Branding
Brand Toys: a complex brand visualization tool
I have seen a lot of different brand visualization tools over the years but the most unique one I’ve ever seen is Brand Toys which shows the personality and online buzz of brands expressed through toys. Each toy design is driven by quantitative research from Millward Brown’s BrandZ study and real-time online buzz data. That data is then fed into a set of design rules that a unified design approach and it allows you to make a meaningful visual comparison of the toys for different brands. The charts below show more specifics about how the toys are created from the data and there are currently over 3000 toys from over 23 different countries and growing.
There are also aspects of the site that go beyond a brand research tool as you can also customize, export and even buy any of the toys you find on the site. If you want to buy a toy the 3D file is sent to Sculpteo.com which is a 3D printing service but they are very expensive (the one I was interested in was going to run me about $130). Hopefully they will continue to add more brands to the collection as I was only able to find three out of twenty brands I searched for but it is a a great start.
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Ralph Lauren takes branded content into 4D
Ralph Lauren has been one of the few real bright spots in the use of digital technology within the luxury fashion industry which has always painfully lagged behind other major brands. I recently found video and a short documentary of an incredible example of creating branded experiental content that took place last November on the façade of the designer’s London and New York City flagship locations. They used those flagship locations as a canvas for a 10 minute, 4D optical illusion projection mapped to the architecture of the buildings that celebrated of 10 years of RalphLauren.com in the U.S. and the launch of e-commerce in the UK. The experience was broken into 15 scenes including Polo players playing polo, a runway show with models appearing to walk on the edge of the building, a belt wrapping the mansion,a huge display of the new Ralph Lauren Ricky bag and the designer himself taking a digital bow at the end. This type of 4D projection gives the illusion that the images were extending beyond the building and floating out into space toward the audience. Other portions of the show went beyond the visible presentation when the large cologne bottles came onto the building and “sprayed” the audience and the scent was blown out into the crowd.
This is an incredible example of modern experiental branding that creates rich experiental currency that consumers will spend in their social media circles giving the brand huge exposure. You can see the complete New York show here and the London show here.
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If the Hampton’s had a petting zoo: Louis Vuitton’s animals
Billie Achilleos and Chameleon Visual have created 20 animals to promote their small leather goods line that recently debuted in the windows of Louis Vuitton’s New Bond Street Maison. I personally am not a fan other products but I continue to love and admire the risks they are willing to take with their brand and their products through these types of partners ships with artists like Billie Achileos, KAWS and most famously Takashi Murakami. You can see more photos of the creatures and windows here.
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What Britney Spears can teach you about modern experiential branding
For years I have tried to figure out why on earth Britney Spears has remained so famous. I’m not bothered by it because of her train wreck, paparazzi frenzy inducing lifestyle but rather because of the fact that she is a performer who doesn’t perform. She delivers a complete lie to her audience every night by lip syncing her concerns yet her fans know and accept this lie even rewarding her for it by packing arenas to see her shows. Just a few years ago the concept of basically faking a performance would have been unthinkable for a major performer. So I needed to figure out what changed with consumers and within society to a point where people were now fine with it. The answer is an insight that all brands need to use to connect with the modern consumer.
Britney’s fans go to her concerns even though they know they aren’t going to see a real performance because they crave the new driver of modern branding – experiential currency.
I define experiential currency as the feeling that is generated at an event or interaction between a brand and a consumer where they get to have an exclusive experience not everyone has access to. The benefits are two fold to the consumer as first the experience generates the currency through a memorable interaction with the brand that makes the consumer feel like an insider. The second benefit is that the consumer then spends that experiential currency by cashing it in through stories to their friends that once again make them feel special and important. We all want to feel special and unique so the modern consumer now wants to find that same feeling when they interact with brands.
If we take this logic and overlay it with Britney Spears we see this logic in actions. First is that any modern pop star like Britney is a brand with a specific brand image, tone and voice, consumer sweet spot, etc.. Her fans will pay to have an interaction with her, the brand, because a concert is an experience that is made available to only a limited number of people and being part of that limited community makes them feel exclusive and special. They will then consume the unique experience to get that experiential currency and it is such a strong need that they will even forgive the fact that they aren’t seeing a real performance.
So what drives this behavior to seek out special and unique experiences and how do they spend that experiential currency? The reality is that Facebook and Twitter have transcended technology to become embedded in the very fabric of modern inter-personal relationships and have thus changed how we want to represent ourselves through our digital personas. When we use those sites we all feel a need to make those Facebook posts and Tweets as interesting as we can because our friends now have unprecidented access to our everyday lives. We quickly find out that when we document our everyday lives they are pretty boring to other people and often border on information overload. We need to have that experiential currency so we can spend it through the unique and interesting stories and photos we post to have something greater than the everyday experiences and something to differentiate us from our friends. It means that social media has turned us all into our own brands because ,just like a brand, we all struggle to express our of differentiated look, voice and experiences.
