Brand Singularity - Online Branding Insights

Wired Wasting Away?

2009-01-21T21:31:00.000-08:00

Wired Magazine is one of my favorite print publications to digest every month. I look forward to its arrival each month in its protective plastic cocoon, ready to key me in to the latest trends, technology stories and digital culture. This visionary blend of technology and cultural insight means that Wired has a lot in common with Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Unfortunately, I realized today that Wired has MORE in common with Steve than just that. Wired is apparently suffering from a "hormone imbalance" just like Jobs, but is wasting away at a much more alarming rate! This month's issue has easily lost half its weight from just a few months ago. Just look at these page counts:

November 2008 - 256 pages
December 2008 - 236 pages
January 2009 - 128 pages
February 2009 - 116 pages

So what's changed? It's the ads! The new issue is a veritable wasteland for ads. There are still some full page spreads, but they are few and far between. This doesn't bode well for one of my favorite mags. I hope they've called in a doctor and started measures to regain the weight they have lost, and that they can hold on until the recovery sets in. Good luck, Wired!

Whopper Sacrifice: Sacrificed

2009-01-15T05:05:00.000-08:00

So apparently you can get in trouble for virtual human sacrifices as well as real ones. Just a week after the launch of Whopper Sacrifice, Burger King has been forced to alter a key element of the wildly successful Facebook app. During the last week, the app was used by 82,000 people to delete over 230,000 friendships on Facebook. Sacrificing at least 10 friends secured a coupon for a free Whopper at Burger King.

Facebook has claimed that the app's method of notifying the friends being deleted that they are being sacrificed is a privacy violation and runs counter to the interests of the users. Something about that argument sounds as funky to me as last Wednesday's french fry grease. Facebook may welcome with open arms an application that strengthens the network between its users and prompts increased use and page views, but it looks to me like they don't want anybody influencing their users to cut back at all.

I doubt we've heard the last of this one. You don't mess with the King, and you don't taunt someone who already markets an "Angry Whopper"

Whopper Sacrifice - Social Marketing Gets Vicious

2009-01-13T19:33:00.001-08:00

OK, this is the most unique social networking campaign I think I've ever seen. Whopper Sacrifice is the latest, greatest thing from Burger King designed to get under our skin and into our consciousness. They've created a Facebook application that bribes consumers to delete 10 of their friends from Facebook in exchange for a free Whopper.

It's a work of evil genius! First, they offer up a Faustian deal, with a tempting free meal weighed against your loyalty to people you've publicly linked yourself to. Then, if you succumb to the temptation, they broadcast your betrayals through your Wall. And once you've sacrificed one, two, five friends, are you really going to stop before you get the burger? No way! You're too far in. The Whopper Sacrifice must continue.

Finally, when you've made your deal with the King [of darkness], can you honestly say that you won't be thinking about what you've done with a slight taste of guilt in your mouth as you eat your free Whopper? And when the deed is done, and the crimson ketchup is all over your hands...

"Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then 'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky." - William Shakespeare

Comcast Tower Breaks Curse of William Penn

2008-10-30T05:23:00.000-07:00

In the category of strange and wonderful comes the story of William Penn's hat. Not the real hat, but the sculpted metal hat on top of Philadelphia's City Hall. For decades, nobody was allowed to build a Philadelphia building taller than that hat. In 1987, One Liberty Place rose above the hat, and a 25 year sports championship drought followed. This led to the story of Billy Penn's Curse.

Well, as the Comcast Tower was completed and became Philadelphia's tallest building this year, ironworkers of Local Union 401 attached a small figurine of William Penn to the final beam of this new icon, in the hopes of breaking the curse. What can I say? It worked. It's one year later and the Philadelphia Phillies have won the World Series, for only the second time in franchise history and for the first major sports championship in Philadelphia in a quarter century!

Here's to curses and their subsequent breaking!

Unbutton Your Beast: Levi's Lets it Out

2008-10-08T14:47:00.000-07:00

There's a beast in my jeans and it wants to talk to you! Yeah, that's the basic premise behind Levi's new "Unbutton Your Beast" viral campaign. Unbutton Your Beast is simple, bold, funny and exposes you (pun intended) to the brand and the product being pitched in an unmistakable way. I give Levi's a big thumb's up for stepping up, and "going there" with this viral campaign.

Seinfeld + Gates + Windows = Seinfeld * 0.5

2008-09-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

Well, the first Microsoft ad featuring Jerry Seinfeld has been released. It's featuring Bill Gates and doesn't mention Microsoft or Windows at all. That's fine by me. There's a ton of debate about whether the ad was good or not. Debate is fine by me as well. Here's the ad:

I'll weigh in with this opinion, either Jerry is very rusty in his delivery, or this combination is just too awkward. This doesn't capture the magic of either Seinfeld's standup or the old show (even though it tries to mimic the "much about nothing" style). I'll reserve final judgement until I see the next installments of the campaign, but if this is their answer to Apple's "Mac vs. PC" ads, I don't expect a monumental shift in public opinion.

Chrome Browser from Google: How Shiny Will it Be?

2008-09-02T04:04:00.000-07:00

Google is developing its own web browser, called Chrome. I guess it was only a matter of time. Google owns the search industry, and has been developing boatloads of other applications and information services, some of which are hits and some of which sit largely unused. Now we come to the next step in Google's evolution, where it works to tie everything together into a true platform.

Will the Chrome browser be the thing that does it? How heavily will it integrate Google's also-ran services such as Google Finance and Froogle? I have no doubts that compelling and intelligently designed new features will appear in this browser at a ridiculous pace. After all, that has become a key element of Google's brand of innovation with services such as Google Maps and Google Docs.

