Strength of character
by neilh
27. February 2009 13:01
As the recession of the early 90s bit, a large retailer was getting twitchy.
Having included a price promise in their advertising a competitor started doing the same.
The client feared customers might start to migrate so a decision was taken to maintain the price promise, keep things as they were and add another device, this time talking about customer service.
And for a couple of weeks the problem went away... until the competitor predictably followed suit.
The twitch returned.
“We’re telling people we’ve got the lowest prices guaranteed and the best customer service but how do we strengthen our offering?”
Adding a line of copy talking about offering the best range of products was considered, trouble was their competitors could replicate that overnight if they wished.
Similarly, using more red, changing the headlines from lower case to upper case, increasing the size of the savings devices and so on, were all things that weren’t going to provide a long term solution.
It was pointed out that the consumer was really the one who would be getting frustrated by all of this.
With three similar retailers all claiming to have the best savings, the best choice and the best service there was no point of difference, leaving the consumer very confused.
‘They can’t all have the lowest prices, best range and best service can they?’
Who could the consumer believe?
Fact was the strength of the brand had also been lost in all of this. A large household name, everyone knew what they sold but their advertising bacame too reliant on using well-worn claims. Time to reconnect with the consumer then.
A way of expressing this was adopted and twelve months later sales were much healthier.
Their customer service and pricing was taken as a given because the brand had regained the consumer’s trust, heck they even featured less product more effectively.
In fact they now had a look and character all of their own, while one of their competitors had disappeared.
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Mio Mao
by neilh
25. February 2009 12:51
Not that I'm regressing but I've been getting up early to catch a bit of Mio Mao, a children's show on Five.
Mio Mao are two claymation cats that meet interesting characters in each episode.
First created in Italy in the 70s Mio Mao went quiet until a new series was commissioned in 2005.
Quite a break but it still feels fresh.
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Rodchenko & Popova
by neilh
6. February 2009 11:22
Born out of the Russian Revolution, Constructivists compared the artist to the engineer, arranging materials scientifically as you might do with any other manufactured product. Like de Stijl, Futurism and the Bauhaus school, their passion for all things new, new buildings, new thinking, new technologies and speed is increasingly relevant in today's digital age.
Tate Modern from 12 February.
Rodchenko 'Books' Photomontage, 1924.
Matthew Cooper, Franz Ferdinand 'You Can Have It So Much Better', 2005
(And hopefully it'll be less of a bun fight than Rothko).
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Love it or hate it?
by neilh
26. January 2009 10:36
Facebook. For those of you who hate it here's one just for you.
Oh the irony.
http://www.hatebook.org
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You can learn a thing or two from them Romans.
by neilh
20. January 2009 12:40
Remember the spoof 'If Microsoft sold Macs' viral where Apple's lovely design became smothered with spec? Well long before the art of persuasion became an industry and shortly after the invention of the wheel Cicero certainly understood the principles of captivating an audience.
Here he offers some helpful advice to the poet Catallus.
“Now nothing in oratory, Catullus, is more
important than to win for the orator the favour
of his hearer, and to have the latter so effective
as to be swayed by something resembling a
mental impulse or emotion, rather than by
judgement or deliberation.
For men decide more problems by hate or love
or lust or rage or sorrow or joy or hope or fear
or illusion or some other inward emotion than
by rationality or authority or any legal standard,
or judicial precedent or statute.” Cicero, De Oratore
This might not be much help next time we're deciding which washing powder to buy or searching for the cheapest DVD (and excuse me for preaching to the converted), but faced with a brief for either we should always look to express the 'science bit', price, features, benefits or any other statistics in a way that entertains.
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