This is all rooted in the fact that as a society we are going through a mental change where we have moved from finding validation through the possession of physical objects to finding validation from experiencing unique events and how those experiences are documented through our digital personalities. Just look at the New York Times top 10 Christmas gifts for proof where you will see that two years ago 8 of the 10 things on the list where physical objects but last year that number shrunk to only one. We also see a similar mental shift happening across music and movies where we are no longer tied to the need to actually possess CD’s or DVD’s and we are now happy to simply have access to that media through sources like streaming Netflix service or Amazon’s cloud music player.
The days where thinking that your brand will connect with consumers in a meaningful way only through the repetitive use of your logo and some PMS colors are over. Social media’s effect on consumers have changed that model wether we all like it or not. Modern branding has become about the ability for a brand to deliver a unique experience through all of it’s touch points to stand out from the crowd.
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Schweppes branding goes flat with new Facebook app
Shortly after the release of the new Facebook profile design a number of creative types figured out that you could play around with the layout to make the avatar photo and 5 adjacent thumbnails next to it into one image. The only problem was that you needed to have some Photoshop skills to be able to create it but it didn’t take long for a major brand to jump in and create a Facebook app that would do all the heavy lifting for you. The app is really easy to use as it lets you upload an image, adjust it in real time and then saves out all of the images for you.
BUT just as when I used the Tweet Wrap site to cerate Twitter wrapping paper I am left wondering what the hell does this app have to do with Schweppes? There is no brand tie in. No up sell. No link to their Web site!!! There has been a lot of buzz around creating these photos so you know it will be popular but with the way this app is done you could swap out the Schweppes logo for any other brand and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference. Schweppes should have found a way to have the app tie back to their core brand attributes so that the user experience supports what their brand stands for. A great example of this is when FedEx created their ‘launch a package‘ application. You can’t send files through Facebook so just like with the new profile photos there was a need by Facebook users for this functionality. But unlike Schweppes, the FedEx app tied back to their brand reenforcing the concepts of fast reliable delivery, anywhere, anytime. Even if Schweppes wasn’t going to create something that tied into their brand then why get some brand association by at least putting a small version of their logo in one of the photos so they could get some wide spread, free brand impressions out this?
If I’ve said it once I have said it a thousand times and it seems like I need to say it once more. Technology is not an idea. Production techniques are not an idea. We continue to fall into the trap where we are more caught up in the latest tools and technologies we use instead of the stories we are trying to tell. Successful and breakthrough work comes from connecting a brands core truths to their consumers. If that does not happen then this project like so many others will only remember it as a slightly interesting use of technology that is quickly forgotten while our perception of the brand goes unrecognized and unchanged.
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Influencers: how trends and creativity become contagious
The concept of influencers in modern culture emerged into everyday conversations with Malcolm Gladwell The Tipping Point a few years ago and since then the term has been beaten and thrown around like so many other overused terms in our industry. Influencers is a new 13 minute documentary that explores what it means to be an influencer and how creativity and trends become contagious in a really nice short and compact form. I really like because I think it does a really good job of explaining what this concept really means, how it forms and it does it in a way where viewers of any experience level can watch it and walk away with something. Take a few minutes and check it out and maybe it will inspire you.
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Call Bob Vila, Sears is trying to remodel their brand
It seems that Sears is the latest brand to throw their hat into the mediocre re-branding ring as they have launched a new variation of their word mark logo. I’m not going to say that the previous version of their logo was brilliant design but since it has been used since 1984 there is a lot of equity built up into just how recognizable it was. This new logo is yet another collection of design cliches like the gradient color fill, drop shadow and sloppy kerning of a typeface devoid of any personality. To make maters worse Sears has said that the new word mark will be used only in digital and TV leaving the old version of the logo in retail applications and on physical collateral.
I don’t understand this new trend in brand design where you turn your brand into a design eunuch. They castrate it with forgettable typography, over worn design accents and strip the brand of any personality or visual impact. If I had to guess I would say this new movement is a result of too many marketing departments being populated with people who came up through the organization and were moved into that marketing by management who thinks that familiarity with the organization is the same as thing as marketing expertise. They think they are making a change that will revitalize their brand but I see a change that is an act of desperation by companies who don’t know how to effect real change in their business so they go for the easy answer. Hopefully this trend, like the Gap logo, will die a swift and public death to stop other companies from thinking this is a good idea.
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The GAP wants a crowd to dig a deeper hole
A quick follow up on my post yesterday on the develops in the past 24 hours on the launch of the GAP’s new logo. It’s clear they since the launch and the near universal negative reaction that they are in way over their heads and it is just getting worse by the minute. I’m sure the GAP PR department hasn’t slept in the two days but their best idea to try to stop the bleeding means is to have another horrible idea. They have now employed the tactic of the truly desperate and directionless brand – the crowd course design submission process.
This new tactic came out when Bill Chandler the VP of corporate communications told Co.Design that ”before the launch goes any further, we’re going to see what other ideas are out there.”. This was echoed by the brands Facebook page (that uses the old logo for it’s avatar) where they say “We know this logo created a lot of buzz… but we’d like to see other ideas”. I personally love that they just launched the universally disliked logo disaster since the 2010 London Olympics logo and think they want to spin it into creating “buzz”. If you have some free time to kill scan through the 540 comments on that Facebook post and see if you find one positive comment about the logo re-design or their new crowd sourced solution.
