University festival of design, last night I went to the open evening and I wanted to share my experience!
I arrived a little late to a packed lecture theatre with a still atmosphere as the first keynote speaker was introduced. He was a design engineer from mobile phone manufacturer, a 30 something who had been at the company since his first job as a tester, which he got whilst studying. During the following hour the audience were subjected to the most dry, boring and drab journey of this uninspiring, un-engaging individual. I often refrain from criticising others, especially when they are qualified individuals, respected within their profession.

This chap had all the qualifications, had some great experiences over his career and holds an influential role, but I have to tell you this was the worst presentation I have endured in my entire life. What was the point to the keynote… Your guess is as good as mine, I learn’t some trivial information about his early years, about where his office was, how many cars he has and all of his qualifications. Maybe I had missed the point, but speaking to everyone after it was a widely shared opinion that is was truly terrible. Had it not been for the second keynote speaker who totally got it I would have been asking for my time back! He showed passion, energy, told an engaging story and awakened an audience who had been left in a coma from the first guy.

This made me realise that despite good qualifications, experiences… and before you are fighting this mans battle he said he was an accomplished presenter around the world to teams and schools, this was a ‘keynote’ for this there are no excuses. He was unable to read or engage the audience, prepare a good presentation and deliver with any zest what so ever. To top it off, the most awful PowerPoint slides made this a memorable event for all the wrong reasons.  This becomes even funnier as the event was about celebrating design innovation! Shocking.

So, I was hoping that the student’s work would make up for this… I was drawn to the sustainable graphics and packaging course grads, in a small room was a dozen or so people from another Uni, and a mix of standards. Some good concepts and ideas with poor execution, and vice-versa.

Now sat in the gardens waiting before my next meeting I remember two individuals; One, a young chap who’s work was already at a commercial level, he talked with a clear drive and an understanding of the subject. I have no doubt he will find work and will be an asset to whom he joins. The other was a mature student, an ex designer in an advertising agency who had created an interesting concept, a working retreat for designers to escape. An environment to learn, reflect and design in a harmonious way. Aptly named ‘The tree house’. I would love to see this concept become a reality, so I can take my team for some ‘time out’ whilst still producing project work. I am compelled to help connect her to a few contacts that I think can help her pull this off.

It’s a great idea, and I am sure many design teams would love to spend a day or two to re ignite their passion for their craft, which is often lost in the hubbub of the working environment. The 4 hour event soon flew by and had filled me with excitement, knowing there is good talent coming through. With the lasting bonus, experiencing how not to present! Something I hope I will never be responsible for inflicting to an audience in the future! Sorry Mobile phone man, but please, please,  ’step it up’ or stop presenting!

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Believe it or not, us human beings are programmed to respond to emotion and we often make many important decisions based on how easily we are influenced by feelings and emotive language around us. For example, making purchases in a shop or from a website based on emotion is quite normal. Just like the age old head over heart argument, we know what we should do; the logical, sensible and often safe option, but the most successful marketers understand that successful products appeal to the heart, not the mind. Going by our emotions is usually what creates the action, and this is where the magic happens!

The RT Media Brand Love Mix and effect

If we take this philosophy and apply it to marketing, it could translate as: be inspiring, be adventurous and bold, or why bother? It’s entirely possible that if you are not inspiring or causing people to feel emotions, then your brand is just ‘existing’. Emotive branding is about taking everything you do today and creating a focus. These intentions can only be realised when everyone working for the brand is reading from the same page and embrace the brand’s emotive center.

However, there is a difference between using emotion in advertising and having an emotive brand that builds meaningful connections from the foundations of everything that you do. While using emotion in advertising can help consumers buy into your concept you will need to keep this ‘promise’ as it were so that it runs seamlessly into all aspects of the customer experience from creation all the way through to implementation.

Emotive brands engage their entire organisations so that every message induces a similar set of thoughts and feelings – consumer’s thoughts about brands are made up of groups of associations: feelings, sounds, memories and images as well as facts. Studies on how the brain processes and stores everyday messages and associations suggest that knowledge, experience and emotions are the three things called upon first to make up our representation of a brand.

If these are positive connotations, the recalls should bond the customer (and the employees) to the brand. Think of the infamous Coco-cola, ‘Holidays are coming’ adverts shown on the run up to Christmas- the resulting brand harmony means brand loyalty. The idea is to genuinely bond with your target audience through  shared values, attitudes and behaviour which needs to be a long term creation not just a 30 second fling.

However, don’t lose sight of your realistic and rational benefits and values, the backbone for a ‘right decision’ is based on reason and marketing should highlight both the rational and emotional components of the brand promise to create a balance.

