vivid shining brands

“You should resign. You should give back the money you took while this scam was going on and you should be criminally investigated.” Ouch. Imagine if that was a public official leveling such a charge at you, the CEO of a heretofore well-respected financial services institution. Think of the damage done, not only to your personal reputation, but to the brand value of your company and the morale of your people. Yet this is exactly what John Stumpf, CEO of venerable Wells Fargo Bank, had to endure at the hands of Senator Elizabeth Warren this week. This Senate hearing came on the heels of a scandal in which bank employees, under reportedly intense pressure to cross-sell products to make their numbers, fraudulently opened new accounts for customers without their permission. To make matters worse, Stumpf appeared to blame the proverbial “few bad apples” for the trouble, although it appears as though the number of apples fired as a result was somewhere north of 5,000 and none of them, oddly...

Ants are small. But they are remarkably strong for their size. They are also able to adapt to almost any environment, including the man-made one. Elephants, on the other hand, are remarkably strong but not in direct proportion to their size. In fact, they have innumerable weaknesses due to their prodigious presence, and can only survive in an environment that is kept intentionally free of human intrusion. What, oh what does this have to do with branding? In mergers & acquisitions, a lot of time and effort is spent in valuation of the business assets of the company being acquired. Almost always the company with greater tangible assets (the elephant) is acquiring one of lesser (the ant), which makes obvious business sense. The bigger company then goes on, in an almost perfunctory manner, to swallow, digest, and eventually eliminate the brand of the smaller company that has been acquired. This does not always make the most sense. What if the smaller company actually has fa...

I attended an event at Swissnex the other night where robotics researchers Oussama Khatib from Stanford AI Labs and Aude Billard from the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory at the Ecole Polytechnique Féderalé de Lausanne displayed the latest in their research into reactive robotics. I came away convinced that once our machines are able to learn and respond to changes in their environments, it will be us who will have to learn to adapt to a whole new world in which certain brands that we rely on for affirmation or association may disappear as they lose relevance in a reactive robotic world. I'm talking about our machines: Our cars, our appliances, and our tools. The things we currently command but which are going to be literally taken out of our hands. The Google self-driving car is perhaps the most obvious. Almost every automaker is heavily invested in developing highly sophisticated, reactive vehicles. California lawmakers just passed a bill making driverless cars...

I was puzzling over this recruitment ad for AOL that was posted on a billboard near my agency's building in the tech-heavy SoMa neighborhood. Is this how the new brand image of AOL is going to be expressed? If so, I guess we're going for a mix of upper and lower case and some new punctuation, which is OK, although it adds some complexity. For instance, does this mean we should start pronouncing it ay-ohl? Or, more properly, ay-ohl period? Or is that ay-ohl dot, as in dot com? And what's with the sad bear on the circus bike? Are they looking for a very particular personality type in their employees? Should happy monkeys be advised that they need not apply? Sure, we're all feeling a bit melancholy, given the economic situation and all the disasters and wars and all of that in the past few years, but really, it doesn't have to be worn on a corporate sleeve in such lugubrious fashion. Even in the case of a lugubrious former high-flyer brand such as Aol. My ...

The news today that Borders Books will close their doors has particular poignancy to me. From nytimes.com: At its peak, Borders was seen as the more brainy and cool of the large book chains, holding onto the college-town culture of its roots. In the 1990s, that image began to fade as the chain expanded wildly and helped snuff out many mom-and-pop independent stores. The company’s troubles can be traced to a series of strategic missteps, executive turnover and a general failure to keep up with an evolving retail climate. Borders was hurt by pressure from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and big-box stores likeWal-Mart that began selling large numbers of best sellers. As a student at the University of Michigan School of Art in Ann Arbor, I frequented the original Borders on State Street. It really was the quintessential college experience: A quiet, woody-shelved place where there were stools for reaching high shelves or sitting for hours to read, uninterrupted by staff. This was ...

An interesting piece in BrandWeek about a new Accenture survey that shows how CMOs are taking a hard look at what they and their companies are doing (or not) to make it through this seemingly endless recession: Only about two in ten surveyed said their companies very effectively use most channels to reach, influence or interact with customers. The most effective channels cited are in-person contact with front-line employees and encouraging existing customers to recommend corporate products and services. Beyond those, however, less than 20 percent of respondents said they effectively use digital channels like corporate Web sites, online communities, online advertising, and mobile and location-based marketing; traditional advertising such as print, television and radio; and direct mail and telemarketing. Marketers gave themselves the lowest marks in leveraging digital channels, monitoring and optimizing marketing's contribution and using channels strategically. Accenture found s...

