike for the last decade. It’s difficult for my generation to regard British Airways as Britain’s flagship airline, let alone The World’s Favourite Airline, no matter how hard the marketing might try to persuade us other wise. The sight of thousands of distraught, stranded passengers is hardly favourable to the reputation of the airline.

What BA does have (amazingly) is tremendous loyalty, not perhaps enough to justify their tagline but it does surprise me how many individuals still vow to fly by British Airways. Particularly business leaders; BA clearly does a good job of recognizing repeat customers, especially those wealthier First Class passengers. However, to attract a new generation of travelers, BA needs to think internally and start with radical organizational change. Without which, competitors such as Emirates, Virgin and the budget airlines will continue to steal ground.

BT, can you hear me?
Another British brand with significant internal issues, and purely down to its dire levels of customer service and lack of value for money. Naturally as the telco incumbent, BT has the largest infrastructure. This means BT has a guaranteed income stream from line rental, which is currently around £12 a month, set to increase in September. That income comes from every home in the UK with a phone line, no matter who your broadband internet provider is, you still need BT line rental.

You would therefore assume, that choosing BT as your broadband supplier would be the most cost-effective. To achieve the equivalent broadband speed I get from O2 for £10 a month, I would need to spend £24.95 a month on BT, on top of the line rental. It just seems BT has no appreciation of their customers.

One of BT’s largest issues, and perhaps a common one with an organization of this size, is tackling the complexity that being the biggest presents. Take for example BT’s foray into the world of social media, but as this is BT we’re talking about, simplicity and clarity didn’t factor into the equation. They have 8, yes that’s 8, Twitter accounts. The customer service account acts as an angry outpost for disgruntled customers and other 7 act as business offshoots. There’s also BT ‘Fresca’ that sounds more like a yoghurt brand from Danone than an e-commerce division. Innovative BT ain’t.

Is BP really dead in the oily water?
BP is rather different to BA and BT. Until recently, BP had lived a blessed existence (for an oil company), only suffering the usual environmental criticism that Shell, Exxon Mobil or Total also face. That was until 20 April, 2010.

Following the Deepwater Horizon spill, which grew to become the largest oil spill in US history, BP have had bad publicity thrown over them. This has only been emphasized by a series of spectacular PR own-goals. Even trying to tackle the spoof Twitter account @BPGlobalPR took them weeks, and by which point was far too late. The fake account has had a huge number of hits, and even more damaging, a Gulf-sized amount of publicity. Just compare the number of @BPGlobalPR followers to the official @BP_America account.

Whilst I think they’ve shot themselves in the foot with their incompetent PR department, any organization would crumble at the wrath of Barack Obama and the sensationalist American media. This only makes the challenge to rebuild the BP brand an even greater and longer ordeal. In the mean time, I won’t be boycotting BP filling stations.

Where I could simply give or take BT, I don’t dislike BA; I just can’t trust them to get me to where I’m going. The chance of staff striking will always be an ever-present concern for me. Both BT and BA have felt the full force of a discount brand onslaught, but I still feel in the face of this, neither brand has done anything to convince us they provide a high quality service or genuine value for money. So when it comes to picking airlines and broadband, it’s no surprise Virgin and O2 have still got my back.

Stereotypes: Fulham, SW6

2010-07-25T13:04:00.006+01:00

We all know the funniest and strangest creatures on Earth are people, and cities in particular are often the ideal places to witness true human behaviour. Distinctive neighbourhoods and districts can cultivate so many unique stereotypes and reveal some unexpected truths about urban life.
London is a perfect example, which is why I’ve started my series of blog posts on city stereotypes with Fulham. I lived there for 9 months and really got a feel for the place. If you live in SW6, don’t take this personally; afterall, stereotypes work on a broad generalization and it's really just a bit of fun. Although that said, if you do live in SW6, I’d be very surprised if you didn’t recognise at least one of the following characters.

The Not-Quite-a-Sloane-Ranger
Normally named Zara or Sahara.
She like, works in, like, entertainment PR or as a buyer in retail. She’ll drive a Volkswagen Golf, or possibly an Audi A3 if she’s sleeping with her Account Director. Purposely messy blonde hair which requires 2 hours preparation. Insanely grumpy in the mornings waiting for the tube at Fulham Broadway. Weekends spent in default Jack Wills hoody + Ugg boots combo. Hangs out at the Sloaney Pony not because she likes it but because it’s what she thinks she’s supposed to do. Dating Hooray Tom.

Hooray Tom
Just like the Not-Quite-a-Sloane Ranger, this chap isn’t quite posh enough to be a full blue-blooded Hooray Henry. He does however talk incredibly loudly on his iPhone whilst driving an equally loud Foxtons MINI or Chard Toyota Prius. Dresses naturally in a blue gingham check shirt, which he bulk buys in the perennial TM Lewin sale. If he actually sold a couple of houses he might one day move to Chelsea. But until then, a shared pad off the Dawes Road is pleasant enough. Blates cheating on Zara with Sahara.

The Strada Munster Primadonna
Despite the fact her children are of school age and she doesn’t work, this Italian madam still feels the need for a full-time au pair. She has no idea what her husband does for living nor does she care, just so long as he keeps bringing home the Lirra. She wears gigantic Chanel/D&G/Prada sunglasses WHATEVER THE WEATHER, SEASON OR TIME OF DAY. You’ll often see her behind the wheel, trying (the operative word) to illegally park her Italian-registered Porsche Cayenne. Despite living in the UK, she in fact despises all British people.

The Sands End Vicky Pollard
Someone has to counterbalance the ‘posh’ Fulham stereotype and boy does she do it well. She’s often morbidly obese with many illegitimate offspring from various Chelsea fans named Gary. Can be seen arguing with tramps on the North End Road as she plods home from her weekly shop in Iceland. Highly likely to be caught shoplifting DVDs in HMV Fulham Broadway too.

Fulham is the first in a series covering some iconic (and others not so) neighbourhoods in London and Los Angeles.

Fire where there's smoke

2010-07-16T18:34:00.001+01:00

Life Stages in Cars

2010-07-16T12:52:00.002+01:00

And the winner is...

2010-07-16T09:06:00.008+01:00

You might recall at the start of this week I found myself in a challenge with Sophie Bradshaw, another agency Suit, from Manchester. The challenge was for us to live from 9am Monday to 5pm Friday without spending a penny (with the exception of travel costs to and from work).

Well, I am delighted to inform you all that she failed on the 4th day. Her Northern cravings for pie, mash and gravy overwhelmed her and subsequently she went out and bought lunch.

I'm glad that I've proved us 'Soft Southerners' in London can go a week without spending any money, but credit to Sophie as 4 days is still pretty impressive. Living in a city and not spending money is virtually impossible and whilst helpful to your wallet, it wasn't great for my social life. It's very prudent to know you can live for less; but for me, it served as a timely reminder that I'm in a fortunate position that I don't have to.

More importantly, where is that extra bottle of champagne I ordered?

The Great North-South Battle

2010-07-12T10:52:00.007+01:00

Can two account handlers at opposite ends of the country spend nothing from 9am Monday to 5pm Friday?

