[branding] Colonel Sanders Wants To Wrap You Up In A Cocoon Of Internet Protection and It Just Got Really Weird

3520.

I picture it happened this way:

Wendy's: We have the best most surreal social media strategy out there. Nobody can beat our tweets.
KFC: Hold our Extra Crispy $5 Fill-up and watch this.

In the world of social media and branding, it's hard to tell what's real any more. But KFC, so far the master of surreal TV commercials featuring a round-robin of edgy stand-up comics playing The Colonel, has decided to really up the weird. It's hard to tell if it's a troll right now, but for the sake of the joke we'll concede the point for now: KFC is, right now, on their website, selling an Internet Escape Pod.

Since the link is probably destined to die soon (it's a Cyber Monday thing) here's a screenshot for posterity's sake:

It's 10-kilobuck price tag is apparently them selling it at-cost.

There are so many things about this that are just really too weird. The Colonel, shielding you with those long, long arms like some fast-food version of the love-child of Stretch Armstrong and Reed Richards; the drumstick that's the door-handle. But perhaps the funniest (and I'm speaking cosmically here) thing about it all is that a modern, armed and fully-internet-operational fast food company is selling, even as a joke, a Faraday cage (look it up) to protect you on Cyber Monday from the internet.

I mean, here in Portland, we DIY that shit every day of the week.

Twice on Sundays (we don't go to church around here, so we got the time).

And so it goes.

[logo] The New MetLife Logo: What They Ditched Snoopy For

3411.

Despite the wide-spread social consternation over the forced retirement of Peanuts' Snoopy from the logo of the insurance firm MetLife, I was a little bemused to find very little … nothing really at the time … about the new look of MetLife other than logo talk about colors and type font changes and business friendly this-or-that.

I did finally turn up what the new logo and word mark is, and here you go:

In logo-ese, the blue references the company's historic logo and brings that presence forward, and the green represents energy and life. The profile of the logo glyph is that of an M, and if you need to be told what that stands for I don't want to know you any more, and the two colors combine to form a dark bluish not-really-a-color which probably signifies something somehow. You decide.

I do enjoy the new type, which is a solid improvement over the old one which now looks dated next to it. That was a good choice.

Also, business-friendly black.

A link to the page that contains all this info (and a link to a PDF press release too)? Here you go, pilgrim: https://www.metlife.com/about-us/brand/

[logo] Why MetLife Would Kick Snoopy To The Curb

3409.

Much consternation in the public as the nationally-recognized insurance icon, MetLife, is doing away with a multi-decade branding institution by ending its identification with Snoopy and the Peanuts characters, themselves American icons. But why?

It seems a sad thing to do, but when it comes to branding, meaning is everything. Up until now MetLife has been big in consumer life insurance, currently the largest life insurer in the United States. In 1975 it licensed the characters because, in the words of Esther Lee, MetLife chief marketing officer, they wanted "to make our company more friendly and approachable during a time when insurance companies were seen as cold and distant."

MetLife will be exiting from the personal insurance market by this time in 2017 for a more B2B approach: selling directly to corporations that provide insurance to employees. Being solely in the corporate market, being seen as cold and distant, a drawback anywhere else, becomes a positive boon. The new logo set, which we've not yet seen, has been described as being in a different typeface, with a change to a more "business friendly" black color.

About as cuddly as a leather briefcase, but it works for them, and, just as importantly, it'll save them around fifteen megabucks a year in licensing fees, because there'll be no cartoon characters to buy the rights to. One wonders if they got the 'coffee's for closers' speech before being shown the door. Whatever.

The Inquistr has the best article I've seen about it so far, with several aghast tweets. 

[marketing] Morning in Rubio's America - It Begins in Vancouver BC

3263.

In this absurdest of all political seasons, where the phrase how bizarre can you be seems to be fielded as a dare rather than j'accuse, We've seen some pretty bizarre, head-scratching things. Such as when Donald Trump illustrated his support of American military veterans with pictures of Russian ones.

You'd think that they'd take more care in vetting these, but maybe I expect too much. This week, The Vancouver Sun newspaper revealed that in one of Marco Rubio's recent ads, one promising "Morning Again in America" (brand-checking Reagan), there's a tugboat motoring across the harbor of that great, prosperous, American city … Vancouver, British Columbia:

“It’s morning again in America,” says the narrator as a tugboat zips through the water in front of familiar Vancouver landmarks like the Harbour Centre, One Wall Centre and Port Metro Vancouver cranes.
It’s unmistakably Vancouver.

Follow the link above to see it.

I guess that's the sort of thoroughness you get when your ad staff are unpaid interns. Either that, or they just don't care.

Either way, it's brand fail.

[branding] When Dead Celebrities Endorse

3224.

If they had only checked out the time they brought Orville Redenbacher from the dead. If only.

