This is one of the most clear cut well executed pieces of design I have seen in a few years and I love it.
On it’s own, the change from the old logo here:
The old Home Delivery Network (HDN) logo
To the new one here:
The new Yodel logo
Is not that significant, but then again, logo’s never look too much on their own anyway, do they?
But when you start to add some meat to the bones, it starts to come to life.
Yodel - Dawn to dusk - bringing the brand to life
It was done by an agency called The Clearing who have a project page here. My only slight reservation, which could still change its success is this little comment that appears under the YouTube video that they have used to launch the project.
It was posted by someone called mrtikle 1 week ago and he/she says “the company still have no money and continue to treat its staff like dogs”
As I have said many times before, if this rebrand marks a positive change in behaviour, then it may succeed, if it is just a new logo for a still crappy company, then it will still fail. Time will tell, but you can judge for yourself.
Maybe it’s just me as i’m not that big a fan of F1, but this ad seems entirely charmless and seems to have used all of the ridiculously obvious advertising cues to cover this up.
The ‘Plot’ in summary
Two apparent experts deserted in beautiful workshop with bits of an F1 car.
They look slightly helpless.
All of the office staff wander by in awe and wonder as our two heros attempt the build, nudging and winking at the windows.
The real experts (the mechanics) drink tea in the canteen.
Our two drivers pull it off and then whilst claiming its a team effort, pretend they actually did it.
Sorry, this is all a bit dull for my liking. Virals are meant to be fun!
And considering it’s obvious expense and production values, what is this actually doing or saying about the Vodafone brand?
There are brand extensions and there are brand extensions too far. This one is perhaps the furthest and least relevant stretches for any brand I have ever seen. Let me introduce you to Hello Kitty motor oil.
Hello Kitty Engine Oil - The stupidest brand extension ever?
Hello Kitty is a hugely successful brand owned by the Japanese company Sanrio and Agip (Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli) who make the oil for them are the huge Italian oil and fuel company based in Milan.
Surely this should be recipe for cutting edge japanese design mixed with sharp Milanese style?
Err no.
It’s just stupid. Who would possibly think that adding an oil to their car that is given credence by a cartoon cat would do it any good at all? How can the Hello Kitty brand values of cuteness and pink bear any relation to the inside workings of an engine?
It can’t. I’m afraid this just looks a bit silly.
I don’t think Castrol should be too worried about it denting their market share just yet.
I just went out to buy two copies of a book for my wife and her Mum and have learnt a lot about online/offline pricing in my little jaunt around the city.
Firstly there are only two real places you can buy a new book (other than the discount end of line retailers) and that is at Waterstones or WH Smith – who are a retailer of sorts.
Before I went out, I looked on Amazon for target price. £7.49. Now that sounds like good value to me. £5.50 off list price but none in stock and my customers want this book NOW!
The Clean and Lean Diet 14 Days to Your Best-ever Body from Amazon.co.uk
So it was off to WH Smith, the confused retailer that seems to have ‘buy one get one half price’ on almost everything. Isn’t that what Thresher did before they went bust too? Well, they had the book in stock, but only one of them, so the deal wasn’t that effective. They had a price of £8.44 online. If I had managed to buy the two of them in the store each book would have cost £9.75, so not far off a decent price.
The Clean and Lean Diet 14 Days to Your Best-ever Body - from WHSmith.co.uk
And then onto Waterstones. The only decent sized book store in Nottingham. I was greeted by a friendly young man as I entered and asked him where on the four floors I would find this book. He confirmed they had five in stock at the full price of £12.99 on the third floor.
So I asked the kller questions.
Why could I buy the same book from them online for much less?
The Clean and Lean Diet 14 Days to Your Best ever Body from Waterstones.com
The answer?
Apparently, and I quote “Because they’re on the Internet, they don’t have the overheads we do.”
Oh, that’s it then, they’re not part of the same group or anything simple, or even based on exactly the same central distribution depot.
I wrote a piece a few weeks ago saying that their new logo was a bit silly and pointless, but did give them the get out clause that a new logo can be worthwhile if it marks a change in behaviour.
You judge for yourself whether this traditional retailer is behaving any different now it has an online presence, or if it is still making the same mistakes as Borders and all the other smaller book stores that have folded before them.
If you offer the same price online and offline (like Tesco and Asda and Sainsbury’s and everyone else with any retailing skill does) you may find that people still buy from your stores rather than looking at you as a showroom or a place of last resort.
