Lack of Creativity

In an earlier post I talked about the lack of creativity of car companies.

Well, turns out they aren't the only ones who aren't creative. Lately there has been a lot of "combination" commercials, where one thing is mixing with another to create this "new" idea. Unfortunately the companies and their agencies haven't put much thought into a "new" idea for the advertising.

Car commercial exhibit A



Burger commercial exhibit B



Exhibit C: Arby's Fajita flatbread commercials which feature a mexican guitarist meeting a chef and embracing. Can't find them on Youtube because no doubt they aren't that proud of them.

Could this lack of creativity be the result of creative companies not getting as much work because more and more companies are encouraging their consumers to come up with marketing ideas? Is this leading to a brain drain from the creative area of the advertising/marketing world?In Canada, Doritos consumers were asked to name a new chip for them and come up with an ad for it. I've seen numerous requests for consumers to help work on a new packaging look for products (Pepsi, Kokanee, etc.). Is this costing us good creative? Who knows, I certainly don't have any stats to back it up.

Maybe its just companies being less willing to step out on a ledge and actually stand out from the crowd. Play it safe and hope for the best. Seems like a waste of money to me.

Logos, logos, everywhere

The position I work in has allowed me to be a part of the branding process for both a new product and a revamped company name. The process is long, can be costly and is also extemely important. There are a number of steps in the process but the part I find most interesting is the logo development. This is the face of your brand, it speaks to your customers even when no words are exchanged. The colours, the font, the images they all add up to create a living thing with a theme, an attitude, and a personality. Its incredibly important to determine the message that you want your brand to exude because one wrong italic, one shade to dark can turn your spa into some kind of devil worshipping social club (or so it might seem in the eyes of the consumer).

As a marketer I am constantly assessing these logos as I pass billboards, see flyers, browse websites, etc. and I have noticed that colour is a huge trigger for me. But there are only so many colour options out there for a brand and sometimes a logo I see triggers another brand in my mind instead of the new one. For example here is the new Pepsi logo

Now everytime I used to look at the old pepsi logo I thought nothing but pepsi, but now everytime I see this new logo I can't think of anything other than this logo which you might recognize:

The majority of my mind triggering to oldspice clearly has something to do with the use of the blue white and red colours, or maybe I just like Old Spice. That is probably also a good sign for Old Spice as they have such a strong brand image that when I see a beverage product's logo all I think about is deodorant......or maybe i'm just weird.

Do you have any logos/brands that trigger other such logos in your mind?