In May, 2015, KFC, as everyone by now knows, reincarnated (reintarnated, one could say) the legendary founder characater, Colonel Harland Sanders, in a series of slightly twisted commercials which simultaneously touched on KFC's heritage as well as dark places in our collective id that shouldn't have been touched; my recollection of the most-used adjective to descirbe SNL-alum Darrel Hammond's cackling Colonel is 'creepy'.

So, in July, KFC changed Colonels, literally. Now, filling the white suit is also-SNL-alum Norm Macdonald, a curious choice to portray the man if ever there was one. This USA Today article details some of the dissonances by some of the people who knew him. The narrative seems to be him, the real, sincere Colonel, coming back into play because some celebrity impersonator tried to take that identity. He's here to get it back, and to assert that you just can't throw a white suit on some super-funny Hollywood actor and have yourself a real Colonel, amusingly and metareferentially doing it while putting on a clip-on ribbon bowtie and, through quick-cuts, throwing a white suit on what appears to be a super-funny Hollywood actor.

I can't shake the idea that KFC has some sort of surreal long-game here. The self-referentially sarcastic frame is too plain for me to ignore. The USA Today article suggests that KFC's trimming everything in weird to refresh the brand, and maybe that's so.

But I still think everyone in branding who's trying to revive an old founder as a brand icon should see this 2007 ad for Orville Redenbacher. He was born in Indiana and died in California in 1995. There was, therefore, no live Orville to do a commercial with, and they wanted to touch on the country's history of using him in those aw-shucks commercials that he used to do so well.

So, what did they use to bring him back? CGI. The result is the scenic overlook to the Uncanny Valley:



I can't watch that without wondering what Outer Limits episode it was supposed to go in on. Response was in accordance; the brand's attempt to re-animate Orville pretty much stopped there.

Still, I can't help but giggle at the KFC Commercials … the oddball approach seems to be working, at least that way. And Macdonald is actually a slightly funnier Colonel than Hammond was, because Macdonald plays it so dry and straight ahead.

The bigger question I have? Why is it that suddenly American comedy is powered by SNL graduates. They seem to be taking over.

Now, there's a conspiracy story that needs to be told. 

[brand] Vern Fonk's Iconic Pitchman, Rob Thielke, Passes at Age 50

3216.

The bald guy in the Vern Fonk ads is as Northwest as they come.

In the world of late-night ads, you have to have that certain something in order to become an icon. Back in the early 90s, we had started to run low on ad icons … Tom Peterson had gone into retirement, the blond "More Cars, More Trucks, More Credit" Scott's Auto Sales lady had abruptly left the scene after that business had failed.

Then along came Vern Fonk. Oh, he wasn't really Vern Fonk. But more on that momentarily. Vern Fonk, the company, started as a high-risk insurer with several locations in the Seattle area; eventually, it opened branches here in PDX. And then the commercials happened.

They seemed to center, most of them, on this strange, animated, bald fellow. He played an astounding array of roles and you could never tell what he would do next. They broke through to the big time with one word … Shapoopi. 



This was broadcast on Leno. For a short time, everyone had their version; even KPTV's Good Day Oregon got in on the fun (sadly, I can't find the video. It seems to have fallen off the intermets).

At Fonk's acme, they were even riffing on Brad Pitt, in a way:



And, along the way, that strange, funny, slightly edgy bald guy actually became so identified with Vern Fonk insurance, that people thought he was Vern Fonk. He wasn't; he Rob Thielke, a man with as singularly strange sense of humor and an adeptness, with his brother Kevin, in making memorable late-night commercials for the company he worked for. At the time of the Fonkvasion, he was office manager of the Everett office; eventually, he would rise to be the president of the Company (Vern Fonk himself having retired some time previously, and also having passed in 2006).

When we had heard that Thielke passed away, at the surprisingly tender age of 50 this week, we were quite shocked. It did indirectly proffer an explanation as to why we haven't seen a Fonk ad in a while. And we're mightily unhappy about this; he really made us laugh, the way he would push things to a Theatre of the Absurd level for ads for an insurance company. Obviously he could inject bizarre humor into anything. Not even holiday greetings were safe:



I mean,  Ram-aAAAAaaa-DAAAAAAN! , right?

Vern Fonk's current FB avatar.

But Rob's no longer with us. Has he died and took Vern Fonk's brand with him? Impossible to say. Now, if you want to see any of his divinely-inspired weirdness, just head to your favorite search engine and put in "Vern Fonk Commercials", "Vern Fonk Vision", or anything like that, and it'll come tumblin' out of the YouTube like … well, like something YouTube probably has lots of.

Somebody better step up quick to become the Pacific Northwest's late-night advertising icon, or I'll have to do it.

