R.U.B.O.Q.?

A few days ago, the Bank of Queensland launched this re-brand.

And since then – and like many launches of late – it's attracted mixed reviews, most notably here.

So I thought I'd add my own thoughts into the mix with this comment that I left on Mumbrella:

I've been interested to read the discussion here about this campaign and the idea behind it, but it seems everyone is focusing on the issue from a purely visual perspective or in terms of production. And ignoring the fact they've changed their name from Bank of Queensland to BOQ, as well as the potential reasons why – which is a pretty big deal.

When it comes to choosing names – for babies or banks – it's always difficult. But what's even more intriguing about this case is that while their campaign is all about being small and personal, their change of name says exactly the opposite.

Firstly, choosing an acronym is the surest way to strip any emotion and meaning from a word. Acronyms typically lack personality and make it hard for people to remember what they stood for in the first place. Which, unfortunately, does not resonate with their new tagline "Your own personal bank".

Secondly, it's interesting to think about why they switched to an acronym. The likeliest reasons are more to do with a commercial rather than a creative strategy. They want to put some clear water between the brand and the word "bank", as well as lose the restrictions that come with the geographical tag "Queensland".

In other words, this isn't about getting smaller, this is about getting bigger. Much bigger.

So what will it be? A small, local bank with the personal touch? Or, an international institution that hides behind a faceless acronym? Looks like they're keeping their options open for now.

What's the big idea?

Last week, the Communications Council unveiled their new identity.

And here it is.

I'll let you read the article for yourself here.

But, c'mon seriously, it's a speech bubble.

And, there's even a good old swoosh in there if you look close enough.

All I can say is at least it's not 3D.

Short is sweet

The most effective design is often the most immediate.

So it's no wonder that one of my very good designer friends would rather the same was true of some of my longer blog posts.

In his world, short is sweet. Short hair. Short black. Short sleeves. Short board. Sweet.

Now perhaps I shouldn't pay too much attention to him given that he's off to work in Paris. However, that would also be to ignore the global language that brands create, even if you've only made it as far as Perth.

No economy of words could ever match the power that is represented in a single stroke or swoosh when it symbolises something as influential as a brand like Nike. The brand's identity acts as a shorthand that cuts across countries and cultures, allowing individuals to translate its meaning for themselves without having to dive into the dictionary.

So, as a parting gesture to my Parisian-bound friend – and at the risk of neglecting those of us who aren't about to start intensive French language classes – it seems right to recount the thoughts of Blaise Pascal, a 17th century mathematician and philosopher. In his words, "Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte". Obviously, he hadn't heard of just do it.

Brain freeze

This week, I had the dubious pleasure of listening to one of advertising's self-professed elders parading his special brand of insights into the wired world of web 2.0. However, having left his credibility back in the early 90s, this was no pleasurable task – neither for him nor his audience.

After a shaky start, an in-joke failed to rally the troops, and things quickly went downhill as he struggled to work his way through a selection of video material. By the time he came to reveal his big strategy play, a minor PR disaster had to be narrowly averted as he showed an ad starring a cast of people who were completely naked. If presenting an ad from 2007 under the banner of his latest thoughts wasn't bad enough (or maybe that was when he had his latest thoughts), why he felt this the right forum for full frontal nudity was the only thing left to the imagination. A few sombre shakes of the head from the back of the room brought the presentation to a swift conclusion.

For those who missed out, here was his 3-step strategy for success.

1. Find the funniest videos that other people have already uploaded onto YouTube.

2. Pay the videos' creators makers as much of the client’s money as possible just to have their logo added to the end frame.

3. Upload this brand new video to YouTube.

That was it. I'm not kidding.

The end of the presentation could not have come quick enough, and I soon found myself in the back of a cab, sliding through the city in the mid-morning traffic. I slumped into the seat, and waited hopefully for some feeling to return to my brain.

Logos, literally

Logos look great, but they rarely tell the whole story. Often they don't quite know what they really want to say, or they can't find the words to say it. And this is a missed opportunity on a massive scale, given that language lives within each of us. However, all too often, its voice lies smothered under a dull blanket of senselessness – its lips are moving, but we feel little connection to the words and what they really mean.

