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

  • Observations from Shenzhen, China

    I spent some time in Shenzhen recently and here is some of the things that I found during my stay.

    The pace of development is slower than it was before, the number of cranes I saw and ready-mix concrete wagons on the road was less than before. There is still a lot of building work but there is less of it

    Odd products showing up in Shenzhen.

    A case in point being an Orange-branded MiFi router that I used whilst I was there. It was your standard Huawei mobile internet Wi-Fi router as sold to Orange customers across Europe. We used it with a China Unicom 3G SIM in the device. It wasn’t just a case of badging, the device had an Orange admin page and served Orange-branded ‘no internet connection available’ error pages.

    Just how did this device end up in Huawei’s back yard? Did the product ‘fall off the back of a wagon’? Are they being dumped in the marketplace? Is there some black market ‘carousel’ sales tax scam going on?

    Smartphone users

    Talking about mobile devices: a quick poll of a mix of people I met:

    • Advertising agency owner: Apple iPhone 5S
    • Creative industry entrepreneur: iPhone 5C for personal use, an iPhone 5S likely to be gifted
    • Professional photographer and interior designer: iPhone 4S
    • 7 taxi drivers: 5 Samsung, 1 iPhone 4 and one Xiaomi handset
    • Businessman who owned a pharmaceutical distribution business and various properties: Samsung
    • Businessman: Samsung
    • Museum/ gallery curator: Samsung
    • Professional driver: Samsung

    It is hard to explain the ubiquity and usage of:

    • Weixin (WeChat) – running out of your data package cuts you off more than running out of voice minutes. My friend has her 70+ year old mother WeChatting her incessantly
    • TaoBao – the impact of TaoBao can be seen on the streets with a volume of delivery people darting around the city. Electric mopeds were banned in Shenzhen for anyone who didn’t work for a delivery company as the devices were a silent killer who ran over unsuspecting pedestrians. Shenzhen still has electric bikes (more professionally handled) by delivery people delivering online shopping. TaoBao and its sister site TMall are the e-tailing game. Apple recently opened a store on TMall in parallel to the Chinese version of its familiar online store

    The Chinese creative industries are coming on in leaps and bounds. I met with an advertising and design agency owner and was bowled over by the quality of the branding design that they had done for a new creative hub. Having worked alongside western big branding agencies in China working for Chinese clients I can say that the work was equal, if not better in quality.

    This is also matched by the creative infrastructure that the Chinese central and regional governments are putting in alongside private enterprises. A classic example of this is the continued development of the OCT LOFT complex. This was once an area of factories run by Overseas Chinese as a separate Town, these sturdy concrete buildings have been converted into retail areas a la the Truman Brewery, offices, studio spaces, co-working spaces and social clubs.

    There is a live performance space in OCT LOFT called B10 with a really well engineered sound and lighting system. This has managed to attract sponsorship from the likes of MINI. China is serious about building a creative class and is doing something meaningful about providing all infrastructure needed within a cluster.

    Talking of live performances, I got to see a local band play at B10; I don’t know if this was just this band but the crowd did much more interaction with the band on stage, singing along, dancing, synchronised clapping and a lot less viewing the performance through their smartphone than I had been used to in the UK and Hong Kong.

    Electric vehicles are big business; Shenzhen now has blue and silver taxis from local firm BYD that are electric powered. BYD is a famous battery company and Warren Buffett is a shareholder. Admittedly, the electricity probably comes from a lot of coal-fired power stations as well asnuclear-powered ones, but China is serious about the future of transportation.

    Hailing a cab is pretty much done by app, the Chinese version of Hailo is as ubiquitous on peoples phones as Weixin.

    Changing perception of western country brands. This is just anecdotal stuff speaking to a couple of people, but the brand of the UK in China has changed over the past couple of years. It used to be that the UK was thought to be a great nation to do business.

    David Cameron’s recent trip to China and launch of a Weibo account was seen as an act of desperation to try and capture inbound investment. Now the view that I heard expressed is that Britain is a good place to visit and shop (for luxury goods), to get an education or learn English – but that’s it. Entrepreneur visas didn’t hold that much appeal to the people I spoke with.

    There is a change in what it means to be made in China. Over the past few times that I have been in China there has been a move away from products that are good enough to providing a quality experience. Brands like retailer Emoi have been at the head of it, alongside Oppo whose Blu-Ray players give Denon and Onkyo a run for their money.

    This time friends of mine have set up a venue, one of the primary purposes of the venue is to showcase quality Chinese-made products from craftsmen made ceramics, to furniture, modern art and vacuum-tube hi-fi amplifiers. Just as China is raising it’s creative game, it is also looking to make better quality products. However this isn’t a universal move; there are still value-orientated companies, particularly those in the business-to-business space. More china related posts here.

  • Cathay Pacific vs. British Airways

    I flew to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific and had a stopover in Europe and it reminded me why I love to travel with them. My flight from the UK was with British Airways, who used a long haul plane on a short haul route meaning that some people got a flat bed to have a nap in business class, whilst other business class passengers put up less luxurious surroundings, but like the Murphys I’m not bitter.  There was no invitation to their lounge on the break of the flight in Europe, no real up-selling the benefits of OneWorld at all.

    I eventually connected with my Cathay flight at the gate and was told to report to the Cathay counter regarding my boarding pass. The first thing that went through my mind was ‘I hope they don’t bounce me off my flight for some other person’. Instead it turns out that despite my flight being booked through BA; my passport details hadn’t been shared with Cathay for the second leg of the trip. Whilst there the Cathay people asked me if I would like to use their arrival lounge at Hong Kong airport and gave me the pass for it, they then pointed out that gate wouldn’t open for ten minutes and I still had time to use their business lounge before the flight. It was small things that they did that went out of the way.