And nobody wants that, I'll clue you what.

[branding] On My First Pair of "Doc" Martens

3166.

It has come to pass, at this stage of the game, that I've been introduced to my first pair of Dr. Martens shoes. And since I started breaking them in, a surprisingly gentle process, I've been struck suddenly with a great many resonances with what I've learnt over time about style, reputation, and that god of our modern times, branding. 

The Shoes In Question. Dr Martens Icon 7B10 SSF.

Branding is all, it must be writ somewhere largely, more than likely in some latter-day design text. And, to a degree, it makes sense. More than ever, marketing doesn't just seem to mean getting things sold, it means survival. And Docs have survived, that's for certain - 50 years and more now.

What the brand signature of Docs contain, then, carries a lot of baggage. They've been everywhere … from the forefront of 60s British rock and roll (Pete Townshend made them famous and Tommy put them on the map, according to the legend) to the urban discontent of 70s and 80s era punks and skinheads – a signature of violence. Since then, they've ascended to the rarefied air of timeless fashion, it would seem. And now, non-ironically, characters from Adventure Time are rocking them.

Dr. Martens are as likely to be worn latterly as for reasons of style as well as for reasons of function. In several cities in America and around the world, Dr. Martins have boutique-style storefronts; Portland is one of them, with a store at the corner of NW 10th Ave. and W. Burnside Street, across the street from Powell's Books.

There's history there … you can shop in a space that once held the broadcast booth where the legendary KISN Good Guys held court, visibly from the street. A lot of commerce has gone that way.

For someone like me, the primary consideration in investing in a pair of Docs is quality and endurance. I prefer the workboot style – properly kept, in a sharp style and profile, goes with just about anything, and will take you everywhere. The well-done workboot, with its treaded, skid-resistant sole, should offer traction that will make the urban walker feel confident on and off the street. It's a real all-purpose style for someone who doesn't want to be bothered too much about it.

The Dr. Martens Icon 7B10 SSF gives me all that, and more there's the obvious appeal to quality. The manufacturer makes a pride of showing off the quality steps involved, and, if you come from a background of buying a pair of Payless Shoe Source shoes every couple of years, after thrashing the current pair, the high quality of the components are obvious after even the most causal perusal. Next to the famous air-cushioned soles of the Docs, the soles of the Payless shoes seem cheap plastic; the leather of the uppers is supple and feels good to the touch, as opposed to the cheaper, thinner leather of the others; the pull-strap on the back of the shoe seems designed with easy donning in mind, rather than simply put there for looks. Dr. Martens has learned lessons in fit, design and construction from the decades of serving workers of many lands (before it made its debut on the stage, Docs were favored by workers in heavy trades such as construction and postal work).

So, by now, Dr. Martens is all those things and more, an example of basic style that adapts to the whims of fashion and though it went on outings with thugs in its youth, it's grown up and gotten down to work, and if the message is sometimes a little mixed (we fancy our Docs were Made in England, as in the web site's screenshot - though mine were made in China, and Made In England applies to a subset of their styles) the accent on solid quality for the value (you'll be paying a lot for a good pair of Docs, but you'll presumably get at least as much back in function and use) keeps it a vital product, and all of that positive attribution makes it into the brand, and keeps it valuable.

If it keeps me out of the shoe store every two years, stays easy-to-wear, and stays looking good, then that'll aquit them with me. 

[#logo] The Vincent Price Legacy Logo - Best Thing I've Seen Today

3114.

Or maybe I'm in a macabre mood, maybe that's it.

To anyone with a horror-movie bent (or maybe hunch-back, if you prefer), Vincent Price is an icon amongst icons. I remember growing up during the latter half of his career, just after he'd made is greats and was doing more television work than film. Funny thing about Vincent, though … he could star in the most throwaway piece of TV tripe but just having him there made the whole thing watchable. He was rocking the idea of being an past-one's-peak actor long before William Shatner even started to make it fashionable.

He did it by being a compleat personality. There was Vincent the aesthete, Vincent the intellectual, Vincent the style maven, and - most notably - Victor the gourmet cook and author, doing his small and stylish part to make the world safe for the modern foodie.

It's a bit unfair, though not inappropriate, to think of him as merely a horror film icon.

Toward the latter period of his life, he lent his considerable mind toward art. There is a museum of art and his legacy that exist in his name. The Vincent Price Legacy, http://vincentprice.com, is where you connect to all that awesomeness. But what's got me enthused today is that I stumbled on this pitch-perfect logo, which encapsulates all the sophistication, charm, wit, and style of the great man:

This is the first  time I've seen it and it is sooooo perfect.  Understated and urbane …

What I usually say?

Wish I'd of thought of it.

[branding] While You Eat McDonald's, Its New Mascot Will Consume Your Soul

3090.

