Ged Carroll

Category: branding | 品牌推廣 | 브랜드 마케팅 | ブランディング

The dictionary definition of branding is the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design.

I have covered many different things in branding including:

  • Genesis – the luxury Korean automotive brand
  • Life Bread – the iconic Hong Kong bread brand that would be equivalent of wonder loaf in the US
  • Virgil Abloh and the brand collaborations that he was involved in
  • Luxury streetwear brands
  • Burger King campaigns with Crispin Porter Bogusky
  • Dettol #washtocare and ‘back to work’ campaigns
  • Volkswagen ‘see the unseen’ campaign for its Taureg off road vehicle
  • SAS Airline – What is truly Scandinavian?
  • Brand advertising during Chinese New Year (across China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia)
  • Lovemarks as a perspective on branding
  • BMW NEXTGen event and Legend of Old McLanden campaign
  • Procter & Gamble’s Gillette toxic masculinity ads
  • Kraft Mother’s Day campaign
  • Kraft Heinz brand destruction
  • Porsche Design in the smartphone space
  • Ermenegildo Zegna
  • Nike’s work with Colin Kaepernick
  • Counterfeit brands on Instagram, Alibaba and Amazon
  • Gaytime Indonesian ice cream
  • Western Digital
  • Louis Vuitton collaboration with Supreme
  • Nokia
  • Nike Korea’s ‘Be Heard’ campaign
  • Mercedes SLS coupe campaign
  • Brand collaborations in Hong Kong
  • Beats headphones
  • Apple
  • Henrion Ludlow Schmidt’s considerations of branding
  • Cathay Pacific
  • Bosch
  • Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid
  • Microsoft Surface launch
  • Oreo Korean campaign
  • Chain coffee shop brands and branding
  • Samsung’s corporate brand
  • North Face’s brand overeach in South Korea
  • Mr Pizza Korean pizza restaurant and delivery service brand
  • Amoy Hong Kong food brand
  • Chevrolet Corvette ‘roar’ campaign promoting a build your own car service

  • Ultra deep watch + more things

    OMEGA SEAMASTER PLANET OCEAN ULTRA DEEP | Watches News – I love some of the design details in this Planet Ocean Ultra Deep such as the lugs. I was less convinced by the aesthetics of the dial, the hands and the lack of protection given to the crown on the Planet Ocean Ultra Deep. More on design here.

    So, Gutenberg Didn’t Actually Invent the Printing Press | Literary Hub – way before Samsung Korea was innovating the shit out of the world, here’s the story

    The Redirect Method – its rare to get this much of an inside view inside a campaign, well worth reading

    NHS teams up with Amazon to bring Alexa to patients | Society | The Guardian – the push here seems to be accessibility; but a call centre is even more responsive than Alexa is

    Shiseido’s Beauty App Promises Perfect Skin — at $92 a Month – Bloomberg – Shiseido is targeting women facing “the dilemma of valuing skincare but struggling to find the time to find the perfect formula,” Shigekazu Sugiyama, president of Shiseido Japan, said at a news conference in Tokyo. Research by the company shows that the more hectic the lifestyle, the greater the fluctuation seen in complexion, he said. 

    Optune’s cylindrical device mixes and dispenses a personalized formula twice a day, with as many as 80,000 different combinations. The product’s software, available as an iPhone app, takes photos of the user’s face in order to detect skin conditions. The data is analyzed together with sleep rhythms and menstrual cycles, as well as external factors such as weather and air pollution, in order to deliver the right mix of serums.

    Unilever tackles marketing bias with DNA tests | WARC – The exposed group who perused their personal DNA results and participated in the immersive training recorded a 35% decrease in unconscious stereotyping when measured against the control group. 

    Similarly, Santos revealed, the exposed group also logged a 27% increase in original thinking measured against their peers in the control group. 

    Such an insight builds on a growing slate of evidence that the part of the brain associated with stereotyping influences the cognitive activities that are needed for creativity, too.

