Insight Categories: Brand Strategy

Grafik is starting off the new year with a new client in the education sector—Gulliver Schools. Gulliver is renowned for its International Baccalaureate (IB) World School Programme, Signature Academic Program offerings, and Blue Ribbon School designation. The prominent school has been providing the finest in academics, visual art and performing arts, and athletics to its student body since 1926 from its Miami campuses.

“Grafik has a strong core competency within the education sector working over the years with such notable institutions as Johns Hopkins University, George Mason University, and Strayer University,” said Chief Creative Officer, Hal Swetnam. “Engaging with Gulliver Schools to enhance its already reputable brand is a complement to our roster of current engagements with Georgetown University and DC Prep.”

According to Gulliver’s Head of School John Krutulis, Grafik was selected “for its strategic approach to Gulliver’s branding needs and strong reputation for delivering bottom line-oriented results in the education industry.” Grafik will focus its efforts in the development of cohesive messaging, as well as look and feel for the larger Gulliver brand.

Gulliver Schools is a 501 (c) (3) private, not-for-profit, independent, coeducational, nonsectarian day school with the mission of providing a superior college-preparatory education and ensuring an outstanding dynamic learning environment which recognizes and nurtures the unique talents and gifts of each student. For more information about Gulliver Schools, please visit www.gulliverschools.org.

I was sitting in the office today bitching about the fact that we were not called in on the RFP for the DC Water renaming and logo project. I have seen the new mark around town and I like it. It has presence and a strong brandline, “Water is Life.” I asked Teddi our VP of Business Development to find out which agency produced the campaign only to find out that the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority held a national competition in 2010. The Authority invited anyone in the 50 states to take part in a speculative competition for $2,000. Presumably, since the Authority had been under fire for contaminated water and asbestos, they figured this was in part a band-aid to a poor image. And, in order to save money, they started the process by opening up a public competition.

From the press releases, I have been able to figure out that there were three winners—who each were paid a princely sum of $667. And you have to look really hard to even find the designers’ names. The Water Authority drew 177 entries from all over the country! Feast your eyes!

The Authority press release is actually pretty crafty as it does not actually say that the logo was chosen from the competition—the logo was a result of “pulling together the considerable public input from our competition.” This reads to me that the Authority  had to eventually go to a professional source to get their branding done. They do not mention the name of the firm—and it is quite possible that I could be mistaken—but somehow I do not think so.

So what has happened with this rather inconsequential speculative competition? Well, 174 people who volunteered their time for the competition got nothing. Three “winners” got $667 and their names are almost hidden from view—so no publicity at all. The Authority got to pay $2000 PLUS all of the time it took to hold and publicize a competition, sort through all of the entries, scan all of the entries, hold a judging, make a poster…. etc. And, since a Washington Post report notes that they are expecting the cost of the rebranding to be over $160,000, I would bet my eye-teeth that a professional firm actually implemented the overall identity since it is done quite well. And, while I expect that it will be hard for DC Water to own their trademark since the phrase is already trademarked, (and they would have found that out that if they went with pros) the tagline and execution is done very well.

Is there a lesson in all this? Frustratingly yes. Contests for brand expressions are rarely successful since there is no backbone to a mark or logo if there is no understanding of the brand. Holding a logo contest invites pretty symbols that are rarely on point or on brand. A brand exercise for a beleaguered organization like DC Water  should have dealt with a whole host of issues besides the mark. And perhaps when they started working with a professional firm, they were asked the right questions. We’ll never know.

These contests are rarely successful for the public as the agency they entrust with spending time and money wisely often forgets to factor in the amount of time and coordination it takes to run a contest, and rarely considers what happens if the contest nets zero appropriate marks.

Speculative contests are rarely successful for the entrants—who hope that winning may be their launching pad to success. Witness how much publicity the designers actually got—both the contest winners and the firm chosen to execute—and you can see that dreams of fame are misguided.

In the end, DC Water is lucky. They evidently ended up working with a strong designer or firm that understands logo systems and they got a fresh clean look. But they could have been equally unlucky had their contest mandated that one of the entries be chosen. In that case the DC public would have had to endure another 14 years of a poorly concepted, poorly crafted mark.

I think most people would agree that a brand is someone’s gut feeling about an organization, or company. In other words, it’s intangible, individual, and very personal. That’s why managing a brand is so tricky: it’s really managing expectations. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the reaction to Gap’s new logo was so overwhelmingly negative.

Millions of consumers have adopted Gap as an essential facet of their own personal brands. And it reflects more on them than it does the company. It’s like the old maxim, “Your brand doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to your customers.” That’s not to say that the company doesn’t have the right to change, or evolve the logo, but there has to be a really good reason.

Over the past week or so, as the company was responding to the overwhelming criticism, one Gap executive noted that the company is changing, and management was hoping the new logo would represent that change. But what is that change? And shouldn’t that change have been perceptible to consumers before Gap made any effort to reflect it?