McDonalds, that symbol of the modern age, has a new mascot intended to encourage kids to eat healthier versions of its Happy Meals™. I'm sure it will encourage them to eat something, but it will either be Burger King, or their own hopes and dreams in some sort of existential terror.

They call it "Happy". And what it's happy from, exactly, I don't want to know.

Where to begin? Those eyes, those dead, dead eyes, devoid of emotion? The arms, like animated strands of pasta horror, waiting to grasp you? Or that mouth, that entry to the utter void of ravenous nothingness, seemingly torn from the living, with a darkness within that seems to be struggling to come out, like some poisonous misama driven to smother the living?

Gaze upon the horror, if you can:

Say hello to our newest friend, Happy! http://t.co/CuR3hU8Chj #HappyMeal pic.twitter.com/xgluLaHfcY
— McDonald's (@McDonalds) May 19, 2014

Say hello to their little friend. They say it's popular in Europe.

There are a lot of things that are popular in Europe that don't have legs here.

Not even legs like those.

I'm not sure which horseman of the Apocalypse this is supposed to be, but it is one.  I know it!

[branding] John Oliver Shoots Messenger, Runs Them Over, Looks Behind Car, And Backs Over Them, Just To Make Sure They're Down

3077.

Thus spake ZehnKatzen: this is what comes of being the face of an initiative and, naturally, leading with your chin.

It's writ large in more than one place: success has a million parents; failure, an orphan. And, when something huge pancakes like Cover Oregon did, a failure that's going to be talked about for years after the last lawsuit is settled, it sits at ground zero of a field where every nuclear-tipped satire missile has its gimlet-eyed guidance trained on. So, perhaps it's something we should have expected when the ads for Cover Oregon … which just begged to be called totes adorbs … became, essentially, the face of failure for those looking for the cutting gag.

The ads, which featured a sort of living diorama of Oregoniana and were peopled by members of the Portland Cello Project and folk singer Laura Gibson, were kick-ass and I enjoyed them. Easy and delightful on the eye as well as the ear, and as Oregon as f##k, had Cover Oregon been the success it ought to have been, would have been fondly seen as the face of a great, good thing.

But Cover Oregon … well, what didn't go wrong? The State of Oregon will have to assemble several new agencies to invent things to mess up just to even out the shambolic mess. Of all the state Obamacare exchanges, only Oregon's never worked. Never signed up a single person. Of course, the alternative, the paper application route, did the yeoman's job … and had the CO site worked, they would have been more than half-way to their enrollment goals within the first week. The problem with, and the reason the media let us way down about all the state Obamacare exchanges, is because the narrative was kept stupidly simple: it was all about the website. Websites, websites, websites. Obamacare is a failure because website website website.

This should not be seen as a high point in American journalism. The reportage from just about every outlet was shallower than a children's wading pool, insight-free, and only grudgingly seemed to accept that anyone was getting access to health care at all. But for every minute of reporting that progress was getting made, we seemed to get a half hour of how the IT sucked. And since Cover Oregon never worked, well, we got poster kid right here in River City. Governor K and Oracle are pointing so many fingers they have to rent extra hands just to get the job done.

Recently, it is writ, John Oliver, who made his satirical bones as Jon Stewart's relief on The Daily Show, got enough notice that he was given his own satirical news show on another network. And, judging by his performance, Cover Oregon was low-hanging fruit that was just too good to ignore. His show produced a spoof commercial that  … well, to call it acidic would be gilding the lily.

I'll be honest, at first, I giggled a bit. Some of the humor is dead-on. We do get a bit too twee for our own good out here; if the Olympics are ever held in Oregon, count on Oregonians taking silver, gold, and bronze in smug patting-ourselves-on-the back.

I thought that dude carrying the spinning beach-ball cursor across the set was genius.

But if we Oregonians are a bit too smug about our adorableness, I've got to point out that Oliver's commentary got a bit too smug about pointing out how smug we all are.

Welcome to honorary Oregonianship, Mr. Oliver.

Doubling down on the perception-as-reality tip, it really went to town on mixing up the idea that the commercials promoted Cover Oregon with the idea that the commercials were Cover Oregon before going in for the delicious, gory, satirical kill. In the end, it was clear that he was enjoying calling the entire state of Oregon idiots maybe just a little too much. 

