Tag: branding

Categories
advertising Creativity viral marketing

Use the Force For Good

How many Star Wars classic lines can you recite?  Can you do the actions too?  To celebrate the release of Star Wars:  The Complete Saga on Blu-Ray, Lucasfilms has joined with Stand up to Cancer, the non-profit group that uses an innovative model that it calls ‘dream teams’ comprised of scientists,and other specialists  to tackle a  cancer problem. The campaign is aptly called “Use the Force for Good“.

Celebrities like Emma Stone, Seth Rogen, Andy Samberg, Jaime King and even Star Wars alum Samuel L Jackson are part of the campaign.  This ‘dream team’ acts out their favourite Star Wars lines and scenes, showing us that their goofiness is indeed our goofiness too.  And it’s okay to be in love with this iconic a brand.  They then leverage the Star Wars brand message to raise awareness (and donations) for cancer research.

Enjoy the video.  Which scene do you play the most often 🙂

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Jay-Z & Cristal: Giving Up Control

We’ve talked quite a bit this term about giving up control of your brand.  Brandchannel has an interesting article about Jay-Z, Cristal and brand control.  You may know about the famous feud between the CEO of Cristal and Jay Z.  The CEO of Cristal was asked about his thoughts on how Cristal had been lifted from a luxury brand known to connoisseurs to a bling brand via rap mentions.  His response:  we can’t stop people buying it.  Yikes!  Enter Jay-Z.  By including the brand name, along with Dom, in his song, Jay-Z introduced Cristal to a whole new segment and gave the brand a new meaning:  audacious, kind of subversive, associated with the good life in an cheeky, intrepid way.

Is this a problem for the brands:  what if they don’t want the association with hip hop’s values?  Can they do anything about it or should they just drive on and wait until the next thing takes over?   Is there any real risk to the core segment that buys the brand being alienated by the infusion of new buyers or will the groups even notice each other?  Should the CEO have said anything or just kept his mouth shut and been thankful that his brand’s sales had dramatically increased?  Interesting decisions around brand control and when to let it go…or if you can even control it the way you’d like to.

Categories
social media viral marketing

Elf Yourself: Still funny 5 years later

Elf Yourself http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/ by Officemax is into its 6th year.  378 million people in 50 countries, still get a kick (groan), like me, of seeing themsELVES and their kids dance around in an elf suit.  My girls and I have been spinning and poppin’ and lockin’ for a couple of hours now and I still think it’s funny.  I think it’s awesome marketing on Officemax’s part too.  It’s not a store I frequent but they’ve managed to get some bucks from me because of this.  What started out as a viral marketing campaign has been turned into something that generates direct revenue for Officemax.  You can buy yoursELF a mousepad, video, coffee mug…everything that your Mum would want.  As seems to be de rigeur now, they’ve also added a Facebook game: Elfmas Town. What’s cool about the way Officemax does this is that they keep it fresh every year by adding on a few new extras and then they take it away until next year, kind of like Cadbury Easter Creme Eggs. We’re sick of it by the middle of December but delighted again when we see oursELVES the following year. They’ve also figured out how to generate direct revenue from what started out as a neat branding idea.

Hey, I’m bustin’ a move.  Bet you’re thinking about it now too.

Categories
retail social media

Mind The GAP

The GAP recently created a furor when they announced a change in their logo from the old familiar navy blue (red at Christmas) to something newer, and what they felt was, more friendly to our digital app-driven world.  The market did not agree and there was a huge public outcry.  So much so that GAP scrapped the new logo.

GAP Inc. ran several social media campaigns to come up with the new logo.  While GAP may not be your thing these days, it certainly is many people’s thing as  GAP pulled in revenues of $14.2B last year and increased sales growth.  The brand just doesn’t feel as relevant anymore, unfortunately.  But consider what’s good about the brand?  While you may not love it, the logo is widely recognized…and given the outcry, clearly loved by many people.

The new logo is pretty bland and looks like it was created by a committee trying to pull elements of the old logo together with what they think might look good on an iPhone app.  Is this the right way to build a brand’s equity, especially for one of the strongest brands in the world.  Also, consider the choice of font:  Helvetica.  Used to be an interesting font.  Kind of cool.  Now, it has become ubiquitous and representative of nothing.  Is that what The GAP wants us for a brand association?  Good move in pulling the new logo and putting the old one back on the box.  Wonder what the next chapter will be…this one isn’t over…

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Categories
advertising social media

Old Macdonald Has a Farm

Macdonald’s, one of the most valuable brands in the world, recently joined with Farmville (owned by Zynga) on Facebook for a round of in-game advertising. Mickey D’s now has his own farm, the MacFarm, and visitors who helped grow tomatoes or mustard seeds were rewarded with a Consumable.

The exposure on Farmville for Macdonald’s is huge. While Macdonald’s serves 26 million customers in the US per day, Farmville has 215 million users per month. This is a good example of an in-game branding partnership. Macdonald’s (and Zynga) correctly recognize the target audience for Farmville and saw that the possible branding and sales benefits brought about by the exposure to Macdonald’s during gameplay could be huge.

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Brand Language Periodic Table

Click on the image to download your own copy of the Brand Language Period Table.

Roll over the boxes on the Periodic Table to see definitions of Brand Evolution terms.

Categories
advertising

Bolt’s Gold

The world’s most lovable athlete, who knocked us all out with his sprinting ability and personality in Beijing, has finally signed an athletic wear endorsement deal with his longtime supporter, Puma. What’s notable about this deal is that it’s the biggest deal in athletics history. Say again! The biggest deal ever! Details haven’t been released but this one echoes another fave’s, Ronaldo’s $32.5 million 4 year deal with Nike.
Bolt has been compared to David Beckham as one of the most marketable athletic stars. Many athletes can connect on the performance side of their sport. Bolt connects with fans in a unique way. Marketing and endorsement gold.The world’s most lovable athlete, who knocked us all out with his sprinting ability and personality in Beijing, has finally signed an athletic wear endorsement deal with his longtime supporter, Puma. What’s notable about this deal is that it’s the biggest deal in athletics history. Say again! The biggest deal ever! Details haven’t been released but this one echoes another fave’s, Ronaldo’s $32.5 million 4 year deal with Nike.
Bolt has been compared to David Beckham as one of the most marketable athletic stars. Many athletes can connect on the performance side of their sport. Bolt connects with fans in a unique way. Marketing and endorsement gold.
An interesting marketing question to consider is why do celebrity athletes command higher endorsement fees than actors, singers or musicians? Sports is the only arena in which the performance is unscripted and the day’s play spontaneous. Athletes gives us an opportunity to cheer and live our own best sports day vicariously through their performances. This is a quality that ad writers can’t create. Sports offers us the chance of failure, elation and memories. Remember Crosby’s Olympics goal. Where were you? What were you doing? Because of this, we’re willing to buy the golf clubs, sports drinks, even pain relievers, these demigods shill more than those endorsed by the latest movie star.

An interesting marketing question to consider is why do celebrity athletes command higher endorsement fees than actors, singers or musicians? Sports is the only arena in which the performance is unscripted and the day’s play spontaneous. Athletes gives us an opportunity to cheer and live our own best sports day vicariously through their performances. This is a quality that ad writers can’t create. Sports offers us the chance of failure, elation and memories. Remember Crosby’s Olympics goal. Where were you? What were you doing? Because of this, we’re willing to buy the golf clubs, sports drinks, even pain relievers, these demigods shill more than those endorsed by the latest movie star.

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