Most of these sorts of satirical songs are pretty dreadful, but i’ve been singing this one in my head all day, so I thought i’d subject you to it to. Nico Russell is a friend of the family and clearly a very talented writer and Vuvuzellist.
This is seriously clever stuff. Live video that is just becoming available with the iPhone 4G, but that is already up and running as part of a FREE app for any other iPhone. I think I may be playing with this for a few days. Can someone else get it too, so I can ‘knock you up’ (so to speak).
I’m not sure how they claim it’s 24% thinner and i’m not sure i need to be able to edit video on my phone or have face to face video chats (like my old Nokia phone used to be able to do years ago) but Apple seem to have, yet again, hit the design about right and will have people queueing up to own the new iPhone 4G.
Steve Jobs didn’t look too well, but he certainly got the crowd whooping in his latest keynote. He highlighted eight of the claimed 100 new features of the iPhone 4G device. How many of these will we need or use?
I’m not that easily impressed with TV ads, but this one from Nike is truly amazing.
Select the 1080p version so you see it in all of it’s glory, go full screen, turn the volume up and enjoy. It’s humorous, beautifully and epically filmed and the ad of the year so far for me.
Tesco - Every little (piece of government intervention and price fixing) helps
Maybe I’m being simplistic, but to me it seems pretty obvious why Tesco are campaigning, along with the government, for a minimum price for beer.
They’ve never behaved altruistically before, I hear you cry!
Well, they’re not now either.
It is pure self interest.
If there is minimum retail price for beer in the UK, do you honestly think that will affect their buying price in any way at all?
No me either.
With the huge growth of global beer brands such as AB InBev, who own the likes of Stella Artois (wifebeater), Budweiser (simply vile) and Becks (iced water), it will allow tesco to do even better deals and grow their buy/sell margin to an even greater level.
Yes, the smaller retailers will have some protection as they will still be able to get their £3 for a four pack, but they’ll be paying £2.40 to Tesco’s £1.20 from their supplier and yet again the little man is crushed.
Beer brands are going through a mad level of consolidation and whilst I have written many times before about a brand backlash and choosing guest ales over the mega brands when we visit our local, it seems that more casualties are coming.
With Bass, Boddingtons and Flowers all up for sale by AB InBev, it seems that we will have fewer and fewer big regionals and be left with globals at the top and tiny locals at the bottom.
This has to present the most amazing opportunity for a decent entrepreneur in the middle ground to buy up one of those three amazing beer brands and build them back up again.
I’d be happy to help with the branding! (and tasting if required)
Updated
It would appear that the Bass brand isn’t really up for sale. In this great article by Pete Brown in the Publican, he gets to the root of what is really for sale. What AB InBev are actually selling is the UK only rights to sell the beer as a draft product. No rights to the name, no rights to the International business and no real chance of anyone being interested in that particular offer. What a real shame for beer drinkers. I certainly didn’t know that Bass and the famous red triangle was the first trademark in the UK. Globalisation isn’t really a good thing is it? It just makes it easier for our historical brands to be destroyed internationally, ignoring all the years of heritage they have created.
Congratulations, you’re our second HSBC 100 Thoughts winner.
As a winner you are invited to one of the HSBC 100 Thought events. These events are taking place around the country and there will be a number of business thinkers and influencers making up the panels. You will get exclusive access to the panel at your chosen event.
Your thought will also be entered into a public vote and if you win you’ll receive a one to one consultation with a globally renowned business guru (who we will be announcing very soon).
I’ve listed the events below for you to choose from. Not every panel has been firmed up yet but I’ve entered the ones we know for you. They start fairly early and are finished by around 10.30 so you shouldn’t need much time out of work to attend.
Please let me know which event you’d like to come to. We will pay for travel, via standard class rail or mileage rates approved by HM Revenue & Customs, to and from the event and this will be reimbursed after the event.
And the thought?
“#100thoughts if you really want to improve your business, why not give your customers a really good listening too.”
Which is something we have been talking about for ages anyway, as the problem with most social media strategies is that they involve a lot of talking and not enough listening.
Funnily enough, my other entry “#100thoughts if you can’t change the people, change the people.” didn’t get picked!
Just to prove it’s one we believe in, we did employ a bit of good listening only yesterday to our good friend and client Lisa Harlow, who has given us some direct feedback as to how we can simplify our own presentation at Purple Circle. Her idea is being actioned now and will be live on our website within the next day or so! It works.
Johnny Lyle's new brand thinking 