Here's the sort of news that gets lost when the satire is as shallow as the reporting (emphasis mine):

You may think it’s especially unjust because our work helped delivered the numbers: awareness of Cover Oregon through advertising increased nearly 70% in only four months prior to the first enrollment window in 2013. And on that first day of enrollment, a third of a million people came to the website to sign up. Had it been working, it’s a safe estimate we would have been more than half-way to enrollment goals within the first week. Relative to the marketing budget, along with the many efforts of the Cover Oregon marketing team, we created real return on taxpayer money.It’s also never mentioned that as portal delays and bad press persisted, we hunkered down, responded with ads that were transparent, honest and informative. We worked especially hard with the Cover Oregon team to move people toward paper applications through agents and sign-up fairs.Most importantly they fail to mention that, despite the broken portal, more than 250,000 Oregonians who previously had no access to health insurance were still able to shop for, apply for, and obtain coverage. Even with no online portal, Oregon is in the middle ranking for state enrollments. Remarkable, given the circumstances, and also a tribute to the tireless efforts of Cover Oregon’s communications and marketing staff.

The agency that produced the ads is North, an agency that did a very effective job with your tax money, Oregonians. You should be proud; they took it seriously, did a sincere job, and got the word out effectively.

But failure is an orphan, and North gets the blame for being the bad parent, even though it ain't so.

But if you insist on sticking them with the blame, then nobody gets to complain when they own the good parts, too … people are right to be upset that CO was such a disaster, and now North has to live with the fact that their honest, passionate deft work is going to be permanently associated with a broke website, but that's life.

North is proud to be stupid f##king idiots, given the world today.

More power to 'em, I say.

[pdx] Juanita vs. Josefina: A New Chip Tries To Block Off The Old Chip

3071.

Josefina is out to get Juanita.

This could get ugly … but we hope not.

In this corner, Juanita's yummy-a$$ tortilla chips … an Oregon original, made in Oregon, by Oregonians of Latino descent. Hood River produces more than apples, beer, spirits, windsurfers, and charming train rides.

In this corner, the challenger … Cocina de Josefina, produced by a plant off Fruit Valley Road in Vancouver. Local? Kinda …  as Willamette Week has revealed …

But while the chips are indeed made in the Northwest, they're manufactured at the Vancouver Frito-Lay plant at 4808 NW Fruit Valley Rd., the Columbian first reported, and Frito-Lay is listed nowhere on the packaging because, in the words of a spokesperson, "this is a specialty brand in the Northwest. We wanted it to have that local feel." Some stores display the chips with "Made in Vancouver" signs.

Remember these commercials?



Now, it's true that Cocina de Josefina brand is made in Vancouver, but since the initiative doesn't seem to come straight outta Vancouver, it makes us think of a trend in marketing that makes us pretty sad, and that's this compulsion the big players seem to have to horn in on every single market they can make an excuse to compete in. Life is homogeneous as it is, and Frito-Lay is hardly hurting for customers. Cocina de Josefina … whose bags, while not identical to Juanita's, has a design resonance which seems more than coincidental … is apparently going up against Juanita's, and, well, those are some great chips. You can't really improve on what's already good and satisfying.

The best you can do is reinvent the wheel. An the wheel's rolling pretty good as it is.

Well, they're going to do what they're going to do, regardless of what lil'ol' me says. So, for me and my house, we'll stick with Juanita's.

When you have a choice between the fake-local and local, I recommend going with the local every time. 

[brand] Spearmint Rhino Is a "Gentlemens Club". No, I Wouldn't Have Guessed Either.

3044.

Living in Portland, one develops a certain blasé mien toward strip clubs. Not that they are necessarily something that one welcomes to a neighborhood, really. More a recognition, much as the seashore recognizes the tide is coming in whether it likes it or not, that it's coming … like it or not.

Personally, I don't have a problem with strip clubs as such; I don't patronize them, I don't like a lot about them, but people are going to want them and others are going to set them up for those people. Sex sells, and almost everyone's buying. 'Specially here in PDX, where the reputation for such establishments is nothing short of legendary.

We can, each one of us, I suppose, differ on whether or not there are are too many of them. I don't think Portland needs any more, really, and I have proof that they're getting a little too common (if that be possible; they've long since run out of names for them that are impossible not to mock.

I figured we were in a dark place when a local Division Street dive bar of long standing, the Peanut Farm, at 12646 SE Division Street, became yet another strip club … but called itself the Pitiful Princess. That's the most depressing name I can think of for a strip club. Pitiful Princess. It's like naming a strip club Daddy Issues. 

Well, the sun rises and sets, the tide goes in and out, and, like the ticking of some sleazy clock, another strip club has opened in Stumptown, and it's called …

Spearmint Rhino. 

Wait … what?

Yeah. Spearmint Rhino. It doesn't seem to be code for anything, it isn't some bizarre and obscure name for a hitherto little-known bit of male or female intimate anatomy. Spearmint Rhino. A name designed to leave you scratching your head. The logo (right) isn't particularly brilliant or inspired, but at least it looks like someone spent some time on designing it. If you really want to say something for it … hey, nice font, I guess.

Give it that.

