In 2005, Kevin Roberts published Lovemarks, the basic tenet of which is that brands need to create "loyalty beyond reason". In other words they need to move from simply being brands to higher order "lovemarks" (based on a combo of mystery, sensuality & intimacy). It's a great read and like all powerful theories is simple and easy to understand. The website that measures and tracks lovemarks isn't quite up to snuff though. In the Lovemarks All Time top 20 are 4 Bollywood actors/actresses, Vin Diesel and John Denver.
I was thinking about this the other day as i read about the Mappiness study going in at the London School of Economics. Download an app for your iPhone and it pings you to ask a few questions about where you are, what you're doing and your level of happiness. The intent is to measure how environmental factors (who you're with where you are, what you're doing etc) have a bearing on your overall level of happiness. Understanding the role of brands in creating happiness is an interesting theory. Undoubtedly material possessions provide some sort of enjoyment, but how would an iPad compare to a Dyson or Sony compared to VW in terms of creating happiness? Even more interesting would be how brands would compare to intangible things like a walk on the beach, or a drink with a friend? I'd love to see a brand happiness index. Which brands would lead the way in which countries? Which places are more brand/materially driven vs. other sources of happiness? Where do Vin Diesel and John Denver rank on the brand happiness index?
We have a lot of runners at Egg. A couple of us have experimented with the "freerunning" movement. In short, minimalist footwear to produce close-to-natural footstrike. While still within the minority, this freerunning movement is gaining traction (sorry, had to do it) and is proving to be a cost-of-entry innovation for most mainstream footwear companies. New Balance, Adidas and Nike have joined the race (there we go again).
These races against similar products inevitably produce a battle of differentiation (messaging, colorways, sponsors). Ultimately, the winner will harness an element of distinction its competition can't match. I'll propose Nike's getting there with the below video. Always attentive to its ownership of the convergence between athletics and pop culture, Nike produced a video with the help of a couple Japanese DJ's (not going to pretend I have the street cred to elaborate) that while absurd, highlighted the core attribute of its Nike Free shoe (next-to-natural flexibility) in a way that resonates with runners and peaks the interest of those profitable fashion-forward sneakerfreaks.
This is a challenge to rethink the way we communicate our most important attributes. Re-imagine how our targets experience the benefits we shout from the rooftops. Turn a simple function into art and in one down-beat, beat down the competition.
For many of the world's men, the airtight equation for camaraderie consists of one or both of these addends: beer and sport. The summation quite often includes both in the case of a big game. THE big game. Such as the UEFA Champions League game between AC Milan and Real Madrid football teams.
In a brilliant activation strategy, Heineken Italy proposes that the "most sacred time men have left" is at risk, then devised a stunt to call out the increasing influence external factors have in pulling a fan away from his set (and his buddies, and, well, a profitable beer occasion). More narration will only act as a spoiler, so spend a few minutes with this excellent case study to see how, ultimately, Heineken went viral, celebrated the sanctity of male bonding and created authentic engagement with its brand.
Cheers to the weekend.
On a plane home the other day I saw the documentary "It Might Get Loud" - a film featuring three guitar playing legends - Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White. The film shows how each of them were inspired and how their careers unfolded. One story in the movie touched a nerve for me. Jimmy Page was talking about recording the track When The Levee Breaks in an old manor house in the English countryside. They set up the drum kit in the front hall, above which was a vaulted high ceiling. Instead of moving the drums into the main room where the rest of the equipment was, John Bonham started playing out in the hall, quickly realizing that the uniquely high ceiling added a massive amount of "height" to his sound. This created the now legendary drumming sound on that track. Other bands tried to recreate it by recording in elevator shafts.
Loved this for a the marriage between serendipity and a great creative leap. It made me ask- what brands have recently "heightened" their sound in a unique way...and then one for you: what have you done lately to "heighten" what you do?
This post was originally going to be about Tiger Woods and Gillette, following on from the Thierry Henry post earlier in the month, but there's so much stuff being written about him now, that I find the whole thing depressing. Far better to be inspired by something that adds height, rather than focus on a guy keeping his head down for the foreseeable future.
Those of you who follow football will be aware of France's qualification to the 2010 World Cup at the expense of Ireland with a controversial winning goal. The goal came after French star Thierry Henry controlled the ball twice with his hand before crossing to his team-mate William Gallas to tuck it into the net. The London tabloids (bless them) called it the "Hand of Frog."
Thierry Henry is one of 3 men (Tiger Woods and Roger Federer being the others) who are part of a Gillette global branding campaign. A recent image on the Gillette website in France featured the 3 stars holding the tools of their respective trades. Rather than showing Thierry Henry with a ball at his feet, the picture shows him holding the ball with his "hand of frog". As my colleague Ted commented: who should get a raise this year?
1) The creative director or pompous photographer who thought shooting this image with the ball in Henry’s hand was a better idea than placing it his feet.