Living in big cities like London or Manchester has a tendency to rinse every last penny of your salary. So, after recognising that both Sophie Bradshaw (Digital Account Exec at @madebyfudge) and I were making large pots of chili and bolognese for our week ahead, we decided to go one step further and challenge each other to a little social experiment.

With the exception of travel costs to/from work, is it possible for two twenty-somethings to survive a week in the city without spending a penny?

Kristine at BrandPie will be keeping tabs on me and Sophie’s colleagues at Made by Fudge will be doing the same.

Given the Northern stereotype of being tighter than any other region on earth ;), the challenge for me will be to prove us ‘Soft Southerners’ can go a week without black cabs, cocktails and dinners out. I hope.

Watch this space.

Desert Island Discs

2010-07-10T22:31:00.012+01:00

At last. A post from me with less to do with advertising or brands or cars or food or commuting. Instead, I’m sharing 7 of my favourite tracks. Make of them what you will, and I am sure they may evolve as I grow older (true) and wiser (false).

If you’ve never heard of Desert Island Discs, it’s a BBC radio programme in which celebrities list and play their 7 favourite music tracks of all time (as if they were on a desert island), hence the name. I’ve wanted to compile a list for a long time and finally I've got around to doing it. Enjoy.

Stereophonics – Maybe Tomorrow
Wherever I am and whatever I’m doing, this song makes me feel instantly better. It really works driving at night (doesn’t everything?). I find it's mellow enough to be calming but edgy enough not to send you to sleep. For me, it’s a real thinker – a song to reflect on stuff.

Shirley & Company – Shame Shame Shame
I defy anyone to listen to this tune without breaking a smile. It’s the musical equivalent of sunshine; happy and uplifting 1970’s disco.

Feeder – Buck Rogers
For me, this song takes me back to my early teens. The extent of my middle-class teenage “rebellion” involved buying hoodies and a skateboard, bitterly ironic when you consider my parents paid for it all.
Oh, and the “rebellion” also included playing Feeder quite loudly in my bedroom, only for my parents to comment on how they too also liked Feeder. Not quite the effect I was going for.

The Clash - London Calling
Yes, a bit of a cliché. This sums up what makes Britain so marketable to the Americans (sorry, I know I promised not to talk advertising in this post…). It’s also retro Clash before any of this nanny state emo Camden puke. Put that in your hybrid car and schmoke it.

LA – Naked Brothers Band
My favourite song about Los Angeles. There are so many tracks which refer to the City of Angels, but this really resonates with me as really it’s about Studio City. I rented an apartment in the hills of Studio City for a short time whilst interning – which also as it happens, is the time in my life where the Ventura Blvd connection was born.
I still spend a lot of time in Los Angeles and when the time is right, I will make it my permanent home.

Katy Perry ft. Snoop Dogg – California Gurls
The only song here that’s currently in the charts. Forget that it's in the charts. Forget listening to it in the UK. But it really is a classic, of sorts. Having first heard this whilst stuck in traffic on the 405 last month, this song seriously works in LA.
I also love California Gurls because it brands California so explicitly well. It’s a perfect example of how good Hollywood is at self-promotion. It’s unapologetically commercial and in 20 years time, when I hear this track, it will sum up manufactured pop perfectly.

Antonio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfa & Stan Getz - So Danco Samba
I might have saved the best till last.
This is a track that works at every hour of the day. Listen on a Sunday morning with the papers and you can smell freshly ground espresso in the lyrics; if you listen late on a Friday night, the saxophone comes to life in a 1960’s hotel on the French Riviera. Let it transport you to a hyper-real place where people are far too cool for their own good, and a world where you too can be that guy.

The Branded Environment

2010-06-30T21:00:00.009+01:00

Giving consumers an unforgettable experience or just infiltrating their free time?

The O2: Rewarding customers is a priority for O2
Arguably Britain’s most successful branded environment. Mobile phone brand O2 turned the huge white elephant that was the former Millennium Dome into one of the most vibrant, successful entertainment venues in the world. But it’s not just about having their name above the door, O2 have also enhanced the experience and reward their customers with their Priority booking service that provides tickets exclusively to O2 customers 24 hours in advance. Following on from their success in London, there’s now also an Irish O2 on Dublin’s waterfront, O2 World in Berlin and the O2 Arena in Prague.

HMV Apollo: Understanding the power of live entertainment
HMV could be seen as jumping on the O2 bandwagon, but in all fairness, they’ve got more of a musical background to back up the connection. HMV is afterall a British music institution; a store where many British kids bought their first vinyl, tape or CD. It’s also a brand that’s suffered from the likes of iTunes, and other online retailers like Play.com and Amazon.co.uk as customers look to purchase their entertainment at the cheapest possible price / free. By connected the brand the experience of live entertainment, HMV take their brand to a territory online retailers find difficult to play in. My only wonder is why they didn’t do it sooner.

Emirates Stadium: Surprisingly, the perfect match
Emirates are Arsenal’s primary sponsor although I’d never got that there’s really the logical connection between the UAE national airline and a North London football team. But as part of their massive growth in the UK marketplace, Emirates have invested vast sums in becoming one of the largest sponsor in football. Just type ‘Emirates’ into Google and ‘Emirates stadium’ now appears before ‘Emirates airline’.

No snobbery intended, but I guess given the similarities in demographic between the typical football supporter and the typical Dubai package holidaymaker, then perhaps this is a match made in heaven.

Mercedes-Benz World: Getting behind the wheel of the brand
This is a little different to the other examples I’ve mentioned; rather than just owning the rights to use their brand name above the door, Mercedes actually owns the entire premises of the former Brooklands racetrack in Surrey.

MB World serves to showcase the entire Mercedes-Benz product portfolio, but not just through some glossy showroom. For a varying costs, you can get involved with your very own Mercedes experience; from providing under-17s the chance to get behind the wheel of an A-Class to sliding AMG sport cars around a skid pan to getting down and dirty off-roading in the ML and GL Chelsea Tractors, there’s something everyone.

On top of all that, credit is due to Mercedes for saving the Brooklands racetrack, (an institute of British motor racing history) from being demolished and turned into more ambiguous new-build executive homes, something that’s not too uncommon in this leafy Surrey suburb.

Walking the line

2010-05-26T23:28:00.011+01:00

What makes a great tagline? When I think about this I'm reminded of my childhood. Perhaps I was always destined for the comms industry. At 7 years old I could tell you The Car In Front Was A Toyota and that Washing Machines Lived Longer With Calgon.

But, taglines are a funny business. Maybe 2010's 7 year olds are more likely to do an impression of Aleksandr the Meerkat than repeat a tagline. Already in my career, I’ve worked with some really senior bods in branding and marketing and their views on taglines are really quite varied. Some love them, some hate them. Theorists argue for hours about the brand archetype and whether a truly effective brand really needs a line to back it up. But in essence, I think there are 4 obvious considerations for any brand thinking of a tagline:

1. Distinctive
In the age of differentiation, does it really stand out from its competitors?

2. Cultural fit
Does it suit the organisation? Afterall, the tagline needs to be the very fabric of the brand if it is to bring to life the brand proposition effectively.