So, Spearmint Rhino, a name that will come to signify something in the annals of something somehow, has opened its doors in PDX. Yayz. And you know what else? Hey, it's an international chain! Yayz again! According to Wikipedia, the club opened in 1989 as a supplement to the existing Peppermint Elephant Restaurant. So, there's that.

So, we missed out on the Peppermint Elephant, but we do know that it took supplements.

Stay tuned for what are sure to be newer additions to the panoply of being able to see naked women in Portland:

• Vanilla Zebra
• Raspberry Giraffe
• Licorice Bison
• Habañero Hippo
• Butterscotch Buffalo

Oh, we could go on.  But we won't.

No, I ain't giving you directions. You got Google. Find in yourowndangself.

[design] Q: What Do A Major Liberal Poliblog Site And A Famous Conservative Tycoon Have In Common?

3042.

A: The same illustration. And it's crazy.

By now, the Daily Kos should need no introduction to anyone liberal (or anyone who finds us suspicious). One of the kings-of-the-liberal-blogosphere, it's been going strong since the early days of W, when a vet named Markos Moulitsas Zúniga created a liberal blog of his own. It grew and grew and grew, and now innumerable users post thousands of posts in discussions daily. It's a community in the sense of the thing; not only are there message boards, but each user can maintain an on-site blog, a diary. It's become fairly sprawling.

And, to anyone who reads the political news with any depth, the name Charles Koch has resonance as well. He is part of a family that's so wealthy they could probably buy and sell the Waltons a handful of times over, and whose company, Koch Industries, owns enough industrial power than it's downright tough to avoid all the products that they produce. Notably for this narrative, they donate and support conservative causes enthusiastically.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that a Koch is pretty much nearly the opposite of a Kossack.

So, when the WSJ decided to publish an op-ed by Charles Koch, what with patriotic feelings appertaining and all , it was felt reasonable to come up with an illustration … well, like this:

Some of you who visit DKos on a regular bases (amusingly, I'm not amongst that – no hating, I'm just more a Democratic Underground sorta guy, kind of like Yale vs. Harvard) will recognize that image, because, for a very long time, here was DKos's virtual logo:

It's not kinda the same thing. It's exactly the same thing.

Now, I've got to hasten to point out that this is clearly not a case of copyright infringement; as the notation at the WSJ notes, the image was licensed from Getty Images, which is undoubtedly where DKos got it as well. Anyone can pay for a license, and with Getty Images making a great deal of its library free for use, we can probably expect to see a lot more of this. Also, DKos has refined the idea; it's not exactly the same thing any more:

… but still it's something that makes you go hmmmm … was it sort of a jibe? Was the person who chose the illustration 'taking the piss', as the Brits say, out of the idealized typical Kossack? Did they think they were 'reclaiming' an image for one side or another in a great Manichean struggle?

Or was it just a coincidence?

Either way, it's a thing that makes you go hmmm …

[branding] Ahhh … DennyCrane!

2934.Let it never be said that William Shatner doesn't know how to ride that pony.

Seen on some page somewhere:

Admit it. You just read the whole ad with Shat's voice doing the voiceover in your head, didn't you.

You did. You did.

Don't try to deny it.

You did.

[brand] Branded With a Life Sentence

2905.Being a national brand's spokes-face carries dangers of its own.

One can read any number of tales of an actors' stereotyping due to a strong character identification … Adam West and Batman come to mind. But what of those who become so strongly identified with a brand name consumer product?

Like Enzyte's "Smilin' Bob" … Joe Isuzu … The Dell Dude?

They've handled the fame and stereotyping in different ways. Joe Isuzu (David Leasure) kept trying until he got a sitcom role. Andrew Olcott (Smilin' Bob) went into production. Ben Curtis (The Dell Dude) is trying to be a filmmaker and trying to get roles as an actor … and, in the most folorn way, hoping that the Dell dude can make a comeback somehow.

Businessweek Insider has the most interesting story here. Call it a most unexpected dark side of the branding equation.

I'm betting Stephanie Courtney can probably find life after Flo the Progressive Girl, whenever that happens … but it'll probably touch and go, for a while.

[logo] Dominos Pizza, Dominos Logo - No Pizza, Just Domino

2860.The Domino's Pizza chain, nourishing legions of families and college students since none-of-us-remember-when, looks like it's going to start updating its image.

As revealed by Brand New, the Facebook page of Domino's New Zealand have rolled out a new look to the logo. If you don't care to follow the link above, here's the new face:

And if you've stopped paying attention (because you're not going to eat the logo, yes?) the old face was as such:

The diamond-shaped 'box' is no more; the blue now colors half the remaining domino.

Brand New's reporting signifies that it was not yet clear (at the time of their writing) that this was a local or chain-wide change, but Advertising Age and the Los Angeles Times have since published stories that indicate that this is more than just a logo rework but sort of a 'warm re-boot' of the entire brand, which has added things like artisan-style pizzas and is now working on a re-think of the Domino's store experience by spiffing up the spaces into more welcoming environments, and even maybe having a limited number of sit-down spaces at a few of them.

