The Art of Branding

There is a huge and passionate arts community in Sydney. And a new initiative by a couple of art collectors has enabled businesses to part with a measly $2,000 for an active involvement in it.

The project is called Signature of Sydney. 450 companies have invested $2,000 each to create the project and put up $150k in prize money.

The task: "Create a new, contemporary icon of Sydney and capture it's real spirit - with it's people, architecture, nature and all the modern businesses that fill this city with life."

Each piece of artwork has to feature the 450 brand names or logo's. Commercially oriented, yes. But with $150,000 up for grabs, there was a strong number of high calibre entries.

Read the article in the Sydney Morning Herald


From a branding sense, for $2k it's a bargain. Everyone in the arts community who's involved in this project will probably have a nice little warm spot in their arty heart for the brands that participated.

Of the 450 brands, guess how many FMCG brands there were?

Two. Huggies and Weet Bix.



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This got me thinking about how brands could use this concept. The driver might be where design or colour is a big part of the purchase decision. It might be a way to show you're coooler or more in tune with grass roots than your competitor. Or it could be a good thing to demonstrate premium values, rather than yell the fact to consumers.

Brands like Kleenex Facial Tissues.
Coke or Pepsi
Any half decent wine brand.
Qantas or Virgin Blue.
Gloria Jeans or Starbucks

It could be anything really. Just pick a brand related theme.

Why doesn't a brand start a competition, open to all artists in Australia, where artists integrate the brand into a work of art?

At the end select 12 winners. Every month for a year, a winning (branded) artwork features across a range of media - Avant Cards, Style mags, Metrolites outside museums, art galleries, trendy cafes etc.

Look for ways the artist can get recognised in the arts community. All of the sudden, the brand becomes relevant to everyone involved and potential consumers start to get emotionally engaged.

Starts to paint your brand in pretty special light too.

I reckon you could do it properly, including media, for about $200-250k, and it would be a great way to broaden and strengthen the impact of your brand in the marketplace.



Even this Ken Done piece starts having meaning when you put it in the context of say, the need for sunscreen, or anti-nausea tablets.

Guinness. It's Nothing For You.

Have beer brand? CHECK

Grand Final Weekend? CHECK

Got spare media budget for ad-hoc tactical? CHECK

Get to finally excite agency creatives? CHECK

Have an idea? Umm...

This was on the back page of the Sydney Morning Herald Sports section yesterday.

I'm not sure what it does for Guinness except bring it back to the pack of everyday beer brands. You could plonk any old beer brand behind that lame headline.

Surely there is a quality point of difference in this brand?

The whole "good things take time" thing hasn't been seen for ages in Australia, although I think they're still running with the whole Evolution campaign back in the UK. What's wrong with a brilliantly unique message like that?

Lastly, if you're talking to a Sydney audience, why not at least offer some confidence that the Swans are gonna win? Is Guinness behind us Sydney dudes or not?

Anyway, of course we'll win. Because we have Adam Goodes. Go Swannies!!

And on the Seventh Day......

Smart FMCG companies are starting to change the way they advertise in a fragmented media environment.

Unlike 5 or 10 years ago, a mass advertising approach against a broad target like mums 25-49 is much more of a hit and miss affair these days.

You just end up with the same old spots in the same old shows. Plus four spots each in New Idea and Woman's Day. Then some metrolites if you can afford it. All very efficient on paper no doubt.

Up & Go Energize is a line extension which is "High Performance, packed with 20 grams of protein for muscle development".

You'd think this would be as niche as it would get. Not so. Our Seventh Day Adventist friends over at Sanitarium have received some nice advice from above and compiled a clever campaign targeting several groups of potential new users.

The TV ad targets the Bloke In The Office. More energy through the day. Helps you pick up chicks too apparently...




Then there's the Teen Dudes. Bring in motorcross star Chad Reed as spokesperson, link it with extreme sports, and create an interactive web site.

OK, the TV ad is as boring as hell, but when you put Motorcross and Seven Day Adventists together, it's going to take some time for them to jump into bed and have multiple orgasms....



Then there's the Gym Junkies. Plastered up at Fitness First centres is a really simple, clear ad.

Just a big pack shot with the words, "Leaving so soon?"