Decades of being taught at school to end letters "Yours sincerely" have only succeeded in forging generations of insincerity, albeit delivered in the most polite manner. Letter writing is now, for better or for worse, a lost art, replaced by letter writing 2.0. Politeness has now been replaced with the blunt force of the email and its brutal attack on nuance and tone. And we are left in a world where people no longer understand the difference between information and conversation, fact and insight, idiom and idiot.

Thousands of years ago, language evolved to become the intelligent aspect of life that set us apart from other living things. And storytelling evolved to provide the means by which knowledge was passed from one generation to the next. The group dynamic to storytelling was incredibly important as this passage of knowledge provided a vital social bond. I can only imagine what the elders would make of the relative hubris of iPods and earphones, the modern day equivalent of learning a new language from cassette tapes, a poor (and very isolating) cousin to the more rewarding act of actually visiting the country in question to immerse yourself in the people and the culture.

I remember my first son being incredibly frustrated around the age of 18 months as he struggled to find the words to express himself. Now that he can express his thoughts and ideas and emotions, he is much happier. Not only for the act of self-expression but also the experience of sharing with those around him. His words connect himself to his world, he says what he sees and he sees what he says. His language and his life are inextricably interwoven.

All of which brings me to my point.

Language is an incredibly powerful device (to use the modern day vernacular). It has the unique ability to pinpoint your exact meaning, thought or emotion in a way that is simply not possible without the power of speech. It brings us together as the uniting force for sharing stories, knowledge and experience. And it gives us the opportunity to reach out beyond ourselves and touch the world around us.

My point is that a logo is not a brand. A brand can tell a story. A logo can barely spell.

This brand's going to be the death of me

Creatives have always received the accolades when it comes to building the profile of an agency, but the title of brand strategist has begun to increase dramatically in cachet.

There’s simply no elegant way of writing this, but it seems that every Tom, Dick and Harry harbours the aspirations – but not necessarily the skills – to become a brand strategist. I receive enquiries on a weekly basis from people keen to see how they can transpose their account management skills and acquired strategic marketing experience into the role of a full-time, hands-on original thinker. More often than not, the signs are not promising. However, what frustrates me is not the fact that strategy is receiving so much attention (on the contrary, I think this is a great step forward for our industry), but rather the inconsistency between the level of significance that agencies put on the glamour of brand planning versus the daily grind of brand execution.

It is a simple fact that strategy alone does not differentiate your brand, it is the execution of that strategy that sets you apart as you deliver your message and actions in accordance with your business goals.

With that in mind, I find it ironic that the implementation phase of most branding initiatives is referred to as “brand execution”, given that this is inevitably the point at which you run the greatest risk of killing your brand.

There are a variety of acknowledged ways in which you can “execute” your brand, some more visceral than others. What follows is a look at the different challenges that will test an organisation’s commitment when it comes to implementing their brand’s strategy. It highlights a critical area of branding that does not necessarily receive the same accolades or attention as those of strategy and creative, as it is fundamental to achieving the ultimate goal of any brand, namely a successful business outcome.

#1 Death from natural causes

By far the most acceptable way in which to execute your brand is simply to allow it to pass away in the quiet of the night.

The signs of old age were obvious for all to see, but nobody took any action to do anything more than ensure the brand’s basic survival, certainly not enough to encourage growth or even reinvention. What’s even more unfortunate is that often customers do not even notice the passing of their once favourite brand. They switch seamlessly to the young pretender whose lack of substance is at least counterbalanced by a swathe of enthusiasm and energy.

Your customers now face an incredible number of choices for their business, and the basics of segmentation, targeting, positioning and delivery are more important than ever. Branding is not for the fainthearted, and the most successful brands are the ones that take the bravest decisions. Had it not been for this attitude, IBM would have died with the typewriter like many of their competitors (may they rest in peace). Instead IBM chose to reinvent their business and reap the rewards.

#2 Death from cardiac arrest

In some cases, organisations decide to take their brands into overdrive.

As they strive to commission special projects, accumulate steering committees, and launch working parties with a magpie’s enthusiasm for the new, visionary papers and innovative strategies are engineered and embedded on an almost daily basis until eventually the organisation grinds to a shuddering halt. The veins of its corridors and cables now jammed with ambitions that far exceed its operational capabilities, the organisation admits defeat in the face of a yawning chasm between the realities of today and a rare future that they could only envision. The faint beating of the heart of the brand can barely be heard above executives clamouring to distance themselves from once lauded strategies as they consign their brand to the history books – only for the next generation to conduct a cursory post mortem before proceeding to repeat the same formula.