    Onboard, I have a penchant for Hong Kong-style milk tea and Cathay Pacific do a version of it. Cathay’s version of Hong Kong-style milk tea tastes even better if you get them to throw an Earl Grey tea bag into the cup with it, I ask them for this concoction and they don’t bat an eyelid at the weird aging-hipster of an Irishman in row 11 with the odd request. I wouldn’t do it with BA even if they served Hong Kong-style milk tea, because matron wouldn’t be happy.

    As you would expect with an Asian long-haul airline there is a decent seat to get some sleep in, and a toiletries bag that is is practical. Agnes B did the design which turned out sufficiently practical you want to take it with you. Entertainment-wise Cathay benefits from Hong Kong’s film industry as well as the usual Hollywood fodder.

    All that Cathay Pacific would need to do to be perfect is:

    • Make the shoe locker in their business class seats a bit larger, not everyone wears brogues. They couldn’t fit my Zamberlan boots in let alone cope with a pair of ladies healed boots, a full-sized pair of Timberlands or Jordan 11
    • Allow you to be permanently logged in on their mobile application

  • cini me

    cini me looks to solve the challenge of validating reach in cinema advertising. Cinema advertising is one of the most targeted ways of reaching younger people and I have used it as a vehicle to target parents through buying adverts in mothers-and-baby screenings.  The problem is that it’s hard to know the actual reach and impact of cinema advertising until now.

    cini me – is a smartphone application that allows consumers to answer questions posed by a programme embedded in adverts prior to the film trailers. cini.me is interesting because it can track ongoing engagement across campaigns over time on an ongoing basis, and is likely to be only downloaded by the most motivated and regular cinema-goers.

    The quiz when I was saw it was sponsored by Sony PlayStation meaning that the application competition was probably self-liquidating at the very least. From Sony’s point-of-view participation numbers give a proxy measure of reach and attention at the time the segment was running. You can see more on that campaign here.

    Finally it helps the cinemas, providing evidence that with the right campaign, cinema can drive a mobile call-to-action. From there is is up the advertising agency and media buying agency to demonstrate return on investment on behalf of their clients.

    There is a fly in the ointment for all this, no wifi in the cinema and next to no mobile reception either. The combination of both affects the volume and quality of the data received by the advertiser in a manner that can’t be readily modelled for.

    I am surprised that clients, haven’t integrated mobile search into cinema campaigns before in that way that I have seen done previously on out of home advertising in the UK or on television advertising in both Japan and Korea for years. If mobile network infrastructure improves that could be a missed opportunity for advertisers.

  • China top brands 2014

    China top brands 2014

    One has to have a certain amount of scepticism about the science that goes into brand lists but they do serve a purpose to show how marketing changes. Brand Z (part of the WPP Group for which I also ultimately work) have released their top 100 Chinese brands of 2014. Here is what I thought were the most interesting takeaways on China top brands 2014 were from the document:

    • Chinese brands are considered by Chinese consumers to have equivalent ‘brand equity’ to foreign brands. This is huge as increasingly nationalistic considerations will kick in as part of the future envisaged by likes of Xi Jingping
    • Chinese brands have managed to improve in terms of relevance, performance and presence, but lag in terms of bonding (emotional attachment)
    • They also struggle with overseas awareness, a lot of this is down to poor media investment and hubris that Chinese creative will work elsewhere
    • Two of the top three most trusted brands were online brands: Baidu and Ctrip
    • Private enterprises on the list tended to spend more on print and online advertising compared to State-Owned Enterprises

    Challenges for brands

    Challenges for brands identified by Brand Z include:

    • Building and maintaining trust
    • Developing a distinctive brand personality
    • Being more human as a brand
    • Older brands need to put a greater value on their heritage

    There is a nice infographic that goes with all this
    Brand Z China's top 100 brands
    More information on China top brands 2014 – Brand Z Top 100 Chinese Brands 2014 (PDF). More branding related content here.

  • HTTPS & Google search

    I was talking to colleagues during the week and thought it would be timely answer the question, what does Google moving search click-throughs on to HTTPS mean for PR people?

    • We have less data to use as part of a scientific approach to developing messaging as HTTPS moves inbound search words private. For non-mainland Chinese audiences we are reliant on Google advertising keyword data rather than what has been working driving traffic to their site. For instance, when we think about how we use websites, what might work in a sales situation, may not work when we are looking for information or customer support
    • When creating content for websites, there needs to be a greater focus around the quality of the content rather than the classic focus on keyword density, since there are less clues on organic searches with HTTPS. This is a key advantage for PR people over ‘content marketers’ who have focused on creating content that is just good enough. We can still see which posts are the most popular for traffic coming from Google and then look to infer what works by looking at commonalities across the pages: content themes, likely audience intent etc.
    • HTTPS reduces intelligence. Inability to draw conclusions whether our content has an effect on consumer behavior, which keywords were used to reach the intended website, and the penetration of our messaging in the public lexicon when they search and arrive at the specific site.  For example, a campaign to promote the ‘Bold washing powder’ causes a rise in searches for “Bold washing powder” to arrive at the P&G UK website, now we no longer able to draw this conclusion. In essence, it is much harder to prove online behavioural change from offline PR activity
    • A move towards increased link building for client’s websites; blogger relations and responding to posts becomes more important, since there is less of a focus on keywords
    • Client spend on search advertising is likely to increase as it becomes harder to prove the ROI on tactics used to bolster organic search traffic

    More to think about HTTPS here. More on Google here.