Will that be enough to overcome the obvious privacy questions that will accompany Chrome? Whether real or imagined, there will be a veritable chorus of concerns voiced (many of them being seeded by Google's frightened competitors) about where your private information could end up. Ironically, that has also become a key element of Google's brand.

Chrome could be a turning point, or just another stone on top of the fortifications. Since nobody actually has their hands on it yet, we'll have to wait and see!

For more, see: Official Google Blog: A fresh take on the browser

Endurance Training - Building a Faster Tomorrow

2008-08-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

Endurance sports and branding... what do they have in common? We recently launched FasterTomorrow.com, a site dedicated to the science of endurance training and featuring the innovative muscle recovery product ARX and it gave me the opportunity to contemplate this question.

An endurance race, whether it's running, cycling, swimming or a full triathalon doesn't begin with the starter's pistol. It begins long before that when each athlete makes the decision to enter the race. From the moment the athlete sets that goal, everything they do and every decision they make will take them a step closer or a step further away from reaching that goal.

This is a perfect analogy to branding. To run the strongest race and build the strongest brand, you have to continually reinforce the things that will carry you to victory. The logo, the messaging, the visual branding, compelling ads, diverse channels and a strong, happy customer base that spreads the gospel of your brand. Training and strengthening each of these areas will help create a stronger, faster brand that has real market endurance.

Scrabble vs. Scrabulous = W-A-R

2008-07-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

Having a strong and valuable brand is great, but sometimes you are forced to defend the castle of your brand and your intellectual property, and it can get pretty ugly. The unusual brand story of the day is the latest chapter in the Scrabble vs. Scrabulous saga.

Scrabble has a long and detailed history. It is truly one of the great games of all time and, although many challengers have tried to introduce other word games to compete with it, none has come close to toppling this giant. The game has tournaments, passionate devotees and has even been the inspiration for the book Word Freak by author Stefan Fatsis.

It was undoubtedly this passion and addiction to the game that led XXXXX and XX to develop Scrabulous, an online game made popular as a Facebook app that is (in my opinion) a pretty blatant derivation of Scrabble. With Scrabulous pulling attention away from the official Scrabble game and brand, and Hasbro finally launching an official Scrabble game on Facebook, its no surprise that Hasbro sued the makers of Scrabulous and finally, as of yesterday, succeeded in having the game removed from Facebook and the North American Scrabulous site shut down.

So... definitive victory for Scrabble, right? Well, apparently they are still a letter short of V-I-C-T-O-R-Y. It seems that the ravenous fans of scrabulous (or possibly someone even closer to the upstart brand) did not take too kindly to the shuttering of the game, and someone hacked the official online version of Scrabble, knocking it offline for the past 24 hours.

I'm sure the online version will come back online. I'm also sure that, while there may be a few additional skirmishes, this war is mostly over with Hasbro as the winner (at least domestically). So as the generals at Hasbro reflect on this war over a glass of brandy by the fireplace, the brand-related question that I'm still pondering is this:

Was it better for the Scrabble brand for Hasbro to wait until their version of Facebook Scrabble was ready before taking down Scrabulous, or would it have been better to "nip it in the bud" when the game first appeared?

Any thoughts?

Cuil vs. Google

2008-07-28T11:28:00.000-07:00

A picture is worth a thousand words.... and these two pictures are worth 120 billion web pages:

Note: Ironically, as of the posting of these images, Google was able to present 372,000 relevant results for the unquoted search terms a search engine better than google, essentially proving that while many people write about creating a better search, nobody seems to succeed.

Cuil Steps Up to the Plate and Strikes Out

2008-07-28T04:24:00.000-07:00

People love to take aim at leading brands, and almost nobody has a bigger target on their back than Google. Launching a competing search engine these days almost guarantees news coverage, but often doesn't deserve it. The challenger-du-jour today is Cuil, which claimed to launch with three times the number of indexed pages as Google.

I checked out Cuil and was thoroughly unimpressed. It took me less than thirty seconds to come up with three big strikes for Cuil:

Strike 1: Name - I have no idea how to pronounce this name. Is it "Quill", "Kweel", "Quell", "Coil"? I fully realize that it is almost the Holy Grail to have a four letter domain name, but from a branding standpoint, if you have a brand that people don't know how to pronounce, it's very hard to spread by word of mouth. Add to that the fact that no matter how you say it in casual conversation, nobody would be able to guess how to spell it, and this seems like a bad branding move for Cuil.

Plus, on top of that, while Google's name (which is arguably a more intuitive spelling than the actual word it is based on) has symbolism in reference to what it does, the best I can find for Cuil is an acronym "CUIL" standing for "Common Usage Item List". Ironically, this acronym is anything but commonly used.

Strike 2: Interface - Some other reviewers and myself will have to agree to disagree on this topic. Cuil's approach of presenting multiple columns of paragraphs which are not cleanly aligned is unintuitive and hard to visually navigate. I cannot tell if the second most relevant result is supposed to be the top result in the second column or the second result in the left column. The need for a user to scan Cuil results BOTH left-to-right and top-to-bottom makes it much harder to process and know one's place when moving through multiple pages of results.

Strike 3: Results - The third strike for Cuil, and the most devastating, is its seemingly anemic ability to find results. This is the meat-and-potatoes for a search engine and it does not perform well at all. While a search for "Singularity" did turn up results (and a listing for Singularity Design), a search for "Singularity Design" turned up nothing (no, I didn't use the quotation marks in my search either). Likewise, there were no results for "award-winning design firm", "wide plank flooring" or "weather 19103".