What often goes unnoticed is that the fact that the strategy itself was pretty accurate, but that it was let down by unrealistic expectations in the way that the strategy could be implemented. In the same way that most people don’t like change, most businesses don’t like revolution. They prefer a transformation more akin to evolution. Time is not only the great healer, it is also an ideal lubricant to help ease organisations into a new pair of shoes. It gives employees and customers alike the space and respect to find their own feet in the stiff leather of any new arena.

Complex strategies in cluttered markets call for multiple horizons if any brand strategy is to be successful. This is a lesson that Mayne learned firsthand when they restructured their business with insufficient consultation with their key customers, and as a result the strategy was quickly deemed to have failed and a very unhealthy diagnosis for the company was soon forecast.

#3 Death by public hanging

Hangings have always been a very public way to meet your end, even doubling as a mild form of entertainment in medieval times. These days, they are equally entertaining for business editors and students of the branding industry, condemning brands to a slow and painful death that is painstakingly recorded on blogs and front pages all over the world.

When businesses hang themselves, it is typically a result of making promises with their brand and communications that their organisation cannot deliver.

In the UK, Abbey rebranded themselves a few years ago under the premise that they would democratise the world of high street banking. They made a massive investment of time and money to redesign their advertising, collateral, retail presence and other marketing communications only to have their customers find that they had not in fact reinvented their business as promise, they had merely redecorated their brand.

Empty promises, unmet promises, and promises that are carefully worded with spin but without any substance all result in your customers quickly becoming disillusioned and dissatisfied. Ultimately, they become someone else’s customers and, with the smell of new paint still lingering in high streets across the country, Abbey’s customers simply left them to hang.

#4 Death by lethal injection

Brands used to be the domain of marketing departments and represented little more than the company’s logo reproduced on the office stationery. Nowadays, branding represents a core discipline of any successful business, an organising principle for how the organisation behaves and the decisions it makes.

With many more stakeholders involved in a branding process that has far wider implications than in the past, aligning and managing their expectations is a critical factor. Of course, the marketing department need to know how to develop their communications and collateral, but the finance department also need to know what value to put on their brand and how to manage that investment as an asset; the call centre need to know how (and how quickly) to answer the phone; and, the human resources department need to know how to promote and measure employee performance, as well as recognise future leaders.

Branding plays a pivotal role in all these scenarios, but all too often the implications of an organisation’s brand are not fully understood and therefore underleveraged, or otherwise they are misconstrued and a fragmented message quickly appears just as soon as the strength of their brand disappears.

Either way, once confusion spreads, it is difficult to contain and before too long, the brand is no longer the great asset that your shareholders had hoped that it might become.

Instead, it is a daily liability that must be neutralised – and before those marketing guys cause any more trouble in the otherwise stable worlds of finance, product development and corporate strategy.

And once the lethal injection has been administered, it is already too late.

At a loss for design

The past few weeks have been a bit of a roller-coaster in the world of design – or at least in my little neck of the woods.

First, there was the design industry tying itself in knots over the new AWARD identity on Brand New.

Then, we had the crowd-sourcing debacle on Mumbrella (see the previous post – Logo lemons – for my quick, soul-cleansing rant).

And finally, the crème de la crème, the absolute sense of horror that accompanied the launch of the City of Melbourne identity on Brand New (again) and the AGDA blog.

Comment after comment has rained down as all and sundry waded into each debate with the collective fervor of a 6-year old defending his corner of the sandbox. Arms flailing amid a whirr of windmills. The expectant mob waiting with bated breath for the first sight of scarlet in a classic schoolyard fight to the end.

I would love to say that careers have been racked and ruined, egos smashed on the rocks of egalitarianism, and studios shattered by the demands of artistic integrity, but I'm afraid we have nothing more than a hurty knee. The first sign of trouble, and we have been reduced to a ranting mess. The sheer number of comments speaks not of our industry's strength under scrutiny but of its parochialism, pretension and paranoia.

For a profession supposedly steeped in creativity, conservatism and cynicism rule supreme. Just ask the guys at Wolff Olins who designed NYC or London 2012. Brilliant work that breaks the rules and sets a new standard for how we ought to be building brands. But sadly no. We would prefer to wax lyrical over the miracle that is the new Qantas logo. It's embarrassing.

