Category: branding

branding

Maybe Ryanair isn’t that bad?

Earlier in the year I (rather smugly) wrote a piece saying I had put my money where my mouth is and paid extra to book with BMI Baby rather than fly with Ryanair.

So was it worth it?

Well, No.

Firstly, the check in, where my 18kg allowance caused a problem as I was 0.6kg over. I had to move a few things into my hand luggage. What is the point of this when I weigh 90kg and far more than 90% of the other people on the same flight anyway?

Secondly, the two flights should have gone out at similar times heading towards Malaga. The Ryanair one sailed off bang on time, whilst I faced a two hour plus delay. Not a good start.

Getting on the plane was a bit easier with a numbered seat, but did have me (traveling alone) sitting next to a guy trying to cope with a screaming toddler. The seat I was allocated would have been tight for Ronnie Corbett, but for me was just ridiculous. I was bent double trying to fit into it. Once we were airborne I moved to an empty seat on the front right row which was slightly better. The stewardess wouldn’t let me move to the empty ones on the front left as they were charged extra!

Coming home on Monday 3oth, I was with my family and back to Ryanair. No queue for check in. A slight disagreement about moving things around to make sure all the bags were exactly 15kg – even though we had one bag less than we had paid for.

The flight went off on time. Landed on time and we had extra legroom seats by the wing exits.

It wasn’t too bad. A bit like National Express coaches used to be in the 80’s, but on balance, better than BMI Baby. I think the new MD of BMI Baby, Julian Carr, has some work to do.

If Michael O’Leary changed Ryanair’s company attitude and kept the same company punctuality, they could be likable as well as cheap.

branding

Another great branding job – Retard-ex

Retard-ex - What a truly awful name
Retard-ex - What a truly awful name

Don’t people realise that words can be misinterpreted?

Maybe it’s because i’m a brand strategist, but it certainly doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell you that this is another massive naming mistake.

branding

iPhone vs. Blackberry – the professionals choice?

iPhone 4 is here and is in every professional's pocket
iPhone 4 is here and is in every professional's pocket

It may be a small straw poll but I have heard of two more professional services firms who have switched all of their phones to the rather excellent iPhone platform.

We did it ourselves last year with a great deal from 02 who gave us seven of them free as part of our contract – which in truth is not that massive at around £200 per month. I had a Backberry Pearl for a few weeks on demo but hated it.

But one firm – Innes England – have just had 40 of them and replaced all sorts of handsets for the switch.

The other is a specialist law firm who have had 30+ iPhone handsets too.

Now I haven’t heard of anyone switching lock stock and barrel to Blackberry. Have you? But I did buy one for my daughter for her birthday as her and all her mates have them and love the instant messaging function. (like Apple’s ‘face time’ in text – but actually usable)

So for me, this means that the markets are diverging. Blackberry is going after the PAYG market and Apple are trying to own the corporate market. As an app developer, this makes life much easier as you are only working on one platform, but it will push Apple into an almost monopolistic position in supplying this market.

Good. iPhone is just better, and better should win shouldn’t it.

branding

Is this the worst branding job ever?

Insurance by Kuntz for silly people
Insurance by Kuntz for silly people

I’ve seen some bad branding jobs over the years, but this has to be the worst ever.

Look at that typography. It’s awful. And as for the use of a cannon in the logo, what’s the point of that?

Some people just shouldn’t be allowed near a computer with a design programme on it should they. Silly Kuntz.

branding

They don’t make things like they used to

Here’s the proof. I know it’s a bit ridiculous but it is Monday and it made me smile.

branding

The end of the design and advertising industry in the UK – or the beginning?

I’ve just finished a very short book by Peter Mayle (of Year in Provence fame) called ‘Up the Agency’ and it has really made me think about how much the industry has changed in those intervening years. Mayle was a copywriter in some of the London agencies in the transformational years through the 1980’s as the power was shifting over here from new York in the 1970’s

Up the Agency - by Peter Mayle - Fun and excess in advertising in the 1980's
Up the Agency - by Peter Mayle - Fun and excess in advertising in the 1980's

In this book he tells stories of fun, excess and wealth on an amazing scale, which if I’m honest, was one of the things that attracted me into the industry in the first place. But looking back at it now, it’s barely an industry I even recognise.

Pack designs were done by the ‘Art Department’ – this is now an amazingly specialised discipline in it’s own right.

Research was just starting to creep into play and even then he was worried that it was beginning to stifle creativity. He cites US advertising as being totally derivative and so safe that it had to be research to blame.

But the most telling thing he said is about how ‘big business’ is starting to creep into the industry. It’s taking itself too seriously and this will be its downfall.

Well it has and it is. If you want clear evidence of this, you only have to look at the disgraceful behaviour of Thomas Cook in the placement of their £30m media buying account.

First they make loads of agencies go through an RFI process (Request for Information). An abortive one of these took me three days a few weeks ago. And then they get four agencies to pitch on the basis that they will have to save 10% on buying through media consolidation.

And then, if they do win it, they will have to pay Thomas Cook – No not the other way around – a signing on fee of £1m to take up the account.

Design and advertising work at their best if they create a huge appeal to their target audiences and offer them a relevant product they will enjoy. Research is creating safe ads that appeal to big boring audiences. ITV are creating more and more stupid TV to drive stupid mass audiences to their channel. If media buyers need to reach big markets cheaply and they have little time to think, or create, what choice do they have but create big safe rubbish ads that limp along like the American or worse still, global shite we see over here sometimes?

Sometimes advertising can be fun and sometimes it’s more serious, but if every agency is forced into a striped suit business mentality as Mayle predicts, the power in advertising will shift again, the creativity will disappear and who knows where it will end up next?

The only hope is the fightback from the smaller boutique agencies who try and concentrate on great ideas that work and allow their clients to really carve their own niche.

branding

Innocent Smoothies – bees for all

This is why I love Innocent drinks. I thought they were gtting a little safe and predictable with the way they were managing their brand and then out of nowhere they produce a belter like this.

It’s a special guest smoothie and contains Lemons, Honey and Ginger. You can see more about it here. It also helps that it is lovely (even though I wasn’t sure and only actually bought it for the bees and seeds!

But what makes it stand out is the little yellow pack attached to the top of the bottle. It’s seeds to allow you to grow flowers that bees like. The copy on the reverse is just brilliant too. Dead simple, friendly and enticing. Sorry, i’m looking like a bee stalker here.

Bees like flowers, so why not grow your own? I like it so much, I stuck it on my favourite Bic pen.
Bees like flowers, so why not grow your own? I like it so much, I stuck it on my favourite Bic pen.

And this is where Innocent start to do things really well. They’ve set up a little micro site to get us interested in bees again.

Click through here and enjoy, all you bee spotting dudes. I’m off to plant mine right away.

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.

branding

Clamcase for iPad – what’s the point?

Don’t get me wrong, I like it. It looks cool. Just like a laptop. But if you were going to shell out for one of these clamcase protectors, wouldn’t you just be better getting a laptop in the first place that has the extra features like multitasking and an inbuilt camera, more memory etc etc?

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.