Oh Pepsi, you’re so cheap. You’ve always tried so hard to impress us. But you’re a floozy. We can see right through you… you and your cheap tricks…
Here’s a diagramatic representation of the evolution of two popular cola’s logos over their history…
Tag: branding
Change in the air
I’m gradually making the switch between this geographically and personally specific domain name – and my new, as voted by you, domain – st-eutychus.
All the links and stuff on the page will now direct to “st-eutychus” links.
Eutychus was the young man who fell asleep, and out a window to his death, during a sermon by Paul. Paul felt so guilty that he resurrected him.
The current domain expires in December, and will work up until then. I’ll change the name of the blog when I have a new design ready to go.
Exciting times.
Beaten to the punch
Facebook’s vanity URLs have been launched. Some other Nathan Campbell beat me to the Nathan Campbell punch – so I, as in gmail, am nm.campbell.
It took me a few minutes to realise you had to go to www.facebook.com/username to sign up.
I’m a bit annoyed. I wanted Nathan.Campbell. Robyn didn’t even care, but got her preferred option just the same.
20 creativity insights from the brain behind the “best job in the world” campaign
Today I had the pleasure of enjoying lunch with an advertising “guru” – he doesn’t like that term – so lets call him a leading marketing executive – the CEO of CumminsNitro – Sean Cummins.
He’s the man behind Virgin Blue’s marketing (and indeed their “brand”), the Tourism Queensland Best Job in the World Campaign and other interesting things.
He spoke for four hours in two functions today and I’m going to try to focus on the interesting bits. Things that may be beneficial if you’re thinking about marketing, branding or strategy… I know that lists are great blog fodder – so here we go… (this is basically my notes from the functions). These are in chronological order not order of significance – but I think the most important idea for me was that creativity is not airy fairy – it’s a discipline. Then, shortly behind, was the idea that “genius comes from the prolific” which actually came from Einstein.
- There are a whole lot of ads out there shot exactly the same way – and he gave an example of “weird stuff happening on streets” from gerbils in running wheels to walking ATMS – he put together a two minute clip of bits from all these ads in a seamless montage. Finding a point of difference includes the style of your campaign – not just the substance of your product.
- We are in the throes of the greatest change in advertising ever – so much so that the man at the helm of one of Australia’s most highly regarded companies told a small business that asked a question to think hard before advertising. Ask if you need to advertise at all.
- There’s an old quote from a guy from Proctor and Gamble that says “I know 50% of my marketing works, I just don’t know which half.”
- Advertising has traditionally focused on a “push” philosophy where the seller “pushes” their messages onto the buyer – social networking and the changing community mentality means that it’s moved to a “pull” model where people choose what brands to hold dear and pull them to themselves.
- The concept of your branding being your logo essentially died when Nike became known for sweatshops – your brand is what you’re known for, not your recognisable logo. Your brand is more than your logo – it is perhaps best defined as your “aura”.
- “The last bastion of the creative scoundrel is to change your logo”…
- Being successful in understanding markets and selling products means being an investigative journalist and researching trends and vibes rather than capturing a fleeting moment of creativity and hoping it resonates.
- Test things with focus groups – have people who will give you blunt, realistic feedback.
- Don’t sell anything off a negative. Find a positive. Don’t sell the reef on the basis that the reef might one day not be here – it opens up an in for lobby groups and the competition.
- Paul Hogan once captured the consumer’s intention best (and the way to sell things) when he said you don’t invite people to your house to see the furniture. People are after authentic experiences and interactions – not an icon or postcard perfect photo.
- When you’re selling something strategy is more important than substance – you don’t come to a client with an idea for an ad but a strategy.
- Sometimes tighter deadlines produce tighter results – “give me an hour and I’ll produce a more pithy campaign than if I’m given a month”…
- If a proposition or proposal has the word and in it it’s not single minded.
- Twittering is like sponsored stalking.
- The movie Australia was an artifice – with no buy in for tourism whatsoever – tacking a $60 million campaign on the end was a gross error in judgment.
- Sometimes we need to stop making sense and start acting on ideas to see how far they can go.
- Develop a creative habit – or a methodology and discipline for creativity. Figure out how and where you best come up with ideas. Where do you think your clearest. Don’t keep a notepad by your bed (unless writing down your spontaneous ideas helps you get to sleep). Dreams are not when we are at our most lucid. Set a rigid routine around your creativity.
