Eccentricity Goes Mainstream

How times change.

It used to be that wearing anything that did not match - particularly something worn as part of a pair, such as shoes or socks - was considered at best odd and usually, far worse, as eccentric.

What used to be viewed with suspicion and lurked at the fringes of pop culture has now been brought into the mainstream.


































Little Mismatched offers a line of, well, mismatched footwear and clothing and in doing so seeks to convert a behavior that had conferred the unwelcomed status of social pariah into a desirable one of confident self-expression. With appeals such as 'How mismatched are you?' the brand seeks to competitively incite the prospective buyer with a dare.

It's a great example of how mass marketers seek inspiration from the margins to mine new commercial opportunity.

Use another brand's colors at your peril

Quick! What company is promoting its breakfast fare?























If you thought the Golden Arches, it's understandable.

After all, McDonalds is associated probably more than any other brand with breakfast eaten out of the home or on-the-go. It's not come free: they've spent millions of dollars to establish themselves in pole position in this regard, in the minds of people who eat there as well as those who don't, such is the scale of McDonalds relentless promotion and ubiquitous retail presence.

The Red, Yellow and White colors are also a key part of the permanent repertoire of associations that are tied to the brand.


All of which makes it odd indeed that a relative minnow of a player - Jamba Juice - should use these colors in the branding of its own breakfast offering.


















True, the white strip on the right-hand side promotes Jamba Juice as the owner of this message, but it occupyies only 1/4 of the entire advertising space. We believe that the large red block is so dominating that it is likely to be processed as a separate unit, and so mis-attributed as a McDonald's communication.

We're also left wondering why Jamba Juice doesn't sharpen the distinctiveness of its breakfast offering compared with the burger and biscuit behemoth. After all, this is a time when people are more aware of the health consequences of eating than ever before.

The climate is ripe for Jamba Juice to promote its unique take on breakfast, with fruit and a blender being key elements to 'brand' this healthier approach. Instead we get these items visually with nothing more than a perfunctory promotion that 'new breakfasts meals are here.'

A missed opportunity in our book. Or perhaps, a nervous David afraid to pick up a gauntlet against a category Goliath.

A strategy of direct contrast against a well-known entrenched competitor can be highly successful. It worked for Veryfine beverages back in the late 80s when they positioned their 100% juices against sodas (at a time before the explosion of Snapple, Sobe, Nantucket Nectars and Arizona Ice tea on to the market).

One simple yet memorable ad featured a Pepsi can next to a Veryfine bottle.

'Gas' it read under the Pepsi container, 'Guzzler' underneath Veryfine's.

The point was telegraphed. There's only such much soda you can sup without feeling full of gas. But a beverage without the carbonation? You can drink as much as you want to quench a thirst.

For litigious-fearful among you, the Veryfine brand - largely unheard of at the time - got tremendous credit for the boldness and courage it displayed in challenging a giant. Something that replacing the Pepsi can with an air-brushed generic soda can would not have inspired.

As a brand, if you are a David facing a Goliath, act like it. You have a legion of devotees waiting to believe in your cause if you authentically embrace it instead of hiding in the shadows.

Guiness Advertising Campaign: Genius in Message and Medium

Like any good strategy it seems obvious in hindsight. Not unlike the 'Born from Jets' campaign that Saab ran a year or so ago. When it comes to establishing performance pedigree, what better than to leverage the company's heritage as a manufacturer of fighter planes?

The 'Alive inside' theme seems like it emerged in a place that many of advertising's finest ideas come from: the pub. No doubt in the spirit of some old fashioned but time honored product interrogation (which the creatives unusually suggested) someone noticed that there's a lot of activity when the pint has been poured and it is settling.

This was a good starting point but not enough. The idea needed to be connected to some distinct group which shares a belief or mindset, actual or aspirational. The result pays of well in this example of outdoor advertising for the brand in downtown San Francisco.

The inventiveness of the medium is easily apparent. The kiosk supports the idea of a pint of Guiness perfectly, which is what it seen from a distance.
























Closer up, however, the Guiness reveals itself not to contain bubbles but instead to be filled with people holding up cigarette letters as if at a concert.























