the blog

What is it called when your branding is so strong that others can use it against you without even calling you out? Read on to find out.

I saw a television spot last night while watching Hugh Laurie’s fantastic performance as House. The spot starts out with some very “apple-esque” music and a series of very “apple” type treatments making all of the negative “iDont’s” that have been said about Apple.

Midway through the ad, the song comes to a screeching hault, the screen is taken over by some futuristic graphics and the simple phrase “Droid Does” appears on the screen. The month of November is called out and a url appears.

Talk about poking the bear. The spot never once calls out Apple or the competitor that is dissing the telecom giant by name. However, it is always clear that the spot is negatively about Apple and once you visit the URL you find out Droid is a Verizon product.

While the spot definitely made me stop and ponder all of the negative claims being made about Apple, what I really took away was how absolutely amazing the Apple brand is. It is amazing that in a millisecond a simple type treatment tells me who the spot is about.

All branding should be this good and unique. Perhaps when we approach a branding project we should look at it from this perspective: If a competitor were going to make a television commercial about our brand, would our visuals (or in this case, simple type treatment) be that recognizable that anyone would know the spot was about us, without ever seeing or hearing our name?

This is a challenge our agency will accept! And, looking at some of the brands that we’ve created over the years (Merrick, Project 7, Before Grain, etc) I’d say we’re doing pretty good. If the pet food advertising wars ever begin we will be able to test that theory!

I love iPhone Apps just as much as the next person, and we’ve been talking about developing a few for clients. Apps are great when they are useful and enriching. That being said, there are definitely some apps out there that don’t need to exist. PC World just released their list of “The 10 Most Idiotic iPhone Apps.”

It’s hilarious! To read the entire article click here. Otherwise, here is a short synopsis of the list:

1. Fatburner2K – makes your iPhone vibrate. Once vibrating you are supposed to place the phone on your belly letting the vibrations turn your lard into a six pack.

2. Hair Clinic: For Man and Woman – This app emits inaudible frequencies that are supposed to promote hair growth as you move the handset around your scalp.

3. Kiss Me – Rate your kissing ability by smooching this iPhone app.

4. Passion – Apparently this app judges your prowess in the bedroom… I’m not describing how.

5. Sexy Girl Talk – Sexy Alphabet Deluxe – This is either better or worse than it sounds. All it is is a sexy girl voice reading the alphabet.

6. HangTime – if you use this you deserve what you get. This tells you the hang time when you throw your iPhone up in the air.

I apologize in advance for this one…
7. Rate a Fart 2.0 – I don’t know what horrifies me more. The fact that this app exists? Or the fact that it is the 2.0 version. I think you can guess what it does.

8. U.K. Payphone – This is irony at its finest. Basically this allows you to search for the nearest pay phone (in the U.K.) from you iPhone.

9. Drunk Sniper – This is so tasteless. This app allows you to fake urinating to see how accurate you are.

10. Beer Opener – This app just lets you pretend to open a beer.

All I have to say is… Wow.

The article has some awesome runners-up, as well. Take a read, and if you are an iPhone developer make sure before you develop another app you ask yourself, “would I be proud to tell everyone at my 20 year high school reunion that I made Rate a Fart 3.0?” If not, put the computer down, back away and come back when you have a better App idea.

Know of an app that there shouldn’t be? Post a comment and let us know!

Four words – Personalized… Top… Level… Domain…

You can’t get more branded than that. With companies spending millions of dollars to buy URLs to promote their brands (Ex. Toys R Us spent $5 million to purchase Toys.com) how much do you think a personalized top-level domain would be worth?

Think about it from this perspective.

You are Starbucks.
You want to set up Starbuck’s Coffee Book Cubs all over the world as your next big branding thing.
What is more branded than each URL having the top-level domain .starbucks?
Pretty much nothing…

Still not seeing it? Okay, another example.

You are ebay.
You want to set up personalized web addresses for individuals to have as their “store.”
You own .ebay and each store has a URL of “mystore”.ebay.
Can you say increased brand recognition?

Whether you work on the agency side or the brand side, the impact this could have needs to be understood. Take the time to investigate and see if this is a possibility for your company. Apparently these will be available starting in 2010.

I wonder if I can beat Toys R Us to the punch and buy .toys? If so, you can find me on a beach in Tahiti.

While flying to Chicago to attend the HH Backer Pet Show with client Merrick Pet Care, I happened to glance at American Airlines’ American Way magazine. The usual travel fluff was splashed across most of the pages, “Visit Branson! Enjoy a show!” However, nestled amongst the ads for “so-and-so’s” Crab Shack and “Visit the Show Me State!” was an article written about a book that covers everybody’s current favorite form of communication: Social Media.

Ophelia Joined the Group of Maidens Who Don’t Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook, by Sarah Schmelling, delves into how literature’s greatest characters would have participated on Facebook. Who would have taken what quizzes, what their updates would have been, who joined what group, etc… The thought of Hawkeye writing a message to Cora of “I will find you” or Holden Caulfield posting an update of “Another lousy day full of phony people” absolutely brought a smile to my face as I went on to explore how my other favorite characters would have danced the social media dance the rest of the flight… definitely better than the in-flight movie.