2) The brand manager who called the agency first thing Monday morning to tell them to fix the site.
3) The producer and post house (web designer...?) that made it look effortless.
Personally, I still think it looks like someone's chopped his hand off, but that might just be me
A few weeks ago the CEO of VW North America, Stefan Jacoby, attracted a lot of press for his comments made in an interview in the Washington Post. Herr Jacoby explained that his key goal for the brand was to create more mainstream "North America friendly" fleet of cars that honored the different driving experience we have here (vs. Europe). He got a lot of stick after the interview for comments about better cup holders and entertainment systems. Basically VW brand fans were afraid that this vision would lead to a dilution of what they love about VW - i.e. that the brand would become more blah, less unique and less "imported". I'm one of those people. I only have to look at Saab to see a European brand that's been denigrated with a more North American approach to design and manufacturing.
Further enhancing my brand snobbery, I came across this set of viral films created by DDB Stockholm, sponsored and supported by VW. No doubt about it, this is the spirit of VW that I like and which draws me to their brand. Lovely idea, well executed, nice message and one which seems in keeping with what I associate with VW (good design ideas for the people). Piano Stairs is my favorite:
While I'm at it, this is my favorite VW spot from their UK agency DDB London. It's a couple of years old, but I could watch it over and over. Another perfect example of their brand voice. I'm hoping that with the change in corporate direction and the upcoming change in agency partner, that this voice is never lost.
I love the Evian couture bottle program. With the proliferation of bottled water brands that span the market from packaged tap water to luxury designer water, there is a natural comparison between bottled water and fashion.
Fashion sells textiles at extreme markup through design. Doesn’t Voss, Bling2O, Antipodes and other ‘Fine Waters’ do the same thing? Evian is clearly keeping a foot in this trend.
Here are some of the Evian designs so far. The latest one by Paul Smith is definitely my favorite.
I am fascinated by the uproar about the transfer of the show Project Runway from the uber stylish Bravo to the more, um, subdued Lifetime (it premiered on the new channel last Thursday). According to the blogs, viewers were sure that the show would not be nearly as good on Lifetime as it was on Bravo. But while the channel has changed, the format, the hosts and the lingo will remain - so why was everyone so sure it would be bad? Because the Bravo network has developed an incredible brand around “drama” TV that is so bad it’s great, for young-minded, style-oriented viewers – while Lifetime’s for...well, I don’t really know – women who stay home on Saturday nights? (Even the name Lifetime sounds old!) Fans trusted the show coming from Bravo as curator. I’m inspired by Bravo’s ability to create this “in the know” persona for itself (even the logo suggests people are talking about it!). The most successful channels are brands – and while some are reaping the rewards of brilliantly managing this, those that don’t will be totally “out.”
This spot has been getting a lot of play on the advertising blogs lately. It's an Australian beer ad for VB, which is immensely watchable, even for non-Australians. I'm not a VB drinker and nor will I go out of my way to find it, but the spot created a really positive impression of the brand for me...and really that's what matters. VB is a massive mainstream beer...effectively the Bud of Australia, with huge appeal to a broad audience. I can imagine the planner sitting down to try to write the "target audience" section of his brief and struggling to find anything really insightful for his creative team. Then, maybe the lightbulb went off that the insight was not about a focused target audience, but more about the brand's huge everyman appeal. The fact that VB is enjoyed by a huge array of Aussies means that it must have something special about it. The way the spot celebrates this appeal across a range of stereotypes is a great creative leap. It reminds me of the brilliant Bud radio spots years ago celebrating Real American Heroes (all 110 of them here) .
More importantly, it reminds me that while we often strive to focus down to a tight definition of our audience, maybe we should look much more broadly at a larger pool of users and concentrate more on what they need, rather than just who they are.
I’m currently on a research project set across three cities in India. Over dinner with my client Abhijit in Delhi, we got to talking about the interesting dynamics of cell phone adoption in this massive country. The biggest player here is Nokia, who just “got it right” according to Abhijit. I pushed for a reason why and he rattled off a number of smart moves... terrific advertising, a stellar product, and early entry into the market. But what caught my attention was an anecdotal story of how Nokia connected with the working class. Abhijit said a key move was when Nokia won the allegiance of truck drivers (who, believe me, are everywhere in this country!). As Nokia was looking for new and innovative ways to improve their hardware, they stumbled across a deceptively small insight: truck drivers get out of their trucks a dozen or more times in the course of a long night on the road... and it can be really, really dark (you know... that thing that happens when the sun goes down). The answer? Add a little flashlight to the phone. Bingo! Instead of looking for some earth-shaking, never-before-seen feature on the bleeding edge of technology, Nokia went old school and added a light bulb. And just yesterday on my flight from Delhi to Mumbai, the Economic Times of India published the results of its Brand Equity Most Trusted Brands survey. The top brand for 2009 and now two years running? The guys with the light bulbs sparking up — in more ways than one.
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