3. Motivating
Obviously, a tagline should relate emotionally and rationally with customers, but equally with employees in the organisation. If they don’t get excited by the line why should anyone else?

4. Relevant
Is the tagline ownable for the brand? It’s all very well promising the world (FedEx literally does with The World On Time) but you’ve got to deliver the goods (again, excuse the FedEx pun) you're promising.

And now the real question is, with social entertainment and the pace at which brands are (finally) learning how to engage in real-time with their customers and prospects online, are there still going to be uses for taglines in our brave new world?

Thanks for listening, BBC

2010-05-11T18:20:00.002+01:00

I noticed this...

I tweeted this...

And later, this...

Rush Hour

2010-05-10T09:31:00.008+01:00

"One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that if you drive into London at 6am, half of the cars on the roads are Porsches and Astons. Whereas if you go in at ten to nine, they’re all Renaults. Simple solution, then. You want a nice car? Get up earlier and do more work."

Jeremy Clarkson, Sunday Times

Brand Election

2010-05-05T09:49:00.009+01:00

With one day to go until the 2010 General Election I couldn’t resist at least one related post. But, working in brandland and being somewhat politically-flippant, here’s my 'brand take' on the main political parties. Which brands embody the values and behaviours of each of the parties, and the same colours for that matter. Any similarities and familiarities?

Labour

Vauxhall
Left in the shitter by the Americans, there’s still a working-class, British, hard working element at the core of the Vauxhall brand, even if the products are better quality than before. Bad reputation and lack of inspiration puts off too many buyers.

Coca Cola
A universal organisation which is sold as an accessible brand for everyone but some might question their ethics and there's a strong feeling by some that it’s a brand which is all too happy to invade third world countries for a quick buck.

Liberal Democrats

Renault
French car manufacturer with plenty of 'flair' and cheap chic style, but its build quality isn’t a patch on its rivals. You might like the idea of a Renault, and the small hatchbacks look rather appealing in a Parisian-rush-hour-kind-of-way, but the ownership experience will leave you disappointed time and time again. The perfect example of style over substance.

Dyson - The Vince Cable of vacuum cleaners?
Quirky, liberal and inventive. More expensive than its rivals and certainly not for everyone but you’ll find it’s actually rather good at what it does because it cuts (or rather sucks) the crap and makes life more simple. Residents of large, historic stately homes will find the brightly coloured appliance totally out of place, but then, they are perhaps not one to vacuum their own carpets...

The Conservatives

Barclays
In the banking world, Barclays was perhaps traditionally very conservative and risk averse but it's paid off as they needn't take a government bailout. Today Barclays is actually far more forward thinking than you’d have previously imagined, not to mention incredibly professional.

Volvo
The perenially safe choice for the middle-classes. Volvo is no longer the boxy, staid brand it used to be. You’ll find that, like Barclays, Volvo is far more forward thinking (in terms of design, ergonomics etc) than you’d expect and there’s even thinking of the environment too.

And I am not biased in any way. Whatsoever. Just make sure you Vote for Change.

Conversations with my iMac

2010-04-23T09:24:00.004+01:00

Not sure what my Mac finds embarrassing, the fact I was watching 'Coach Trip' on 4 on Demand or the fact it crashed Firefox.

Our Branded Utopia

2010-04-21T10:13:00.004+01:00

Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

Logorama is a 17-minute animated film written and directed by H5/ François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain, and produced by Autour de Minuit. The film depicts events in a stylized Los Angeles, and is told entirely through the use of more than 2,500 contemporary and historical logos and mascots. The film won the Prix Kodak at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.
Great stuff.

Has different lost relevance?

2010-04-11T19:49:00.008+01:00

Why has it become the norm to do something unconventional in brand comms? Why has ‘thinking outside the box’ become the biggest cliché in the book?

Every brand is fighting to be impactful but is that really a good enough excuse for gimmicky comms with little relevance to the product.

It feels an advertising lifetime ago, but Fallon’s ‘colour like no other’ campaign back in 2005 for the Bravia was different. I can remember being on placement at Saatchi & Saatchi and all gathering around a computer to watch it. All the account team saying ‘What a lovely song’, referring to Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez.

It was an excellent ad. 5 years on, it’s still an excellent ad. Even though Fallon lost the Sony account to Anomaly, it’s still an excellent ad. It was different yet relevant. We hadn’t seen electrical products sold with much vigour before.

But whilst the campaign was different, it also fundamentally related to the core product Sony was selling. The campaign communicated what is was that made the Bravia better than a Panasonic Viera or some other flatscreen TV. The bright, multi-coloured bouncy balls flying down a San Francisco street stayed in the minds of the consumer so when they visited Currys or what not they knew exactly what to buy. It’s precisely why Bravia is the best selling flatscreen TV (I've guessed that). It’s also precisely why it’s the only television brand name that’s also become a household name. Seriously, ask you mother to name a flatscreen TV brand. For all we know, it might not even be the best TV on the market but it's the brand we know.

So, how do people do something unique yet relevant today? One of my clients recently asked me, “William, what we really want is the meerkat factor.”

No, really you don’t. You’re one of the world’s biggest financial services firms. Believe me when I say this, you don’t want bloody meerkats and such. What you want is something different which is both relevant to the markets in which you operate in and the audience that buys into your products and services. Marketing, advertising and branding really can be that simple.

But it would seem today, some of us just don’t get. Are gorillas and meerkats going to sell more bars of chocolate and get more people to compare their car insurance quotes? Are firms more concerned about YouTube hits and water cooler moments? A brand’s choice to use ‘differentiated’ tactics comes down to whether they want to make a quick buck or actually invest in their brand.

But it’s not just standing out from the crowd that’s becoming harder. You’ve also got to contend with less receptive audiences. Think about the photography for United Colors of Benetton in the 1990’s – sure, it caused a huge stir at its conception, but like any campaign, the more it evolved, the less radical it became and the less relevant.

We’re constantly told that we’re living in a world with a rapidly aging population, but it’s not just old people, kids too are aging faster than ever before. Children today know more about sex, drugs and social media than most 30 somethings, which makes the biggest challenge in the quest to be different is the ability to stay relevant and subsequently, one step ahead of your competitors.

Pinch, punch, first of the month

2010-04-01T10:56:00.004+01:00

Rather topical April Fool's from BMW. At least it's better than their insipid Joy campaign.

Delia & Heston: Quality endorsement, honestly executed?

2010-03-26T12:43:00.007Z

As a loyal Waitrose customer I couldn’t help but feature the glossy new Waitrose campaign from MCBD featuring two of Britain’s most iconic chefs; gastronomic explorer Heston Blumenthal and the bastion of classic culinary Britishness, Delia Smith. If you haven’t seen the ad, you can watch it online here.

First off, the ad is long. Too long for my liking. I need time in an ad break to make a cup of tea and have a wee. Anyone with half a media planning brain will also know that booking out entire commercial breaks is not a particularly cheap option, but Waitrose claims they have negotiated a great deal from the broadcasters. It’s worth noting that this is the first Waitrose celebrity endorsement, and as one would expect from a brand under the John Lewis Partnership, it’s very tastefully shot, the food looks delectable and it all comes across in perfect understated fashion.

