Branding
Dodge recalls their logo. Sort of…
I certainly understand protecting your brand, your logo and your image but in this case attorneys for Chrysler aren’t going after another car brand but Lake Mary High School in Seminole County Florida. The Lake Mary Ram’s logo is an exact lift of the Dodge Ram logo and are insisting that the school spend tens of thousands of dollars to phase out the logo from everything from the gym floor to school stationary. So the question is should be take this hard line even with a case like this where the offender isn’t even using it for commercial gains or is this the right call to protect their brand?
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Domino’s Turnaround builds up then destroys their pizza and brand
By now you have probably seen the new Domino’s Pizza campaign from Crispin Porter called The Pizza Turnaround where Domino’s monitored consumer comments about the brand on social media channels and according to this feedback they created new pizza recipes. Crispin did a great job with the TV spots and a slightly longer form documentary because it makes you want to give Dominos another chance. My wife who is a serious foodie even turned to me on the couch the other night after one of the spots aired and said ‘I always hated Dominos but after that I would give them another chance.’ The advertising did everything you could have asked of it because it changed people’s opinions and created an intent for them to act on it. Pop the champaign, make room on the trophy wall and tell the client to increase the advertising budget because we have a winner… or do we?
I went to the campaign site today to dig around a little more before I wrote this post about how successful the campaign has been when that feeling and my intent to actually try the new Domino’s came crashing down around me. On PizzaTurnaround.com you find the previously mentioned documentary, one news story and a Twitter feed that displays tweets with the tag #newpizza running down the right hand column. As you start to read down the column you quickly see that people’s love seemingly only extends to the campaign as I did not see one positive comment from anyone who actually tried the pizza. The first four found Tweets I read were “Tried the new Dominos pizza….. In my mind, collossal fail.”, “Meh it was ok…”, “im not feeling the new crust. i miss the old dominos.” and “not so great. Since when did “add more garlic/butter” = make things better?! Blech.”. That noise you hear is my intent to try the new product exiting stage left.
Using social media to give brand transparency to consumers can be a powerful tool but it has be used carefully and thought out to work correctly. In this case you are asking consumers to give your brand another chance and your advertising delivers that intent but it is a tenuous opportunity. From the time when you create that intent until the time when it gets paid off you can’t have any bumps in the road because the bond to the brand isn’t that strong yet. These Tweets are big bumps that are going to break that bond and kill the opportunity. I don’t know why this site didn’t take it’s cues from the video it was supposed to support and MAKE IT A TWO WAY DIALOG! Your video said you were listening to consumers and you were responding so why did that stop once the campaign launched? It makes the video feel like just an advertising stunt and that the brand really isn’t listening. You have a chance here to be transparent and let people post their thoughts BUT Domino’s has to be part of the conversation. They have to address these comments and not let them destroy what they are trying to build. It is the only way this is going to go from a quick fix to a real long term solution that will restore their business.
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Art Directors Club new logo minus the art direction
After nearly 90 years of service to the creative community the Art Directors Club has decided to re-design their iconic logo designed by Paula Scher around 2005 which was an update of Albrecht Dürer’s mark that the ADC had been using almost since its inception.
I have to be honest that the new logo leaves me flat and uninspired and I echo the views of Armin over at Brand New in his assessment of the new logo when he said “The biggest problem I have with the new logo is that it really doesn’t do much. I understand the direction to go with an all-type solution and as an advocate of all-type solutions I don’t complain about that aspect, but why so dull? Why just Franklin Gothic tightly letterspaced? One thing is to “embrace our origins and heritage” but it’s another to ignore and disregard the present or even the future and not offer a new kind of visual language for a new century. For an organization that clearly has its own unique, edgy voice and is well respected in the industry, they surely had an opportunity to create something that reflected that same attitude that they have applied to their annuals and competitions. Dressing it in magenta is unfortunately not enough.”
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Verizon iDon’t play nice with Apple
Looks like Verizon is finally fed up with Apple’s continued iPhone exclusivity with AT&T and has decided to do something about it with a new phone called Droid and a new campaign called “iDon’t” that takes the biggest swing yet at the iPhone. The visual design of the campaign clearly mimics Apple’s typography and music style while the content uses copy like “iDon’t have have a real keyboard, iDon’t run simultaneous apps, iDon’t take 5-megapixel pictures, iDon’t customize, iDon’t run widgets, iDon’t allow open development…” to get their point across. If you are going to poke he bear you better have the goods and early tests with the phone has generated some really good press but can good performance generate the same kind of breakthrough appeal and sales that happened with the launch of the iPhone?
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Estee Lauder gives women a social media close up
Estee Lauder is the latest brand to tie their product to the wide spread adoption of social media. Starting next week they will be offering free makeovers and photo shoots at its department store cosmetics counters coast-to-coast to produce photos women can use for their online profiles, blog or Web site. You will also see in the fine print that they understand the power of the medium and the potential exposure as you can get your photo done with no purchase required. I still think creating these types of assets for consumers to use in social media is really smart as it gives not only a lasting brand presence but puts their branding into a context thats feels much more personal than any ad ever could. It will be interesting to see if we all starting seeing these photos in our friends lists as quickly as saw the Mad Men Myself creations appear.