Doesn't matter if you're if you're a girl or a guy...this will help get you through your workout. I've seen plenty of people drinking them as they're walking into the gym.

Fitness First yuppies don't know who Chad Reed is, no-one sees him and no-one cares. But he's probably selling a lot of Up&Go Energize for Sanitarium.

And these little suckers sell at a premium to the regular Up&Go variants. Probably more profitable and incremental to current sales for the Sanitarium crew. They get by with a little help from their friends.

Bloody Hell!

It's hard to understand how Tourism Australia got it so wrong with their "Where the Bloody Hell Are You?" campaign in Japan. Surely they would have worked through the cultural and translation issues before launching.

Perhaps they should have employed an approach showcased by big Arnold Schwarzenegger in the ad below for some kind of energy drink called “Vfuyy.

If we had have used someone like Russell Crowe in a similar kind of ad for Brand Australia, they'd be flocking in by the millions....

Would You Let Your Brand Pash a Granny?

What would you do to win the 'Ultimate Boys Weekend'?

• Would you share an ice bath in the middle of the streets with mates?
• Would you lick your car clean?
• Would you pash your 80 year old grandmother?

At least Galliano haven't fallen into the trap of trying to be everything to everybody.

With their latest campaign (www.gallianostuntguys.com), they're very clearly targeting the 18-25 year old male who likes push the blokey boundaries from time to time. Welcome to Galliano's new target market.

In essence, it's a nice idea. The Customer Made aspect would be key to a niche brand like Galliano to drive cut through and engagement in a crowded market.

Yet I imagine it would be a difficult brief.....how do you reposition the brand from it's rather pompous high ground so that when it's time for shots with the boys at 10pm, Galliano is the drink of choice? And how much of the premium values of the brand do you try and retain? It looks to be none at all.

I just wonder whether Galliano wants to be the Jackass of spirits? After all, when Johnny Knoxville finishes up work for the day after shoving crocodiles up his arse, I reckon he'll be sitting in the coolest bars in LA surrounded by leggy blondes.

So whilst the likely strategic insight of risk-taking for improved social status looks ok, the campaign has forgotten the emotional payoff.

It leaves you with an aftertaste that's too much like Benny Hill and not enough like Benny Sherman to me.

The Face of Olay II

I know this is the same theme as a previous post, but I still can't believe Olay are using this woman to promote a brand which is meant to make you look younger and more beautiful. Unless they're planning a before and after shot....

Flashbeer in Double Bay

The Golden Sheaf in Double Bay was getting pretty full yesterday in readiness for the West Cost v Adelaide game to come up on the big screen. Everyone was having a yarn, a drink, a perve...usual pub stuff.

Then Carlton Draught's new Flashbeer ad came on the screen. Everyone stopped, and looked, and just got absorbed in the ad. Heaps of people were laughing and everyone stood there and enjoyed the whole30 or 45 seconds of it or whatever it is.

The great thing about this ad is that there was hardly any sound in the pub. Despite the lack of audio, the ad was great at getting people drawn in. I reckon if you can make an ad work without the sound you've just doubled the chances of it getting into someone's head.

My guess is that next time they're up at the bar deciding between VB, New and Carlton, they'll go with the brand that made them all feel prety good for 30 seconds and made them laugh. And I'm not talking about the ad where they're flinging donkeys into the air which makes no sense whatsoever and has nothing to do with Tooheys New.

Infiltration Alert

Just browsing a job ad for a Multimedia Marketing Manager and this paragraph leaped out.......

"Previous experience in e-marketing initiatives, infiltrating online communities with viral communications, deploying guerilla tactics, product seeding and cult/celebrity endorsements would be more than advantageous."

Hold on to your hats if you're a consumer. Your friends in your cosy online community are about to be 'infiltrated'. I imagine this company is not the only one thinking along these lines.

Just be wary the Coke Zero Anti-Movement

Boot Camp Line Extensions

Boot Camp is based on the mindset that to get really fit, someone needs to be there to push you further. As the Fitness First web site explains.....

• There is nowhere to hide out there.
• Your instructor always knows if you are slacking off.
• Your instructors don't only challenge you physically, but mentally and emotionally as well.