    Podcast: WARC’s David Tiltman On Marketing Effectiveness – great listening for the lunch hour on advertising effectiveness

    Nomads travel to America’s Walmarts to stock Amazon’s shelves – The Verge – “If somebody likes a certain scent or how something works, they become loyal to that item, even if just the packaging has changed. They can no longer find that item in a store, and Amazon is one place they’ll look for it. It’s people like us who travel around that can find it.”

    Mediatel: Newsline: The scourge of short-termism comes from the top – “The Media sector has several examples of companies that placed short-term earnings growth over long-term investment and saw their earnings and, ironically, share price suffer. RELX (the old Reed Elsevier) suffered a collapse in its share price, which took several years to reverse, after the market realised previous management had underinvested to boost earnings growth to meet LTIP plans. On the other hand, companies that invest see returns to shareholders. Sky, which famously prioritised organic investment over shareholder returns and meeting earnings targets, eventually was bought out at a big premium to its historic share price”.

    How 5G will affect marketing communications | Advertising | Campaign Asia – so adtech will slow up the theoretical speed of 5G, this is all very depressing

  • Mulan live action trailer & things that made the week

    Mulan live action film trailer

    Disney posted this beautiful trailer of the Mulan live action adaption this weekend. I presume it was to try and take the sting out of a black mermaid earlier this week on Chinese social media. The Mulan live action film will have to meet the exacting standards of fans who loved the animated version of Mulan and avoid communist party imbued fascism

    McDonalds bacon rolls

    Kudos to my former work neighbours at Leo Burnett London for this lovely bit of craft in a McDonald’s UK ad for bacon rolls

    40th anniversary of Sony Walkman

    Sony have been celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Walkman. There used to be a lovely museum of Sony gear through the ages that was not only great to behold; but an education in product design. Anyway check out this short Sony video of Walkmans

    Doxxed colonial policemen

    I’ve been following the ongoing events in Hong Kong with interest. It seems that the Labour Party proved to be more effective than the government in striking out for the Hong Kong people. Shadow minister Helen Goodman doxed one of three British expat senior policemen who were involved in the harshest Hong Kong police action to date on June 12. The Times newspaper published the names of the other two officers Rupert Dover and David Jordan. Their identity had appeared on Hong Kong protest banners after June 12 and were well known to the expat community.

    The June 12th tactics were more suitable for Northern Ireland during The Troubles than the kind of demos one would see in Hong Kong. Superintendent Julian Shave’s profile on LinkedIn (since removed) showed that considered himself an expert in counter-terrorism. There was nothing about his expertise in the use of tear gas against Hong Kongers.

    Given Goodman’s and the Labour Party’s stance about this, Messrs Dover, Jordan and Shave might think of looking for a job in Bahrain or China’s burgeoning private security sector, rather than risking a day in a UK court under a future Labour government…

    K-pop idol experience

    Hallyu or Korean popular culture has been on a sustained boom since the early noughties. A key part of this has been the way Korea seems to mass produce boy and girl bands in a much more consistently successful way than the likes of Japan. They even seem to do it even better than western producer dynasties like Simon Cowell, 19 Management or Stock, Aitken and Waterman. This documentary by Asian Boss is very insightful on the idol experience from an insider and how she’s pivoted into being a YouTuber

  • Chinas booming streetwear scene + more

    Inside Chinas booming streetwear scene – Inkstone – great video on Chinas booming streetwear scene that’s morphing into someithing very different

    Tesco Is Said to Work With Israel’s Trigo on Cashierless Stores – Bloomberg – if Chinese cashier less stores experience is anything to go by, this might not be a good idea