And while the article discussed only Facebook, what if we applied the Literary Character Facebook challenge to Twitter. How would Hamlet have delivered his entire soliloquy “To be, Or not to be: that is the Question. Whether ’tis nobler to suffer the..?” This simple exercise demonstrates what most people and companies do poorly when it comes to social media – staying relevant and thorough while being concise. Social media is for the tidbit masses, those that don’t want to sit down and read the full length edition of “War and Peace” but rather the “Cliff’s Note’s” version. Social media was created to keep our fast moving, tidbit loving society in the loop and in the know.

Thanks to this article I feel inspired to treat each Tweet, update and post as my next great novel, with suspense, romance, danger and intrigue – capturing the readers attention to the very end… in, of course, less than 141 characters!

It is a huge honor to be included in the dieline’s ”40 Favorite Beverage Package Designs” for our client Project 7. To be included among the ranks of companies like Evian, Jones Soda Co. and Coca-Cola (just to name a few) is amazing and such an honor.

Check out the post and a big thank you to the dieline for thinking our client Project 7’s  “got the look.”

Social media is the digital version of “rubber necking.” It capitalizes on the very essence of humanities’ voyeuristic tendencies. But the question is, did social media make us voyeurs? Or did we create social media to support  our craving to look into other people’s lives. We collectively spend hours every day checking twitter to see who has had some life affirming revelation like “Had a cup of coffee and am pondering life…” We send YouTube links to hundreds of our friends of Chad Vader imitating a kid still drugged after getting a tooth pulled, man that was a good one.

The question is, did social media rob us of our privacy? Nope, we gave it up willingly. Social media gave us a chance to get our 5 seconds of fame… in front of whomever will watch, read or listen!

For better or for worse, social media has allowed perfect strangers to interact based on a common interest… and of course the chance to watch a baby I don’t know dance to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.” 

Go Baby, Go.

So who has Swedish Fish in his/her word cloud? Did you guess correctly?
With no further ado we would like to introduce you to…

Here’s a little bit more on Jonathan.

Name: Jonathan Rollins
Occupation: Graphic Designer
Sign: Taurus
Favorite Color: Black

Design Weapon of Choice:
Mac Pro, or a new X-acto for the hands-on approach.

Where do you get inspiration from?
From the slew of super creative people in my life, and this little thing called the internet.

Favorite design you’ve done while at 29 Agency:
I’m particularly fond of the new Whole Earth Farms line.

If you weren’t a graphic designer, what other occupation would you have?
Ideally, I’d be a professional musician, but more than likely I’d still be working in the fitting room at Old Navy.

Stay tuned for our next “Who We Be” Profile.

Welcome to the first of our “Who We Be” profile. Every few weeks we will be profiling a different hardworking employee of 29 Agency.

But, there’s a twist. Each profile will consist of a word cloud interpretation of the employee. The next day we will reveal said employee’s identity and some factoids about this person. So, with no further ado…

Which 29er is this?

Check back tomorrow for the answer.

As experts in packaging design, we understand the role it plays in helping a consumer make up their mind. In saturated product space, great design can be the thing that makes a consumer gravitate toward a particular product or try something new. For us, great packaging design is eye catching and brand building and always a positive.

However, lately some other packaging designers have taken the lazy low road, playing off the seeder side of humanity, leveraging sensationalism to promote products.

WARNING: This packaging is in severe poor taste, and don’t tell me that the designers “Didn’t know.” We all know they did.

• Haribo MAOAM Candies

And this is a kid’s candy!
But, we can’t point the finger at MAOAM alone. They aren’t the only ones to utilize these tactics. We won’t mention names or show more samples (because we don’t want them to get the publicity they so desperately crave) but numerous consumer goods are sinking to these levels in order to grab the attention of both the consumer and the press. I guess this falls under the old adage of “All press is good press.”

So MAOAM, I hope you are proud of yourselves. The new packaging is definitely getting people to notice, but is it endearing a new generation to your product? Is it maintaining loyalty in your current customer base? We don’t think so. And, if all of this sinks in and you want another “opinion” feel free to give us a call. Our designers are ready to revamp your look taking it from sensationally trashy to just sensational. Beat that, Jenny Jones

Today Interbrand released their 2009 list of Best Global Brands. Topping the list were Coca-Cola, IBM, Microsoft and GE. The criteria for deciphering the leading brands was as follows:

1. There must be substantial publicly available data
2. The brand must have at least one-third of revenues outside of its country-of-origin
3. The brand must be a market-facing brand
4. The Economic Value Added (EVA) must be positive
5. The brand must not have a purely B2B single audience with no wider public profile and awareness.

Interbrand also used a methodolgy or equation of sorts to decipher and breakdown the information obtained about each brand. This formula is “proven, straightforward and profound,” examining brands through the lens of financial strength, importance in driving consumer selection, and the likelihood of ongoing branded revenue. At this point is where you should hear the needle on the record come to a screeching halt. While I appreciate the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the world’s best brands I think there is more to making a brand great than these identified qualities. What about the brands that are shaking up industries, changing the way we think about a business or a product, bettering people’s lives?

I would like to issue a challenge to our readers:

Tell us whatbrands move you.
The criteria is simple. If the brand is amazing to you. Let us know. If we see a trend and some winners emerge, we will announce them in the first ever 29 Agency’s “Bestest Brands as Dictated by Everyday People” List. We can’t wait to hear about the brands that you love. Send us your comments!

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/29agency