A leading personal trainer from Brisbane I met says the key insight is not just the actual fitness part, but that it allows people to say to other people that they've done Boot Camp or have a personal trainer. It's the image it projects of them being a vital, proactive person who is physically and mentally superior.

Some people I know swear by it. Personally I find someone yelling at me quite demotivating. I can motivate myself pretty easily.

But what if we take this insight further. If Boot Camp is a means to a physical and emotional end state, then the army/nazi trainer style is only one means to this end. They key is getting people out there in the first place, so they can say to their friends they've done it.

Which begs the question.....

What other opportunities exist on the Needscope model when it comes to the attitudes and mindsets towards Boot Camp style training? And what are the means to address these?

Here's a few possible line extension randoms....

Allies Boot camp
Concept: Nazi Free Boot Camp.
Emotional driver: "I'm stronger mentally than other people 'cos I don't need someone else to get me fired up for fitness"




Big Red Shoe Camp
Concept: Wiggle Boot Camp for Kids
Emotional driver: "My kid's certainly not part of the obesity problem"



Camp Camp
Concept: Self explanatory
Emotional driver: "We already look better than everyone else so this is clearly an elite group!"

Back Pocket Boot Scooting

When you're running a gym and members are paying $80 a month for the privilege, how do you extract more from their back pocket?

Just take the concept of exercising indoors (which is kinda the idea of a gym), put it outside, take away all overheads like rent and expensive equipment, give everyone a $5 T-shirt and have someone yell at them. And charge them top dollar for the honour.

Boot Camp. It's utterly brilliant marketing!

Fitness First have been setting us up for years beforehand to go down this track Probably unintentionally but it's done the job.....

Firstly, they've trained their staff for years not to do anything. Every time I go to Fitness First, there's always 25 staff members walking around and not one has ever offered any word of advice or action to make my visit more beneficial.

When I first joined, I would have thought my $1000 per year would mean some kind of involvement from the staff. But after a while, you know that will never happen.

The expected becomes nothing and nothing becomes the expected.

Now, they offer sessions where the staff can help you, for a fee of course.

It's clever marketing but deep down it somehow feels a bit wrong.

Intolerable Cruelty

After watching every ad break during last week's screening of Intolerable Cruelty on Channel 10 being cluttered by 30 second ads from just about every FMCG brand in the world, I had a thought......Catherine Zeta Jones is the most beautiful woman in the world.

Then I had another thought. For all the talk we hear every week in our two trade publications from media agencies with their proprietary models, channel planning expertise, 'we think differently here', masters of all things to do with media etc, everyone still seems pretty content to run with the stock standard 30 second ad on Movie of the Week.

I'm not saying it's the wrong option. But amongst the clutter it could be argued that it's generally a low risk, low return strategy.

Media agencies aren't the sole drivers here either. After all, a client always presses the green button. It's often easy to point the finger of narrow mindedness that way.

A while ago when I was consulting for an FMCG client, a presentation was made by the team at Yahoo/7/Pacific about the benefits of an integrated media approach across TV, print, direct and web. It all looked and sounded pretty good but the case studies didn't carry a lot of weight. Who cares if Brand Awareness went up 14%. What did it do to sales? (and I mean substantial data, not "sales up 8%!").

For FMCG's, it will take a lot of convincing that TV isn't the best medium to advertise in. Mainly because it often works OK. Secondly, it can be measured. Thirdly, it sounds good to the Managing Director when the Marketing Director talks about how much the media agency has saved the company in the start of year TV network negotiations.

I spoke with the Yahoo/7 guys afterwards and suggested that we negotiate a big chunk of free integrated media for an upcoming launch if I supply them with a robust, meaningful and substantial case study of the launch that they could use to onsell. A win-win.

Nothing confidential - the competitors will get all the same info from Aztec. But a good analysis speaks volumes.

Maybe we could do a test market. For instance, try no TV in one state. Or more mags in another state. Run a web campaign in burst 1 and not burst 2 etc. Get some real measurement on the impact on base sales using different integrated approaches.

They were all ears. Well, the rest of their bodies were there as well, but they listened intently.

The Yahoo/7/Pacific team were all ears

After highlighting the opportunity, I left this in the hands of the media agency to negotiate as part of the planning process for the launch, which lent itself to a fully integrated approach.

Nothing ever came of it. I don't even think it was ever thought of as a valid option.