The new logo does show a bit more polish and sophistication. The type is where the slickness really shows; it looks like the type I see in the more hip print material I see, akin to Gotham or Freight or suchlike. The separation of the domino out is kind of a deconstruction, a 'dressing down' of the logo to its essential. The inclusion of the red is simply clever. The only real awkwardness is the matching of the the straight type with the tilted domino … they don't harmonize, and the space under the domino comes off as something one wants to fix.

But it's already starting to grow on me, so I think this one is a qualified success. I'd be interested to find out what the vox pop has to say about this one.

[branding] Dollar Shave Club Proves Cheeky Humor Still Sells

2791… well, at least it still sells if you pitch it just so.

In a conversation last night, I overheard someone talking about Dollar Shave Club, that it was apparently a dotcom that sent you just your basic, two-bladed razor for a dollar a month. Skeptical? You bet. But I've seen sillier things sold seriously (Artisanal Pencil Sharpening, anyone?) and anyone who's been on the intertubez for any length of time knows that it really does allow you to fuse things that weren't really 'fusable' before into something that works.

According to this article at Huffington Post*, the entrepreneur behind it, Michael Dubin, was able to mash up direct importing form China and Korea** with the savings that strictly-internet commerce can provide to deliver a free handle, five blades/month of a basic two-bladed men's razor for $1/unit, or $3/month.

What really gets this over-the-hump, however, is the cheeky, dry humor that seems to borrow as much from the sensibility of The Daily Show as it does Saturday Night Live with a dash of National Lampoon. The video, of course, has gone viral. Touching on such things as the quality-price-value proposition, men's grooming over the 20th Century (you're handsome Grandpa just used one blade, and he had polio) lampooning of some trite ad-speak, and even works in how he's improving the economy. Just watch.



The three models offered show a similar wry humor. The DSC's basic model, 'The Humble Twin' boasts that it 'does not front'; the middle-range model, 'The 4X', is good enough for you and your girlfriend; the Cadillac of the line, 'The Executive', 'comes from the future and lives in Outer Space'.

But this startup does exist and will send you blades at prices that make buying your shave at the variety, grocery, and drug store look kind of look a little extravagant. And I enjoy the humor.

Even though I wear a beard. Makes me wish I preferred being clean-shaven.

*I refuse to call it HuffPo. I cry and die inside whenever anyone I know does.
** I, too am a bit conflicted about importing from China and Korea but, on the upside, Alejandra wasn't working last month, and this month, she is. So that's something right there. 

[branding] When You "Make Your Brand Work" For A Bigger Brand, Does That Make You Seem Phony?

2692.This may sound odd coming from me, since I don't really even care for Project Runway, but I happen to think that Tim Gunn is one of the most fun TV personalities out there right now.

The whole elegant, confident "Make It Work" thing. He's turned his personality into a pretty powerful brand and it's really taken him off and taken him places. As a matter of fact, he's recognizable and big enough now that he can hire his brand out to promote other brands, as this recently-released commercial where Expedia gets the Project Runway treatment …



I'm hardly a brand guru (yet), but I get a certain feeling when I see things like this.

Now, I've got to say, the commercial is very slick, and nails the PR vibe with preciseness. And it's not unentertaining. Expedia got their money's worth, and more. Tim Gunn's smoothness and personality lend a certain style to Expedia's brand that's hip and unique.

But here's where I think this might be going a bit far. I'll try not to ramble, because I'm going way subjective here … but then, that's what branding is all about.

Tim Gunn's signature phrases … Make it work, Major WOW factor … were uniquely him. They expressed his personality in ways nothing else quite could and that nobody else could ever own. He is suave and smooth in a way that's obviously sincere and authentic. I get the impression that, when we see Tim doing his Timness, we aren't seeing an act. He's not a put-on.

However, when he does it in the service of another brand, that removes a the honestness about it. More's the pity, it seems insincere now. I'm left with the impression that Expedia has enhanced his brand … but Tim's unenhanced his, and now, it's not as fun as it used to be.

Now, I'm not exactly saying that it's a bad thing to hire your brand out. Branding is a tool. It's a powerful tool with more edges than a Gillette disposable razor (see what I did there?). It can be used for evil, good, or awesome. But I do wonder if it's always a good thing to hire out your brand to support someone else's for advertising in this way. And branding, when it's used in this way, to me, sucks a bit of the sincerity out of human emotion.

Or … am I just being too sensitive here? Obviously this use of Tim Gunn's identity to promote Expedia obviously moved me in a way.

I'd be interested to know what people think. Comment, please.