The viewer is rewarded for closer observation, but it also confirms the positioning intent: Alive Inside is a statement that extols as much about the characteristics and ambition of the Guiness drinker as it does the drink itself

Advertising taglines - a taxonomy

Taglines are one of the simpler brand positioning tools available. While a tagline can be used for a variety of purposes, its foremost value is to encapsulate a brand position into concise and compelling consumer terms. Incidentally, the reversal of this process is a short-hand way to construct a competitive brand landscape: the strategic territory a brand occupies or its core focus can be derived from its consumer oriented tagline expression (though a more rigorous approach is to deconstruct advertising in the category).

OFD conducted some tagline research recently to see what would be gleaned from the way marketers are using this positioning tool. The day was December 27th, 2007. The stimulus was British daily newspaper The Independent. A comprehensive assortment of taglines from the paper were collected for analysis.


RESULTS

1. There was a heavy preponderance of company-oriented statements which surprised our panel. Sentiments focused on the consumer are much more likely to resonate with their needs and desired. This is the basic premise of authentic marketing after all: the focus is on the consumer, not the company in a self-serving, self-absorbed way.


2. There was a distinct lack of sparkle, creativity or imagination. This is a wasted opportunity to make a memorable impression, however small and fleeting.


3. Most of the taglines were generic and vague. The fact that most were not unique suggests by extension that these brands' positions are also not unique, which raises an even bigger strategic concern. Sustainable differentiation is critical across all points of contact for a brand, in every category.

Our favorite: Holiday Inn. Behind every great discovery is a Holiday Inn. This does it all: It's consumer oriented, suggests a compelling, credible benefit in an imaginative way. Furthermore, it's ownable and consonant with the brand at large. Great Job! To the other brands, you have work to do to improve your positioning clarity, either in tagline expression or fundamental strategic design.

Why the 'wink' in advertising is so important

Achieving advertising effectiveness has never been harder.

It starts with advertising being an interruption, since most of it is experienced unsolicited. That's not too hard to overcome. After all, we engage with advertising as an implicit contract: it's an agreement to give our time and attention to an advertiser's pitch - and subject ourselves to its manipulative intent for which it has been designed - in return for a reward. That reward must have utility such as information value, or entertain us.

The biggest challenge facing advertisers stems from how literate and skeptical audiences today are about marketing practices. Communications that contain 'marketing speak' and which sound and feel like advertising are viewed as deliberate ploy, and people engage with them differently. Any openness to believe the honesty of the message diminishes quickly. People's defenses are raised and rational scrutiny is deployed, the twin fears of the folks in ad land.

This is why the wink is so important in today's marketing climate.

The wink is a tacit way the advertiser can remain connected and in allegiance with an otherwise jaded audience. It serves to affirm (through an act or gesture not a direct appeal) that "Hey, we're not taking ourselves too seriously...we're just having some fun" and so seeks to lessen the defenses and objections that lay in the way of a person's openness to believe the message.

Case in point, the current Verizon commercial in which alongside business people, the network size is personified as a huge throng of verizon employees all sitting on chairs, completely filling up a large room. At the end the commercial, as the 'network' people are shuffling out of the room, one of them turns to the Verizon "Can you hear me know?" spokesperson and says "Next time, we need more chairs". Speaking to the artifice, the suspended disbelief of the creative construct, it does much to convey an honesty and transparency on behalf of the advertiser. It makes us feel there's a good human quality to these folks, which helps to positively dispose us to the message, whatever it is.

Another example is a Dove Shampoo commercial from 2005 below. The wink at the end (which we won't spoil) does a superb job of showing the audience that the brand is not taking itself too seriously, softens us up and helps make us more amenable to the idea it is promoting. By being playful, we are more prepared to over-look the fact that the event is very evidently staged and interpret it for what it is - beautiful storytelling through an engaging metaphor.





So, consider using a little wink in the right context to raise the cut-through effectiveness of your communications.

Using nature for inventing branding

Delightful branding that adds character to this second hand record/cd store. Given the street is south facing, the shadow is cast on the shop-front the entire day.



















What other retail brands could use this kind of inventing branding to their advantage?