Ultimately, it’s the difference between indulging in meaningless marketing activity and striving for meaningful connections.

It’s a choice every brand can make.

If you would like help with creating brand love then please do get in touch. ross@rtmedia.com

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When C4L gave us the challenge of creating a new brand in 7 days we said “let’s go”.

With Bournemouth set to have super fast internet via fibre optic cables, our client C4L, (the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 company) were keen to make their mark. The brief to create a new brand for this new super fast broadband service was not only tight in deadline but it also has an increadibly competitive landscape. Entering into the market where big fish like BT, Virgin Media and SKY are fighting for customers, we needed to box clever.
With the in-house teams shortlist of names; BEAR, BULLET and JUCIE broadband we first knew a name could make or break this brave new business launch.

Following an evening workshop with Ross Thornley, the South’s branding expert innovator led them through a process and into a market changing name. It was his plan to create a whole new category for the internet connection. Enter FIBREBAND, no longer will users be looking for broadband providers if they wish to experience the unimaginable speeds fibre optic cables offer, they will be asking for FIBREBAND.
This ticked so many boxes from protectability, multi lingual understanding, domain name availability and word defining opportunities.

We are proud to show the value of expert innovation coupled with great design principles will ensure the best possible chances of success.

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Small businesses can often overlook the notion that their brand isn’t entirely managerially constructed. One may tightly govern brand communications, but in reality, how these are received is partially beyond our control.

Consider this – perceptions of your brand that exist within the four walls of your office may not be totally (or at all) aligned with those held by your customers. That’s right. Your brand identity not only exists on your business cards, website or brochure, but also in the mind of the consumer.

It is frightening to think that consumers may interpret your brand in their own very subjective manner, but at the same time, this realisation should also be seen as an opportunity to re-discover the various (and often unexpected) meanings attached to your brand, adapt your communications accordingly, and ultimately reap the rewards of becoming a business who truly knows their audience.

So how do you discover how your customers make sense of your brand?

In short, you ask them.

Qualitative research, principally involving focus group discussions and in-depth interviews, can be an extremely useful strategic tool for businesses of all sizes. Research is vital, and here are a few reasons why:

•    Provides a forum to explore and extrapolate ideas, which can act as an effective springboard to make your visions a reality.

•    Enables you to drill down and understand the specific needs of your different market segments, providing a creative environment for consumer optimisation.

•    Enables you to fully understand reactions to your marketing materials and packaging; identifying strengths, weaknesses, and uncovering any previously unmet needs of your customers.

•    Helps you make informed business and marketing decisions, with confidence.

•    Protects you from completely ‘missing the point’ with your brand communications, ensuring that you build a brand that strikes resonance with your target market.

Above all, it simply makes sense that a strong and current picture of your consumers’ mindset should underpin the strategic and creative process of building and maintaining a brand. You wouldn’t create a gourmet meal with your eyes closed would you? Well, you might try, but you would probably end up getting burnt.

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After reading a study of more than 150 taglines that debuted in 2009 this morning from an agency who solely focus on the development of taglines I felt I should share some of the insights found. What we can learn and what I think.
According to Eric Swartz, president of Tagline Guru, “The goal of the survey was to discover the most frequently used words in this year’s taglines, and whether they reveal how companies are strategically recasting their brand message to forge a closer connection with their customers.”

The most commonly used words or concepts (alphabetically):
1. believe
2. far/further
3. future
4. imagine/see
5. innovate/innovation
6. more
7. new
8. save/savings
9. together
10. you

Are these 10 words that matter most to consumers?

“Whereas one tagline offers telling insights into a company’s brand strategy, a whole bushel of taglines reveals a brand lexicon that speaks volumes about what’s important in the minds of consumers,” says Swartz.
“This year’s tagline harvest is all about working harder and smarter, communicating greater value, and creating lasting brand affinity, which, in today’s tough economy, is crucial for cementing relationships and building customer loyalty,” Swartz notes.

Some of the taglines that echo this include:

• Airbus New standards. Together.
• Baker & Taylor The future delivered.
• Buick The new class of world class.
• Chrysler Come and see what we are building.
• Dentsu Good innovation.
• Home Depot More saving. More doing.
• NBC More colorful.
• Sony Make. Believe.
• Syfy Imagine greater.
• Wells Fargo Together, we’ll go far.
• Yahoo It’s you!

Although the impact of “innovation” has been diminished from overuse, and words like “new” and “more” are typical sales jargon, concepts such as “together,” “you,” “imagine,” and “future” paint a picture that is decidedly more intimate, inclusive, and optimistic.