This is a fatal flaw for a search engine in my book. I don't care how many pages a search engine indexes if it cannot process a large number of my searches. Everyone is learning that the trick to getting the right answer is to ask the right question, and Cuil doesn't seem to be able to grasp those questions.

Search term: "successful competitor to Google in search"

No results found.

2008 Rice in Crisis - Every Grain Counts

2008-07-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

OK, bear with me.... this may seem off-topic, and it may seem like I'm just venting, but you're only half right. I'm a fan of Indian food and a very analytical gourmet, and something has been decidedly off about my recent experiences with Indian cuisine. It wasn't the spices or the meat that took these meals down a notch, it was the rice. While the increases in the cost of oil and corn have stolen most of the headlines, the price of basmati rice has surged 200%. This price increase (or possibly the other supply-demand factors fueling it) seem to have forced Indian restaurants to shift to regular old white rice.

Two questions are probably in your mind right now: "Why is this bad?" and "What does this have to do with branding?" It makes sense that you'd ask that.

This is bad because basmati rice has a firm texture and distinctive flavor that is one of the hallmarks of authentic Indian cuisine. It's not just an accompaniment or delivery mechanism for the rest of the food. It's an integral part of the meal and the flavor.

This is relevant to branding because it helps to illustrate that every aspect of the way a consumer experiences your brand plays a vital role in their overall perception and level of satisfaction with it. When I experience bland, mushy rice at my favorite Indian restaurant, I find myself second-guessing my attachment to their brand. I know that its tempting to make adjustments and substitutions when external conditions increase price pressures, but if I stop coming to the restaurant, that could be an especially costly grain of rice.

The Art of Arrival

2008-03-12T04:21:00.000-07:00

With so much boring repetition in TV commercials, I love to see a corporation take a bold creative step that still makes a strong, well-directed brand statement. ANA Airlines, from Japan, has done just that in a very refreshing way. In "The Art of Arrival", they have adopted the style of anime, Japan's unique animation genre known for its imaginative, dramatic stories and its cinematic style to convey the feeling of freedom and joy that travel on ANA Airlines can bring.

The Art of Arrival concept itself is wonderful, because of the self-awareness it shows. We all know that unlike other forms of travel, with even the best air travel the journey itself is never the reward. The arrival is the joyous part, and they've captured that joy.

Beyond concept, the execution on this commercial, from start to end, is absolutely fantastic. I had never heard of ANA Airlines before, but I will certainly remember them now. "The Art of Arrival" is a masterpiece of the art of branding!

Tricked Out Mouse: Adobe Site of the Day for 1/15/08

2008-01-15T20:09:00.000-08:00

Wow... what a week! We got the news last night that Tricked Out Mouse was selected as the Adobe Site of the Day for January 15. Adobe reviews and filters hundreds of submissions every day and picks just one site per day to be featured in the Adobe Showcase.

With designers and agencies the world over vying for attention from the undisputed leader in creativity software, this recognition is a serious honor. Score one for Singularity!

Tricking out a brand

2008-01-12T08:03:00.000-08:00

There are few things that are as much fun as breathing fire and creativity into an established brand. We had an opportunity to do this recently and I have to say that the end result is pretty damn cool!

Singularity Design recently launched Tricked Out Mouse, an interactive promotional microsite for Kensington Computer Products Group. The site lets visitors "trick out" a boring, beige, two-button computer mouse as if it was a wild hot rod. They can pick a paint job, wheels, headlights, ground fx, roof accessories and various other customizations. From there, they can pick a backdrop, and a set of tunes to play and then name and save their creation to display to the world.

To make this a more compelling marketing vehicle, we tied in a prize giveaway featuring Kensington products. The key here (and to really effective online branding) is to really tie the concept, message, execution and supporting details to the brand identity and business objectives. I like to think of it as a layering process. The more layers you add that reinforce the brand identity (carefully blended), the more clearly that identity will transfer to the minds of the consumers.

The site launched in December, and it has received visitors from over 75 countries (all of whom are now more familiar with Kensington's brand), received great feedback from end users and industry experts alike, and been featured on industry sites like Ads Of The World and NewsToday.

Visit the site at http://www.TrickedOutMouse.com/

A Taste of its own Chinese Medicine

2007-12-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

China, long known as one of the biggest sources of counterfeit merchandise and piracy of intellectual property is suddenly getting a taste of its own medicine. Chinese authorities have had to scramble to try to rein in a burgeoning cottage industry of fake 2008 Olympics merchandise. According to the Beijing Youth Daily, Chinese authorities have investigated at least 80 websites selling fake Olympics gear.

There are two things about this report that made me stop and think:

This may be the first time that China has had a brand strong enough to attract the attention of its own counterfeiters and
I'm wondering if this taste of its own medicine will signal an era of stronger protection for international intellectual property.

Thoughts and comments are welcome. Xie Xie in advance.

Ripe, Juicy Apples: Quarterly Mac Sales Top 2 Million

2007-10-22T13:59:00.000-07:00

Things are looking pretty good in the orchards of Cupertino, CA. Apple just announced its quarterly results, demolishing analyst estimates. The best part about this is that one of the main drivers of this performance was Mac sales, which topped 2 million units in the quarter.

This is the first time Mac sales have ever reached this level and it really validates Apple's strategy, which I will hereby dub "brand resonance". The strategy was to use the iPod and the iPhone to expose a wider range of consumers to the whole Apple "experience". This is the elegant melding of form, function and user experience that is at the core of Apple's brand. The theory (now proven) was that this little taste of Apple would leave consumers hungry for more, and drive some portion of them to abandon their Windows and jump into a Mac. Of course, that will make them more likely to stick with Apple's other media devices, and so the consumer's attachment to the brand will resonate and become stronger and stronger.

