Category: brand values

brand values, branding

ITV’s new TV series Identity

Anyone see that programme on ITV last night called ‘Identity’ about a crack unit working to solve identity theft related crime? I did.

Anyone going to be watching it again next week?

No me either.

Here’s the promo clip.

What a load of old derivative nonsense. It just proves to me that ITV haven’t got an original thought in their head as they have copied BBC’s Spooks so completely that they even took Keeley Hawes to star in it. But she’s a bit more stupid in this, oh and more obviously sexually suggestive with the interesting male lead (Aiden Gillen).

Scenes with all four people with their back to each other so they could face the camera as a unit. Casual conversations over the office partitions, a really bright and nosey computer geek, troubled Irish hero with a past – is he a loose cannon that could go off anytime? All stupid, stupid, stupid.

ITV has struggled for advertising revenue over recent years so they have tried more and more lowbrow programming to drive mass markets to their screens. But who with a brain will come back and watch this. I’m sure it may appeal to some, but not to me.

I don’t think I am that unusual in wanting to be entertained, interested and not massively patronised by the stupidity of the programme I am enduring.

This is ITV’s brand values gone all wrong. As I read in an old Peter Mayle book earlier, it’s the bland leading the bland!  If they turn out rubbish like this week in week out, they’ll lose the rest of their audience.

Oh, and Keeley. Can you name ONE person who’s career has blossomed by moving to ITV? Again, no me either.

brand values, branding

iPhone 4 works with new iHolder

iHolder for iPhone 4
iHolder for iPhone 4

And Nokia haven’t missed the chance to take the michael either. have a look at their helpful site here.

It’s the first real test for Apple since the early accusations of screens that were too easy to scratch on the original iPhone in 2007. How they handle it will be a good barometer for the future of the brand. You can only really tell the power of a brand when things go wrong. If their products are genuinely NOT as good as people believe, slowly but surely the brand values will be undermined and the brand begins to wane.

Somehow though I don’t think this will happen.

And I still want one.

brand values, branding

Why have the Liberal democrats done so well? – A brand perspective

BBC debate - showing Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats at the centre of the stage
BBC debate - showing Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats at the centre of the stage - effectively getting a supermarket listing for his brand

I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last few weeks since the first debate and thought it would be good to relate the huge surge of support for the Liberal Democrats to a consumer brand – which they have effectively become when they are ‘advertised’ in such a high profile manner.

I think the answer is simple.

By allowing Nick Clegg to stand on the stage next to the two major brands of Labour and Conservative, they were giving them the equivalent of a supermarket listing for a minor brand.

For a minor brand to get a listing in the likes of Tesco, they are immediately given the assurance that ‘if it has been chosen by Tesco to be sold, then it must be okay’ as the overarching brand is that of Tesco as a distributor and comes with their own big brand reassurance. Similarly, a place on that platform came with the assurance that they must be broadly equal in stature.

Likewise for Nick Clegg to be ‘offered for sale’ alongside the market leaders it comes down to whether the consumers like the packaging and the price and feel like a change from the main brands. He’s a good looking bloke (I haven’t got a man crush or anything) and he speaks well. He also constantly refers to the other two parties as the OLD parties – a really important differentiation for the younger voters/buyers.

I have asserted on many occasions that the future is unbranded, and many of us will always choose the guest beer in a pub rather than being herded into the mainstream brands – This is the same principle. It is a brand backlash against the mainstream brands and may be here to stay.

So the mistake came in agreeing to the debate in the first place. They gave they Lib Dems a listing that their previous size may not have warranted. There was no place for UKIP, the awful BNP or the SNP, despite their late court protestations.

If the Lib Dems do sweep into some form of shared power then I believe it all stems from their amazing move to get themselves onto the debate platform in the first place.

I can’t wait to see the outcome on Thursday night.

brand values, branding

Jimmy Bullard’s Wash and Go Ad

It’s all very funny and that , but in what way is this adding to the brand value of Wash and Go. As an April fool it may have worked, but this came out in mid March. What on earth were they thinking? He’s ugly, not too well known and very few of us would aspire to his look. I think size zero models can be a disaster for many brands and real life could be where it’s at, but this is a badly executed, badly filmed parody that should have stayed as a joke amongst the creatives.

For the record, here is one of the original ads from 1991. (the year we started Purple Circle!). I wonder what happened to Vidal Sassoon?

brand values, branding

Nike Ad with Tiger and Earl Woods

A few months ago when the Tiger Woods scandal first started to unfold, I wrote a piece about what the brands he was associated with would do, how they would react and which would desert him. You can read that here.

I was a bit inconclusive as to how the brands he hangs out with would react. But it appears they have decided to stick with him and embrace him for all his faults. This ad is an amazing one and must be unique where our fallen hero doesn’t get to speak, but rather stare slightly sheepishly into the camera whilst his late father asks him if he has learnt anything.

I watched the US Masters coverage last night on the BBC and I have to say that I was surprised to see that he seems to have been well and truly forgiven (or have they just forgotten?) by the US golf watching community. He was cheered by men, women and children as he played every shot and entered every green.

Maybe Nike have made a brilliant decision in sticking with him, but I guess the result on Sunday night will be the biggest single decider as to whether he is back for good. Me, I’m cheering on our boy Lee Westwood, with a firm support for the elegant Ian Poulter.

