Presidential Debate Brands

Obama and Romney aren't the only two names with something at stake tonight. As UnBeige reports, Mohawk fine papers has announced they’re behind the event's print materials, from press releases and programs to car decals and commemorative posters at the request of Océ, a debate sponsor. The venue itself, Lynn University’s Keith C. & Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center, was designed by Newman Architects, who point out that “The design conveys a shared sense of participation of audience and performer.“

Branding as Art

Google took its mercurial logo to new levels October 15 with an interactive cartoon dreamscape honoring animator and artist Winsor McCay, on the 107th anniversary of his "Little Nemo" comic strip.
Just click on the Google logo, and keep clicking. Or see the whole animation here.

While most brands strive to keep strict consistency in their logo executions, Google embraces a curated variety and comes out looking better for it.

If You Love Love, You'll Love Loveland

The City of Loveland has launched a new initiative to rebrand itself with an "everything you love" tagline adapted to its main tourism draws: "Loveland, Colorado: Art You Love," Loveland, Colorado: Brewing You Love, " etc.

This is according to The Denver Post. The city's own website still reflects the brand identity it's held since 1946 as The Sweetheart City: 160,000 Valentine cards from around the world are re-mailed through Loveland, "known for its dedication to romance."

Update: See clarification from Nicole in Comments, below

Olympic Trademark Vigilance

With corporate sponsors paying up to $100 million each, it's not surprising that cease-and-desist letters have been flying. Enforcement reached Wallace-and-Gromit dimensions when a knitting challenge called the Ravelympics--featuring events like the Afghan Marathon and the Lace Longjump--had to rename itself the Ravellenic Games.

News Brand Makes Brand News

On Sunday night MSNBC became NBCNews, symbolically ending a relationship with Microsoft that goes back to 1996 when the Web was in its infancy.

God Bless America But Please Hurry!

The meaning of brand 999

Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan (with or without the dashes) has already succeeded in getting him attention in a crowded Republican field. A former pizza chain CEO, Cain knows enough about marketing to see the appeal of a tax policy which, whatever its merits or demerits, people can actually understand. The New York Times  reports the triple digits "have acquired the catchy power of a brand."

Any naming consultant could point out the negatives of 999 as a brand name: it's an area code favored by telemarketers; summons police in the UK; and opens the door (at Halloween time yet) to Michelle Bachmann's spooky 666 quip.

As I noted here, we've gone from the 1960s, when candidates learned Madison Avenue media and marketing practices, to 2008, when Obama taught marketers about the power of online branding. Now we've reached the perfect synthesis: a marketer running for president.

A brand is not a sunny day

A perfect fall day exists whether we're here to enjoy it or not. But a brand is a purely human concoction--by us, for us--invisible unless someone is there to see it. Where in the universe is it written that there have to be brands?

It's Twenty-Ten

One of those meta-branding questions that's easily solved: Why say two thousand ten when twenty-ten will do?

What WD-40 Stands For

A moment of silence for John S. Barry, the "main force" behind WD-40 according to today's NYTimes obituary.

It's a classic story of how imaginative and determined marketing transformed a small, seemingly specialized product (developed by a staff of 3) into a global icon. Long before interactive branding was fashionable, Barry engaged customers with the brand by inviting them to come up with new uses for the stuff. (My favorite: a bus driver in Asia used WD-40 to remove a python that had coiled itself around the undercarriage of his bus.) Refused to patent it to avoid disclosing the ingredients. Changed the company name from "Rocket Chemical Company" to match its marquee product.

As Barry admitted, giants like 3M and DuPont made products much like WD-40. "What they don't have," he said, "is the name."

What does the name stands for? Literally, "Water displacement formulation successful in 40th attempt." But from a branding perspective, so much more.

Obama launches stimulus brand

President Obama yesterday unveiled two new logos for his stimulus program which address its brand deficit (see here and here). One is for projects completed under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and the second for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery). Video of President Obama making the announcement.

It wouldn't be fair to expect the drama of a New Deal eagle in today's environment; nobody's going to name a football team after a government program, as they did in Depression-era Philadelphia (below). And one can only imagine the bureaucratic and political hoops these designs had to jump (or squeeze) through.

But I still can't help feeling disappointed. The Chicago-based studio that created them, Mode, also designed the evocative Obama sunrise logo. Given the magnitude of what the new marks represent and the bad feelings of the times we live in, I was hoping for something more inspiring. And one can only be struck by the low-profile launch--the new logos appear deep in Whitehouse.gov as little more than set dressing. All in all, the Administration could have harnessed more of the emotional power that a strong symbol can generate.

Now the brand is the candidate

Familiar meme: "a brand is a story." But that doesn't mean a fiction: it means a narrative shaped by real qualities and events, even those that mar an ideal image. It's not as simple (or as complex) as making up the perfect story from scratch and then imposing it on a passive public.

