John Lyle's new brand thinking » branding

If rebranding Waterstone’s was pointless, then debranding the rebrand is even more pointless

John Lyle — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:45:40 +0000

There is an old saying in the design community that changing a logo if you change nothing else is as useful as rearranging the chairs on the deck of a sinking ship. I wrote about this in 2010 when Waterstone’s unveiled their less than radical new logo. I was slightly less thann complementary about the work itself and the reasons behind the change. You can read that here.

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.

The Tonsorial Artist – Holt – A brilliant barber and a brilliant brand

John Lyle — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:08:52 +0000

I was lucky enough to be staying in Holt last night at Byfords Posh B&B (which is fabulous) and had a bit of time to kill, so took myself off to find a haircut. Looking quite unassuming in the centre of the brilliant little town was the Tonsorial Artist. And I have to say it is the best barbers experience I have ever had.

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.

A simple guide to how the bailout package works

John Lyle — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:06:51 +0000

It is a slow day in a little Greek Village.
The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted.
Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.
On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.
The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.
The guy at the Farmers’ Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the taverna.
The tavern owner slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him “services” on credit.
The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note.
The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.
No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole village is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works

Thanks to my mate Patrick Chapman for sharing that wisdom with me.

Boots Opticians – The value of an app

John Lyle — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 22:20:28 +0000

I was playing around with this rather clever app today as it was developed by a a team that had a very talented, good friend of mine involved. You can see it here:

Boots Opticians - Simple eye test app

My eyesight isn’t bad, but it certainly isn’t perfect and it was a Boots Optician that told me that quite recently.

But he also told me something else that was rather important.

He told me that I had critically high blood pressure and referred me to the doctor immediately. Six months later, it’s now back under control and it looks like i’ll be on meds for the rest of my days. Probably a pretty good job they found it then.

But would this app have been able to do the same?

No, but it is set to be on the safe side and does advise you that you need to get their advice if in any doubt at all.

It’s beautifully easy to use and probably one of the most intuitive apps i’ve seen yet (apart from our own obviously – which you can see here)

Does it undermine the expertise of an optician? Probably not.

Does it do the job of an optician? Definitely not.

Is it a fun game to test the oldies amongst you?

Well yes and it does it really rather well.

Berocca TV ad – Log rolling

John Lyle — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 08:24:02 +0000

I love this ad. Not because it is expensively produced, glossy or particularly clever, but because it is so simple and made me smile. The end line backs it up perfectly and for a brand to deliver values that are achievable (the feeling, not the log rolling) is a god place to be. What they are claiming is that this product won’t change your world completely, but it will make you feel a little bit better.

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

The New Zealand brand – summed up in one minute and 18 seconds

John Lyle — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:52:56 +0000

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.

Tesco sandwiches and health

John Lyle — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:52:03 +0000

I had a bit of a wake up call yesterday with the discovery that I have (very) high blood pressure.

Now I’m not (that) fat, I think I eat pretty well and almost all of my food is cooked fresh as I love cooking.

But initial feedback is that my salt intake is probably much to high, so I’ve started looking at everything I eat.

Not sure that LoSalt and others like it are much of a solution as a friend of mine pointed out yesterday that it just swaps sodium for potassium, which is different but still bad.

This was highlighted years ago in this BBC report from 2007.

But nothing seems to have been done about it. The lowest salt sandwich in the whole of the Tesco lunchtime offer (including all their ‘healthy options’) delivers you 19% of your total daily recommended intake. The highest is over 43%, which is horrendous. Weirdly, the sandwich fillers they sell are all quite low fat in themselves, which has to point the finger at their bread.

I guess I am going to have to start making my own lunches, as Tesco aren’t changing fast, if at all.

Brands that kill their customers, die in the end themselves too.

Kids, iPads, conventional media and Blippar

John Lyle — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 09:27:37 +0000

This is a sweet little video that is in fact quite scary. A small child that is so used to the moving media that an iPad presents, that they are completely stumped when they are presented with a magazine and it’s contents.

It’s probably quite worrying to the owners of the print based media businesses how irrelevant their media is to younger audiences, who consume more through video than through print or conventional reading (sadly).

But Blippar may have an answer, as they are linking the two. It’s early days yet, but i’m quite hopeful about the way this augmented reality technology is going and the opportunities it offer for brands.

British Gas and their trite new identity

John Lyle — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:44:12 +0000

call me a cynic if you wish, but I am not a big fan of this rather smug new identity for British Gas. Here’s the old one.

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):

Yeo Valley – X Factor Ad

John Lyle — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 12:53:36 +0000

I have just been sent this by PRDaily and it’s another good one by the genius admen at BBH.

I’m proud to say I didn’t see it on X Factor (as I have never seen it and hopefully never will) but it is a strong ad on the back of their major repositioning.

But I can’t help but notice quite how similar it is as a parody to the Blink 182 video ‘All the Small things, where they played up the over the top boy band video.

So for me, the Yeo Valley ad isn’t the most terribly original idea, but it is another beautifully produced ad that hits its younger target audience very hard.