I like the fact Waitrose is giving us a tangible benefit – free recipes and cookery tips (using Waitrose products of course) which makes you want to cook, and confirms the feeling that Waitrose equals quality food. If you’ve ever watched Heston Blumenthal on TV before, you’ll already know he just doesn’t have the same rappor you get with ‘me old mucker Jamie Oliver in his bright orange Sainsbury’s ads. I think Giles Coren would have been a better cultural fit with the brand but he’s no chef.

I have to admit Delia’s rhubarb and ginger crème brulee looks like an absolutely breeze to make. But, the juxtaposition of a frame changing from a shot of a happy, adorable pig leaping around in a pile of hay cutting directly to Heston taking his pork joint out of the oven is rather clumsy to say the least. Hilarious none the less.

On the plus side, the campaign is going to be updated weekly. In fact, they are planning to make 40 adverts from now until 2011. That’s a lot of Delia & Heston. There’s certainly scope for a 90’s style Renault Clio - Papa and Nicole mini series. Food provenance is important for Waitrose customers, so no doubt the strategy behind the campaign is to evolve with the seasons and that certainly fits perfectly with the Waitrose mindset.

As much as they deny the huge costs, this is not a low cost campaign by any measure. I think it’s brave to be spending so much and I question how necessary this was for the brand. Waitrose is already voted as Britain’s favourite supermarket. It’s a highly respected, well-loved and aspirational brand that actually doesn’t need as much airtime as this. But it has the confidence to do so. MCBD are a great agency and the perfect cultural fit for the brand. Let's see what happens in next week’s dose of Delia & Heston.

Another chance to watch the ad here

Flight Patterns

2010-03-25T12:42:00.003Z

Flight Patterns from Aaron on Vimeo.

Aaron Koblin - Flight Patterns.
By far my favourite exhibition from Decode. You only have a few weeks left to see Decode at the V&A.

Extending the online offline

2010-02-18T12:17:00.004Z

By now, most brands are communicating online. Whether it’s through a customised digital environment, a Twitter account, a Facebook fan page; brands are gaining the confidence to communicate directly with their customers.

The real-time rewards can be sweeter but the mistakes can be costly and have the ability to destroy (or at least severely damage) their image. The stakes are increased for delivering their brand promise.

However, for brands to gain real interaction (and not just an online presence) it takes more than just creating a social media account. True success lies in properly investing in social media and gaining an understanding of how they can add value to their customers online in order to use the digital landscape intelligently.

This means brands need to blur the lines between their online and offline communications, providing customers with both a virtual online presence and a tangible offline experience.

As an environment that fosters interaction, there’s no room for hard sell in Social Media. Glaceau’s Vitamin Water is one of a number of brands that understands this and has begun interacting and engaging with customers – not directly selling their drinks – to build brand awareness as the American firm continues to grow in the UK.

One of their latest ideas through Twitter, involved the brand supplying offices and comms agencies across London with boxes and boxes of Vitamin Water, all organized through Twitter. The personal delivery from the team in the Vitamin Water van was a great touch and all excellent PR for the brand.

But whilst this was successful (the fact I’m talking to you about Vitamin Water means it worked on some levels) it’s hardly groundbreaking and as with any kind form of communication, you’re only as good as your last campaign.

So, by entering the digital landscape, Vitamin Water have set themselves an expectation and will need to continue to interact with customers as the brand continues to grow.

Creative Respect

2010-02-14T12:55:00.010Z

Like any young suit working in a brand consultancy or advertising agency, I arrived with lofty ambitions and the mindset that I was going integrate the age-old divide between creativity and strategy. It was as if it hadn’t been done before (which obviously it has).

But 9 months on, I've found it’s easily possible to bridge that gap but it’s not by being a creative yourself. The most important way to unite an agency is through relationships, a firm grasp of the creative mindset (by being a creative thinker, not a creative yourself) and by stepping back from the production of the creative work.

If you’re an account man and you want to do the creative work then you’re in the wrong job.

You have to distance yourself at times. The creatives need to soar and explore beyond the brief. As integrated as we all are, we still have different, vital roles to play for the success of the business; clients aren’t going to manage themselves; brand strategy isn’t going to write itself and sure as hell, the artwork isn’t going to be CS4’d itself either.

You cannot expect to automatically earn the respect of the creatives in the team on the day you arrive. In the same way you don’t just instantly have a great relationship with your clients.

Any good relationship, business or personal, is fostered through time, commitment and honesty. It took me a good three to four months for the creatives to realise that I really wasn’t a complete tosser of a suit and that I too can talk Helvetica when required.

They peer over their iMacs as you venture off to your weekly update meeting at the client’s swanky Docklands office. But of course you have an iMac too. They wonder what will come out of the meeting. Sometimes they come too. You participate in the brainstorming, the mindmapping and the knowledge tsunami. But nobody tells each other how to do their job, you can all contribute to an environment that cultivates free-thinking communication.

And that includes everyone; suits, creatives, receptionists, HR, finance and the chap that grinds your coffee beans. We all foster a productive, effective and utterly creative working space. We make time to properly debrief, go to the pub, to exhibitions, the cinema and out to dinner.

The designers I work alongside are also very good account managers, and even more importantly, friends, but we give one another the space to succeed with our individual strengths which leads to mutual success, and that’s where the real respect is earned.

Trends of the 20-somethings

2010-02-10T16:20:00.007Z

If you get a chance I would highly recommend you read Marian Salzman’s ‘Top 10 Trends of 20-Somethings’. Marian (President of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR) raises some really interesting points, some of which as a 20-something myself, I whole-heartedly agree with and some that don’t quite resonate with my lifestyle.

The first concept she discusses is trying to reach us as ‘consumers’ – my issue with this is not we’re not ‘consumers’, or at least don’t want to referred to as ‘consumers’. We’re a generation that doesn’t like to be thought of as a target market. We’re just people. We like people-fying language.

We like the fact that the packaging on Innocent smoothie bottles talks to us like a friend would in the pub.

We understand that you can be subversive without being aggressive.

We can be sceptical of advertising and marketing, but get on board with the right brand if they engage with us and connect with us on a personal level.

We’re certainly not anti-capitalist or anti-business by any means.

“But instead of trying to take down corporate giants like earlier generations did, now 20-somethings aspire to out-business them.”

This really resonates with me in my career to date; I’ve made no secret my ambitions for the future, both in terms of financial and leadership aspirations. I’m fortunate to work in an environment which fosters and encourages this.

I’m a complete capitalist, I thrive on success but I know full we’ve all got a responsibility. I think the right term is Responsible Capitalism. Google’s commandment ‘make money without doing evil’ epitomises this.

Some of Marian’s most poignant themes:

More intensely local lives
I don’t think we necessarily believe local is the new global – in fact I’d say it’s quite the opposite; cheap flights, accessible smartphone technology, mobile internet and the explosion of social media has actually made the world a much smaller place.