- Einstein said “genius comes from the prolific” the more of something you do the more likely you are to get better at it and produce a flash of brilliance. Songwriters may write their biggest hit in five minutes but it will take a lifetime of discipline to produce the ability to do so.
- When you’re communicating an idea try to find a one word summary. Consider how you’d explain it when grabbing an innocent bystander on the street – the longer you take the more freaked out they become.
- For complex ideas write the concept out in full and then prune. Remove the unnecessary fluff until you’re left with your substance. Follow the epithet “say it straight then say it great” in order to ensure you’re communicating the essence of your idea.
Illogical Logos
Some logos are bad. Others are terribad – a combination of terrible badness. Here’s a site dedicated to logos falling into a category beyond terribad…
Like this one.
Seriously people, don’t just throw something together using clip art, pay a graphic designer.
What the Cronulla Sharks teach us about the News Cycle
The Cronulla saga is dragging on and on. The media are having a field day with the club and in one way or another the focus on the club’s on and off field discretions (and its culture) has claimed some pretty major scalps, including:
- Matthew Johns, high profile media star and former player
- Chairman Barry Pierce
- CEO Frank Zappia
- Captain Paul Gallen (lost the captaincy but is still playing)
- Greg Bird
- New signing (and drug taker) Reni Maitua
I wouldn’t be surprised if it now claims Ricky Stuart as well… his team isn’t performing, he was sacked as Australian coach for his tirade against a referee, and he’s now been embroiled in this whole CEO scandal.
The Sharks need a change of culture pretty quickly in order to save the club – and part of the cultural problem is a problem endemic in club sports – where mateship rules and indiscretions are swept under the carpet.
There have been a number of different scandals that have almost damaged the Sharks brand beyond repair. In fact, it may well be past the point of no return. The scandals came at a time when the club was already in dire financial straits – they’re in debt, they’re looking to sell or get the NRL’s blessing to relocate, since the Johns scandal they’ve been hemorrhaging sponsors – with their primary sponsor also pulling the pin.
They’ve been caught up in immorality, racism, violent assault and drug taking. And the media is loving it. The Sharks are buried in a quagmire of bad publicity – which is a PR nightmare (or opportunity if you like Crisis Management). And it’s been pretty poorly handled all round. The board has failed, the CEO has failed, the Shark’s PR girl is one of their main accusors, only the NRL and the NRL’s predominant media partner have come out of it in improved positions.
The NRL has taken a pretty down the line, hardline, stance – calling for cultural change and including to back its associated club. David Gallop has had far too much practice in this sort of situation to do anything less than a good job.
Nine has put Matthew Johns through the ringer (gaining great ratings in doing so) and managed to both distance themselves (through his sacking), show empathy (through Phil Gould’s tears on the Footy Show), and they’ve left the door slightly ajar for Johns with the Sam Newman precedent… they’ve also changed the content of the Footy Show – and made it less offensively boorish and more about the game.
In a couple of cases – particularly with Matthew Johns and Frank Zappia – there has been a clear instance of media manipulation as their respective PR people try to turn the tide – discrediting whoever has made the claim against them… in both cases women, and in both cases about inappropriate treatment of women.
The Sharks have an endemic cultural problem – but that’s an altogether different topic. But they have also failed grossly in managing and protecting their brand. When the accusations first came to light they should have immediately stood down their board and elected fresh faces (which they tried to do but this was politically circumvented by the current board), sacked the CEO, and started a massive proactive “cultural clean up” – instead they’ve, to steal a mafia term, “gone to the mattresses” – they’re trying to fight it out, while hiding. The Chairman was re-elected unopposed at a board meeting, the CEO was given support despite obviously financially mismanaging the club – and not taking appropriate action regarding the culture. And they’re paying for it – because the net effect of taking these steps has now been realised – but it wasn’t voluntary. And it looks like the media has forced their hand.
They’ve also tried to play the media outlets against one another – which is never a good move. Fairfax blasted them for allegedly engaging in a number of immoral practices to essentially keep the players happy – and they ran to News Ltd to publish a counter story – now their ex-PR representative says the stories were true. News Ltd now has egg on its face. When managing a crisis you should never, ever, lie. It is, if there is a worst time to do it, the worst time to do it.
