Maslow. Fond as I am of your Hierarchy of Needs, I think it needs a little review

When I was at college studying marketing, this was a classic piece for us to learn. Maslow proposes that as we grow and attain civilisation and wealth, we move up the hierarchy of needs.

But I think the model is still potentially relevant, just far more muddled than it used to be.

Replace the Physiological needs with getting the mortgage paid and staying out of fuel poverty and you cover a very large proportion of the population.

But what has changed in my opinion, and what matters to people who control brands, is that he progression through the hierarchy is no longer, well, hierarchical. I believe many people now jump from the bottom right to the top. I’ll explain.

For many this is as good as it’s going to get. If you have ever read the book ‘We need to talk about Kevin’ (you should) the reason for all his pain and violence is that even though he is from a normal middle class family, that just wasn’t enough. He wanted recognition too.

Change the word ‘recognition’ to ‘self worth’ and you have an important jump.

If this is as good as it’s going to get for many. They still want more. They want to know they are doing things with their life that have worth, that makes them feel good about themselves.

So for me, it’s an early trend. More people doing more good, creative and artistic things – not for profit, but for self worth.

So if you own or control a brand, it’s time to start thinking what’s in it for them. How can they feel better by hanging out with your brand.

Howies summed it up years ago in a mailer, when they asked whether I just had enough stuff. In truth, we all have enough stuff, so what I’m saying is that we need a little more thoughtfulness as well.

Brewdog Nottingham – Not terribly keen on Carling or Diageo

You may have seen this little story bubbling under over the last week or so but it says an awful lot to me about brands and their respective behaviours.

In brief, Brewdog were at the British Institute of Innkeeping awards and fully expected to win the title of Bar Operator of the Year. They were on the top table and their name was on the trophy. It was that nailed on.

But when the announcement came, it wasn’t Brewdog, but someone else. They were surprised to say the least and when they saw Brewdog’s name on the trophy, rightly refused to accept it.

The independent judges couldn’t believe it had happened, but what did happen.

Well, it appears that Diageo, wanted any winner but Brewdog, so told the local BII team that if they won, they would withdraw any sponsorship in any BII event for the future. Strong arm tactics to say the least, so they panicked and gave the award elsewhere.

But social media has real power these days and the story came out anyway, but so did all the backlash against Diageo.

So what does it say about these brands?

Diageo, is old school. Flawless, never makes mistakes and wants to control every single element of their brand and who it hangs out with. They rather forgot that you don’t decide how your brand is perceived, your customers do. It shows to me the fear they are facing with craft beers, low run, carefully produced products that are worth paying a premium for.

For Brewdog, it can be nothing but good news. Look what happened when Radio One banned the Sex Pistols. It launched them! So the Punk beer brand is banned by the establishment.

I was in Brewdog Nottingham on Saturday afternoon. It was busy, the beer was good. A victory for Punk.

Thanks to Brewdog shareholder Lisa Harlow for telling me about this story.

Tesco - a brand to trust? Hmm, Not in my opinion.

Tesco as a business isn’t doing badly. It’s profits are still huge, even if they are slightly down on previous quarters in the UK.

But for me, this is masking a much bigger brand problem and that is because nothing they offer is special any more. They don’t make customers feel valued, they don’t surprise or delight us, they just keep chipping away at prices by chipping away at suppliers who have no choice but to chip away at the quality.

We have always believed that the way a brand should behave is to decide a price and then see how good you can make the product for that target price. To me, Tesco look like they are aiming to produce all of their goods as cheaply as possible and not seeing how good they can make them for the money.

This is a short term profit boost that leads to long term decline.

Look at the section with motoring and cycling products. If you are even slightly into either pastime, you will see that what they are selling is utter crap and not cheap either. This is one tiny category in a huge store, but it’s reflection reaches far and wide in perception. If everything in the store is as badly produced and as nasty as this, why would I trust the brand overall?

Unless they up their game, start focusing on quality again and start treating their customers as intelligent individuals who do have a choice, this will be the first of very many profit warnings to come.

David and Victoria Beckham in leather for the 1999 Versace party

This weekend was a milestone for brands everywhere. One of the strongest – Brand Beckham – admitted they had made a mistake when they wore their matching leather suits to a Versace party in 1999. According to Vogue David  said “I look back on some stuff and think I can’t believe I actually wore that,” he said. “I have no regrets, though – I knew at the time it was good!”

This may not sound too significant at first glance, but I think it is. I really think it is.

In those days, long ago in the life of brands, when glossy and shiny was the norm over today’s more matt black world, brands needed to be flawless. In 2001, this song by The Ones confirmed it.

So what can we learn?

Well, according to Trendwatching.com, brands now need to show their flaws for their fans to continue to love them. Flawless is no more and brands, flaws and all are where it’s at.

So for me, this move by the Beckham’s only serves to show what a brilliant brand strategy they have been running for years and that it’s an early sign that brands with flaws win.