Updated

I’ve thought about this a lot since I first wrote it yesterday and watched more of the excellent BBC coverage again last night. I have to say, that I am slightly put out by Tiger Woods and his approach to his own brand. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that this is something of a desperate attempt to keep ‘in’ with his sponsors – but at any cost. I know how hard it was when I lost my own father, so for Tiger to literally sell his own father’s voice for the benefit of one of his sponsors is pretty low and shows the depths to which he will stoop to make money.

Augusta is a bubble. A micro climate where reality is suspended. A place where they’ll spend $80m on their practice area to create the perfect golf environment. Tiger has been the king of Augusta. Few of his peers can hold a candle to his performances on this course. His closing day is normally better than the field by a mile.

But yesterday was Seve’s 52nd birthday and he was my golf hero, before the brands took control of the players. He stands for individuality, fight, courage, respect and outrageous shot making. Tiger can claim the last, but the respect for even his father – who he claims was his hero and mentor – at the behest of his sponsors has gone – and I don’t see him ever getting it back.

Maybe the American public haven’t noticed this yet, but this is the beginning of the end for me. Not the affairs, the lies or even the car crash. Once you lose respect for yourself, your days as a brand icon are numbered.

brand values, branding

Domino’s Pizza six fingered box model

I’m all for a bit of clip art here and there. I’ve used it myself on this blog occasionally. But to use it as a central part of your box design is a disgrace for any brand and Domino’s should be seriously embarrassed about this. It sends all the wrong signals. Eating pizza is already known to be a pretty unhealthy pastime, but now we have clear and clinical proof that it makes you grow extra digits, people will be leaving them in droves.

Dominoes Pizza is bad for you as it makes you grow six fingers on each hand
Domino's Pizza is bad for you as it makes you grow six fingers on each hand
brand values

I read it in the Daily Mail

You know your brand is in some sort of trouble when you get genius comics Like Dan and Dan writing brilliant skitts of what you do and tearing apart everything that your hateful, petty minded, bigoted brand stands for. Nice one Dan. And Dan. Love it.

brand values, branding

Liverpool

I was in Liverpool at the weekend and as some of you will know, I am a huge fan of the City and the people.

It was my birthday and rather than travel abroad for a few days, we decided to stay within the UK and immerse myself as a total tourist and I simply loved it.

I’ll write it up over the next few days, but in summary:

We went to Flanagans Apple for an early beer. This has to be one of the best Irish pubs anywhere.

We then went on to lunch at the award winning deli restauarant called Delifonseca, where the food, the perfectly chilled Jever herb beer and the service were all superb.

After checking in at the fantastic Hard Days Night hotel (like any good tourist should do), we went off to walk through the Met Quarter, down through Liverpool One and then back up to the Big Wheel that graces it’s huge plaza. This was in it’s last few days in Liverpool and is on its way back to Nottingham to arrive in Mid Feb.

Back off to the Cavern Pub (opposite the Cavern Club) and then a few minutes to relax before joining our family at Bar Four, for some overpriced cocktails, even more overpriced wine and scarily expensive Peroni beer.

The evening saw us move onto the brilliant Italian (and quite huge) Zelig’s, where again the food and the service was brilliant.

After dinner we got some VIP tickets for Palm Sugar to enjoy a bit of un-named celebrity company where we danced and jumped about for the rest of the night.

I have to say that whilst I love Nottingham, I’m not sure that we could have such a night here. The genuine friendliness of the welcome in Liverpool was universal.

The quality of the venues was exceptional and the sheer scale of the developments that are undergoing is breathtaking.

Anyway, pics and more details to follow.

brand values, branding

Saving your brand reputation in the media

I’ve been catching up with some of my Podcasts over the holiday period and this one by Jack Welch seemed to be good advice for all sorts of situations from MP’s expenses to any bad publicity your brand faces.

In his PodCast on 31/10/08 The Welch Way, Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE explains what he thinks you should do if you are getting a mauling in the press.

1. Get the whole story out there immediately. Their job is to deliver the whole story and you can rest assured they will find it, whether you like it or not.

2. Be consistent in the way you tell the story to which groups. Don’t tell them what you think what they want to hear. These inconsistencies will be reported and you will be well and truly caught out.

3. Be proactive. Tell your story by taking it into your own hands. You can’t change the coverage to your liking, but you can get the last word via your own websites and blogs. As long as your site has a reputation for being truthful/soul searching rather than propaganda you can still win in the end.

All of this applies to a news story as well as the way you manage any brand. Tell the whole story truthfully and consistently and you will win if the product is good enough every time they come into contact with it.

brand values, branding

Domino’s deserve success for their incredibly brave decision

I’ve never been a big fan of delivered pizza. It always seems to be a bit like wet cardboard and the cheese is so tasteless and slimy that it just makes you feel unhealthy even thinking about eating it.

Pizza to me is a beautiful italian food made with fresh bright ingredients and it’s something that we’ve always made at home with the kids and their friends to introduce them to simple tasty cooking.

And now to their eternal credit, Domino’s have admitted the same. They had obviously commissioned some focus groups where people told them how poor their product is and shock of all shocks they listened.

You can see the site they have produced to talk about the story here.

And look at the video they have produced using their real staff, showing how much it upsets them when people tell them how bad their food is (and probably that they are likely to lose their jobs if the sales don’t pick back up.

We have long been fans of customer feedback with our involvement in feefo. It shows that listening to your customers is one thing, but actually having the nerve to do something about it is a far bigger and braver one.

Any business that has the balls to stand up and say their product wasn’t good enough in this direct a fashion, to me, deserves success. I haven’t tried their new pizza yet, or their old one for that matter, but I have to say, that I am vaguely tempted.