    ‘Adapt or die’ – Martin Sorrell’s message to ‘Pavlovian’ ad industry holding companies – Mumbrella Asia – S4 Capital’s low overheads and a cheaper wage bill due to the average employee age being 25 at Mightyhive – the programmatic firm – and 33 at MediaMonks, the production house, meant it could deliver greater bang for the buck than the networks – so its not a smart marketing play but a manpower cost play? We’re better run because we employ cheaper staff? Sorrell gets made to look like a chump in this article; I’d also suggest that he does his homework looking at effectiveness and creativity more closely

    Opinion | A Major Police Body Cam Company Just Banned Facial Recognition – The New York Times – interesting move by Axon. The US seems to be doing to facial recognition what the EU did to online data with GDPR

    FCB parts with Nivea amid rising tensions, including allegations of homophobic remark | AdAge – client reported said ‘we don’t do gay’ on agency call. That’s being leaked from FCB staff or freelancers

    Crazy/Genius: Are Influencers Frauds or the Future? – The Atlantic – the dystopian age of whuffie capitalism

    Nike Withdraws Products After Brand Partner Vexed China for Supporting HK | Jing Daily – Nike and the bullshit of brand purpose, especially when you contrast this to the Colin Kapernick campaign. When sales are lacklustre principles go to shit

    Huawei Personnel Worked With China Military on Research Projects – Bloomberg – looks like a mix of internal security work (analysing emotions in online video content, and external security on collecting and analysing satellite images and where 2.0 data. One also has to remember that Qualcomm has got a heavy national security background in the US. Given the current situation this news couldn’t have landed at a worse time for Huawei.

    Naomi Wu has an interesting discussion on professionalism versus engagement to maximise pay off on video. You need to have 2 million+ viewers to make the transition from 1080P to 4K worthwhile

    Carrefour sells 80% of China grocery business — Quartz – surprised they didn’t use China to jump start experience on e-commerce so they could take Amazon on in the home market. Talk about a missed opportunity

    China’s millennials are mourning the end of an era in online hook-up culture | Quartz – really interesting, given how early marketers like China Merchants Bank used drift bottle for its CSR programme. Its also unsurprising given China’s tightening grip on media distribution

  • BMW NEXTGen & things that made the week

    BMW NEXTGen event included a concept car the BMW Vision M Next. What I found most interesting about this is how BMW whilst looking forward with the i8 and the M Next; is still stuck with designs resembling the Giorgetto Giugiaro designed M1(E26) of the late 1970s. Don’t get me wrong, when I was a pre-teen my ideal car would have looked like the BASF sponsored M1 track car with the spiral paint work. It would have been nextgen for my pre-teen self, in the same way that the future also looked like a Star Trek communicator. Though our current smartphones would look nextgen to the original Star Trek set and prop designers.

    BMW M1 écurie BASF série PROCAR 1980

    Here’s what the M Next looks like (© Copyright BMW AG, München, Deutschland.)

    BMW M Next courtesy of BMW

    Which raise an interesting question. From a branding perspective does iconic legacy design make it harder to draw a line under one technology as you transition to another? We have various bias’ in our expectations, some of which BMW have tried to challenge with the sonic experience in their cars. I’d argue that they need to think about this outside the vehicles as well. From a safety perspective and because part of driving a BMW is being ‘seen’ to drive the marque.

    I think that there’s still work to be done by BMW and other manufacturers on getting their arms about the future of performance from a brand perspective, for a post-ICE (internal combustion engine) age.

    Abacus (a tech media publication from the South China Morning Post) has channeled the Pixel Boys to come up with a way of trying to make the Chinese tech sector make sense to foreigners. China Tech City | Abacus is well worth checking out.

    In an era when there is a chance that Jeremy Corbin could be a prime minster in waiting should a general election come along, And I speak with people who profess to be MacBook totting communists. I am surprised that Marxman haven’t seen a resurgence in popularity. I randomly came across this great interview of them by a French TV programme around about the time their first album broke.