It is clear that this entire design process happened in a vacuum. They tried to solve a problem that wasn’t there and created a solution no one wanted because it was the easy answer. They didn’t have to make any hard decisions about their business or their products. They then made it worse by trying to wrap the massive negative reaction in the even worse idea of trying to crowd source the re-design. I have always felt that crowd sourcing design is the bastion of the clueless brand leader. You waive the white flag that you have no idea where your brand should go, what it should stand for and you throw any last shreds of brand leadership out the window. We can all see they are completely lost and we are all left shaking our heads that such a classic American brand is suffering such a horrible disfigurement.
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The GAP loses its mind and its brand
I heard rumblings that iconic American clothing brand The GAP was going to launch some new branding in the near future which worried me. Their logo is so simple, clean and iconic I couldn’t imagine wanting to mess with it. It worked in 4 color, 2 color and 1 color perfectly. It was instantly recognizable at any size and was simply a classic, timeless brand mark. Starting this morning my fears were confirmed as my email box was flooded with messages from my friends who were screaming in silent, slack jawed horror at the results of the new rebranding.
Where do I start with this train wreck? The logotype is done in Helvetica which makes is about as unique as a trying to brand and own the word ‘the’. It’s a font that everyone uses and no one owns. Plus American Apparel, who is one of your big competitors, uses it – so you want to look more like them? They have been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for months I can see how it’s appealing.
That is only made worse by the attempt to pay homage to the old logo with the inclusion of the blue square that cuts behind the letter ‘p’ on the right hand side of the logo. It would be bad enough it is was just the blue square but the fact that it actually has a gradient fill drives me over the edge. It looks like a C+ first year art school project or as someone else aptly described it “looks like it cost $17 from an old Microsoft Word clipart gallery”. My hope was that this was just a trial or a seasonal experiment but that seem to have been dashed as someone pointed that the file name for the logo that now appears on their web site is ‘newlogo.png’. You can also apparently follow the logo on Twitter which I can only pray is a fake or I will have to start sending it hate mail.
I know that things haven’t been going well for them over the past year or two but this move shows me this a company in complete free fall who is so panicked that they will try anything including throwing out their best assets. I think the only hero in all of this is the account guy at the brand design agency who was able to convince senior leadership at the GAP that this was a good idea that would change their business. I want to meet that guy because if he could sell this horrific pile of crap he clearly has a lot to teach us.
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MapQuest finally gets some direction
Mapquest was one of the early originators of online mapping but the brand and it’s site have been dormant for a very long time. They are trying to change all of that and close the gap on Google by making a comeback with a new site and some new branding.
New branding – It’s a logo, it’s an equation, it’s a character?
Let’s start by taking a look at their new logo / icon which is a departure from the old color palette and design with the addition to a new logo mark. When I saw the new logo for the first time I honestly thought it looked like M to the power of Q. I know other people either simply see the letters M and Q or get far more creative and see the letters forming a dog or elephant like character with the Q as the head of the animal. I can see how you could all of those interpretations but I keep debating with myself how I feel about the logo. On the one hand it is unique and I can’t think of another logo where you are able to see it so many different ways but I’m not convinced all that interpretation leads to a lasting or positive brand impression. MapQuest is trying to embrace all as these different forms as they acknowledge and explain them all in their new brand video but I think their explanations go too far into overreaching marketing speak trying to give every form meaning that relates to the site. If the three it would seem that the brand may be favoring the creature interpretation because on the new site the logo can be seen tapping its feet while content loads.
MapQuest.com – Differentiated or redecorated?
Google Maps
For me a new logo is nice but the real question is what are they doing on the new MapQuest.com that is going to differentiate the site and pull it ahead of Google Maps? I started in the obvious place by pulling up both sites and searching for the same address to do a side-by-side comparison. It was a bit of a disappointment when after all the build up I couldn’t really find any significant differences. I went down the list of features on both sites. Zoomable map – check. Street views – check. Live traffic – check. Search nearby – check. While MapQuest had a slightly cleaner design with more modern interface buttons the only real difference I could find took a page from a few popular iPhone apps and added an icon bar where you can quickly display restaurants, parks, movie theaters, etc. near your chosen location. They have also gone those basic markers to ass time sensitive content like ‘July 4th events’ and paid branded content from companies like Holiday Inn so you can find the nearest hotel.
It was only after I did some digging that I did find one interesting feature on the site. You can plan your trip online and save the results to the My Maps section and then either customize the map with your own information or pull up the route you want to take on your iPhone through their application. It’s a useful feature I would probably use when I travel because I don’t always 100% trust my car’s navigation system. The problem is that I NEVER saw one mention of this feature anywhere on the site outside of an extremely short mention of it in their new brand video. This is a huge miss for a brand trying to create some differentiation from a competitors who has a huge market share over them.
So when I look at this re-launch as whole I don’t see how they are going to gain any ground on Google. Using language like ‘started designing with a blank canvas’ sound promising but then you need to deliver something that is truly breakthrough and takes advantage of an opportunity like that and doesn’t have that canvas look more like a xerox than an a new original work of art.
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