Is this what political branding can teach corporate branding today? Admit you are a personality, with acceptable flaws, in the interest of the larger good you can do (Kennedy). Be willing to shape brand messages more quickly, like a political campaign with a war room mentality, always primed to respond to events (Clinton). Use the web to build your own constituency (Obama).

The 1960s and 70s saw the effective application of corporate media and marketing principles to political candidates and campaigns. Now the ideas are flowing in the opposite direction.

Who cares about branding?

To counterweight the post below we have to ask: how trivial is this? Under the threat of world financial collapse, why pay any attention to the print on an orange juice carton?

Three reasons why we might care:

1. Brands are celebrities of a sort in our culture, and watching their ups and downs can have amusement value
2. Brands demonstrate human behavior (What do people care about? What do they believe in? What motivates them to act?)
3. Brands can drive business activity: surely more Tropicana will be sold this week...

Hail to the Citizens of Tropicana

Amid all the gloomy news, one ray of brightness: Tropicana undoes its mistake.

(Which would you rather buy?)

I detested the new generic packaging and stingy logo on the left. A supermarket should be a place of visual delight. The true Tropicana orange leads me to an aisle of abundance where the Land O'Lakes lady kneels next to pink and brown egg cartons, white milk and yellow cheese.

This new watered-down look could only be described as perverse. Also infuriating to search for the variety, so clearly labelled on the neck before.

Not surprising: the backlash chronicled today, as people clamored for a return to the original. Surprising: PepsiCo gave in to their demands.

A brand's true owner may not be its trademark holder, after all.

Is a smile the new swoosh?

Have things gotten so bad we need laughing logos? If two make a trend, then yesterday's unveiling of Kraft's new corporate mark, plus Pepsi's maybe-Obama-inspired new "series of smiles" must mean something.

Of course Amazon has worn a smile for years.

We may not mourn the swoosh as a design cliche--too achievement-oriented for the Millennials?--but maybe we should dread what it's turning into.

Update: Stimulus Naming Deficit

Today President Obama signs the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. As I asked below, whatever its economic value, couldn't it have had a more stimulating name? Would a reassuring nickname or acronym help the program to create more confidence?

Reporters are calling it the "economic stimulus plan" or "economic recovery plan." Valpak, which distributes savings coupons, took out a full page in The New York Times to call their envelopes "The original Consumer Stimulus Package." (More colorful puns on "stimulus package" are showing up as well...far too colorful to be repeated here.) Would the fiscal package be more effective, wrapped as distinctively as those blue Valpak envelopes?

But then, there's a time for generics. Maybe this was a communication strategy: by not making the name too proprietary or distinctive, make it easier for Obama's aides to negotiate the contents, and the votes.

Why don't Presidents sell?

To mark Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, let's take stock of how often we see his name honored as a commercial brand.

It's not as common as you'd think. Discount the Lincoln brands named geographically, like Lincoln Industries, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Subtract brands named for their proprietors, like Lincoln Electric , started by John C. Lincoln in 1895.

Most direct connection could be the Lincoln Financial Group in Fort Wayne, Indiana, whose founders "adopted [Abraham Lincoln's name] to represent the ideals the new company was founded upon. Robert Todd Lincoln, the President's only surviving son, gave the founders permission to use his father's name and likeness in July 1905, solidifying the name for the new company."

The best known Lincoln brand, no doubt--but what could be more at odds with the man's famously simple tastes?

Most appropriate: the Lincoln Logs of our childhoods.

Note: Founding father Benjamin Franklin gets pretty good use as a brand. From The Franklin Mint to Benjamin Franklin, the Punctual Plumbers, to Franklin Templeton Investments.

But for presidents it seems only appropriate that other rules apply. We pretty much agree that Lincoln is a town or a tunnel, not a carwash; Washington is a capital, not a cereal. We don't have all that many presidents and--Presidents' Day Sales notwithstanding--we save the power of their names for where we need it, on the larger stuff.

Citroën rebrands, refinances, remembers

February 6: Citroën unveils new visual identity, updating 90-year-old chevron logo as part of move to upscale the brand.

February 9: French government unveils €3 billion loan to Peugeot-Citroën as part of auto industry rescue plan.

Happy to see: Citroën reintroducing its premium DS--one of the rare punning brands ("déesse"=goddess) and all-time icon of Gallic ingenuity, as seen in quirky ads like this and dozens of movies from The French Connection and Day of the Jackal to Les Triplettes de Belleville.

Could the best British brand be Sony?

The Marketing Society, a network of senior marketers in the UK, is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a selection of "50 Golden Brands," and website visitors are invited to vote on their favorite--um, favourite.

The 50 offer golden examples of how brands cross national lines. British brands like Schweppes, Guinness, and Virgin have become familiar worldwide, while brands from the US, Europe and Asia are embedded in the UK (e.g. Levi's, Lego, Sony).

But it's also comforting to see that brand globalisation only goes so far. It takes a British perspective to appreciate the iconic value of a Hovis, Andrex, or Fairy Liquid, not to mention my own choice:

Recession reshapes brands