“Money is tight, consumers are worried, and corporations aren’t content to rest on their laurels,” says Swartz. “The overall message is that we’re all in this together so we need to set the bar higher, do more, and deliver greater value.”

Swartz continues: “Essentially, this tagline-generated brand lexicon tells us that big business wants to be perceived as a neighborly partner that is industrious, accountable, and forward-thinking. Consumers are tired of being talked at and misled. They’re looking for better ideas, better results, and, ultimately, a better relationship.”
Knowing this is really important as it indicates shifts in the market, and highlights what to avoid. To me these examples show not just a shift in the market but how easy it is to get lost and diluted in the nose as we follow like sheep: for example,

• Target’s “Expect More. Pay Less.”
• Wal-Mart’s “Save Money. Live Better”
• Home Depot’s “More Saving. More Doing.”

Sure, consumers are looking for ways to save, but what in these taglines truly drives differentiation? And is that important? I think it is. I think this lack of distinctiveness show lack of creativity and becomes background noise.

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Masterbrand
A single brand spans a set of offerings that operate only with descriptive offerings; continual product innovation, new releases, and so on.

Overbrand
Individual business unit or product brands operate under a strong family brand. Dual level of communications: individual offering establishes a unique position while leveraging credibility of the source.

Endorsed Brand
“Source” brand provides the business or product with an aura of credibility. Like Nestlé’s KitKat, Nescafé or Smarties. Special ‘K’, Coco Pops and Frosties from Kellogg’s or Polo by Ralph Lauren. The parent brand lends credibility to the endorsed brand in the customers view. Enables different tone, activities and behavior in different markets for each specific brand .

Freestanding Brand
An organisation consists of independent stand-alone brands, each maximising its impact on the market with little or no connection to its parent. There is a competitive need to develop distinct equities for line of business brands. Source brand does not fit or carry negative baggage.

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After a successful start to 2009, winning many a prestigious client in just the first 2 months; RT have been focusing their push on the food sector… with great effect!

We have been working closely for the past half a year with the multi award-winning national nutritionist Barbara Cox and her company Nutrichef on developing their key product packaging.

Nutrichef are a nutritional healthy meal plan delivery company who can tailor a package to the individual’s objective; be it weight loss, increased energy or even higher mental clarity!

After recently briefing us with the envious task of developing a range of health conscious fruit, nuts and seeds, we immediately donned our thinking caps.

Covering all aspects from the product naming and copywriting – to the design and packaging, the range has gone down a storm with Nutrichef CEO Barbara Cox, and we are now simply waiting for the shelf-stackers to do their bit! (Click image for a larger pic).

(more…)

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Last year we gave away a FREE brand audit to one lucky entry at the BowShot e-Den.2 series. The winners were New Driver, the South’s most prolific driving school with some 280+ franchise instructors across the south.

We are now delighted to announce that we will be supporting New Driver through a new phase of positioning and market share growth. The work has involved strategic planning and forecast modeling for the next 5 years, along with the development of completely ground breaking suite of package offerings to the driving instructors market.

The new brand and communications program will roll-out over the next 2 years and form the platform for stability and increased visibility.

Working with such a passionate team has been great fun, there is so much we can do to build on the success New Driver have had over the last 20 years.

New Driver - Re-Brand Outcome

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The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding

1. The Law of Expansion: The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope. Trying to be all things to all people undermines the power of the brand. The strength of brands lies in becoming synony-mous with a single category. Brands that spread themselves across categories lose brand focus, identity, and ultimately market share.
2. The Law of Contraction: A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus. By narrowing the focus to a single category, a brand can achieve extraordinary success. Starbucks, Subway and Dominos Pizza became category killers when they narrowed their focus.
3. The Law of Publicity: The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity, not advertising. A new brand must be capable of generating favorable public-ity in the media or it won’t have a chance in the marketplace. Anita Roddick built the Body Shop into a global brand with no advertising, but with massive amounts of publicity. On the other hand, Miller Brewing spent $50 million in advertising to launch a brand called Miller Regular. The brand generated no publicity and very little sales. (more…)

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Your name matters!

I read an eye-opening book a few years ago when I was on holiday in Egypt. It’s part of a series of two: Brand failures and Brand Royalty. Brand failures tells the truth about the 100 biggest branding mistakes of all time. What can we learn from other people’s mistakes?

As the economic outlook is dismal, even with the media reporting retail sales are better than this time last year, as we rush to buy Christmas gifts which will mostly end up on ebay by February, I am thinking how can companies make sure they survive in difficult times.

