Brand Catalyst’s Blog

The idea of Orange and T-Mobile coming together is a bit like imagining Angelina’s Lara Croft getting it together with David Brent, two more different brands operating in the same sector would be difficult to find. Orange was the first generation of brands to have a highly conceptual name and identity, in any product sector, let alone telecomm’s. The Orange advertising promised a wonderful future and it is still an aspirational brand, but it has lost out to the clout and distribution of the big boys. By contrast to Orange’s emotional promise, T-Mobile’s arrival on the scene ten years ago, when it swallowed One 2 One, heralded a wooden and cliched brand marketing campaign, so obviously imposed upon the UK by the brand’s German parent.  T-Mobile’s marketing only recovered in the last 12 months, with wonderful crowd dancing in railway stations (very much not of the David Brent style!), but too little too late. One can only assume that T-Mobile will quietly disappear as the much more evocative Orange is chosen to take on Vodafone and O2.

The old logo:                                                            The new logo:

The new campaign strapline:

The new identity for Keep Britain Tidy brings together the famous campaign and the identity of the organisaiton behind it. Previously known as ENCAMS the decision was made to leverage the equity within the name and make the organisation’s name eponymous with its campaigns. The Keep It Tidy thought plays through the logo, common to both organisation and campaign, and the campaign straplines, the latter flexing according to the subject matter of each campaign: Help Keep It Tidy, Let’s Keep Our Park Tidy, Let’s Keep Guildford Tidy etc.

The generic tidyman icon is undoubtedly one of the most internationally recognised symbols as it has been adopted for litter bin signage across the world.

How ironic that Starbucks, the brand that changed the world’s coffee habits, has made the move into instant coffee. The launch of its Via instant coffee brand sees Starbucks desperately targetting in-home consumption as the sales of its foaming lattes begin to dry up.

Over the last ten years or so Nestle and the other great instant coffee brand owners have been desperately trying to convince us that instant coffee is more than a poor cousin to those glamorous inheritors of the epitome coffee mantle: Starbucks/Costa/Caffe Nero/et al. While the instant coffee market bears the same ingredient name as the coffee bar market, any similarities stop there. Instant coffee is DIY, involving a jar, kettle and carton of milk; coffee bar coffee is gleaming Italian machinery, comfy sofas and indulgent temptation. 

One has alot of sympathy for Starbucks trying to tap into a $17bn instant coffee market as its high street sales decline and it might even be successful. But as we get used to that scuffed Starbucks pack sitting in the kitchen cupboard, will a visit to its once superior sister on the high street be quite so alluring?

Back in 1986 I was waiting in trepidation in Woolworth’s reception on Marylebone Road. It was the occasion of my first client presentation and my rather fearsome boss only served to compound the parlous state of my nerves. As it turned out and largely thanks to Woolworth’s welcoming marketing director Mike Sommers the presentation went down rather well, or probaby more accurately, I managed to keep my twitches and stammers to a minimum.

I did learn two important lessions from that non-too fiery baptism, the first was the responsibility of those in senior positions to be decent and supportive to those with less experience and second the importance of a clear and focused consumer offer. Even 25 years ago our research could not quite get to grips with what Woolworths was about.

In those days Woolies was the country’s biggest retailer of confectionery, records (remember them) and toys. These retail suns shone out in a firmament scattered with children’s clothes, homewares (yes, quite) stationery, magazines, self-adhesive soles, Christmas decorations, clothes dye, wool and an unending line of essential stuff that you might need every ten years.

In those days Woolies still had a powerful hold over us, a personality that was rooted in our child-hoods, memories of saving up to buy the latest single or snaffling some pick-and-mix when no-one was looking. Unfortunately without a clear brand proposition this once powerful star was allowed to fade so much that when its over-leveraged owner went pop the brand equity was not strong enough to attract a saviour.

The Guardian’s article today, on research into the economic state of England’s main towns and cities makes salutary reading. The research, conducted by The Work Foundation, identifies the differences between ‘resurgent’ cities that have responded to economic change and cities that have become ’stuck’. The ’stuck’ cities are typically on the geographic edges of the country, such as Hastings and Hull. Norwich is described as a city that is not fulfilling its potential, a bit like a bright but unfocused school boy.

I would argue that the differences between a city that is resurgent versus those that are still stuck are a powerful vision, conviction to deliver that vision and a very practical strategy for getting there. In short a brand plan. Key to the successful delivery of this brand plan is complete buy-in from businesses based in the city, they will become the city’s most important ambassadors and the proofs of the pudding.

While marketing the benefits of a location and the provision of financial incentives to go there are key, this cannot be a government-only initiative. Those cities that have been successful in transforming themselves, such as Dublin, Manchester and Reading, have done it because they have engaged individual businesses in the process.