After Matthew Johns was brought to tears and the point of collapse on A Current Affair stories started to circulate from “unnamed friends” of “Clare” that she had in fact spent the weeks following the incident bragging about her conquest. Stories that began to paint Johns in a new, less guilty light. Here are two stories from the opposite ends of the media spectrum (ABC and Fox Sports) released within an hour of each other… notice the similarity in the headlines:
- Johns’ woman ‘bragged’ about group sex
…of the Cronulla Sharks sex scandal involving Matthew Johns claims her co-worker bragged about the incident. From FOXSPORTS.com.au | Rugby League – 15/05/2009 8:48 AM - Woman ‘bragged’ about NRL group sex
The woman at the centre of the Sharks group sex scandal experienced “no trauma”, a former colleague says.
From (ABC Sport) – 14/05/2009 7:06 PM
Now, after Frank Zappia stands down, we see a story aiming to discredit the key witness in his prosecution. A girl he allegedly punched in the face and then suggested receiving a “spanking” as appropriate recompense. She apparently signed a document clearing him of wrongdoing. The woman at the centre of the claim is on the record as wanting to keep her job – despite the incident. This couldn’t be a factor? She’s also got that pesky audio recording that would seem to suggest the wrongdoing occurred – despite what a signed, written report might say. Channel 7 is having a field day with that exclusive.
The best PR, if you’re guilty, is to fall on your sword with grace and aplomb. Not to go down fighting. That drags your brand down with you. None of the men involved are bigger than the club they represent – and none of them are acting as representatives by staying on. They can’t fix the problem when they are the problem. There’s a precedent here too. The Bulldogs have essentially resurrected their brand (and their performances on the field) following a similar cultural cleanout – that encompassed both playing personnel and backroom staff. Their fullback Luke Patten had some wise words for the Sharks to consider…
“I guess the club just made some tough decisions.”
“Anyone that was stuffing up, they got rid of them and they brought (CEO) Todd Greenberg in and he just made decision after decision really – new coach, all new staff, new players and with that everything’s changed.”
“There’s a new attitude and everyone’s working really hard for that and maybe the Sharks, that is something they can look at.”
Sign Language: Under New Management
“Under new management” signs make a pretty clear statement of discontinuity with the past. I suggest that the more prominent the sign, or the longer it’s shown – the greater the intended discontinuity.
One of the Pizza Hut restaurants in Townsville (one of the few remaining dine-in Pizza Huts in Queensland) has had a large “Under New Management” sign on its roof for a couple of months now.
I’ve run out of atheism headings
It seems to me that any time Christians (or theists) are critical of the nasty side of atheism we get shouted down as hypocrites. How can we pick on Dawkins, for how can we caricature them all on account of his vitriol when we had George W Bush as the public face of Christianity justifying unpopular wars with terribly out of context Bible passages? Or indeed or the televangelists et al who are a public bastardisation of the Christian message.
Is this a log v speck issue? Should we be trying to clear up the Christian brand (ie what the public think Christianity is) before we go charging at the bastion of angry atheism – namely Richard Dawkins and co.
Probably. Those loony fringes of Christianity are much better at garnering publicity than the mainstream evangelical orthodoxy. Like the woman in the US who kidnapped her kid because he has cancer and the State wanted to force him to undergo life saving medical treatment.
So long as that’s the public understanding of “Christianity” pushed by the media we’re going to have troubles criticising atheism because the public understanding of atheism is angry intellectual criticism of religious belief.
I actually started writing this post because there’s been a pretty angry response to that article in the LA Times the other day – and I wanted to talk about how angry atheists are, and how Dawkins seems to epitomise atheism, rather than being at its fringe.
That is all. For now.
Finding a niche
Every time I drive down Ross River Road I think to myself “how can this place possibly continue as a business?”
Finding a niche is one thing – being irrelevant is another.
Has anyone ever used this place? I can’t for the life of me figure out how they pay their lease.
According to the Word of Mouth Forum they’re good at their job. They also offer “haircuts at barber prices” so maybe it’s just clever branding.
Political football
Murray Hurst, The LNP candidate for Townsville has a problem. He’s been pigeon holed as “the former North Queensland Cowboys coach”. Which he was. In 2001. After that he was a councilor at Thuringowa City Council – a much more credible position if you’re running for election. Unfortunately Mr Hurst has a problem. His campaign strategy seems to be to remind people that he was the Cowboys Coach.