As a longtime Mac fan, and someone who loudly protested more than a decade of prophesies of Apple's demise, I guess I'd just say.... I TOLD YOU SO!

Has CAPTCHA been captured?

2007-10-10T06:45:00.001-07:00

CNet is reporting that spammers have hijacked YouTube's email-a-friend feature to send out phishing emails. The thing I found most notable in the article is the reference to software that automatically decodes and defeats CAPTCHA. This is a new, and troubling development for anyone who uses viral marketing or web forms.

CAPTCHA is a system that requires a web visitor to retype a set of letters into a form field in order to submit the form. Those letters are presented in a somewhat distorted or garbled image. The idea is to prevent automated scripts from being able to hijack the form. From an online branding perspective, the email-a-friend forms, blog comment forms and contact forms that CAPTCHA protects are critical to developing an effective online brand conversation. If these systems cannot be adequately protected, we may lose some of our most effective tools for online branding and marketing.

If CAPTCHA is indeed in danger, my question to ponder is: "what will take its place?" What type of system can simultaneously be easy to use for website visitors, while being difficult or (improbably) impossible for the hackers and spammers to get around?

Leave a comment. I think this is an important discussion to have now, before our online forms become as compromised as our junk mail folders already are!

King on the Road: Burger King Goes Mobile

2007-10-05T12:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a tasty piece of news. Marketwatch is reporting that Burger King has signed a deal for the development of a set of branded games for mobile phones. This follows last year's offering of three Xbox 360 console games featuring "The King" ("Pocketbike Racer," "Big Bumpin'", and "Sneak King") which sold over 2 million copies!

The games will be produced by Mobliss, a company which has publishing agreements with Sprint, AT&T, Alltel, Verizon and T-Mobile, which means the games will have significant consumer availability.

This isn't the first time Burger King has willingly embraced new marketing techniques and reaped benefits. From its successful viral marketing campaign with "Subservient Chicken" to its user-generated content site at PetMoustache.com, BK continues to show itself as an industry leader.

This lastest effort is an equally smart move. "The King" character has rejuvenated Burger King's mind-share and BK's willingness to embrace branded games has really upped the fun level of a brand that has to compete with the world's most famous clown.

Frozen Apples: The Unlocked iPhone Dilemma

2007-10-01T05:03:00.000-07:00

In an effort to combat the "unlocking" of iPhones, Apple has made its latest iPhone software update into an assassin, capable of permanently freezing iPhones that have been illegally unlocked to work on networks other than AT&T, or that have been hacked to load unsanctioned third-party applications. This essentially turns the iPhone into a sleek, sexy, $500 brick, perfectly suited for holding down a pile of papers or being used for lively games of spin-the-iPhone.

Hardware makers have always struggled with cracks that allowed consumers to get around their licensed content or use their products in ways unintended by the manufacturers, and any consumer who tries to skirt the rules should be prepared for the potential consequences. The question is whether the punishment fits the crime, and what implications can this have for Apple's brand.

It is widely known that Apple is not profiting from the iPhone itself, but from the business relationship with phone providers like AT&T, who get to be the exclusive providers of the iPhone in their respective countries. Apple's position, and profit potential, would be severely impacted if people can just unlock an iPhone and use it with other carriers. This relationship is definitely something Apple must defend. The issue of third-party software installations is a murkier one. Is an attempt to improve your iPhone really an offense that should be punishable by death?

In my own opinion, Apple needs to tread carefully here. Those who unlock their iPhones to try to get around Apple's licensing deals should pay a price for it, although Apple's response of "buy another iPhone" may be a bit extreme. On the other hand, those who "mod" their phones to add new functionality are not trying to erode Apple's business model. On the contrary, they are the company's true fanatics. By permanently freezing those iPhones, apple risks alienating this group of rabid fans. Brian Lam, editor of Gizmodo, called this move "uncharacteristically evil". That is NOT something Apple wants associated with its smiling, happy, groovy brand.

The Networked Toybox: Websites Go From Promoters to Part of the Product

2007-09-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

I remember my various toy collections when I was a kid. Some of them are still hiding out in boxes at my father's house. I had Transformers (who have just made a comeback), Go-Bots, Legos and some sort of motorized dinosaurs that you put together from parts, kind of like an erector set. I'm entering middle age, so there weren't any websites around back when I had these toys, but if there were I'm sure they would have been marketing them pretty hard, trying to get me to collect all the different characters and variations available. The truth is, it would have worked pretty well on me.

Times have changed, and now every toy brand has a website. Some are laughable, some are spectacular, but up until recently, they have all just been part of the marketing plans for the toys. Times, they are a-changing. A new trend seems to be emerging, where the website goes from being just a marketing tool to being an actual part of the product offering. Instead of being standalone items ("networked" through the imaginations of the kids playing with them), these new toys are the keys to unlock worlds of interactive online content and activities.

From the standpoint of brand development, this is brilliant. The toys keep the brand conversation going. While the kids play with the toy(s) they have, the manufacturers get to continue to expose them to new variations that they can beg mommy and daddy to buy for them. They also have the opportunity to combat boredom by releasing new content over time.