When things are hard, when we are under pressure, when we sense loss, we revert to type. Old habits, basic strategies and remove over complication. A fighter will look for the punch that saved him last time he was in the corner, companies look to cut costs, adapt to become more flexible and consolidate.

I think when times are tough it is even more essential to FOCUS on strengths to survive. It’s not the time to work on the weak aspects, during the time you spend working on improving your poor right jab you will have been knocked out.

How do we a) know what we’re good at, and b) use it to survive? That can be tricky as what you were good at 5 years ago or even last year may not be right for today and tomorrow. But what stays the same are the basic rules of the game.

What I want to help people to understand is that by removing complications, by focusing and keeping it at the most basic level you will have a fighting chance.

(more…)

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As the south’s branding agency we often have people visit us who are confused about logos and ‘a brand’. Do we just need a “simple logo”… we then ask about the way they win business, how they answer the phone, who they are in competition with, how they talk, dress, treat their customers. What the staff think and feel. Do people buy from them because of price, function or service…Do they care, do they measure and if so by what? Sales, satisfaction, number of staff, customer referrals, market share or by gut?

Smart people understand that a new logo can’t possibly increase your market share, and they know that an expensive logo is not necessarily better than a cheap logo.This is the difference between understanding a logo and a brand.

A logo is an identifier, it gives people something to remember and apply to an experience or thought, like someone’s name. A brand is everything someone experiences and what they think of you.

How do you test if a logo is any good…

You can’t test a logo any more than you can test a first name. Sure, you can eliminate messy, difficult and long names, but what you should be looking to do is create the complete experience.

The visual language, service approach and every last communication from your emails to your ‘on-hold’ music is part of the ingredients to your brand success. What paper your business card is printed on to the car you drive.

It truly is everything you do, however it is important not to get overwhelmed by the enormity of this. Take it one step at a time. Prioritise which points your customers touch first and most often, which are key in winning new customers, which in retaining old ones. Work out effective methods of connecting with people in your own way and style.

Make it memorable and consistent. We love working with people who understand that a ‘brand is not just a logo’ they are half way to a stable, successful and fulfilling business. If this sounds like you then get in touch and I am sure we can create a memorable magic brand together.

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Have brands lost their way? We can all remember the time when Harley Davidson only made bikes, Colgate just made toothpaste and Coca-cola only soft drinks. Now everything is all blurred, every brand thinks they can do anything, Harley perfume, Porsche a MPV and rarely does this work. Caterpillar has created a very successful clothing brand but usually brands fail when going into an unrelated category. This has two risks, confusion to your consumers and devalues the core brand.

Stick to what your good at, make that the best it can be before you look for diversification. You will be surprised what you can achieve if you apply real focus. Move within your core, there is plenty of room.

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We use this word at least a dozen times a day… Now with everything on Earth being referred to as a BRAND from David Beckham to Dove soap let me help you with the following exerts from the Oxford Dictionary.

The Oxford Dictionary (1980) contains the following definition:

Brand (noun): a trade mark, goods of a particular make: a mark of identification made with a hot iron, the iron used for this: a piece of burning or charred wood, (verb): to mark with a hot iron, or to label with a trade mark.

Similarly, The Pocket Oxford Dictionary of Current English (1934) says:

Brand. 1. n. Piece of burning or smouldering wood, torch, (literary); sword (poet.); iron stamp used
red-hot to leave an indelible mark, mark left by it, stigma, trade-mark, particular kind of goods (all of
the best bb.). 2. v.t. Stamp (mark, object, skin), with b., impress indelibly (is branded on my memory)

These two entries, show how, over 50 years, the primary use of the word “brand” now has a real commercial application. However, the definitions also underline a common origin. Almost irrespective of how the word is used today, it has always meant, in its passive form, the object by which an impression is formed, and in its active form the process of forming this impression.

That’s where we come in… we form impressions, from the psychology of colour, to the simplicity of form, each shape and mark leaves you with a gut feeling, let that be a positive one with action to change the behaviour.

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How many do you recognize? What do they stand for? Do you dream?

Big goals with decisive action can achieve great things… mine is to do meaningful work with at least 10 on this list.

See the top 100 here.

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Quite simply it’s focus, focus, focus. Try to catch 5 balls that are thrown at you and chances are you’ll drop them all. Imagine now being told that one ball is about to be thrown, with your name on it, targeted straight at you. Chances are you’ll catch it. Your communications are much the same, trying to squeeze all your benefits, features and values will only dilute your impact. Keep it clear and precise and you stand the best chance of being remembered – influencing your customers perception and ultimately their behavior.

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New look for RT Brand Communications, www.rtmedia.com

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