    Hong Kong’s leaderless movement against the Chinese extradition law (or their CIA paymasters if you believe the Chinese government) have been doing some really nice creative to rally internal and international audiences to their cause. There were print ads that ran in the newspapers of many G20 countries and video content. Taking the politics to one side for a moment, just look at the craft in this video. At the time I have written this has been dubbed into:

    • Taiwanese variant of Chinese
    • Dutch
    • English
    • French
    • German
    • Bahasa Indonesia
    • Italian
    • Japanese
    • Nepali
    • Norwegian
    • Spanish
    • Swedish
    • Tagalog

    It makes Led By Donkeys look a poor effort in comparison.

    Bubble tea shops are opening around London outside of the usual China town locations. It’s success is in a sharp contrast to the likes of Jamies and Patisserie Valerie chains recent closures. Bubble tea actually came out of Taiwan in the late 1980s and London has been way behind in adopting the drink. Asian Boss tracked down the Taiwanese inventor of bubble tea Lin Hsiu Hui (of Chun Shui Tang) and the interview is great.

  • Flickr best social network experience + more

    Flickr best social network experience going / Boing Boing – I believe that flickr best social network experience at present, but I am not blind to the communities flaws

    An Oral History of Oakleys, the Most Badass Sunglasses of the 1990s | MEL Magazine – or how Luxottica made a great brand merely good. More related content here.

    The Ad Contrarian: The Stupidity Of Ignoring Older People | Ad Contrarian – interesting, it used to be that half the lifetime spend was done before the age of 35. Given that most marketing is short term programmes marketing to older people as well makes sense

    China Counterfeiters’ Hot Product in 2019? Peppa Pig Couture | Jing Daily – interesting China’s fake clothing people have been cranking out snide Peppa Pig wear; including dreaming up Burberry, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Off-White and Givenchy collaborations that haven’t happened! It’s wonderful and subversive at the same time

    They welcomed a robot into their family, now they’re mourning its death – The Verge – Williams understands that companies have bottom lines and that gadgets come and go, but Jibo was also designed to appeal to children, and those kids are now learning what it means to own a robot and have no control over its fate – pretty dark stuff. It sounds like the product succeeded with customers but was too pricey for what was required – A couple of things here; it wasn’t that long ago that we thought Japanese people were odd for having Shinto funeral ceremonies for their dead Aibos. Now we see similar behaviour playing out for Jibo. Secondly, unlike the first Aibo, Jibo is essentially a cloud personality, which begs the question when’s the move towards device based AI etc coming back as seeing your kids cry is too much?

    Dolce & Gabbana’s Expanded Sizing “Proves They’re Really about Selling Clothing,” Not Just Leveraging it — The Fashion Law – Dolce & Gabbana has announced that it will increase its sizing to include garments that will range up to size 54 in Italy, the approximate equivalent of a stateside size 18? You bet it is. The move by the Milan-based brand to extend its sizing – which went into force with its currently available pre-fall collection – “makes it one of the most inclusive designer brands for women,” according to The Independent’s Olivia Petter, a far cry from most high fashion brands, which Fashionista’s deputy editor Tyler McCall says “stop much closer to a size 10 [or] below that even.” – I think its a smart move given their problems in China

    The crisis in creative effectiveness | WARC – There has been a serious declining trend in the effectiveness of creatively awarded campaigns over the last ten years. The most recent IPA/WARC Rankings data, explored in the new Crisis of Creative Effectiveness report, confirms this continuing decline; creatively awarded campaigns are now less effective than they have ever been in the entire 24-year run of data and are now no more effective than non-awarded campaigns. We have arrived in an era where award-winning creativity typically brings little or no effectiveness advantage.

    Top 1000 Brands | Intelligence | Campaign Asia – for China

    Study Shows Big Rise in Teen Vaping This Year – The New York Times and Juul faces House investigation over teen e-cigarette use – this is going to get regulated sooner rather than later and the whole Philip Morris International ‘dialogue’ campaign is going to leave some creative agencies holding the reputation equivalent of a live hand grenade