No amount of marketing cliche will convince a business to choose a city, unless the benefits of being located there are real. Equally, unless those very real benefits are packaged and marketed in a compelling way the city ‘brand’ will continue to underperform. Which is why those cities that do have the potential need to grab hold of it and make it happen.

Come on Norwich, show them what you’re made of.

Jim McAuslan’s letter in Monday’s FT underlines the extraordinary challenges facing the BA management team in dragging its employees’ mindsets out of the restrictive practices of the 1970s. What other leading brand would tolerate a member of its production team to write such a public and vituperative challenge to its own Chief Executive. Mr McAuslan’s gripes about BA setting up a new airline without current BA pilots is a bit like complaining about a UK manufacturer sourcing parts from outside the UK.

What ever the foul-ups of Terminal 5 a brand like British Airways needs singular leadership and the interests of its customers at its heart. BA customers are not concerned with what the pilots think, they want a great service. Mr McAuslan and his fellow pilots might have complete control at 30,000 feet but they should keep their prenouncements to the plane’s intercom and leave the running of the airline to those with that job.

The news that Virgin is going to launch six one-stop health centres in 2008, hand-in-hand with the NHS, seems a very smart move indeed. Virgin Healthcare will manage the GPs’ budgets and sell additional services including therapies, dentistry and pharmacy. For any of us who have had to wait for our GP to get through their backed up list of appointments, the thought of a well managed clinic, with some interesting additional services sounds like a winner.

However, are there any implications of this venture for a brand that brings us such pleasures as holiday flights, music and TV, particularly when we fear that that lump we have recently noticed might be very bad news indeed?

Virgin has certainly always had to be trustworthy and reliable but never before has it asked people to put their lives in its hands. A very conspicuous partnership with the NHS will be required to ‘underwrite’ the ethical promise and the distinctly unpleasurable matters of ill health and mortality, allowing Virgin to focus on the lighter side of life.

The noisy marketing battle between S&N’s Bulmers and C&C’s Magners demonstrates two truths. The first truth is that significant marketing investment significantly stimulates sales. The second truth is that brewers are still clinging to that perennial hope that cider might one day become a volume contender to beer.

Each decade sees a cider brand trying to convince another generation that it is more refreshing/sophisticated/rewarding/tastier than beer. Remember the promises of Gaymers Original, Diamond White, Scrumpy Jack? And after a period of heady sales rises and excitement the inevitable happens and sales fall back down, however sophisticated, over-iced and enticing the marketing might be.

The problem with cider, unlike beer, is that it is made from apple juice, which means that it is fruitier, sweeter, more acidic and generally less suited as a session drink than beer, which of course is made from water with some key ingredients added in.

Yes cider can make a nice change and for a while you might even be convinced, but most who spent the night before drinking cider will not want to make it a regular experience.

How predictable the reaction to the London 2012 logo - lots of criticism, laughing and “How much…?”. A bit like my granny’s reaction when she first saw the cover of ‘Sargeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ back in 1967.

London 2012 has to deliver alot more than a slick Olympic games, it has to transform this country’s attitude and approach to sport and physical activity. The most critical audience for LOCOG, if it is to fulfill its legacy ambitions, is to convert a whole generation to a more active, healthy and positively competitive lifestyle. If this means creating a logo that makes the average person squeal for a few days, so be it.

A logo is designed to make you think of the brand promise that lies behind it. Triggering that memory is the logo’s most important role. If you are not convinced by the logo itself click here to watch the film on the London 2012 site.

I have had no hand in creating this logo, nor am I connected to anyone who did, but I was involved in some of the original thinking that helped to win the bid and I think that the brand story is spot on. If the logo reminds you of that story it works.

I rather think that in a few weeks we will have all moved on.

Every year we hear the complaint that Christmas is becoming overly commercialised, the celebration of the birth of Jesus barely getting a look in.

This is a fact that most of us have become accustomed to, but what has struck me this year is the commercialisation of anti-Christian messages in connection to Christmas.

Last week standing on the platform at Holborn tube I saw a poster featuring a demonic monster that would have scared the pants off my six year old, let alone me. This poster was advertising a computer game called Dark Messiah, evidently a theme of evil battling evil, the release being timed to hit the Christmas run-up.

Sitting in the cinema on Saturday night waiting to see ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ - incidentally a side splittingly funny film - we were treated to a trailer for a particularly unpleasant looking ’slasher’ horror film entitled ‘Black Christmas’. Again, interesting seasonal timing.

In these times when we are all meant to be sensitive to the religious beliefs of others it seems extraordinary that such provocative marketing is considered acceptable.