Any brand worth its salt can produce a great promo or ad whose impression lasts a few years in the minds of its consumers. But a more telling example of greatness are the few brands that achieve an impression over several generations. That’s a brand worth not only its salt, but also its bologna.
In 1904, the entrepreneur-immigrant who was also a prescient marketer, Oscar F. Mayer, began branding his company’s meats to capitalize on their popularity. His was one of the first companies to volunteer for testing product purity in the US.
The first Oscar Mayer Wienermobile was created in 1936.…
As I started to to get dressed this morning, I realized I needed a new deoderant, so I unwrapped the two-
pack of Dove I bought a few days ago. I popped off the top to one of the containers, twisted the bottom a couple of times, freeing the little plastic protector that covers the deoderant block. Then I saw it–pressed into the deoderant was the Dove logo. I paused and thought to myself–how cool is that? As you can see, it left a lasting impression on me–no pun intended (okay, maybe a little pun intended).
Kristie Lorette is a freelance copywriter…
Question: What do “Supernova,” “Doodles,” and “Jawbreakers” have in common?
Answer: They’re all branding design trends.
So says brand expert Bill Gardner, president of Gardner Design, one of the nation’s top branding firms, with clients that include Fortune 500s such as Chrysler, Hallmark, Cessna Aircraft, and Kroger.
Gardner released his sixth annual report of logo trends in GD USA, a national design magazine. The report discusses 15 trends found all over the world and provides insights on how they may influence customers.
One trend, “Facets,” is composed of logos that remind the viewer of highly polished gems. Another is called “Animotion.” These moving logos are…
Ikea is going beyond comfy furniture, cool lamps and an awesome shopping experience and the company is going green!
In Denmark, Ikea is going green with a new program that loans bikes with trailers to customers to take home their Ikea purchases. The bikes are built in the classic Ikea design and sturdy enough to handle a good load, Trendhunter describes.
There’s no charge for the ability to deliver your purchases home by bike, but the store requires a small deposit.
This program comes after the fact that Ikea discovered 20% of their customers rode a bike to the store, in Denmark, even…
Good logo design is like good writing. When it’s done properly, it looks effortless. This doesn’t mean that designing logos is easy. It just looks that way.
When designers create a new logo, they typically walk away from their design and look at it at a later time so they can see it with fresh eyes. The following real world logos could have benefited from following this simple rule.
Technorati Tags: Good logo design
You have probably heard about the dancing guy phenomena by now. His name is Matt Harding and he’s a regular fella who is happily dancing his way around the world. Literally. In his latest video on YouTube called, simply, Dancing, he is seen strutting his stuff in 69 different locations around the world, in some pretty amazing places like Tonga and Timbuktu.
Matt, truth be told, is not one of the world’s great dancers. He does this kind of frenetic jig that looks like step aerobics on Red Bull. But his dancing isn’t what makes the videos so appealing. It’s the sheer…
Blogs have become a staple source of reading for many seeking to grasp a quick inside note to what is taking place around the globe. The largest section of people by far spreading a daily word to the masses would be mommy bloggers. What better way to grab potential dollars then by aligning yourself with mommy bloggers and the road trip to be following in 2008?
The Silicon Valley Moms Group Summer Road Trip 2008, places five moms dashing across America to California for the annual BlogHer Conference. What is amazing about this cross country fun on the road? The list…
Next stop: eBay casinos? Well, maybe not. But the company is certainly out there–and now in casinos.
Slot machines at Winds Casino in New Buffalo, MI, have a selection of eBay items as jackpot winnings. The machines include icons for auction categories such as fashion and electronics. They run similar to other slot machines and also dole out some cash, too.
This is a bit late but I’ve been out enjoying the festivities and time with the family. I couldn’t help but get a chuckle out of this little gift from the Muppets. They’ve been around forever and have found new life in the online world. A brand that keeps on giving. Hope you enjoyed the holidays.
Compliments of Jon Burg
Technorati Tags: Beneath the Brand,Jamey Shiels,Muppets,Fourth of July
It’s always interesting to me how marketing and PR firms “do” their corporate identity. Forever telling their clients how it’s done, how do they fare when they choose to do what they do with their websites and collateral?
Case in point:
Bock Communications, the only U.S.-based PR/marketing firm focused on the global wireless telecom industry, changed their corporate identity, which was designed to mirror the agency’s three defining tenets:
1. Bock is a luxury brand
2. PR and marketing are art forms
3. Growth is organic
Will it blend in the brand blender? Let’s see…
I guess they mean it when they say they are a BOUTIQUE…
Putting politics aside and focusing on the analysis of Walmart’s new logo, wordmark, and tagline, I noticed that the latter echoed some other tagline, one that consists of two short sentences with a parallel structure, each starting with a verb and featuring one of the 25 reasons why people buy (save money).