Seeing luxuries as standard
I think this is definitely true for my generation. We’re the age group that’s ‘had it all’ as we’ve grown up and we’re very aspirational and progressive because of it. But I do think on the whole, we work hard for it.
But it’s not just the material luxuries we aspire to, luxuries like time and flexibility are also really desirable, not just for those in their thirties or forties. We all want to have a genuine work / life balance but it’s something that you don’t expect in your twenties at the beginning of your career. At almost 22, the brand consultancy I work for is embryonic enough to let me work from home when the builder’s coming round or something equally domestic, but my justification is that they provided me with a work laptop and a work BlackBerry so in essence, I can work from anywhere in the world. Flexibility is one of my favourite luxuries.

Real time expectations
We expect (and work for) instant results. We’re not the best generation at the short term / long term gain balance. Most 20-something rent houses, firstly because we can’t afford to get on the ladder making home ownership a distant pipe dream, and secondly because we’re totally non-committal. Mortgages tie you down. Interest rates fluctuate. Where the concept of investing in ‘bricks and mortar’ was instilled in our parents minds – like most things, we’re not so easily convinced.

Enough greenwash, it's time for you to priuss off.

2010-02-09T09:58:00.003Z

2010-01-27T20:30:00.004Z

"It’s our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device, at an unbelievable price. We think this is going to be a really great combination.”

"The reason we’ve been able to create products like this is because we’ve tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts. We make things that are easy to use, fun to use — they really fit the users."

Steve Jobs, 27th January 2009 at the iPad reveal in California.

Today was a good day.

Hooray, we're all rich again!

2010-01-26T11:47:00.008Z

So, the UK recession ended this morning. Just like that. Finito.
But for the vast majority of British people, the economic downturn / credit crunch / recession whatever you call it, had seemingly little impact. What it did do was change the way brands talked to us. They now have to work harder. They have to engage with us.
This we all know.

We've seen every brand talking about Value. From McDonald’s 'Pound Saver' menu to the middle-classes flocking to uber-cheap Lidl and Aldi. Even premium supermarket chain, Waitrose, has an ‘essential Waitrose’ range of products. But it’s all just so now. Value has become an annoying buzzword we all love to throw around, but what we fail to realise is that Value is something that should be inherent in any product offering. Discount, mid-market, premium. You don’t need to tell us you provide Value, you just need to deliver it.

Sooner or later, we’ll start using our credit cards again and buying Bentleys and diamonds. In fact, some of us didn’t stop buying Bentleys and diamonds. Some of us will, once more, want the milk with fancy packaging back. We'll want the premium choice, the luxury items, the tailored, the bespoke; the underfloor heating, we’ll decide to paint the bathroom in a fetching Farrow & Ball duck egg blue, not Homebase own-brand emulsion. We’ll want an S-Line, not the SE. We’ll ask for the optional DVD satellite-navigation, the heated leather seats and the full-length panoramic sunroof.

Now the recession is "over" maybe we're allowed to have it all again.

Here’s to revived brand prosperity.

Raised eyebrows at the Cadbury-Kraft fallout

2010-01-19T22:22:00.004Z

The firm might now have American owners but is the brand still British?

With the breaking news of the takeover of Cadbury by Kraft, there’s already speculation at the supposed “death of the Cadbury brand”. There’s people ranting and talking of boycotting Cadbury Kraft products, but I’m not so sure the British public is as well informed as it likes to think it is and that perhaps this deal really isn’t as detrimental as it might first appear.

We’ve been here before. In fact, it happened in the same city of Birmingham, looking back to the 1990’s when BMW took over Rover.

It happened to all our car brands in the 1990’s, MINI, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Land Rover and Jaguar were all sold off and split between the Germans and Americans, and now for Jag and Landy, the Indians. But despite this, these brands are still considered truly British, it’s one of the prime USP. Has the change in ownership hampered sales of these cars? No. They’ve all seen increased product investment and sales growth. In fact, Jaguars became more about aluminium exhaust pipes that pipe-and-slippers and Land Rovers no longer break down like they used to.

Sure some of our brands have died, Rover included, but that was primarily down to limited product investment – a dated product range which made sure that none of us bought one and that the only customers were over 75 years old (perhaps that’s why the Rover 75 was named as such).

Despite both being Birmingham-based companies, Cadbury is very different to Rover. The brand is well loved the world over. Creme Eggs have been known to sell out. Are we really bothered that our bar of Dairy Milk was made in another country or not? The Cadbury brand needs investment and needs to adapt to the needs of consumers. In fact, the benefit of Kraft; (an American giant) is that Americans value the concept of Britishness more than any other nation and value the power of the consumer.

We should be thankful that British brands and British culture are still intrinsic in the world today. Whilst that is no consolation for the Cadbury workers who face an uncertain future, it is worth remembering that even though we might not always pull the purse strings, Britain is still an incredibly influential nation, we just get someone else to make it for us.

Brand Elements | 6 things we know to be true

2010-01-07T21:01:00.010Z

1 . Different is good.
Stand out from the crowd for the right reasons. Don’t think outside the box just because all your competitors are, when you can reinvent the box. Differentiate, originate and conquer.

2 . It’s not about being above the line or below the line.
Digital is now traditional and traditional is now digital. We all know this. The lines have been blurred. 2010 is finally the year when agency integration can become seamless; a new generation of through the line communications, pooling expertise in PR, advertising, marketing, design and brand management. After all, when does the campaign end?

3 . Exclusivity is about being inclusive.
Customer inclusion and engagement is the most powerful asset a brand can gain. It's not just about flash-mobbing viral ads and such. Interaction is a golden egg, inclusivity is exclusive and hard to obtain for most brands. Engagement starts by stopping to use the word ‘insight’ and actually getting up, getting out and speaking to customers on the street, on the plane, in the car, in the bath, on the tube, up a mountain and so forth.

4 . Social media can be unsociable.
I’m not going to deny the unlimited power (and unpredictability) that social media possesses, but we must understand that it really isn’t for every single brand out there. Think carefully, add something to Twitter and Facebook that will genuinely engage, don’t just alienate by spewing Marketing 101 and selling products everywhere. People won’t buy in.

5 . Love is the new like.
We need to stop loving every brand. You don’t love every brand, and you shouldn’t anyway. Loving every brand waters down the good stuff. There are brands you despise but you still buy them. You don’t love Fairy Liquid like you might love Bentleys or diamonds, but you still use it a darn lot more and to most people, it’s inherently more useful.

6 . Brands are for living.
If love has become the new like, then perhaps the most simple way to love a brand is to start by living the brand. The consumer is in control and has the power to reward brands that have successfully made a connection. A wise tutor once told me ‘brands should get under your skin, not up your nose’ and in 2010 this has never been more true.

Don’t put all your eggs in one celebrity-endorsed basket

2010-01-05T14:58:00.006Z

Did last year’s Woodsgate mark the end of the road for brands and celebrities?