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London Calling (For designers)
I have seen tons of brands that have lost their way and identity as they have hung on more and and more logos under the corporate umbrella but I can’t happening to a city. With the Olympics right around the corner London is trying to clarify their identity and have put out a substantial RFP to create a unified brand for London, set the direction for London after 2012 and develop an international promotion into a powerful policy mechanism. I can’t say I blame them going through a process like this after seeing the PR nightmare that created after the reveal of the disjointed 2010 Olympics logo. If you are feeling like your brand jung fu is strong you can request an invitation to tender a submission here. The firm Moving Brands has already publicly said that they will be submitting a response and they have taken the interesting step of make their process open to and informed by public opinion at their blog called A Brand For London. The blog has only been live for 3 days and they already have 3 pages of posts so it will be interesting to watch and see how the work evolves and is influenced by the comments left on the blog.
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myspace – not friendly any more
I noticed today that flagging social media pioneer MySpace.com has tweaked their branding to remove the “.com” and “a place for friends” from their logo. The site ha been under siege from all angles. They have had huge employee layoffs that Fast Company called “the largest de-friending in its history” laying off 30% of its U.S. workforce and two-thirds of its international employees a week later. They have seen Facebook surpass them in global unique visitors on top of declining marketing spends and millions of pissed off users. I will once again repeat my thought of only once post ago and say that you are not going to to be able to re-invent your business by re-inventing your logo.
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Pizza the Hut isn’t just in Spaceballs anymore
Pizza Hut has decided to follow KFC in the branding tactic that says people would buy more from you if they could just say your name faster. So as Kentucky Fried Chicken went to KFC, Pizza Hut has now become The Hut. You read that right – they have re branded their company to match the villain in Spaceballs! Not to mention there doesn’t seem to be an accompanying plan on how they are going to effect that trend of people choosing to dine at home and avoid ‘junk’ foods to save money. This trend of thinking you can improve your business with a new logo instead of new ideas is getting really, really old.
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Avid’s identity goes up, down, frame advance and finally forward
AVID has been around as long as their has been non-linear digital editing. They recently bought up 5 other companies like Digidesign and Pinnacle so applications like Pro Tools, Media Composer, Oxygen 8, Sibelius and Pinnacle Studio now all fall under their flag. They took this opportunity to rebrand the company and launch their new logo pictured above. This design centric solution comes at a price because it is distinctive and a clever nod to their existing customers but that comes at the cost of it being marginally legible to new customers. I have spent the past 22 years with the old logo and in-spite of the trade offs I love the change.
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The battle between Data vs. Design
I read an interesting article in the New York Times yesterday called ‘Data, Not Design, Is King in the Age of Google‘ about the recent career of Douglas Bowman. The debate in the article is if a company will lose it’s innovative edge if it listens to its customers and the data their behaviors generate too closely in creating new designs and functionality. After reading the article I wanted to add my 2 cents to the debate over data vs. design.
My position is that the data documents the road behind you and that 20/20 hindsight can teach you a lot about what works, what people respond to and what just isn’t doing it for them. That being said when you it comes time to move forward and create something that innovates I think you have to use the data as a base to ground the new work in something they will respond to but then rise above it to grow those previous behaviors into something new and better.
As a creative director or designer in the interactive creative process you have to be a evangelist and filter.You will be challenged at several points in the process to steer your client through the temptations of the previous user data when you pitch your concept, or the focus group results after you have visual designs, or the user testing data when you have your prototype because that is the safer and more comfortable path.
You have to be an evangelist because when you boil it down as a creative a large part of what you are selling is confidence in you, your team and most of all your idea. Not all clients can see the final results of how the idea will turn out as easily as you can so you need to put in the work to maintain that confidence throughout the project.
Next, you have to be a filter to go through the data, focus groups results and user testing behaviors to be able to sort out what are results that need to be acted on versus something that the new concept will address or a behavior that can re-shaped for the better. I also think that it is essential to define what will be considered a successful outcome before each of these exercises so the results are put in context. For example if you are testing an new experiential site and you know only 15% of your audience engages in that type of content then you need to set the expectation for user testing that 7 out of the 10 participants may not like that new functionality but the resulting 30% engagement is a 100% improvement over the audiences current behavior. Since you studied the previous data you can serve as a filter to set that expectation so your client will not see a 70% failure rate and kill the concept and design direction instead of seeing that it is doing it’s job.
So in the end I think that if you just follow the data without the benefit of your knowledge and filtering then you will have your consumers and even your clients defining the direction of your work and I don’t think you can consistently find great ideas and innovative interactive experiences that way.
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