When the plan came back it was very safe. No test markets. No additional outside the box options to consider. No significant savings on media costs. No sign of how we could leverage the offer I put forward.

Then Intolerable Cruelty came back on and I got to look at Catherine for another 8 minutes.


Amazingly, CZJ's eyes will follow you around the room

XXX

I love the fact that Mars have used an avant card to promote their new Triple Choc XXX limited edition Mars Bar.

On a rack of about 12 cards, they were the only FMCG brand. No Intolerable Clutter Cruelty going on here.

The only question mark is whether they needed to put the brand on the front, as well as the Masterfoods Copyright symbol. Given they've got a TV ad for the product , the Avant card seems to be a secondary part of the comms plan.

So it's not going to make or break the launch if not everyone sees the Mars bar on the front. I would have gone for the intrigue and cool factor and just had the triple Bruce on the front.


Bruce is struggling to recover from the Cesarian birth of his triplet sons.

The Blunt Side of the Media Knife

A knife has a sharp edge and a blunt edge.

A knife with two blunt edges is useless.

A knife with two sharp edges is a bit silly and just plain dangerous. Unless you're in an Andy McNabb novel.

A communication strategy for a brand should always weigh up whether it needs to follow the common sense principle of the knife. That is, to offset any media/creative blunt edge with a sharp edge. And vice versa.

I've been looking at this Industrie campaign for about 12 months now and am still trying to work out where the sharp edge is.

The clothes themselves are great, and the retail outlet on Oxford St still exudes the edge that it's competition has. But when the brand started being advertised, sudddenly the jigsaw pieces didn't fit.

I have a wardrobe full of Industrie stuff. I like the style and I like the brand. But now every time I see it beaming at me from the backside of a bus, all is says to me is that it's a conservative, mainstream fashion label with no imagination. What is Industrie trying to say here?

Just because they've now got distribution with the mainstream retailers (Myer and David Jones), it doesn't necessarily mean they need to start treating themselves as a mainstream brand. Jessica Rowe tried this, and looked what happened to her.



If Industrie is starting to look a bit daggy to a mid 30's bloke, how cool is it looking to the mid 20's set to whom the brand is aimed?

This ad is actually an improvement on the last set of ads, which just a bloke standing there with a shirt on. At least he gets the girl in this one.

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Are bus backsides the right environment for a fashion label like Industrie? I can understand an ad for Nacho Libre and The Boy From Oz. As separate films I mean. Not together, although that would make an interesting movie.

Fashion brands are the ultimate in badge value and aspiration. What's the aspirational part of a brand covered in pollution, running 24 minutes late and packed with schoolkids?



What I would expect to see on the back of a bus. Perhaps.


The opportunity for the brand is to at least balance up the dull edge of the bus campaign with things like avant cards, some buzzy street press advertising or Moonlight Cinema sponsorship. They may well be doing this anyway....I have only seen the bus campaign in the last 12 months.

Crikey, even a boring old brand like LG is using the sharp edge of their media knife with an ad in the latest Talk mini-mag....




Or have I got it all wrong and Industrie is in fact aimed at mid-30's guys desperately trying to stay young? In which case they're doing a pretty good job.

If not, Industrie might be better off not even advertising their brand until they get it right because it might well be doing more harm than good.

Germans Love a Good Mann

These beer coasters fell out of my backpack as I was cleaning out the remnants of my trip today.

They say beers are badges for those who drink them.

Clearly Mann Beer is the beer for those blokes who always wanted to be in Spandau Ballet.

Is a Crap Ad a Crap Ad?

Is a crap ad a bad ad?

What is a crap ad?

Is a crap ad one that isn't creative?

There is an interesting mindset across a lot of the advertising industry that if an ad is not creative, then it's not good.

This became pretty evident when I did Award School a few years ago. It was the training ground for future creatives and every week, someone from the industry would do a lecture and show lots of examples of 'good' ads and 'crap' ads. Always purely subjective.

Not once did I see what the initial brief was, then the ad, then the sales results.

Award School was brilliant and I'd recommend it for all clients. But it ingrains in future creative execs the idea that a non-creative idea = a bad ad.