Don’t worry, this won’t be another post about Tiger. That’s all rather 2009 now. But, what I will acknowledge is that he had the most lucrative sponsorship deals of any individual even trumping David Beckham. Tiger’s list of world-class brands included Nike, Accenture, General Motors (which covers Cadillac, the car he ironically crashed), Gillette and Electronic Arts to name a few.

Accenture ran a mile, Nike stood by him and Gillette couldn’t make their mind up.

Clearly, when there is a disparity between said celebrity’s behaviour and said endorsed brand, problems are bound to arise. Look at Sharon Osbourne, the former face of discount UK supermarket ASDA who was dropped after she was spotted shopping in the Beaconsfield branch of Waitrose. But then really, what value can be gained from a supermarket endorsed by a celebrity. Sainsbury’s and Jamie Oliver is a combination which works, he’s a chef, he cooks food, he buys food, therefore he knows food and by shopping at Sainsbury’s it clearly says they might know food just as well, they even changed their tagline in 2005 to 'Try Something New Today' because of their success with Jamie.

I think the beauty sector is the only exception to the norm. The fact is celebrities still sell magazines, and they still sell make-up. Cheryl Cole is (right now) inherently popular in the UK; the national darling, it seems like every girl want to be her and every guy wants to be with her. She is currently the face of a national campaign for L’Oreal and unlike other celebrity-endorsed adverts; it’s remarkably tolerable, in a cute Geordie kinda way. L’Oreal has captured what makes Cheryl popular and communicated this in their message.

However, outside of the beauty sector and perhaps the grocery sector, celebrity endorsement is beginning to feel like a sign of weakness, a last resort for ailing brands. Consumers doubt the quality of the product if they need to use a celebrity to endorse it. It would seem that unless a celebrity can actually leverage a product in both a believable and desirable way, or has a genuine connection to said brand then they are just wasting our time and cluttering our advertising space.

Recap 2009 | Trends 2010 | Automotive

2009-12-31T13:13:00.004Z

3 Little Words

2009-12-14T20:54:00.007Z

Here are my 3 most used words on Twitter in 2009. What a revelation, of sorts.

1 . London
OK, this isn't so much of a surprise, although beating glamourous destinations where I also spend time including Los Angeles, Farnham and Bury St Edmunds isn't to be coughed at. I am now living and working for an international branding agency in London, so it's clearly been on my lips all bloody year. Apologies to you non-Londoners. Luckily I still haven't got into the full London pysche just yet - I know there is still a world beyond the M25, or as some of my Fulhamites might have you know, life beyond Zone 2 of the Tube...

2 . Audi
No surprise whatsoever that this word (or indeed, brand) made it to No. 2. You most likely know I drive an Audi and that I am ever so slightly obsessed with the brand. But, before your roll your eyes and label me an Oakley-wearing, Audi-driving cock; they sold over a million cars in 2008, they are one of the fastest growing premium brands in the world and like it or not, Audi is doing considerably better at a time when others aren't. Their products are desirable and consistent and there's still more to come. That said, I do wear a mean pair of Oakleys...

3 . Client
This word was actually a surprise. But, it has been my first year as an Account Manager and love them or loathe them, I deal with clients everyday. Without clients, there would be no business. We wouldn't get paid. Our branding / advertising / marketing lives would be rendered useless. Clients excite us, energise us, irritate us and infuriate us all in the space of a day. But, it's what being a good Account Manager is about, taking the rough with the smooth, maintaining the relationship, making sure everyone is happy, exceeding expectations and crucially, taking the blame when things go tits-up, even when it's blatantly obvious it's not your fault. It is ALWAYS OUR FAULT - that's what being an AM is about (that I learnt from wise Adland Suit)
So thank you Big 4 professional services firm, Irish telecomms company, Global pharmaceutical firm, French soap retail brand and South African gap year travel company. You are my clients and for that I am thankful.

You can drive my car anyday.

2009-12-13T21:56:00.004Z

Sienna Miller + dancing + "Baby you can drive my car" = Fantastico advert.
Er, what's it for again?

The John Lewis state of mind

2009-12-07T11:05:00.004Z

A wise friend once said, "Nothing bad can happen in John Lewis"
She is right, of course. Nothing bad could ever happen amongst the tea cups, haberdashery or bed linen. Even during a busy Saturday full of angry, flocking Christmas shoppers, the staff are still friendly, the environment is calming and the quality is promised and delivered. The brand has hardly changed in the face of recession, it's neat and tidy, the Volkswagen Golf of retail; evolutionary, never revolutionary.
It might not be as glamourous as Selfridges, or as chavvy as Debenhams, but there's something here that everyone can appreciate, no matter how pseudo-middle class you may or may not be.

Now you can drive like Tiger Woods!

2009-12-02T09:37:00.003Z

An escapade in an Escalade.
Not one to miss a trick, Cadillac would appear to be cashing in on Tiger Woods new found controversy after the 'mishap' outside his Florida home which involved him crashing his Cadillac Escalade...well not quite, but proof that key word banner ads aren't always the best option.
Funny thought. Damn funny.

Deodorant: A Tale of Two Sexes

2009-11-26T20:27:00.004Z

Conversation in the office today on gender stereotypes. Apparently, "men overplay everything and women underplay everything". I was outnumbered.
The most obvious example of this in the branding world is deodorant packaging.
Think about men’s deodorant, we like tough, endurance, extreme, rock solid, power, blast, performance in straight, utilitarian bottles, full of efficiency and functionality. We like blacks, silvers and navy blues and contrasting lime green, it’s techno, it’s dynamic.
According to the unwritten rules of deodorant packaging, women like caring, smoothing, pure, replenishing, indulging, curvy bottles. They like pinks, powder blues and the white. It doesn’t matter which brand, from economy supermarket own brand through to expensive designer fragrance deodorant, the same rules apply. But, should they?

R.I.P. Mr Benn

2009-11-26T11:05:00.001Z

Putney's most famous (and only?) cartoon character.
A nice little tribute to SW London's finest shopkeeper.

Taking it personally

2009-11-19T22:01:00.006Z

This has to be the most personal advert I've seen in an awfully long time.
It was handwritten and hand-delivered to my house in Fulham in blank envelope. I'm fortunate to live in South West London, a reasonably affluent area with a surplus of cleaning services for uber-busy, cash rich / time poor City types, but I've never received such a personal little note to advertise such services.
She could do my aeroning any day if only Barbara (my Czech cleaner) wasn't doing such a sterling job. I hope one of my neighbours gives her a go, or perhaps with her get-up-and-go she'd more suited to Account Management for a London ad agency...

This isn't just any food...oh wait, it is.

2009-11-04T09:03:00.006Z

There is news today that Marks & Spencer is going to start selling over 400 non M&S-branded products in their food stores. Is this damaging the brand's credibility or a sensible move to boost sales and footfall?

I can see the benefits from both points of view, M&S stores have always seemed a little too spartan to do a fully-fledged 'big shop' so to be able to pick up branded goods like Heinz ketchup and Kellogg's corn flakes is going to strike a chord with a large percentage of customers.
As for loyal M&S customers, the worry is that by introducing non-M&S products, the consistency in product quality is no longer guaranteed. I certainly think it's handy to be able to pick up Heinz ketchup and Kellogg's Corn Flakes, but perhaps M&S just lost their USP.

