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?

The new 30 second spot is a 10 minute spot

According to a recent Joseph Jaffe post, Only Poor People Watch 30-second spots, the American Idol key demographic is getting older, along with also trending to lower income earners. Maybe that is why they have added a rather attractive young female judge to be the 4th on the panel this year. But more importantly in his post was this fact:

"A new survey suggests that upscale households account for a disproportionate slice of the DVR distribution pie, as more than half of all U.S. homes with incomes of $100,000+ subscribe to some form of time-shifting device"

Advertising revenues are already down across the board for the traditional mass media outlets, so it's not like this has anyone shocked. But what are the companies that pander to these high income earners going to do to get their target markets attention. What is the future for television advertising as a result of the TIVO/PVR technology. This took me back to a session I attended at the Marketing Week conference in Toronto last November. It was on the lack of attention that people pay to traditional media nowadays and one of the panelists was Ian MacLean from Etc.tv

Etc.tv is a company that does on demand advertising in Canada, which basically puts the power of advertising in the consumers hands. They are allowed to click on a commercial or product and be taken to a more in depth longer commercial or experience with the product. This could mean a reverse in thinking, instead of people be less interested in a commercial they could be fully engulfed for as long as 1o minutes by a product advertisement. The only difference is they are choosing when and how they want to view the ad which is quite an ingenius concept. Although this concept is a long way from being in the mainstream, it does seem like a movement in the right direction. Technically this is where we are already heading with people able to youtube advertisements they like, so it seems like a natural evolution. The only problem is the set up to allow consumers to view this on demand advertising. Right now it is only available in Quebec through Etc.tv so look for it to expand in the future.

One too many burgers to the brain

Okay, we've all seen ridiculous expansions of product lines and names into areas that don't need it. Think Donald Trump water. Mike Weir Wines. MC Hammer parachute pants.

But this story/idea is just utterly ridiculous. I know that just about every famous person wants to have their own cologne so that everyone can smell just like them.......unless of course you are made of 100% beef.

Burger King has officially launched a cologne...

Wow. The economy is in a downturn and BK has decided to pick up sales and profits by pushing out some meat stink. Maybe not the smartest move guys, i'm guessing you were going for the shock/viral campaign but I think this one might not have the engine behind it. First off, a huge portion of men's colognes are bought for them by girls.....which girl would buy a BK smell???? It might as well come with a meat baster for application. Secondly, aside from a gag gift what regular guy would actually buy a BK cologne.

Hey dude, what's the smell?
Oh that? thats just my new Eau de Fast Food by BK.

To me this was a ridiculous stunt and not a good use of money, others may think otherwise. But i'd like to hear why someone might think this a good idea.

Helloooo.....are you listening?

The music industry is in a tough spot right now.....well part of it is. The record companies. With peer-to-peer networks providing the world with a free way to trade music and grab the latest hot single their profits are in peril. So instead of complaining and suing 1 person for every 100,000 that download music "illegally" they should look for solutions and maybe change the way they do business.

With the new generation the CD and traditional way of releasing music is going the way of the 8-track and cassette tape. Maybe there is a better way to do it.

Bands still need the music labels to help them promote their songs/albums and get it played on radio stations, etc. There will always be a need for this, only a small handful of bands have the power to not require a label at all, ie. Radiohead, Coldplay, etc.

So why don't the music labels move away from the CD system and directly into digital version only. Forget the now standard approach of release an album once every year or two years and move to a contract that encourages bands to release a new single track every 3 months or 4 months. The label could actually invest in a sales oriented website of their own so people could buy the music directly from them and other online stores such as iTunes. This lowers the labels overhead and should help to increase profits, plus when you are just buying a single song it seems like so much less. $1 for that new single I love instead of $10-15 for the single and a bunch of filler.

Listen to your customers music labels and adapt.

Is Stephen Colbert the most powerful man in America?

Last night I was watching Late Night with Conan O'Brien and his first guest was Stephen Colbert. The talk led to Stephen Colbert's group of staunch supporters who he calls the "Colbert Nation". Stephen Colbert knows his target market, teens and young adults probably aged 17-35 or so. He knows that they are tech saavy and he knows that they enjoy a chance to disrupt the status quo. That is why when he calls on his "Colbert Nation" to do something such as change wikipedia entries to reflect his comical views, the website later has to adapt and alter itself due to the work of the "Colbert Nation".

Fortunately, it seems as if Stephen Colbert will not be having the Colbert Nation drinking special Kool-Aid anytime soon so they can visit the mothership. But this community of people seems to be developing into more of a religious cult following. The church of Colbert is up and running and people listen and hang on his every word.

Does that make him the most powerful man in America, or is he just a crack marketer? He knows his target, he knows how to keep them involved in his brand, he has developed an incredible following. Any brand/tv show/company would love to be in the position he is in.

Will he use it for good or evil? Only time will tell.

The Return of Goodwill

A couple of months back someone mentioned to me that lawyers, dentists, doctors, etc were all having tough times selling their practices/clients as they moved into retirement. This is because the economy was so good that a brand new Doogie Howser could form his own office and have clients banging on the door as soon as he flipped that little sign to "Open".

Purchasing someone's business, it's clients and throwing in some goodwill for those that had worked tirelessly to form that business seemed to be a fading idea.

What about now though? Wouldn't a start up rather have an established client base than having to form their own by pumping money into advertising and promoting. I think that with the current economic state goodwill shall be brought back into the game. Maybe as a result some of those that were hit in the pocket book by the crashing stock market will be able to retire sooner than later.

Attention Economy

Earlier this week I attended Marketing Magazine's Marketing Week conference at the Westin Harbour Castle Toronto. First a random thought from the conference, the food at the Westin was bar none the best I have ever had at a large conference/dinner/luncheon.

Now on to the important stuff.

I attended a very interesting and important panel event called "The Attention Economy" which was based on the aspect of there are so many marketing messages that bombard consumers each day how do you ensure you get their attention with your message. Here are some of the interesting points that came from the panelists and will make you think:

• Consumers have attention deficit disorder. They are cynical and demanding of marketing messages that they see nowadays. They hold the power and when they want something they want it now and they want it fast. Which means as a business you have to have your product available to them 24/7, 365 days a year.


• Your marketing cannot be intrusive and annoying moving forward. It used to be you could buy a 30 second spot and mash it into peoples brains. You used to have to have 5 parts of a marketing mix, now you have to consider at least 20 different pieces in your marketing plan.


• An example of a non-intrusive ingenius idea was for the macy's day parade M&Ms used their billboard to have their m&ms watching the parade instead of having a blatant sign saying "Buy m & ms". This created a huge amount of buzz and got a tonne of media attention


• Here are some stats that were thrown out by a few of the panelists: 60% of consumers that have an "experience" with a brand convert into a sale. In a poll 92% of marketers polled found experiential marketing successful in branding a product and converting leads to sales


• Consumers are looking for more than just the features & benefits of a product, they want to know what the experience is that comes along with it.


• You need to constantly be trying new things, measuring them, and then assessing whether they are worth the investment. Is this idea working with our target? You need to find out where your target is and what works for them.

Some of these seem like pretty obvious points but its always something we as marketers should be looking back on and reminding ourselves. Its not just a simple game anymore. And one of the messages that came up throughout the event was "This is an exciting time to be a marketer, you have to be creative and your job isn't as easy anymore. But thats what makes it exciting."