By the time Christmas 2007 rolls around, I'm sure there will be dozens of variations on this trend, but for now, here are four that have popped up recently:

U.B.Funkeys
by Mattel (www.ubfunkeys.com)
Clearly inspired by the trendy vinyl toy underground, these small figurines unlock parts of a virtual world filled with games, character background, etc. The software communicates with the website for updates. (Personal note: I give this product line good points for visual style)

Shining Stars
by Russ Berrie and Company (www.shiningstars.com)
This one is from the folks who made oodles of cash peddling Beanie Babies. A cuddly stuffed animal provides the key to an online portal of games and point-based activities. The hook here is that for each animal, the child gets to name a star after it, apparently from real celestial maps. Of course, there is a notable disclaimer that this name registry is not officially recognized by anyone else, but at least the child gets to claim that one unique star within this online world.

MyePets.com
by MGA Entertainment (www.myepets.com)
Another one based on plush stuffed animals. Once the toy is purchased, the child goes to the website to register and complete the "adoption" process. From that point, it's all about personalization, activities and caring for this virtual pet. This seems like the old Tamagotchis in a newer form.

SwypeOut
by Spinmaster (www.swypeout.com)
This one's about as virtual as you can get without doing away with the product altogether! The only physical thing you get is a USB swipe card reader and some collectible plastic cards that you can swipe through it. Each card gives the kid access to either a particular car, an upgrade or "mod", or a weapon of some sort. By collecting, they can create a customized ride that they can then race against other players through the Swypeout website.

My one final thought on this new trend is that I'm conflicted. The marketer in me loves the potential for creative marketing, branding and entertainment, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm worried that our kids are going to be able to experience any part of life without sitting in front of a computer.

Bob Dylan: Master of Viral Marketing?

2007-09-05T18:11:00.000-07:00

Bob Dylan has always been a pioneer, a messenger with messages to deliver and a true gift for musical communication. Now, with the help of a UK design firm, he is part of the new era of viral marketing.

Dylan Messaging, a very cool microsite promoting the upcoming release of his greatest hits compilation, allows visitors to send out a custom message to their friends in a very unique way. Your message, chopped into 10 small pieces, is superimposed on the stack of posters revealed one by one by a very young Bob Dylan in the famous opening scene of the documentary "Don't Look Back" (the popular INXS video for "Mediate" was an homage to this same scene).

In addition to being very well implemented, this viral marketing vehicle helps demonstrate a winning formula:

(cultural phenomenon)
+ (personalization)
+ (activity focused on broadcast) = viral marketing success

This same formula was immensely successful for the online marketing efforts for the movie "Snakes on a Plane", featuring customized voicemail messages from Samuel L. Jackson. While Dylan Messaging may not have the same broad audience appeal, I'm sure it will be a big hit among its target demographic of Bob Dylan fans.

Back to the Business of Branding

2007-09-05T18:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the hiatus, folks. I know it's been a while since I posted anything. In addition to the usual game of "dueling vacations" between ourselves and our clients, expanding our office and making several high-powered additions to our team, we're embarking on our own, exciting rebranding process. I may post some intermittent updates on this initiative, or I may just hold back and make it all a big surprise!

At any rate, back to business and some new posts about online branding...

A Tale of Two Burgers: PetMoustache.com vs Gofbot.com

2007-06-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

Throughout the history of modern marketing, there have been some truly legendary rivalries. One of the biggest has been between the Clown and the King. In other words, McDonald's vs. Burger King. This rivalry has been going for a long time and certainly shows no signs of slowing. At the same time, there has certainly been a shift in the balance of power in the marketing to the adult demographic in recent years. The current balance (in favor of Burger King, in my opinion) is obvious by looking at new campaigns from both camps that debuted in recent days: "Gofbot.com" from McDonalds and the Western Whopper mustached campaign (featuring PetMoustache.com) from Burger King.

PetMoustache.com
I'll lead off with Burger King. Ever since they revived their mascot, in the form of a regally dressed, slightly creepy king with a permanent plastic smile, their marketing has been interesting, innovative and eye-catching. In this campaign, they are touting the limited-time-only Western Whopper by giving this sandwich the supernatural power of growing a western cowboy moustache on anyone who eats it. In the TV commercials, we see various types of consumers happily savoring the Western Whopper with a big bushy moustache growing on their face, whether they are teens, old ladies playing cards, or even a lucky basset hound that gets to finish his owner's burger. All of this is interspersed with western music and shots of The King doing a bit of an old-west jig.

The commercials themselves are attention-grabbing, but in keeping with Burger King's commitment to online marketing (which goes all the way back to Subservient Chicken) they don't stop with just the commercials. At the end of each commercial, they show the URL for PetMoustache.com. This microsite lets visitors upload a photo of their own face from their computer (of course, I'm sure you could use a friend's face instead) and grow, trim and style a moustache on top of it.

Burger King really brings together an all-star collection of viral marketing and interactive branding features in PetMoustache.com. They give visitors to PetMoustache.com the ability to send customized, singing telegram emails to their friends. They also provide several incentives for visitors to register (

GofBot.com
McDonald's new commercial promoting the venerable Big Mac focuses on a startup "dot com" company that claims its forthcoming website will be "bigger than the Big Mac". This creates tons of buzz and hype (obviously suggesting that anything bigger than the Big Mac must be the end-all-be-all). When the site finally launches at the end of the commercial, the "visitors" counter rings up a grand total of three visits. A delivery guy (eating a Big Mac) says "I guess it wasn't bigger than the Big Mac".

It's an okay commercial, but nothing particularly memorable. At the same time, the name of this fictional company, GofBot.com, is repeated many, many times through the commercial. This creates a great opportunity for McDonald's to take a few more cheap shots at dotcom mania and build up more brand exposure for the Big Mac. McDonald's has squandered this opportunity. All that exists at GofBot.com is a single, poorly prepared page, that is only slightly humorous. It does link across to the main McDonald's website, but to a fairly uninspiring "burgers" subpage.