[design] The New Look Pac-10: It's Not Just a Logo, it's a Brand

2480.

Debuted yesterday: the new Pac-10 Conference's logo. It's kind of a slick production, and quite stylish when placed next to the design it succeeded, a box with big type and the suggestion of the setting sun.

There are appropriate images. The Pacific-10, encompassing the states of Oregon, Washington, California and Arizona (and soon enough to include Colorado and Utah) is the westernmost geographically-located big collegiate conference. the update includes two things you find quite a lot of the the west - the mountains (under the A) and the ocean (with a wave curling about the "10") into a slick, sleek shield.

And, of course, ours being a visual culture, we fixate on what seems, in the context, a daring update (your mileage may vary). But, after a year in which the Pac-10 almost ... almost ... eated the Big 12 to become the Pac-16, the attitude of the Pac-10 (the Pac-12, soon enough) has been shown to be a new, world-beating thing.

At least that's what they really want you to perceive here. The new-look Pac-10 is more than just about a new logo. It's about a new swagger and style, a new attitude.

Much of the credit for this new wide-shouldered confidence is being laid at the feet of the Pac-10's commissioner, Larry Scott. He led the charge to try to annex six more colleges, and has been at the forefront, the public face, of the new bold conference. In a succinct but punchy statement, he lays it all on the line. And the media events this week, with all Pac-10 football coaches in entourage, just really underline this.

This, my friends, is more than a new logo, it's the magic spell they try to cast with the word brand. It's the whole 50 yards on first down. It's probably why it's easier to find Pac-10 press extoling the virtues of the brand than decent graphics of the new logo (I nicked the above from Wikipedia's article). It's a nice logo, but just considering that would be kind of missing the forest for the trees.

But all this ... the "conference of champions", the academic reputations of the member schools, the positive aspects of life in the western USA, all these are contained in not just the logo, but the words and the stories they try to tell with them.

So far, they're doing a pretty good job.

If you like the Pac-10, you're probably liking this. And the new logo is a refreshing change from the old stale one, and cleverly executed too - and ready to turn the "10" into a "12", with little fuss, when the time is right.

We call it a pass completion.

Technorati Tags: Pac-10, Pacific 10, sports logo, sports logo redesign, branding

Powered by ScribeFire.

[logo] The Portland Timbers Logo System - The Full Monty Debuts

2464.

The system has debuted.

On Friday, 25 June 2010, the Portland Timbers organization rolled out the complete logo and identity system. The whole system consists of four parts in toto, called the primary, secondary, and tertiary crests, along with the wordmark and a baseball-logo-like ligature. Credit the Timbers for the following, in order:

1. The Primary Crest. Looks almost identical to the logo debuted earlier, but with simpler lines, less fiddly stuff, and relieved of all the yellow high-lights, looks a lot less cartoony, a lot more down-to-earth. Very much an improvement over the original.

2. The Secondary Crest. Remove the words crossing the symbol and allow the circle to trim the chevrons. Of the whole system, this looks the most like the old crest

3. The Tertiary Crest. Remove all but the axe, and you get something which reminds me of the 70s era AT&T logo:

4. The Ligature. The ligature mark ... a ligature being a word that describes what happens when you tie two letterforms together ... combines a stylized letter "P" with the axe in a way which not only shows off the signature axe but also suggests the letters "PT", and whose overall effect reminds me of baseball and hockey team logos:

And rounding this off is the Wordmark,  which, simply put, is the "PORTLAND TIMBERS" lifted from the primary crest and used on its own.

Whatever anyone might think of the new logo, I must admit, it's kind of grown on me. If I can be so bold as to say that, as far as logo and identity systems go, it's a pretty solid group of symbols, all of which hand off to each other with a nicely-done visual logic.

I know that a great many Timbers supporters are unhappy with the primary crest, and I'm not about to tell anyone else how to feel about it. However, in my view, it updates the whole thing very aptly while - and I imagine that I might not get a great deal of agreement here - pays proper homage to the image's and the franchise's past.

The new marks have a visual logic, a clean and modern sense of style, a sensitivity to what amounts to local tradition, and a clear link with the past (deftly done by making the axe the centerpiece of the circular design).

According to the Timbers press release, some of this was influenced by fan input. I'm guessing, based on what I've seen on that message board, the secondary crest was very much influenced by Timbers Army input. The primary crest is improved - there seems to be a lack of yellow highlights and some of the more "fiddly-bits" seem to be gone, and playing that down does the mark a great deal of good. Tighter and cleaner is the way to go.

I don't know about other Timbers fans, or if they think this is that much of an improvement, but it's a system of marks I can certainly get behind.

Technorati Tags: Logo design, logo redesign, Portland Timbers, Portland Timbers Logo, identity systems, sports logos

Powered by ScribeFire.