Save money. Live better. (Walmart)
Expect more. Pay less. (Target)
It isn’t just the language that’s being copycatted. Walmart’s new starburst echoes competitor Target’s bull’s-eye, with its clean, bright look. Attempting to update its image beyond the logo arena, Walmart has also copycatted Target by changing its corporate uniform for store…
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the retail behemoth, Wal-Mart, has redesigned the faithful blue-and-white logo. Reportedly to “update its once-dowdy image.” The new logo is now orange and white, the hyphen is removed, and a silly starburst is added. I, personally, am not a fan of this radical brand change for the following reasons. First, when you are the largest retailer in the world and 80% (and growing) of the U.S. population visits you every month, you have some serious brand recognition. The brand may be boring and mundane but it seems to have worked all these years. Second, the new logo doesn’t fix…
Locally, I see a ton of personal vehicles used for the purpose of advertising. And trust me, companies will pay because your car will reach exposure beyond possible outlets a local company may be able to go.
Unfortunately, since I was driving myself, I didn’t get a picture of the exact car that I saw, but this person went above and beyond just slapping an ad about the company on her car, she was marketing herself as the brand to get your company noticed.
At quick glance, not only would she advertise your company / product on her car, she would…
Made you look didn’t it! Did you think the above was telling you to “[BLEEP] OFF”? It says, “Flick Off,” as in flick off the power when not in use.
There’s a good chance quite a few of you had to do a double-take or look a little closer. That’s exactly what Roots wants you to think when you see it on a t-shirt worn by a friend or even a random passerby. The image above is part of Roots campaign to make the environment better off by conserving energy and make people become more conscious about taking better care…
Mitsubishi wants you to know that it cares about the environment as much as it cares about you in its vehicles. Yesterday Mitsubishi announced its love and care with a new tagline:
Drive@earth
It is intended to convey two big ideas:
1. Automobiles connect us to the world
2. A new emphasis on environmental issues
The tagline is really an announcement of a renewed focus for the company as they reinvent their business plan, recognizing that automakers have a special responsibility to build a sustainable partnership with the environment.
Some have said that it doesn’t roll off the tongue the way Mazda’s Zoom-Zoom does. True, but…
The answer to the question I posed in my last entry…What brand is this?
Excellent Undergraduate Experience….. Catholic…..
Athletics/Football….. Service:
One of the strongest brands in the nation: The University of Notre Dame
The Princeton Review conducted a survey two years ago asking parents for their top ten list of “dream” colleges for their kids. The University of Notre Dame made number four.
Now back to a previous point about the power of integrating overlapping brand components. With famously loyal alumni, Notre Dame is a prime example of how a tightly wound integration of all its brand components, existing in the mind (and hearts) of…
How do you think about the consumption situation when thinking about a service? Fuzzy categories.
As I mentioned last time, when you think about the concept of college attendance, you have, as a marketer, expectations about the category and its boundaries, but the experience encompasses many aspects of life. A service brand–even more so than a product brand–probably can’t 
“own” any one word when you’re talking about an experience. Virginia Tech’s spokesman Larry Hincker said, “The brand doesn’t come from the words you see. The brand comes from your experiences…”
You’ve got a kind of metaphysical complexity working here, and you’ve also…
I gathered some thoughts from the designer community on the visual identity for Chicago’s Candidate City status for the 2016 Olympics. The points made constituted a tidy list for marketers and designers to consider (read: argue about) when they formulate a logo. Brand and visual identity analysis of the Chicago Olympic logo:
Are the elements in the symbol gratuitous or do they mean something? Does it make direct reference to the subject’s established visual language? The new star is not gratuitous, as it is the shape of the stars that adorn the official flag of the city of Chicago.
Designers say a…
Last week, Chicago mayor Richard Daley unveiled the city’s new logo to go with its exciting new status as “Candidate City,” moving up the bidding ladder from “Applicant City” for the 2016 Olympics.
VSA Partners created this logo, which is actually the second one. The first one was a skyline torch unveiled last year. The story goes like this:
In the beginning was the torch. It was created in the image of the gods of the Olympics, in the spirit of the everlasting flame. It represented the blue of Lake Michigan, the green of Chicago parks, and the sun over the city…
A person is a brand too. Take a look inside the workings of Sender, LLC, the firm behind the Obama logo. Sender’s principal came from DesignKitchen, a top brand identity firm. Influenced by corporate branding projects, this project deserved a mark that could truly stand alone; this is important for a potential president.
The key to success with a logo for a presidential candidate is to create something that is not complicated. The logo has to be designed around the name. You find a lettering—a typeface for a logotype. You try to create unique elements around the name, which reinforces the…