Gap’s new logo failed because there appears to have been no real rationale for it. I imagine the lousy economy and decreased sales might have been the catalysts, but even these don’t support sweeping changes to the most significant visual expression of a major consumer brand.

In the end, this entire ordeal will serve as a cautionary tale for other brands, and a proof point for anyone seeking to illustrate the power of social media. But for now, we can only scratch our heads and wonder what Gap was thinking. If the short-lived logo represented anything, it conveyed a sense of uncertainty, carelessness and frustration — all of which is painfully revealing for a retail company that has seen better days.

Longstanding client Volunteers of America (VOA), has been working with Grafik for over five years. Together with the VOA creative team, there was an initiative to keep the organization on the cutting edge to maximize budget and reach for their 2009 Annual Report. The collaboration yielded the amazing work that can be found at http://annualreport.voa.org/.

The Annual Report is groundbreaking for the organization for many reasons. It takes what was formerly a one-dimensional product with limited reach to a limited audience and turns it into a multi-purpose tool, with unlimited reach and potential. Eco-friendly, using no paper product at all, the interactive website is not only a tool that informs stakeholders and interested parties in VOA’s 2009 activities, but can be used by VOA in future presentations and meetings throughout the year.

Gregg Glaviano, Creative Director and Partner at Grafik says, “Having worked with VOA for over five years designing their printed annual reports, the online delivery allows us a richer more versatile experience that can reach a broader audience than before and with less waste. I believe Grafik’s advantage is understanding both mediums and working with our clients to recommend the tactics that will deliver the greatest results for their investment. ”

This is a wonderful example of Grafik’s history of creating partnerships that forge new paths of excellence that serve not only our clients, but the greater good of us all.

If there was a list of great examples of brand, Cadbury would have to top the list. As the Kraft/Cadbury deal (takeover) becomes finalized, it is not the chocolate bars or creme filled eggs that Britons are fearing they will lose, it is what Cadbury stands for. Britons, yesterday, were so angry at the takeover that the former trade minister, Lord Digby Jones, was quoted as saying, ” My big wish is that Kraft get it when they see what made Cadbury the iconic brand they wanted to buy, and that’s its people, its reputation. That’s what Cadbury’s is, and they’re buying something that’s more than just a chocolate company.”

“…more than just a chocolate company.” That is the epitome of a successful brand; more than the sum of its products. The Cadbury brand is successful due to its people, its values, its history, its relationship with its employees, and of course the chocolate candy that the English have grown up with. Cadbury is seen as a force for good, constructing a model village in 1879 for workers to live in away from the industrial wastes; pioneering worker involvement in labor negotiations; and treating its workers fairly providing an excellent pension and medical benefits before they were mandated. Even the founding of the company was based off of a social benefit: the founder, a Quaker, developed chocolate drinks as a way to wean people off of alcohol.

The Cadbury brand has come to be synonymous with fairness, warmth, decency, compassion. And the Kraft brand? Cold, huge, uncaring, impersonal. And ironically, Kraft was rated highest in a yearly survey analyzing brand sincerity. The Reputation Institute analyzed the data of their annual Global Pulse survey and figured out that U.S. corporations perceived to be communicating with the most sincerity had the best reputations. Kraft was the top of the list.

And so, while the ingredients for the chocolate bars may not change, and the taste may remain the same, the brand will not. And if Kraft is smart, they will look beyond the total number of units sold, and they will do everything in their power to preserve the Cadbury brand, because the brand loyalty they have is hard to replace.

There was an interesting piece this morning on Morning Edition about a branding battle between Boars Head deli meats and Dietz and Watson.

Deli meats

Steve Chiotakis speaks of a branding battle for deli counter space between a nationally known producer, Boars Head and Dietz and Watson, the local “kinder and gentler” meat producer. This piece really speaks to B2B branding—since the sale is between the deli meat producer and the supermarket—where normally only one brand of meat is carried. Boars Head is the clear bologna behemoth in deli shelf space and holds a monopoly in some areas. In terms of branding, Dietz and Watson portrays the company as a smaller regional mom and pop operation and plays into the new local craze—buying locally to reduce carbon footprints.  And both brands heavily rely on their distributors and sales force to be brand ambassadors. Chiotakis relays a voice mail recording from a Boars Head rep:

Aggressive Voicemail: Hey Dietz and Watson: I dare you BLEEPers to come up here with your BLEEPing product. I’m a Boar’s Head guy. You bring your BLEEPing little BLEEPing circus up here, I’ll bury you BLEEPing guys.

Clearly this is not the brand steward that Boars Head marketing had in mind….