From John Tierney, writing in the NY Times today  about which stories in that newspaper get emailed the most: The results are surprising — well, to me, anyway. I would have hypothesized that there are two basic strategies for making the most-e-mailed list. One, which I’ve happily employed, is to write anything about sex. The other, which I’m still working on, is to write an article headlined: “How Your Pet’s  Diet  Threatens Your Marriage, and Why It’s Bush’s Fault.”  Surprising articles, like one about free-range chickens on the streets of New York, were also more likely to be e-mailed — which was a hardly a surprising discovery, of course. But the researchers also kept finding popular articles with a quality that went beyond surprise. “If I went into my classroom dressed up like a pirate, that would be surprising, but it wouldn’t be awe-inspiring,” Dr. Berger said. “An article about square watermelons is surprising, but it doesn’t inspire that awed feeling ...

The new campaign for Method, the San Francisco-based soap company, is taking the David vs. Goliath approach, targeting Procter & Gamble's Tide brand, the market leader. From the NY Times : The campaign, now under way, takes the cheeky tone typical of Method’s marketing by mocking mainstream products as feeding a household’s heinous “jug” habit — jugs being the large, handled bottles that rival brands use rather than the small pump bottles of Method. “Say no to jugs,” the headlines of print and online ads declare. Other ads proclaim that Method stands “for a jug-free America.” And the following is a sequence of online banner ads: “Are you a jug addict? Frequently overdosing? Heavy and bloated? We can help. Get off the jugs and get clean.” The campaign, by Droga5 in New York, can also be seen on a microsite, or special Web site,  methodlaundry.com . Method has become a popular hand soap brand through the combination of attractive packaging and subtle product attributes (...

Watching Toyota wrestle with its major recall and manufacturing suspension due to gas pedal problems reminds me of the similar trouble that befell Audi in 1989, when its flagship 5000 had similar issues that threatened to destroy the brand entirely. From an article in the Chicago Sun Times at the time: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday it has closed a three-year investigation of so-called "sudden  acceleration " in  Audi  5000 models, saying driver error was the major source of the  problem . "The major cause appears to have been drivers' unknowingly stepping on the accleratator instead of the brake pedal," NHTSA said. Reports of sudden accleration, in which a car inexplicably surges forward while still in park or at low speeds, were devastating to  Audi 's U.S. sales. They dropped from 74,000 in 1984 to 23,000 last year. Of course, Audi did not meet its demise as a result, but became a very quiet brand for many years a...

From the Economist today : WHY can’t Britain hang on to ownership of iconic brands such as Jaguar, Land Rover, the Mini, Rowntree, the  Times  and now Cadbury, purveyor of chocolate to children of the British empire? On January 19th, after a four-month battle, Roger Carr, chairman of Cadbury, said his board was recommending to shareholders a £11.9 billion ($19.5 billion) takeover bid by Kraft Foods, of Northfield, Illinois. Somehow, despite the blustering of politicians and the protests of organised labour, great companies like this one have been slipping out of British control. The British "Brand" has been losing steam for a while now, but things have really accelerated in the past decade, with the loss, as noted above, of all the great British motoring brands with the exception Rolls Royce. So what does the British Brand stand for, anymore? Tea is perhaps one immortal British icon (Twinings, PG Tips), and maybe the Queen. Bass Ale, and within the U.K. fold also Guine...

Under-promise. Over-deliver. Or, since this is politics, over-promising is to be expected, but then one has to at least over-deliver in some fashion. On the one-year anniversary of his historic inauguration, President Obama is being taken to task for not having delivered on promises of change, not having fixed the train wreck of an economy, nor presenting true healthcare reform to the nation. This is disappointing to those who supported him, but of course the rational among us look at what he has accomplished, especially given the destruction he inherited from the W-bomb. But, as marketing professionals certainly know, consumers (and voters) are anything but rational. So, what went wrong? President Obama's campaign was brilliantly branded. The narrative was stunningly compelling. Why, the guy was even named Marketer of the Year by AdAge, handily besting both Apple and Nike, much as he bested John McCain. Glenn Greenwald, writing in the NY Times today , noted tha...

In relation to its small size, Switzerland packs a hefty brand punch. 5% of the world's top brands in 2009 were Swiss, according to a report by Interbrand . Among Swiss brands, at least 40 are practically household names . What makes the Swiss affinity for branding so strong? Come see me give a presentation on that very subject to the Swiss American Chamber of Commerce 5:30 PM on January 14th, at City National Bank. 150 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94111 (Enter main door no later than 6 pm; sign in with security, and ride elevator to 12th floor. RSVP required to be on the check-in list.) TO REGISTER go directly to http://sacc.fastmetrics.com/events/index.php ($15.00 for Members; $20.00 for Non-Members)

Don't you hate mornings where you wake up to learn from the New York Times that yet another intrinsic part of your youth has died? with a narrow, though loyal, customer base focused on Sweden, Britain and the American Northeast, Saab has proved too small to lure the world’s big automakers, many of which are seeking tie-ups to increase economies of scale. For me, learning that SAAB would be closed by the feckless GM demons who became their master left a big hole in my heart. Why? Because a 1972 SAAB Model 96 was the first car I ever bought with my own money. It was my first automobile-based personal brand statement. I was a budding iconoclast, and could think of no better way to show that to the world than to drive around in this funny looking foreign car. The ignition on floor. The handle under the dashboard that you could pull out so the car would freewheel at highway speeds, settling the car into an eerie quiet as the motor shut down to idle, and the little upside-down bat...