Transcending even the need for a logo

When a brand can dispense with its tradename and can be unmistakably recognized with its brand mark -logo - alone, it's made it into popular culture.
Nike's swoosh, Target's bullseye. Apple's, well apple.

But on Lexington avenue this week on two sides of a phone booth were promotions for a popular film that carried absolutely no brand name, or brand marks or even a message other than the characters from the film. The point: if you know, you're supposed to; if not you're not.

This Harry Potter is truly a cultural phenom.

Location in mind, a hotel positions itself perfectly

Many discussions about brands these days often seem to have much less focus than they should. Perhaps it is the variety of mediums across which branding is expressed (product form, packaging, display, positioning, communications etc.). Perhaps it's because it has become fashionable for brand identities to have so many moving parts (personality, characteristics, essence, point of view, visual identity and more).

It was refreshing therefore to come across a business whose entire branding - and its core reason for being - was captured in its name. It is in the aptly name Tenderloin district beside the Gentleman's club called Market Street Theater (both whose name and euphemism are an oxymoron) that one encounters the AIDA hotel.

It refers to the four basic stages or conditions that a person goes through from initial encounter to making a sale. The acronym Attention, Interest, Desire, Action has long been used by salespeople to help their craft: understanding the basic nature and sequence of growing involvement helps salespeople actively guide their prospect along it.

'Location location location' is a maxim often heard in the retail business: whether to banks or chains of coffee stores, being in prime places where people are when their needs strike is the name of the game.

The Aida Hotel recognizes this applies to success of a busines serving the satiation of needs of a carnal nature too. Customers of the Market Street theater are no doubt propelled through the first three stages of the involvement model which renders the final stage an act of completion, in more ways than one. A particular kind of street vendor understands this too, and the AIDA hotel provides an ideal venue for the occasion.

In a time when brands and their management can become over-thought and over-wrought, The AIDA hotel is a shining example of clear focus and potent simplicity.

A step too far on the road of brand affiliation

One simple tenet of branding: you are the company you keep. Whether that's the retailers your product or service are sold through, the kind of people that epitomize your brand target, or the other brands that you join in partnership with, this cohort communicates a lot about your brand.

It can be a virtuous arrangement. Take the Tumi-Ducati alliance. The character of both brands is similar. Both are high-end and so premium that each has a luxury halo. Both are extremely well made. But the heart of the union is their performance caliber, both in rugged utility and styling.

But Ferrari's track record in extending it's brand into new territories does not seem so wise. In fact, the effect upon its brand could be detrimental.

The last three years has seen a slew of product partnerships in which the Ferrari logo has adorned sneakers, (Puma) mobile phones (Sharp) laptop computers (Acer) and cameras (Olympus).





















The two acid tests of a good brand marriage fail for most of these products. Especially in the case of Acer, Sharp and Olympus, these are not ultra premium brands like Ferrari. The caliber of the two brands are fundamentally at odds. Ferrari's reputation will be tarnished when these products fail, which for some they surely will do.

The second test - similar brand targets - is also at odds. A user of these co-branded products is making a statement of aspiration for what is hopelessly unattainable. The only way they can get into the Ferrari franchise is through the back door, with some low-end product they can afford.

Back to the Tumi example. The reason why its brand partnership works is precicely because the type of consumer for both products is very similar. Anyone with $800 to part with for a single piece of luggage will also have the discretionary income to buy a high-end motorcycle should they wish to.

A world-class brand like Ferrari should know better. In attempting to extending the reaches and visibility of its enviable brand, it is the view of OFD that they are using the wrong strategy. Indeed, better to avoid cheapening the brand through low-end cross marketing and instead choose partners that reinforce the caliber and authenticity of the brand. How about creating a driving school as BMW has done with Skip Barber? Enable people to experience the brand in an affordable way which they can evangelize about...even if they're unlikely to be able to afford one.

In the era of the autonomous consumer, when people are in the driving seat and brands must engage with consumers' on their terms, it is more important than ever that brands do what they can to manage their reputations. Influencing context is key to shaping the understanding people acquire about brands. A product or application - especially that of a marketing partner - is a key context that must be controlled to manage the brand well.