The Winner
A visit to Alexa shows that both website have been getting traffic, a clear indication that the mere mention or presence of these URLS in the tv commercials are driving consumers to check them out. From the perspective of branding, Burger King is embracing this traffic, and McDonald's is wasting it. In this head-to-head, we're declaring the King is still the King.

VitaminWater: Cool, refreshing branding

2007-06-18T21:29:00.000-07:00

"Try crossing the antarctic without your wooly underwear. Try Essential. Try it!"
"Try swimming the Atlantic when you just swam the Atlantic. Try Revive. Try it!"
"Try giving an Amazonian howler monkey a Brazilian bikini wax. Try XXX. Try it!"

These imperatives, shouted out in a cocky British accent, accompanied by the same words in bold print and bold colors is just a sample of VitaminWater's new marketing campaign. All I can say is that this new marketing campaign for VitaminWater is an attention-getter.

VitaminWater, from Glaceau (bought out by Coca Cola a few weeks ago) has always worked to build a strong consistent brand through their heavily coordinated and very recognizable packaging, but now they are working to build up their brand on the air and online. Accompanying the TV campaign is a really intense, Flash-based website at www.glaceau.com.

There are a lot of things to appreciate about this website when it comes to branding. First off, it's an intense rush of motion and interactivity, with bottles of VitaminWater front and center and almost larger than life. There is absolutely no ambiguity about the point of the site or the real stars.

Then there's the color. VitaminWater's product line is completely color coded and the site is decked out in that same juicy color scheme. As you move from product to product, the entire interface adjusts to colors that complement the specific product. This blends with typography (thanks to the fact that you can embed fonts in Flash) that is a perfect match to the product labels.

And with that, I offer my own homage:

"Try packing five gallons of branding into a sixteen ounce bottle. Try VitaminWater's website. Try it!"

want2Bsquare - A brand tries to own the square

2007-06-07T20:15:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, the strangest commercials started airing during Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. The ads featured what seemed to be a shady medical facility in an eastern European country, where a doctor (who looks a bit like Christopher Walken) is finishing a procedure to mold his patients heads into the shape of cubes (something they are apparently very excited about). The commercial ends with a URL, www.want2bsquare.com. There is no mention of the product, no English spoken, and no recognizable brand or logo.

Of course, this is designed to create curiosity. I usually resist these attempts (I try to be the cat that doesn't get killed), but this one was too bizarre and cryptic. I had to see what it was about. What did I find when I went to that URL? An equally bizarre, but incredibly rich and well-constructed immersive Flash-based website full of strange activities, games and animated creatures. Who is behind want2Bsquare? Scion, the wildly popular customizable brand from Toyota.

I've got to say that I'm impressed, both by the depth and detail of the want2Bsquare site, and by the bold and unconventional way that Scion is approaching this campaign. Unlike many other marketing campaigns, the original brand identity is NOT plastered all over this site. Instead, they are intensely focused on the shape. Everything is boxy, square or cubic. This is clearly a reflection of the boxy, square shape of the Scion xB. A quick Googling turns up a related (and similarly sponsored) want2Bsquare art exhibit in New York and LA.

It is the notable lack of Scion branding involved in this campaign that makes me realize just how audacious a move this is. With the want2Bsquare campaign, Scion is trying to OWN the shape. They are trying to claim one of the main primitive shapes and build a strong enough association that when people think of a square (or the word square) they think of Scion.

This is really bold! If you think about how Nike is intimately related to both the shape of its "swoosh", and even the word "swoosh" itself, then you'll realize they type of Holy Grail that Scion is going for. This might be overly ambitious (or I might be reading too much into it), but at least they are off to a good start.

Want2Bsquare? I just might.

London 2012 - A Killer Logo?

2007-06-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the day-glo colors and graffiti-inspired shapes of the 1980's will be completely back in vogue by the 2012 Olympics in London. At least, that's what I gather by looking at the new logo and website for the 2012 Olympic and Paralymic Games. When I first loaded up the site, I was certain that I hadn't found an "official" olympics website. It seems that even the organizers themselves aren't confident, since one of the main activities of the site is to encourage the public to create OTHER designs.

So what would make this trainwreck of a logo even more of a mess? How about animating it in a way that fails the Harding FPA machine test, which identifies video content that can cause epileptic seizures? Yeah, that would count as a double-disaster. According to CNet, they had to remove the video clip from the London 2012 website. This confirms that the London 2012 online brand is bad enough to actually kill someone. That HAS to be a first!

Microsoft Surface: A touch of cool for the Microsoft Brand?

2007-06-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

Microsoft and "cool". Those are two words you don't see together very often. Given that this is the largest software company in the world, with products covering the whole spectrum of our computing lives, that's a bit of a sad statement. I'd say that makes Microsoft Surface blogworthy. Finally, Microsoft has come up with a product that makes people "ooh" and "ahh".

Microsoft Surface, for those who don't know, is a tabletop computing platform that lets users interact with a 30-inch, full-color, fully touch-sensitive work area. Now, when I say "tabletop", don't think about a computer that goes ON a table. Think about a table whose flat top surface IS the computer!

How is this different from a traditional touchscreen that we're all used to? The Microsoft Surface can simultaneously track multiple touchpoints. This means you can use two hands, ten fingers, or even more if you have another person sitting there with you, all at the same time! This technology is definitely something new and has a great, futuristic feel to it.