What it does do however(and most likely intentionally), is move the brand well and truly into Waitrose territory. However, it's the brands that M&S choose to sell that will be the deciding factor of whether this move proves to be brand intelligence or brand suicide.

Fire the Media Planner Mr Tax Man (and yourself while you're at it)

2009-10-28T21:45:00.009Z

Here's some really clever, bright media planning!
It's just great to see my taxes going towards useless, failed advertising campaigns with no strategy or planning.
The Valuation Office Agency, (an offshoot agency from HM Revenue & Customs), launched a new online advertising campaign this week urging consumers to "check it, not chuck it" when they receive an important VOA letter over the next few weeks.

In other (totally unconnected, of course) news, the much talked about postal strike is going ahead.

Major planning fail.

War of the Roads

2009-10-26T21:06:00.007Z

Buses. Motorbikes. White Van Men. Pedestrians. Prius drivers.
The streets of London are at war, there's a vicious circle of hatred amongst London road users and by far the worst combination is the motor car vs. the bicycle. It's like roads in London were designed for us to share this mutual dislike for one another, lanes come ago, 3 lanes, 1 lane, 2 lanes, bus lane, no entry, one way system. And then you appear, in your car and a cyclist takes one look at you in your shiny black Audi with your pinstripe suit and they seem rather too pleased to give you the two finger salute.

This morning, I really tried to make an effort, the kind of effort you make when you're stuck in a lift with Katie Price, or worse still, Germaine Greer.
I thought come on, give them a chance; cyclists are trying to get to work just like you. I got 1 mile out of Fulham and already they were at it, cutting me up, racing from lights (despite being vastly slower) and being generally unpleasant like little ants, but those big red ones that bite. I'm not surprised by their behaviour, I'd be rather pissed off if I had to cycle around in an illuminated top with skin tight PVC pants on too. I'd be pissed off on a bike full stop.

This continued all the way through Knightsbridge and then, picture the scene, one of London's crumbly Victorian water mains has failed, the streets of Mayfair are now more like mini rivers and some bright-liberal-lesbian-probably-called-Debra pulls out on her bicycle (on her red light), you swerve, avoiding her but showering an idle chav pedestrian (complete with Kappa shell suit would you believe) with fresh, brown road water. The chav is angry, you prey for green lights all the way up the street before he starts kicking your car. Your luck improves and you cut a dash towards Regent St. As for the Debra the lesbian on the bicycle? She's long gone.

People of London: engage your brain, think about others and let's all drive, ride and walk with a little bit more respect for each other and perhaps we'll all get along just that bit better and a bit quicker.

5 a day

2009-10-15T08:45:00.002+01:00

On a health kick in the months leading up to Christmas...here's my 5 a day fruit and veg.

Why must you fill my fridge with lies...

2009-10-14T10:24:00.003+01:00

Newsflash: an advert lied, shock horror, could there be such a greater crime?
Well yes, the fact Actimel tastes horrible too.

Anglo-American Language Lessons

2009-10-13T12:39:00.003+01:00

Having just returned from sunny, if a little hazy Los Angeles, my poor lost and forgotten blog looks little cobwebbed.
I've found myself in that strange limboland of being far too American for London, and a little too British for the U.S.
Take my jetlagged trip to the grocery store or supermarket, I couldn't find bagels or viteamin wadduh, as they call it vitamin water in this strange backwater called Fulham. Then there was the commute to work on the subway or Tube, the actual act of having to take public transport was firstly horrific on the senses and then secondly a rather weird experience, it even had me pining for the rush hour traffic on the 405, which can only be described as the better of two evils.

The sincerest form of flattery.

2009-09-13T11:51:00.007+01:00

Ever get that feeling of deja vu?

I couldn't help think that there was something a little too familar about Ocado's new On The Go iPhone app and it's similarity to my PomPom application for my April Ocado branding project.

Spooky coincidence? Possibly, but given the fact I emailed them in early May about this, and then over two months later they have launched it probably goes to show it's not just a coincidence, and the fact they use the wi-fi symbol as a branding device. I'm not moaning (or even suing for that matter) I never copyrighted it and I emailed them directly with images and details.

So frankly, I'm honoured and I'll tell you now, there are plenty more ideas where this came from.

My silliest quote of the week.

2009-09-09T15:06:00.005+01:00

"I take so many Addison Lee cabs, I feel like I'm on the Apprentice."

he screams into his BlackBerry on speakerphone.

Orange and T Mobile merge? Fruity...

2009-09-08T09:09:00.004+01:00

Alas, the new merged brand of Orange and T Mobile...

"Orange and T-Mobile said their deal - due to be signed by November - would "bring substantial benefits to UK customers", and promised expanded network coverage, better network quality and improved customer services."
It just looks a bit too fruity for me.

Premium without the premium?

2009-07-18T13:16:00.011+01:00

Now, this is where I really should be talking about my amazing first week as an account manager but because everything I now do is confidential I'm not going to, and in many aspects, I feel it's quite nice to maintain an element of mystery so instead I'll be blabbering on about premium brands.
In particular, whether premium brands can still convey their 'premium-ness' in the face of a discount?

YES: MINI First
As of this week, MINI has launched their new entry level 'MINI First', priced at under £11k, making it £8950 with the Government Scrappage Scheme and even undercutting the existing entry level MINI One by a grand. £8950 is seriously cheap for a brand new MINI, even if it is slightly ambiguous on the streets of London. You'll have to make do without air-conditioning (but let's face it, this summer isn't exactly boiling), or alloy wheels but the basics are there; retro style, cute image combined with BMW build quality and safety. Nice.

NO: essential Waitrose
Waitrose's attempt at being "all down with the recession, and like totally feeling your financial pain, yah" is about as convincing as listening to the pope preaching about contraceptive pills.
There are some products which this works for like cereal, orange juice; basic, genuine everyday items, but for items such as meat it just doesn't feel suitable. The old premium packaging for Select Farm and the graphic style reinforced the free-range / organic / ethical message, but the essential packaging simply leaves you doubting the quality.

Branded Transit

2009-07-11T13:09:00.009+01:00

News this week that Barclays has renamed a New York Subway station in their bid to boost the brand's presence in the United States the has made me wonder if something like this could work in London.
It might work if brands make suitable pairings with stations, such as Coca Cola and Oxford Circus; universal, perennially popular.
Ecover (the ecological household product company) could really put the 'green' back into Green Park. Dutch financial group ING could take over Holland Park, Muller Hyde Park Corner, Ladbrokes Grove, Marmite Paddington, Audi Bond Street and perhaps a cheese brand for Gloucester Rd...

OK, I'm getting a little silly now; I think if we were to give brands free reign on the Underground, it would take away what's left of the London Underground's consistent style (no, not piss, buskers and constant building work), but the uniformed text and style of each station.

If brands could maintain the station's identity whilst still giving passengers an engaging and rewarding brand experience then perhaps there is some mileage in the idea. But to confuse and clutter up an already untidy environment; nobody will thank a brand for that.