But this story is really about B2C marketing. Neither brand has made a convincing argument to the consumer on why their brand of mortadella is better than the other ones. After all ham is ham and smoked turkey is smoked turkey… right? Wrong. Both companies have failed to give the consumer a compelling reason to ask for pastrami by name. And so deli meat is a commodity and the decision is left up to the supermarket chain.

It reminds me of ordering a drink 10 years ago—if you ordered a gin and tonic—you got your drink… no questions asked. Now order a G&T and every bartender will immediately ask what brand of gin you would like. That is because most people know there is a difference between Gordons and Bombay Saffire… And even if they can not taste the difference—there is a perception that one brand is better than another. In terms of branding, Absolut is a model of how to change a commodity into a luxury brand…

Well the same for corned beef. When Boars Head or Dietz and Watson start talking directly to the end consumer they will have a better chance of either protecting their turf or breaking into the deli counter. When consumers start asking for Dietz and Watson by name, then supermarket officials will sit up and take notice. When they start to impress their brand on the minds of the consumer then the battle of the bologna will change course.

There was an article today in Investment News talking about the problems of naming a business in the financial services arena. It seems that a guy named Sid Blum had been running his own firm, GreenLight Fee Only Advisors, for more than three years when in April he received a threatening legal letter from Greenlight Capital Inc., the hedge fund led by legendary short-seller David Einhorn. In sum, Sid pressed his suit to keep his name, lost and spent a lot of dough on lawyers. And at no point did he talk to anyone who does naming that might have steered him clear and saved him beaucoup bucks in the end.

Naming. It seems like such a simple thing to do. After all what’s in a name? Years ago, before many of you were born, you figured out a name, printed stationary and you were done. If Mike Meyer opened up a Meyer’s Shoes in Indiana, and Sidney Meyer (no relation to Mike) opened up a Meyer’s Shoes in Alabama, they would not have known about each other or even cared. Now in modern times, the internet has changed all that forever. Now if Harry Meyer wants to open up a Meyer’s Shoes or a Meyers Footware or Meyers Slippers in Philly, he most likely will not be allowed to IF either Sidney or Mike registered their trademark and secured a url. Now Harry is going to have to do some fancy footwork.

Naming exercises can go for as high as a quarter of a million dollars if it involves an international search and if it is necessary to purchase multiple urls. More often than not our Harry Meyer is going to be forced to look at names that are either a bit crazy or made up like hoopdeedo or combinations of words like Meyoes (Meyers Shoes—and if you don’t think this ever happens, think again). And often these names—strange as they may seem—form a first impression to a viewer. Would you ever buy wingtips from a store named Hoopdedoo? You might from Meyer’s Shoes, but you most certainly would not from the former.

So for the sake of argument Harry was able to secure the url for Meyers Footware and decided to develop his brand using that moniker. Well—he still needs a lawyer to make sure that that name is free and clear. Probably 90% of the lawyers out there would nix that name if there is another Meyers or Mayers or Meiers or MyOrs in that category that might have a trademark that could cause confusion in the market. Now if Harry wants to open up a computer software company called Meyers Shoes—he probably would not have a problem.

Lets also say that Sidney in Alabama has been in business selling shoes for 60 years under the name Meyers Shoe, even if Sid did not apply for a trademark (who knew about that then?!) he has been doing business under Meyer’s shoes for generations and has first dibs. So even if he does not own the trademark you may still be in trouble.

As a firm that does naming we know how time consuming and expensive this exercise can be. Sitting with 3 or 4 windows open on our computers, one connected to USPTO, one to go-daddy.com as a start to see if the url is available and who owns it, one open to Wikipedia—which comes in handy when you want to research arcane information about shoes—or look at the derivation of the name Meyer, and one open to a blank document in Microsoft Office waiting for brilliant names to appear. And sometimes you nail it, and sometimes it takes endless rounds of sleuthing to find the needle in the haystack—the name that is available, that has a free and clear status on USPTO, has a good url and does not damage your brand, like hoopdeedo.com.

Oh and by the way, hoopdeedo.com is taken!

Let’s say someone gives you a list of ingredients: no measures, no instructions, not even a clue as to what the ingredients should combine to make. It’s an absurd notion, and yet branding firms do it all the time.

For the third or fourth time in as many months, Grafik has been asked by organizations to try and make heads or tails of strategic documents delivered to them by firms who were happy to drop a stack of research on their doorsteps and dash. In each case, there were no real conclusions, and absolutely no hint of what the organization’s brand focus should be.

As far as I’m concerned that’s less than half the job.

Before you can begin to express a brand, everyone needs to agree on a concise recipe—a directive that identifies the key components, weighs their significance, and details how they need to come together. This is a critical step. One you can’t skip because it informs imagery and messaging, ensures relevancy, and helps define tactics across every customer touch point.

We have a couple of branding projects in the works now, and you can bet that when they’re launched, these brands will be fully baked. The way we see it you shouldn’t have to settle eggs and flour, when you’re in the market for cake.