We've seen a lot of innovation around ad length in the past couple of years, from Miller's 1-second mini-spots to this three-minute adventure from Chanel. I have to say, give me a good story with compelling visuals, like Chanel has done, and I'll watch forever. Perhaps Miller is best left doing those fivers, because I can't imagine they could ever come up with material to sell cheap beer that could ever compare to this: Imagine, an ad so compelling I willingly replayed it several times over. That's the power of creativity.

I'm always glad to see one of the brands we help create do well. In this case, it's our client, RoliRoti , who came to us eight years ago as "Swiss Chicken." The WESSLING Group did a total rebrand, from the new name (think Rolling Rotisserie) to the logo, website, and brand strategy. RoliRoti founder Thomas Odermatt was featured on View from the Bay recently, where he was called "the Grandfather of Gourmet Street Food." Wow. Does that make me the "Grandfather of Gourmet Street Food Branding?" You can see the video featuring Thomas and RoliRoti here: http://cbs5.com/eyeonthebay/street.foods.little.2.1340905.html His part is about 2/3 of the way through. 

As I saw Tiger Woods in an online ad for Accenture the other day, I couldn't help but think "Why the hell didn't they pull that as soon as they heard the news?"  From AdAge: The squeaky clean image of golf's greatest player and the sports world's most lucrative endorser took a hit over Thanksgiving weekend -- no pun intended. Mr. Woods was involved in a single-car accident, but the timing, the circumstances, the aftermath and the ever-churning rumor mill quite possibly have endangered his own brand and his estimated nine-figure annual endorsement deals with several blue-chip companies. "I think this incident ultimately will have a negative effect on the Tiger Woods brand," said sports marketing expert Robert Tuchman, exec VP of New York-based sports and entertainment marketing company Premiere Global Sports. "Regardless of the facts, there are brand marketers who might pass at looking at him now. I think as this situation unfolds and how he...

From an interview in AdAge yesterday: Ad Age:  Virgin America doesn't use much TV or print at all, so what are your thoughts on the future of the more traditional advertising mediums? Mr. Branson:  Conventional television obviously is dying as an advertising medium and will continue a slow death, whereas obviously the web and other forms of new media will continue to grow. It will clearly be sharing its grave with radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards, posters, and the like, right? While I admire Mr. Branson immensely, I think making such broad and unsupportable statements is a bit beneath his integrity. He also announces here that he will be moving Virgin into banking in the coming year. The brand's future brand essence is "People's Champion, Slayer of Giants" so I think that fits in quite nicely with the Virgin ethos, don't you?

From the "This has to be a hoax" department: McDonald's is going green — swapping its traditional red backdrop for a deep hunter green — to promote a more eco-friendly image in Europe. About 100 German McDonald's restaurants will make the change by the end of 2009, the company said in a statement Monday. Some franchises in Great Britain and France have already started using the new color scheme behind their Golden Arches. "This is not only a German initiative but a Europewide initiative," Martin Nowicki, McDonald's Germany spokesman, told The Associated Press. Dropping more than a half-century's worth of branding in favor of a consumer trend towards "greener" products? Has McDonald's gone mad? ...or is it branding genius? Since so many of their competitors (Wendy's, BK, In-n-Out) have the classic red/yellow color combo, could they be leveraging part of their massive brand equity to disrupt the fast-food market landscape? ...

What to do when you've got a stinker of a brand that hasn't kept up with the times? Revamp. Rebrand. Reposition. Just Reanything, if we can get a pulse out of the damn thing! Actually, I agree with the reasoning behind AOL getting a brand revamp, as we often find that works well for our clients whose brands have fallen behind the times. But they usually have a product or service that still has relevance. Does AOL have relevance, or is it too little, too late? Also, how did they know all us Ad Men would immediately don our "Snark Hats?" From the NY Times : Whatever AOL does or does not do, Ms. Marquess said, there will be gibes from critics, whom she called “the snarkies” after the snarky comments they invariably make. “We need to give people a reason to care again” about AOL, she added, which is worth drawing swipes from the sidelines. Gabe Fried, chief executive at Streambank in Needham, Mass., a financial advisory firm focused on intellectual property asse...