Don't expect to see one of these in real life all that soon, since they're going to take a while to get to market and they'll be pretty pricey (at least at first). Frankly, I think that the commercial success of the Microsoft Surface will really depend on the appearance of truly innovative, elegant software applications that take advantage of it. This marriage of new technology and exciting software is something that is old news for Microsoft's adversary Apple, but Microsoft itself doesn't have the best record in this area.

Commercial success aside, the biggest benefit from Microsoft Surface could be the injection of coolness that it brings to the stodgy giant from Redmond. Microsoft has been losing serious ground in several key areas to Apple and Google. Both of those companies are fully tuned in to the public's idea of cool. At the same time, one of Microsoft's latest and largest attempts, the launch of the Microsoft Live brand, has been widely acknowledged as a failure.

How has Microsoft leveraged the cool factor of Microsoft Surface in its branding? The Microsoft Surface logo is colorful, modern and elegant. The Microsoft Surface website is bright and energetic, although given the excitement of the product, it is not nearly as interactive as it should be. It remains to be seen if Microsoft will be able to leverage the initial excitement about Microsoft Surface to breathe some life back into its brand image, but at least this proves that the brand still has a pulse.

MySpace: Is the Magic of its Brand Fading?

2007-05-30T20:31:00.000-07:00

There's an interesting dynamic that occurs whenever a brand is spawned from concepts such as audience empowerment, personal expression and community. Brands like Digg, LiveJournal, Wikipedia and even Google (now the #1 brand in the world) have all gained much of their power from the consumers perspective that they are working to empower us. Of course, nothing defines this as much as social networking sites like Friendster and, most of all, MySpace.

MySpace's entire brand has grown from providing its users with the power to express themselves, post their info, share with their friends and meet new ones. Of course, along the way MySpace became one of the most heavily visited websites on the Internet, became the most significant alternate channel for bands and musical artists to break out, and it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch's Fox Interactive Media for half a billion dollars (a price that now seems to have been cheap).

Now, here's where things get tricky. Much of the appeal of MySpace is the ability for users to customize their profiles (adding images and media, restyling stylesheets, etc.) and communicate with each other. By making these activities easy and pervasive, and constantly pushing the envelope on profile customization, MySpace has actually started to descend into semi-anarchy.

The site has become flooded with everything from sexual predators, to pornography marketers, to ponzi schemes, to profiles rigged to install malware or divert visitors to dubious external websites. While there are some features to allow a user to block requests or messages from unknown profiles, there are still many threats lurking within this community of over 100 million members. To add insult to injury, Fox Interactive actually wants to recoup their investment, so the site has become more and more crowded with advertising and promotions.

So here lies the conundrum. The MySpace brand was built on freedom of personal expression and a fanciful wonderland of communication. MySpace can't really prune back these features without alienating at least some portion of its user base. As recent history has shown, an alienated user base can make a pretty big stink (witness the recent revolts at Digg and LiveJournal). At the same time, the increasing quantity of parasites and threats (and intrusive ad placements) are turning MySpace into a less-than-desirable neighborhood. The effects are starting to show too. MySpace's growth has leveled off and begun to decline, while that of rival FaceBook (with a cleaner, safer interface) has taken off.

So what is old Rupert Murdoch to do with his troubled brand? Do you make bold moves that cause short-term pain in the name of long-term viability, or do you keep taking baby steps and hope that the brand doesn't rot out completely by the time you get things under control?

I have no idea, I'm just glad I don't have to make that decision.

Doritos X13D - THe Flavor of Interactive Branding

2007-05-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

OK, this is a very cool concept. Doritos develops a new flavor (pretty tasty, I might add). Rather than just slapping a name on it and releasing it, they put it in a black bag and give it a codename "X13D". Then they develop a promotion that encourages consumers to figure out what the flavor its themselves, visit a new microsite (http://x13d.doritos.com/), and participate in a contest to name the new flavor.

Here's where it gets even better. In the past, a promotion such as this might hinge on a big cash prize, a fantastic vacation, new car, etc. So what is the prize that Doritos is offering in this promotion? 100 of the people who submit a name will be selected to become Doritos "Flavor Masters", getting a year's supply of chips (who figures out how much that is, anyway?) and membership in a tasting test panel for new flavors.

How cool is this? They're leveraging the consumer's sense of creativity and the new trend of audience participation to generate brand excitement without even having to put up an expensive prize. This isn't the first time Doritos has leverage the huge trend in user-generated content. In a move that helped draw attention to the prospect of crowd-sourced advertising, Doritos recruited fans to create their own Doritos Super Bowl commercials, and the winners were aired during Super Bowl XLI.

Although consumer-created advertising is proving to not be a big cost saving for the companies sponsoring it, it certainly gets the attention of the consumers themselves. In my book, that's a tasty reason to keep the consumer participation going strong.

iPhone Killers: Brand Prophecy and Aspiring Challengers

2007-05-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, the Apple iPhone. While this is an offshoot of the overall Apple brand, it is also certainly a power unto itself. The story could easily be the fodder for a Hollywood movie.

For years there were whispers, rumours and secretive stories told around the light of a flickering LCD screen. One day, they said, Apple would create a cellphone and a new age of mobile communications would dawn. Old empires would be toppled and new creativity would flood the earth.

When Apple finally announced the imminent arrival of the cellphone-messiah on January 9th , the media coverage was absolutely deafening. The day of reckoning was officially on its way and, as far as the media was concerned, the iPhone's dominance was already set in stone.

Of course, as soon as you have one person saying something is a "sure thing" (much less millions of people), it's only a matter of time before challengers arise. In this case, the rumblings started in a mere 9 days, when Engadget reported rumors of a supposed Google phone as a possible "iPhone Killer".