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I was reading a blog on B&T's home page yesterday and a blog entry talked about how most of the ads featured in the Good Weekend are 'crap ads', appropriately titled Why Are Good Weekend Mags Ads So Crap?

It's a piece which confuses creativity with effectiveness. As I said in my comments to the author, the fact is nobody except the client and the agency knows how successful an ad is. An ad is a means to an end - to sell more product.

I've done Brand Power ads which got everyone a bonus at the end of the year. I've done super creative stuff which sold truckloads as well.

The bit that I find most interesting is a comment by the author that "the point of my blog is to get people in the industry to notice how many bad ads are out there."

"According to last night's AdSchool guest lecturer Alex Dobrochodow "90% of ads are crap," it's up to us to stop these bad ads getting approved."

And it's up to marketers to better understand creativity and embrace it, so we can make a balanced decision when it's time to approve creative. And that decision should always be the one we think will deliver the best sales result whilst improving the brand in our consumer's minds.

A Golden Duck

Last week I was flicking through the piled up copied of AdNews that had accumulated whilst I took my 4 month overseas adventure. It was a nice surprise to find that one of the promotions I did when I looked after Kleenex won a Gold Award at the Australian Promotional Marketing Association.

Not only that, but I reckon the actual award (Best Activity Generating Brand Volume) was one of the better ones. After all, isn't that what we do promotions for?

The concept was instant win. Consumers bought a pack of Kleenex, punched in their unique code, and found out instantly if they had won a holiday. And there was a Queensland holiday given away every day for four months

I must admit when the agency presented this idea to me I was really excited. When something that powerful is presented, on brief, within budget and with such a powerful idea.....I just knew it would be a winner.



The great thing about this promotion is that we broke through a few 'truth's when it comes to marketing to women (Main Grocery Buye 25-49 in this case). We had over 1 million entries and women embraced technology in order to enter.

There were three ways to enter, and each generated a significant amount of entries, roughly...

Web entry: 500,000
Phone text: 250,000
Phone and prompt: 250,000

The interesting thing here is the amount of web entries. Traditionally, FMGB's weren't thought to be on the net in their masses. The times they are a changing.

Not only did we get a huge response, but this allowed us to build up a massive online/email database which we could use to continue promoting the brand and sending out further promotional offers.

When it comes to a promotion, I reckon the key is to think big.
And secondly, embrace technology as part of the mechanics and/or concept, no matter who the target audience is.

Pink Bits - Part 2

I was talking to some friends last night about my thoughts on Mount Franklins femininisation. Ben, a mate of mine, told me a story about what happened to him during the week.

He went out to his company's factory in Ingleburn for the day. At lunch he bought a Mount Franklin with the hot pink cap. Within minutes he got the light hearted comment "Ben, what are you saying about your sexuality?"

Now Ben looks quite handy in pair of cycling pants but he plays cricket for the men's team.

Over the next hour, he got 5 more comments from different people in the factory, all revolving around the questionning of Ben's sexuality.

Just because of the hot pink cap. They've quite possibly lost a customer for life there.

Faces of Olay

I was watching Celebrity Survivor the other day, thinking how Imogen Bailey looks decidedly ordinary without lots of make-up and an airbrush (Gabrielle Richens is a different story - she still looks tremendous).

Then I saw Nicolle Dickson, former Home and Away star and now bonafide supermum. Well, she's really only just a mum but women on TV who have children somehow find it easier making the transition to supermum. Whilst she seems a nice enough person, she' probably not who you'd call a good looking women.

Some of my more discerning friends would even go so far as to call her pretty damn ugly.

I suppose that's what Survivor does - it strips the competitors of life's luxuries and we see people looking rugged, natural and wild. So if you're not that good looking to start off with, Survivor's gonna make you look like a penniless derelict.

So how come Olay is sponsoring Survivor, and using Nicolle Dickson as the face of the brand. Am I missing something here? Isn't Olay meant to make you look younger and better looking?


Notice who the blokes are looking at? And it's not the face of Olay.

Compare this to one of Olay's 'brand ambassadors', Deborah Hutton, featured on their web site. Deborah looks brilliant and I can't ever imagine her signing up for a show which shows her looking like a hobo on Gilligans Island. She probably looks fantastic whenever she steps out in public. Olay Olay!