In sport, whenever two sides at the pinnacle of their powers slug it out in the heat of battle, whether your side wins or loses – and please excuse the cliché – the sport itself is always the true winner.

However, when it comes to new brands and their logos, it appears that designers would much rather destroy than create.

Logo lemons

Over the past few days, one of the most infuriating debates has raged on Mumbrella.

The basic gristle is this. Whether crowd-sourcing is a credible means of designing an organisation's identity – or "brand", for the uninitiated.

On one side, we have the higher echelons of the design establishment. On the other, a pool of enthusiastic design amateurs.

Now while it is true that I belong to the former group by default, I generally tend to offer all available support to an amateur – someone who, quite literally, does something for the love of it.

That is on all occasions except for when the amateur is in fact a bald-faced entrepreneur, desperate for propaganda over passion. If someone tries to sell you an Aston Martin for an obscene fraction of the price, you can be pretty sure it's not an Aston Martin.

Check out this website for a real lemon.

Every brand is an icon

Religion and the illegal drug trade have always had a lot to teach people about the merits of a telling a good story with focus and purpose to an audience whose specific needs they are targeting. As a result, both can lay claim to millions of loyal followers and a very high incidence of repeat purchase.

Too many brands nowadays take a more scattergun approach, hoping to reach anyone who'll listen with a message that contains something for everyone. And in the meantime, the definitive meaning of the brand itself is lost in the wash.

In particular, I am continually surprised by the number of brands who promote themselves as an "icon" without truly understanding the facets and implications of the term. Most brands claim icon status through sheer perseverance and heritage alone, but more often than not, their audience has simply grown as old as their brand. From personal experience, none of my grandparents found any solace in their old age, but instead they discovered every reason to rejoice in their youthful spirit. This is the crucial recognition that all brands must make in order to survive. Age has always just been a number, while a strong and youthful spirit is the driver of all life’s pursuits. Good brands never grow old. Unfortunately, too many brands die with their audience.

Brands face this battle against extinction on a daily basis and it is the very iconic nature of branding that enables customers to make instant purchase decisions without having to review a company’s entire corporate history to help make them. Technically speaking, every brand is an icon. Brands act as symbols to represent a larger entity and deeper meaning than simply the logo, a critical signpost for what you can expect and your invitation as a customer to participate. It is branding that makes it possible for you to purchase hundreds of products for your weekly supermarket shop in a matter of hours, or buy a car without having to inspect the factory itself and interview key personnel about production methods.

For any brand to be successful, it must by definition be iconic. However, too many brands start and end with the logo without investing deeper meaning in their brand. In countless taste tests for beer, people generally have difficulty picking between products until you serve the beer in branded glasses – and as it turns out, your favourite brand is sometimes not your favourite beer.

Apple means a lot to people. More importantly, the Apple brand means more than the specific technical features of the products themselves. The uplifting experience of breakthrough innovation and user-oriented technology is championed by employees and cherished by customers – even Steve Jobs’ keynote speeches were met with an exuberance and excitement more typically seen at political rallies and football matches.

If you were to take Virgin at face value, it clearly would not make sense to put your trust – and, in a variety of different ways, your life – in the hands of someone who is quite literally a virgin.

Similarly, Orange represented little more than a colour somewhere between red and yellow until Hutchison Whampoa injected it with the promise of demystifying the telecommunications market for consumers. The Orange brand symbolised not just a phone plan but more a philosophy that recognised customer needs and responded to them with a refreshingly candid approach to a complex and cluttered market. People liked the plans, but they liked the brand even more.

Apple, Virgin and Orange are all iconic brands. Not because they have discovered some holy grail of branding that lies beyond the reach of most marketing departments and their agencies, but simply because they have spent the time and energy creating a deeper meaning for their brand, their customers and employees.

What’s more, they are all brands that have invested in reinventing themselves over time – they have grown up without growing old.

Nudie achieved huge success with an entertaining story that meant so much more than communicating the real fruit content of its juice by blithely mirroring this with images of real fruit on its packaging. However, the big question for any successful brand like Nudie is always what they do next – sales figures signal a successful past, but they do not provide any guarantee of an equally successful future. And it seems that the copycat characteristics of the juice category that gave us a sea of spritzed oranges have now turned their attention to creating the comic book caricatures that have dragged Nudie back into the pack of pretenders.