I’m not sure if I have seen such a seismic shift in brand thinking for years and I think it is so significant a change that it will affect every single brand in the developed world over the coming years.

It’s a big subject, so i’ll be adding more to it soon.

(Thankyou to HolyMoly for the use of the Beckham picture)

But it would appear that they have now made things even worse by going back to the old logo, without the apostrophe.

Now i’m not going to get as pathetic as the Daily Mail with their typically over the top three headlines about it;

Move sparked outrage among customers – Really. That is utter crap. Who cares that much? Perhaps if some of the people who are so outraged by the lack of an apostrophe went into Waterstone’s and bought a book or two from them, they wouldn’t be in this much trouble.
Punctuation experts say it’s ‘grammatically incorrect’ – Yes, it’s a logo, a name of a business, not a piece of work being peer reviewed by academics. Advertising generally has always played a little fast and loose with punctuation. the ‘comma and’ or starting sentences with an ‘And’ debate came from the creative industry.
Twitter users warn the change is another step towards the ‘extinction’ of the apostrophe – Who cares? There are bigger things to worry about.

But the fundamental point is that Waterstone’s still haven’t changed their business and this sadly will do absolutely nothing to halt their slide. I am a very big book fan and consume books by the metre but I buy very little from Waterstone’s. Waterstones or even waterstones.com.

Unless they can engage us again, all the rebrands and debrands in the world will do nothing to stop this lovely old tug boat from sinking.

Firstly the music. Laid back and cool music by the Skatalites and two guys working there with luxuriant facial hair and a total focus on doing a great job.

The Tonsorial Artist - Holt, Norfolk

I had my meagre barnet tidied up by the slightly scary looking Doug, who was great, incredibly knowledgable and he gave me a great cut.

Doug from The Tonsorial Artist - Holt, Norfolk

All this and it was only £11.50 – admittedly more than I pay at my local barbers, but it felt like a real treat.

I love places like this and I would love to get my hands on their brand to do some work with – It would franchise out beautifully and would have people queuing out the door if it was done as well as they have delivered their outlet.. People who are doing great work and clearly differentiating themselves in what must be a quite crowded market.

If you’re ever in Holt, stay at Byfords Posh B&B and get a hair cut by the Tonsorial Artists.

I’m off to buy some now and then look for some logs to dance around on.

The Haka has always been something I have watched with fear and admiration, but today in the final of the Rugby World cup, I saw it for the first time as a brand marker for New Zealand. It shows their power, their determination and their ability to stand, miles from anywhere else in the world as a distinct nation, that is proud of its roots.

If you were going to write a few rules about a brand, they would be simple.

Do things well

Mean them, ie live your values

Build on your roots

Be differentiated.

They seem to have done all of these rather well here. And to be honest, it’s the first time I have ever seen anyone respond to it like the French. What a brilliant advertisement for the country and the sport of rugby.

Brirish Gas and their old and uncaring identity

There’s not a lot wrong with this. It says what they do, or rather what they did. Their business has obviously diversified and they need to move away from their obvious reliance on fossil fuels and the harm they bring to our planet. So they’ve changed it to this.

Brirish Gas who are now looking after our world for us

I don’t have a particular problem with the identity. It’s fine in fact. decent typo and a subtle shade of green has been snuck into the logo. Good work team.

But the strapline. ‘Looking after your world’. Behave.

What a bunch of trite shite.

How are they looking after our world, by dragging tons of gas out and burning it?

Straplines are always a difficult issue, but this one is on the verge of vomit inducing. If it was my job, i’d drop it and quit the pretence before everyone does an emperors new clothes as soon as they have an issue or heaven forbid an accident and they make the word a little bit worse for us.

Updated

I’ve just had it pointed out to me by my mate and long time Creative colleague Darren Fisk, quite how similar the new British Gas identity is to the Age UK identity.

Age UK brand - Is this where the designers of the British Gas logo found their inspiration?

If you look at the background to the brand that was designed by the fabulously named Kitcatt Nohr Digitas (it’s that sort of name that made me want to join the industry) and watch their intro video about how they developed the brand, you can see it’s built on real values, that matter. I think it’s worth watching Paul Kitcatt talking about it here (even though looking at the viewer numbers, no one else has actually bothered):

Llew-Davies-teacher of the year

I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I caught a few minutes of the Pride of Britain Awards and saw an amazingly inspirational teacher – Llew Davies – who won the Teacher of the Year Award. They showed him in his classroom with his pupils who clearly love what he does and how he does it.

What caught my imagination was his enthusiasm and individuality. I love the fact that he cared enough to think about things, look at teaching from the child’s persepective and then went on to name the teacher who inspired him when he was growing up.

It reminded me of the William Arthur Ward quote.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”

It will be many years before we see quite how big an inspiration this brilliant teacher has been to the kids, but I suspect that there will be some brilliant teachers, some amazing scientists and some inspiring people coming straight from his classrooms.

Thanks to Steve Peake at The Guardian for the image. You can read their article here.