I have to admit, even I use Olay. It's a great product. I'm clearly not the target (and like Nicolle, not god's greatest gift either). But it apparently helps with the 7 signs of ageing, even though I reckon there is an 8th one which has something to do with way too much alcohol consumption on a friday night at the Opera Bar.

Pink Bits

Most brands that are marketed to everyone tend to do it pretty poorly. Think of all the consumer electronic brands (Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, LG etc) that are so big and broad and conservative that they all blend into one another.

There are probably some exceptions though. For instance, I'm a bit confused as to where Mount Franklin is taking their brand. It used to be a brand for everyone, and I don't really see a reason why it couldn't be marketed that way.

Unlike consumer electronics where no-one dominates, Mount Franklin owns the bottled water category in this country. But now it seems half the population is being told to look for another brand of water. Why start niching at this stage of the brand's life? What's the threat?

First there was the Elaine-dancing, giggling woman campaign......




Now comes a new initiative where Mount Franklin is getting involved in the National Breast Cancer Foundation. For the next 2-3 months, Mount Franklin caps will be hot pink.

This is certainly a fantastic cause, but from a pure branding perspective, I can't see many guys reaching into the fridge and going for the gay water.

Strategically there are some questions about what this will do for Mount Franklin's brand image longer term. From a substituion perspective, the other water option in the Coca-Cola/CCA stable is Pump - a brand that's really struggled to position itself clearly over the past couple of years. Is it urban badge value? Or sweatbox partner? Whilst they're making up their mind, blokes might be looking around the fridge for a water brand that's talking to them.

Other bottled water brands are probaby starting to get a little turgid 'round about now.

The Drama of Football

The World Cup was a huge hit here in Australia because people finally understood why the game is so magnificent.

It's not just two teams slugging it out (rugby league) and/or great ahtleticism (AFL) and/or lots of big tackles (fishing and wrestling). It's because of the drama. You can't beat it when a Frenchman headbutts an Italian, or an Englishman stomps on a Portugese players cods, or Viduka continues to prove he can't score a goal at international level. OK, you can beat that last one.

The key insight here is because football delivers amazing drama. No other sport can touch it. It is theatre at it's finest. Last season's Ashes had it, but try and remember the last test series between anyone that had it as well?

Fox Sports has picked this insight in one, and delivered a fantastic campaign....The best drama happens on the field.

Not only that, it's the first click through ad on the SMH web site I've ever clicked on. And Tim Cahill is shockingly superb!

Lleyton Hewitt Theory

I was thinking about Lleyton Hewitt the other day. Not in a sexual way, of course (he lost all his sex appeal when he shaved off his mullet). He cops such a bad rap here in Australia and nobody really seems to like him.

I can understand why. He's bold and brash, supremely confident, wise in a street smart way, questions and challenges those in authority, and seems to be quite self centred. He just happens to be a great tennis player.

And then I thought about all those Australians who I travelled with in Germany...thousands of them. They all had exaclty the same characteristics as those described above. The only difference is that they were just football fans, not a Top 10 tennis player.

I was talking to an Aussie student in the bar last night about my Lleyton theory....

Me: "I don't mind Lleyton."
Male student from Melbourne Uni: "Yeah but he hasn't got a humble bone in his body"
Me (sounding like a letter writer to the Telegraph): From what I've seen, a lot of Aussie guys who are 20-25 aren't very humble"
Male student: "Well I'm definitely not humble! (he wasn't). I still don't like him though."

What happened to being humble? Has it disappeared? Has it just been kicked to the side by those 20-somethings and been replaced by the Super-Confident Stuff Everyone Else Attitude?

Was I like that? Or am I just getting old?

Anyway, all this begs the question. Is Lleyton Hewitt the epitomy of twenty-something Australian males? As much as we despise him, are we just recoiling at the ugly truth?

As a marketer, I think it's sometimes important to remember who our Aussie male target really is. So when it comes to responding to advertising, they might think and act a bit differently to the witty ad from a 26 year old English copywriter who's been living in Bondi for 2 years and who over-uses the word "brilliant".

It's something I'll be keeping in mind if I ever get to do some strategic planning for the relaunch of the Chiko Roll or a Holden Ute.



Lleyton often gets motivated for the big points by imagining himself eating a giant Chiko Roll and thrusting it into his forehead