As first seen on: trender.ro

As first found over from our friends visiting Piehead Online’s Blog And apparently every other blog, I guess I was late to this story it’s been a busy holidays!

The original mark’s Ident from 2002

His argument relies on the belief that Social media branding and curating alone can keep customers in-tune with brands.

Steve wrote:
“Social brand platforms require a new way of thinking: a cross between advertising, branding and design. In contrast to static logos and corporate identities where the focus is on control and consistency, social brand platforms have five key characteristics: they’re useful, social, living, layered and curated.”

This argument relies on the theory that you do not need a new egg, you just need to take care of the chicken more or less. He argued that Brands like GAP, Pepsi, and Tropicana might not have needed a new Egg or brand identity for their brand experience. And in that respect frankly I agree with him. They may have done just fine with a strong social brand platform as he discusses. But for brands that are failing, brands that are completely not connecting to their audience, for brands that are beyond hope or out of touch with their consumer base well those brands do have an identity crisis. And secondly there are brands that need cosmetic updates for their packaging and occasionally their brand identity, subtleties that help them grab consumer’s attention in a tough market-space.

Whether we like it or not humans are very emotional, and responses to brands and brand identities are emotional and somewhat border on irrational. People will buy a 4 dollar coffee when they know they can make it in their office for free, people will buy a bottle of water from a vending machine right next to a faucet with a Brita filter. Branding in much the same way has an emotional response, the outcry after GAP changed their logo delectably came from the fact that people felt such a strong attachment to the brand identity that they have.  But if people did not like the core brand identity for Gap, if people did not connect with it any more well than they would have needed to re-brand.

There is no quick fix to marketing it takes a load of work to attain people’s interest. All of his solutions with brands that already ‘get it’ had a positive position with their brand identities Nike, Etsy, Levi’s etc. But outside of his thought process some brands need to be re-started completely. You can look at banks to see what I am referring to, ALLY Bank is an example of a new brand taken straight from the corpse of GMAC. People didn’t identify with a bank so closely tied to the great recession and when they re-branded they clearly have been seen in a more positive light. You can see with the stock market quote I posted below. And that leads to one last final thought if your going to re-brand a famous brand identity all of the problems that happened with Pepsi, Tropicana, to Gap, are based on that the design strayed too far from what people felt connected too. Brand loyalty is all about an emotional response. And it is a powerful thing. I think agencies and companies alike need to vigorously defend their core audience loyalties whether or not it is just a static superficial image because so are flags, icons,  symbols and we can agree some of those can stir up plenty of emotions.

Gmac to Ally Bank Stock ticker

But, I can not complain about their new site, it is simple and intuitive and the brand although overly simple works well in their facebook fanpage social media strategy. But their is nothing I like about the logo icon or lock-up, it is staggeringly simple, says very little about the Democrats and the tag line reads far too seriously for a lock-up that is so child-like and simple. What do you think about this new logo, their color choices and tag-line?

But to be fair the update itself, is an improvement from their prior DNC logo lock-up with the American flag waving in the background and clearly their was a strategic plan put in place to drum up new voters but… still.

The Old DNC mark.

Now I am not quite sure about the origins of who created the mark but, I do know that it was updated and brought to life by Globalhue an agency in NYC. Regardless of that…
When I think Bermuda I now think pink boxer shorts now, because of their new TV spot that I plopped above.
I give it credit because it did catch my attention but on the second pass I really would love to know the rationale behind the brand. Why pink shorts or boxers? What do you think about it?
And be sure to check out all the creative at Global Hue’s site linked below!
Update: One reason why they would use shorts, ( albeit not specifically pink ones  that could be confused for boxers ), is that they are the national garb. So that leaves the only rationale that I can think of left, that pink was used to catch people’s attention and the shorts themselves were national garb. Kind of a boring conclusion maybe their is something more to the color pink?