The parade of would-be iPhone assassins has continued all spring. Here's a timeline:

January 18 Engadget reports on the rumored "Google Switch"

February 15 LinuxDevices.com talks up the Neo1973 from FIC

March 28 Switched.com reports on the Helio Ocean

May 9 Gizmodo hypes up the forthcoming "Media Monster" from Motorola

May 21 Cool Tech Zone reports on the ultra-pricey LG Prada

Whew... that's a LOT of killers for a device that hasn't had a single unit sold and delivered yet. That's the amazing thing about this brand. It's so powerful that the entire industry is treating it as if its been on the market for years with a big chunk of market-share. In the process, they continue to feed and magnify the hype.

And so we find ourselves walking those last few miles to the great event. Will the iPhone's actual arrival be like the Big Bang? or like a wet match? Will any of these supposed challengers steal its thunder or knock it off the top spot? Who knows, but it'll be a great show to watch!

Geico Cavemen Evolving into a TV Show

2007-05-20T19:37:00.000-07:00

A mascot can certainly be a powerful part of a brand, but how often are they powerful enough to actually spin off on their own? I guess you could say this was "thousands of years in the making", but a couple of cavemen have just managed to make the leap from commercial mascots to tv stars (rather than the more usual other way around). The Geico cavemen, famous for standing up against the discrimination of Geico's "so easy a caveman could do it" slogan, will have their own sitcom on ABC this fall.

Originally rumored to be in pilot mode back in March, the series is now officially a go, with ABC announcing it as part of the Fall 2007 lineup a few days ago. The series will revolve around three cavemen living in the modern day and presumably struggling with modern prejudice about their lower position on the evolutionary scale.

From a branding perspective, it's certainly an accomplishment when you create a mascot with such charisma and appeal that it can cross over and "become" the product instead of simply selling the product. For Geico, it's a grand-slam homerun. They get to benefit from the exposure when the show airs, and from all of the publicity that it is even being made in the first place. Here's an interesting tidbit, by the way: although this is very, very rare, this is NOT the first time it has happened. Back in the late '80s, the California Raisins (the claymation-animated ones) had their own TV show.

I'm sure Vegas will be running a line on whether the series will make it through a full season, but even if it doesn't, it's a great case study on branding!

Ahoy! Old Spice tries to break into a new audience

2007-05-14T20:44:00.000-07:00

So how do you take a brand that most people probably associate with their grandfather or great uncle and rejuvenate it for a new, younger audience? You develop a slogan that plays up the concept of experience, you hire one of the greatest tongue-in-cheek comedy actors of our generation and you write some hilarious commercials designed to make that bit of gray hair a badge of honor.

This is exactly what Old Spice (a Proctor and Gamble brand) has done recently. This is very smart. With a name like "Old Spice", they were never going to be able to portray it as a cool, young product. The new slogan "Experience is Everything" suggests that those older gentlemen out there living the life (with their yachts, mansions and classic sense of style) are onto something that us young guys wish we had. It's a great example of taking a potential brand weakness and spinning it into a strength.

Here's the original Old Spice commercial. Pay special attention to the painting behind him as he walks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af1OxkFOK18

Here's the new Old Spice body spray commercial. This is very confident and well executed. Note that there isn't a single word spoken about the product, yet the message comes across loud and clear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TgUkewQX1M

Comcast Channel 1 : Tuning in a new brand

2007-05-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

How do you make a major new brand without having to create a new service or product? Ask Comcast.

After years of successful growth for Comcast's On Demand service, the Philadelphia-based cable giant decided to give its popular service a new identity, rebranding it as "Channel 1". All of a sudden, comcast channels are full of commercials for "ch1", and the site even has a new, Flash-based, video-filled website at http://www.comcastch1.com/

The thing that's so beautiful about this is that Comcast didn't have to develop anything new in the actual service offering. They already had a great product that had a pretty bland identity (and frankly, I could never remember if it was "OnDemand" or "InDemand"). By simply rebranding it, they have managed to breathe new life into the offering. Plus, they made it easier for people to remember how to get to the service (just punch in channel 1 on the remote control).

Are there other companies with "sleeper brands" out there that just need a new face to reinvigorate them? Probably. As I find them, I'll mention them here.

A Super-Powered Brand

2007-05-10T21:30:00.000-07:00

What do Comcast, Burger King, Kraft, 7-Eleven and Target have in common? They're all caught in the same web of brand cross-promotion!

Spiderman 3 has taken over theaters across the country, setting box-office records and simulataneously unleashing a tremendous wave of product marketing tie-ins. The interesting thing about this, and other movie/product tie-ins, is that the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts. The movie brand gets incredible visibility in physical locations as well as on TV (case in point, I saw a commercial break tonight where three out of four commercials had something to do with Spiderman), while the partnering brands get to leverage the excitement over the movie to help them seem current and stand out in the crowd.

For a truly popular, mass market movie like Spiderman, it really is a win-win and the movie comes out looking like... well... a hero.

A new brand is born!

2007-05-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the inaugural post of a new blog focused on the world of online branding. My name is Jeff Greenhouse and I am the President of Singularity Design, an interactive marketing agency specializing in online brand maximization. This blog is intended to provide a place for us to post our varied thoughts and observations about the remarkable evolution of online branding.

We've come a looooong way, from the days of academic gray pages and blue links to today's world of RSS feeds, fully dynamic flash sites with video, and a myriad of other tools to fight the war for consumer mindshare. I'm looking forward to sharing my musings and hopefully spurring lively discussions about the past, present and future of this exciting media!