One category facing this exact problem is wristwatches. Having enjoyed phenomenal success over the years, many watch brands have seen their premium cachet diluted by the fact that your watch is now far from the only personal accessory to showcase your luxury lifestyle in a split second. The unprecedented rise of the mobile phone as a statement of luxury (and not just a communications device) has drawn brands like Tag Heuer out of their shells and into the business of designing mobile phones as watches for the 21^st century. Car manufacturers picked up on exactly the same status cues when they started to invest more heavily in the branding and design of their car keys.

What a brand means is the single most important factor in its success. The most successful brands are built around a sustainable idea that transcends time and context. This is the basic premise for a brand’s equity and one of the key elements that enables businesses to value their brand both in financial terms and measures of commercial goodwill. Successful brands have to succeed financially if they are to deliver true and tangible value to the businesses that they represent, and too often in the past has the iconic nature of branding related purely to cult and boutique brands that never make it on the commercial stage.

A long and impressive heritage, a cult following, or a hero product is no longer enough to sustain a successful brand. What makes brands tick is the ongoing investment of time and energy that goes towards creating and codifying the meaningful expression of a unique point of view. As a result, inventing – and reinventing – the future is much more significant than reflecting on the past, something that has been impressively evidenced by the way in which Pacific Brands reinvigorated the once faded icon that was Bonds through their product development and communications.

To paraphrase George Orwell, all brands are iconic, but some are more iconic than others.

Just show me how to switch it on

In the past few months, I've been working on a few brand and product launches. From an agency angle, there's only so much you can do to influence the outcome as you tend to make recommendations more often than decisions.

Launching a brand is like giving birth. It's vital to remember that it's the start of something wonderful, not just the end of the most painful experience of your life.

But all too often when it comes to brands, people focus purely on the latter: let's just get it out there and hope everything will work out fine. Oh, and the quicker the better.

Job done.

But actually the job is not done, it has only just begun. Much like babies, brands do not function on autopilot. And it's not simply a question of switching them on.

Firstly, things change.

Constancy is a rare luxury in today's world, but too many people assume that tomorrow will be much like today. Call it myopic, call it a fear of the future, call it sheer stupidity, but change can often touch a raw nerve. "Launch a brand to last for the next 10 years" is a common cry, when what they actually mean to say is "design a logo and let's pray that nothing changes between now and the time I leave for my next job".

The reality is that change can provide overwhelming opportunities to carve out competitive advantage. Just ask any of the bank brands that have pounced on the weak and the weather-beaten to turn a bad situation into a better one. It goes without saying that the banks would have preferred constancy and that change has been forced upon them, but struggling against change is tough (if not impossible), and there is more to be gained from funneling the winds of change than trying to force them back.

Your industry will shift. Your customers will change. Your brand will mature. But will you evolve? Or will you simply stick to the brief, work to the deadline and, as soon as you have flicked the switch, put all your faith in fate and fickle fortune? I hope not.

Secondly, people have short memories.

It doesn't matter how many balloons fill the room at the launch party, pretty soon no one will remember the helium from the hot air.

Customers actually deal with change pretty well. They tend to take it all in the stride because they've seen it all before. The packaging has changed, there's a sticker screaming "new" and "improved", and all of a sudden, as a merchant, you've got a reason to score some extra shelf space in the supermarket.

But if there isn't a real and relevant reason to keep consumers interested, they will all too quickly switch off, or switch onto something more appealing. Brands need to keep giving people reasons to stay loyal and come back, not simply expect that past sales curves are an accurate reflection of future sales performance. The first impression that you make does count, but not quite as much as the last one that you leave them with. You only have to look at Nike to see how a brand can stick to the same story but retell it in so many fresh and different ways – and ways that not only stretch to new audiences but even reach out to new generations.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, brands live forever.

While a sale is simply a transaction, a brand is an experience. And experiences create memories – good and bad, fond and forgettable.

In fact, you don't really own your brand, your customers do. They are the ones who make the real decisions about whether you succeed or fail with every move that they make. They decide how loyal they will be, they decide between you or your competitors, they decide what they will tell their friends about you.

Your role is to influence their decisions. And it should come as no surprise that those decisions don't all get made at the very moment that you launch your brand. Far from it.

So that's it. You can't just switch on a brand one day and expect it to light up the sky the next. I know that sounds obvious, but then too often I see brands built to launch, but not necessarily last.