“In many ways it’s like a rugby league team at the highest level,” said Mr Hurst, who coached the Cowboys in the 2001 and 2002 NRL seasons.
“You’ve got to worry about your own backyard without being overly concerned about who you are facing in the election.
“It’s always a case that you’ve got to have a good team behind you. Obviously now with a new opponent, one I didn’t expect, it may be different but it’s me and my team against the Labor Party.
In this interview from the Brisbane Times he goes on to talk about important stuff. Like infrastructure spending and health. But it’s too late. The horse has bolted. If you’re reading this Murray – and no doubt your crack campaign team has a google alert set up to tell you when people are mentioning your name – no more football analogies. This is an election campaign.
Fire branding
One of the elements of longevity for media coverage of the aftermath of a disaster is a good name. The twin towers attacks will always be synonymous with September 11. Or 9/11. The Boxing Day Tsunami had the fortune of hitting on a public holiday.
As I listened to the news on the Today Show before heading to work this morning I heard the Victorian Bushfires called the “Black Saturday Fires”.
Is that the best the media could do? Surely it wouldn’t have taken a marketing genius to call them the “Black Sabbath Fires”.
Who gets to choose these names anyway?
They should sell naming rights to the highest bidder. Insurance companies would love that.
That is all.
Missed by a whisker
Everyone loves cats. Except for people who hate them, like me. There’s a whole website predicated on the idea that cats are irresistibly cute. Like the one this picture comes from – one of the internet’s most popular websites. I work with a lot of cat people. I’ll never understand them. I think I’m normal – and I think there are a lot of people out there who share my feline sentiments. Unfortunately not the marketing and branding boffins at PETA. They also think we all like cats. It seems they are capable of promotional activities not involving naked celebrities (there’s a word pairing that will boost hits to this blog), or vacuous blonds staging really smart protests about chicken cruelty at a business whose core business practice involves the killing of chickens.
PETA in its infinite wisdom has decided people are much less likely to eat fish if they’re rebranded – the entire species – as “Sea Kittens”. I am not making this up. This doesn’t hurt those of us who tuck into a big juicy steak with a clean conscience. No, this hurts those soft vegetarians who aren’t prepared to take a hard line vegan stance. Those who are still prepared to dehumanise – or dekittenise fish. Here’s a quote from the statement… it’s too good to edit.
“Of course, if you look at it another way, what all this really means is that fish need to fire their PR guy—stat. Whoever was in charge of creating a positive image for fish needs to go right back to working on the Britney Spears account and leave our scaly little friends alone. You’ve done enough damage, buddy. We’ve got it from here. And we’re going to start by retiring the old name for good. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it’s time for a serious image makeover. And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?”
And in a PR coup for the books – here’s your chance to make your own sea kitten to take home…
Create Your Own Sea Kitten at peta.org!
McCain is a PC, Obama is a Mac… almost…
I once went to a branding seminar where VirginBlue marketing guru Sean Cummins said the best way to position your brand is to ask “what sort of car am I” and then see where and how that type of car is being advertised. Cheap market research.
Well, Landor and Associates, an American market research company, has just released their “Candidates as brands” survey.
As far as cars go – Obama is a BMW, while Biden, Palin and McCain are all Fords.
In the personal computing stakes – arguably currently the most interesting advertising feud at present – McCain, Palin and Biden all come in as PCs – Obama scored a dead heat and is both a PC and a Mac.
Putting the “product” in production
Following my post earlier today regarding the product placement posters – here are some interesting snippets from this SMH story today. It seems paying for product placement is no guarantee you’ll make the final cut – particularly in the new James Bond movie.
“Researcher the Nielsen Company reports that in the six months to the end of June 2008, the product placement market rose 11.7 per cent in the United States on the corresponding period in 2007.”
“…after years of Bond movies being used as vehicles to market watches, cars, clothes and phones, product placement in the latest movie is relatively restrained. Aston Martin, Smirnoff vodka, Sony and Virgin Atlantic may have paid millions but there is no guarantee their brand will be in the movie.”
“It appears everyone has learnt from the nadir of product placement – 2002’s Die Another Day – which had 25 brands, leading it to be dubbed Buy Another Day.”
Sony Ericsson saw a 20 % rise in sales after Casino Royale was released.