Brands need to prove their worth on Facebook

2009-07-10T10:29:00.005+01:00

According to a recent survey from Anderson Analytics, 52 % of social networkers have actually befriended a brand or become a fan of at least one brand on Facebook.

Whilst this proves that brands can generate a positive reaction on sites such as Facebook, I think the real question lies with the brand in question; as social networking isn't for every brand, but those that can offer a tangible, real benefit to a consumer such as free concert tickets, free test drives, free downloads etc and still generate brand awareness and popularity, certainly deserve a chance to succeed.

Wacko Jacko might be the star, but this story is just as much about LA as it is music.

2009-06-26T17:25:00.008+01:00

No doubt, wherever you are in the world, the news that Michael Jackson has died, has reached you. You can’t escape it, be it Twitter, Facebook, Radio 1, local radio, Fox, CNN, BBC News.
It’s certainly a tragedy for the music industry and for all of his fans, but I feel it’s not it’s just about the music; it’s as much about the city of Los Angeles as it is the star.
LA has yet again provided the setting for an extraordinary tale; a fitting location to play out the last scene of a life of controversy, megastardom and talent.

It’s the only city in the world where CNN helicopters are on the scene before the emergency services or authorities; in fact it was 15 years this month since OJ Simpson led the LAPD on a slow-paced yet hugely publicized car chase down the 405 freeway after he was suspected of murdering his wife and her friend. Even today, you can’t forget the image of a white Ford Bronco cruising down the 405 with freeway overpasses lined with support, and the live TV cameras rolling.

The scenes today and yesterday outside both the UCLA Medical Center and Jackson’s rented home in Bel Air are already beginning to demonstrate a universal sense of extreme mourning, a type the world hasn’t seen since the death of Princess Diana, but in true Angeleno style it couldn’t be more different. In LA, it’s about celebrating his talent and fame, with all the fanfare, after all this is Hollywood’s way of mourning.

I’m over in London at the moment; it’s a shame I wasn’t in town as the events of the past 24 hours are, whether you like or not, part of the MTV generation’s history.

(Photos courtesy of The Los Angeles Times)

What if Ocado offered stores offline?

2009-06-25T10:00:00.013+01:00

You don't need to imagine, here's some of my work which involved taking Ocado offline, creating physical stores boosting their presence and differentiating the brand away from from Waitrose.
In theory, Ocado have always stated that their green, environmental image stems from not having a 'bricks and mortar' approach and thus they were a purely online retailer, but I found that many online shoppers feel that they miss out on the multi-sensory approach to 'real' shopping, which makes the introduction of several experiential, sensory flagship stores a logical progression for the brand.

There are no rigid aisles, the stores are designed to have a sense of flow, reflecting the layers of an onion and the seeds of a strawberry, two of Ocado's brand textures. At the centre of each store would be a kitchen 'hub' with cookery classes for customers of all ages, furthering Ocado's unpretentious and wholesome attitude to food.

Ocado Elements: the ready meal for people who don't like ready meals.

2009-06-19T09:51:00.005+01:00

Ocado Elements
Dubbed as 'the ready meal for people who don't like ready meals'; this is one of the innovations I devised for my Ocado final major project.
Inside the box, you’ll find a recipe card and all the ingredients you need to cook a delicious dinner from scratch. It’s ideal for people who want to cook from scratch, but just don’t have the time to rush around the store trying to find hundreds of different ingredients or researching recipes.

It gives the consumer the satisfaction of cooking their own fresh meal with the convenience of a ready meal.

Ocado: The Print ads

2009-06-17T09:04:00.005+01:00

Like the new Ocado brand identity, the print ads are designed to promote the unique features of an Ocado store in a simple and unpretentious nature.

Ocado: Ambient Advertising

2009-06-16T16:54:00.012+01:00

Westfield Car Park
Using the food textures synonymous with the Ocado brand (lemon, red cabbage, strawberry, onion and apple), the interior of the Westfield London car park would be rebranded for the months follow the launch of the Ocado stores. Parking spaces would contain individual messages such as ‘Nice car!’ or ‘Don’t get fruity, it’s just a parking space’, playing on the brand’s approachable tone of voice.
The car park ticket would also be utilised, with a scratch-card style ticket of each Ocado brand texture providing both a tangible benefit to consumers (remembering where they've parked) and brand consistency with the rest of the communication.

Branded Mini Convertibles
Ocado-branded delivery vans have become an iconic sight of Britain’s roads, but to take this further and coinciding with the launch of the 2009 Mini Convertible, Ocado would lease 25 vehicles to bloggers, trendsetters and influential publications in London. The vehicles would not actually contain any wording or the Ocado logo; the textures enough demonstrating Ocado’s ‘smashability’ as a brand, creating buzz and spreading word of mouth about the new stores.

Futureproofing

2009-06-09T10:18:00.005+01:00

Just a quick note to say I'm taking part in something rather exciting this week, which concerns our environment and the way in which we get around it. For a possible account planner to-be, understanding future trends, innovations, products and services is crucial to creating effective communications...
But if I tell you what it is now, then I'd have to kill you.

So stay tuned and I'll reveal all in good time (aka when I'm allowed to).

Ocado: The Rebrand

2009-06-05T10:43:00.010+01:00

Ocado is one of the internet's success stories, an online grocery retailer specialising in selling Waitrose groceries. But with the introduction of WaitroseDeliver last year, consumers were finding less reasons to shop with them.

My comprehensive brief for Ocado was to reposition the brand away from Waitrose, creating a unique identity, increasing the brand presence offline by creating physical food stores, whilst still maintaining Ocado's identifiable brand textures; red cabbage, strawberry, apple, lemon and onion.

Essentially, I wanted the identity to present the fact that Ocado is fresh food, but in an attainable and unpretentious manner, staying true to Ocado's brand values of quality, innovation and sustainability.

Long time, no see

2009-06-04T15:02:00.005+01:00

Yes, I know, there's been nothing for about a million years, but honestly it's been very hectic, mad, rushed, crazy and what not with my degree show and final major project. I will post all of my final major project work later this week, that's a promise. Now where was I, aaah, back to watching Neighbours twice a day and Facebooking on my BlackBerry. Productivity at it's very essence.

Digital Vandalism

2009-05-20T16:03:00.002+01:00

I love sites you can customise, or 'vandalise' in my case, like Californian smoothie chain, Jamba Juice.

Spot the difference...or should that be taste the difference?

2009-05-19T17:11:00.003+01:00

Nothing wrong with using a tried and tested format, but these two are just ridiculously similar, airing within days of each other...and what's with all the avocados; have they ever had so much air time?

Warped Economy

2009-05-18T15:46:00.003+01:00

To show you some idea of how many new cars aren't being sold, you can now lease a brand new car for £40 a month. Admittedly it's little more than a hamster-faced Korean lawnmower, but it's a new car none the less.

Put it this way, my phone contract costs £5 more a month than a car. Go figure.

Coming Soon (perhaps a little too soon)

2009-05-15T15:32:00.001+01:00

A little teaser for next week's Ocado FMP.