Globalhue over in NYC did a pretty decent job at the marketing materials and are responsible for the creative materials for Bermuda’s Department of Tourism.
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Credits:
Client: Phil Dickinson, global creative director, Nike Football
Design agency: Accept & Proceed
Design/concept: David Johnston, Matthew Jones, Kasper Lahti

First seen:
http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/november/nikes-

new-football-mark

Also the explanation video can be seen here:

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bing.com Microsoft’s latest and greatest search engine that has been well received since launch, it quickly attacked it’s market and gained about 1/3 the visits google.com receives. But in the recent months it has slowly plateaued at about 50-55 million unique visitors according to compete.com ( I can’t say I whole heatedly trust the results ).

This leads me to ask, what’s stopping bing from growing? It has a prettier interface, it has a better search experience. Is it the known comfort factor that google.com offers, is it a million of the keep it simple functionality systems that they employ that make searching somewhat less painful. Or could it be and this is a real stretch that bing’s identity just sucks, and it’s effecting what people think of their service/brand. And even worse it’s something that they could get sick of, and not want to see again. I even go one step further, because the identity was so bad in the first place that it got peoples attention in a way that Yahoo first did it’s gimmicky TV spots on the SuperBowl ( remember yyaaa Hoooooooo. )

There is a lot to say about bad-design and its trends in the creative field as a strategic method for basically grabbing peoples attention. When you hear your repetitive yet always consistent furniture ads or car ads that’s jingle or message or creative as a whole has driven you up the wall, you remember their tone of voice and brand. Maybe you don’t like them but you remember them, it’s a bit of an invasion tactic but I guess it works for some businesses.  I’ll reference one of the worst culprits of this strategy out in Syracuse where I went to school back in 2001-2005, note that I heard these guys actually did quite well from their advertising. I wonder how their doing these days after the recession anyways. Here’s the video enjoy:

If bing’s logo is what’s holding it back, the issue with the brand isn’t the name itself bing, its the typeface and execution of this thing. It’s hokey and its fairly tough to read without moving your eye all-the-way through-it and it takes a little longer recognize than Googles logo, even though it’s playfully always changing. And I think honestly bing is missing the point with it’s landing page. Albeit it’s prettier than Google’s it’s just too busy. People want to focus  straight to the search button and then if they choose they will look at the other subjects if their interested. In the current site design you’re looking at the picture of the island with its cool factors and oh that relates to searching, lets put that on the home page.. and then you got a few key sections on the left. It’s not a bad layout but strategically the focus of searching becomes secondary to the image, and that to me seems like a mistake for the majority of search users who are looking for an easy to use layout. Save the beautiful imagery for your sections, ad campaigns or as background elements. Good luck bing, we’re rooting for you I do give thumbs up to your ad campaign from 2009, I think it largely responsible for generating the initial gain in visitors and users to the site.

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United Soul

AFOM won the job to design the brand identity, packaging design and shopfit for United Soul — a new retail venture for Peter Strain & Jayne Ellis (former owners of an established fashion house). The focus is to create well tailored clothing for both men and women between the ages of approximately 45 – 65 years.

Drawing inspiration from the name, a circular venn diagram marque representing both men and women ‘uniting’ was created to work in harmony with the simple understated logotype and circular theme of the packaging. This marque was embroidered on clothing, made into a light box inside the store, and took form as a bespoke painted pattern on oak floorboards.

The sexes are colour coded in black and white (a Yin/Yang reference) which clarifies the separation of men and women’s clothing. This colour coding is applied to the swingtags, stitched labels, carrier bags, changeroom doors, and shelf edging.

Peter and Jayne loved the warm interiors of historic tailors, yet were keen to avoid a heavy atmosphere and sought to strike a balance between old and new for the United Soul store. Timber cabinetry was designed for the shopfit, to give warmth and a sense of craftsmanship. Further referencing tailor traditions, a brass ruler was inset into the counter. For a contemporary edge, a Marcel Wanders ‘Skygarden’ light was incorporated for its monochromatic and stylistic contrast, its modern shell housing a traditionally decorated pattern inside. The custom painted floorboards play with the idea of classic chequerboard flooring but with a modern technique and feel.

AFOM collaborated with talented industrial designer Anthony Hamilton-Smith to create a bespoke interior sign which was suspended from a double height ceiling, meticulously made from hundreds of glass beads strung on wire which cluster together to read United Soul.

Photography: Shane Loorham

Copyrights:
AFOM – http://www.afom.com.au/