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March 17, 2006
Ries on GM's Brand Soup
I really wish someone at GM would read this article from Al Ries and listen and do something about it.
http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=48213
I grew up in GM vehicles and so its hard to watch the company suffer because of this kind of brand mismanagement that continues to go on unchecked. And it totally baffles me that no one is following this kind of advice.
Oh well, when it does finally does go south for real, it'll be the kind of iconic, Titanic textbook example of how not to manage a suite of brands.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 8:24 AM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2006
I (heart) the Canadian Tire guy...
...no, not in the Brokeback Mountain kind of way (not that there's anything wrong with that) but this whole issue just lights me up because it's a perfect example of where just because the guy isn't funny, blessed with a great smile and the looks of the more handsome of the two surgeon guys off Nip & Tuck, he's gets turfed and Taxi gets hired to add some "personality" to the brand.
Guess what? I'll best most of the people that watch those ads are no more handsome, cool or less annoying than that guy!!!! Hey Canada, sorry about this but I've got news - THAT'S YOU!!!!! Sitting around on your weekends farting around with your house, trying to figure out how to solve relatively meaningless problems in your quest to make your house appreciate marginally faster because it's more fun than RRSPs and give you an excuse to get away from your wife and kids in the garage and drink some beer!!!!!
So, the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater. Let's bring in the hot agency that does work for Telus and Mini. Rather than having TV that demonstrates how a product can solve a practical problem, we're going to get more clever advertising. Because that's what we need, more clever advertising.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of Taxi. I like their stuff and they do a lot of good work but in this case, I think this one is going to go the wrong direction.
It's going to start with the objective. And what is it? Make Canadian Tire cooler? Add some "personality"? Sorry, it's named Canadian Tire and it's called just as often "Crappy Tire". How cool can it be? I'm going to have the same mediocre experience with the staff the next time as I did last time. Can anyone do anything about that? The cheap white tile floors will have the dull anti-lustre that comes from being walked on by balding, middle-aged, overweight Canadians all through our long winters.
More time should be spent on the in-store experience where the brand rubber hits the road rather than more advertising.
I already know for the most part what they sell because I've gone there every fourth Saturday since I was born. What these old commercials did is show some new innovative products that I wouldn't otherwise know about. That's a pretty good outcome when you think about it.
So, here's what will happen. No one will complain about the ads anymore. In fact, no one will really talk about them that much because they'll just be ads like a lot of other ads. They'll be well art-directed, cleverly written and make Canadian Tire seem a tiny bit cooler but they won't sell much if any more stuff because everything else about the experience of shopping at Canadian Tire will stay exactly the same.
So, I'll keep going to Home Depot for home stuff because I can find a sale associate that seems to want to help. I'll go to an auto parts shop for the stuff for my car because the parts are better and the guys at the parts shop know what they are talking about.
(And for the love of all of what is good, never buy a thermostat from Canadian Tire. You'll be changing it in 3 months and I don't care that much about the warranty considering the total pain in the butt it is to install them. At least the guy at the one near here has the decency to not sell them to people because they are so prone to fail!)
I'll buy my tires from a tire shop because the last set I took to Canadian Tire were overinflated by about 20 psi (I'm very fortunate they didn't blow out since they were at 50 psi). And generally Canadian Tire will continue to be as much a part of the Canadian fabric as Quebec separatism and life will go on.
Honesty time...the ads bugged me too sometimes, but they were effective and it's too bad that someone didn't steer this thing in the right direction and keep the good elements of it before it got to this point where everyone bitches about them. In concept they were really good, the execution needed some touching up.
So, here's to you Ted Simonett. You're one of us, whether we'd like to admit it or not. If someone needed an infomercial that needs a normal guy doing normal stuff, you're the man for the job.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 8:09 PM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2006
Nice guys finish last - Personal Branding - Branson vs Trump
I've been watching this the last couple of years and it seems that the arrogant rich guy gets noticed more than the nice rich guy. The Apprentice is still on the air, Branson's program is not. And I hear way more people talking about Trump than I do Branson.
Who would I rather be if I was as wealthy as those two guys? I'd like to be as nice a guy as Branson, but there are a lot of qualities about Trump I find are admirable i.e. decisive, takes charge, accepts responsibility, doesn't put up with crap, etc.
I think the essence of it is that people are attracted to power and Trump wields it in an obvious way and Branson doesn't (or doesn't appear to).
For whatever reason, a guy that plays the power up seems to be more interesting to most people. At least on TV.
Also, all of us would like to believe that the people who have that money are deserving of it. I think that's why most people aren't impressed by a guy like Mark Cuban - one good call on the stock market makes you rich but you still look like new money. Trump on the other hand, has the scars of what it takes to get that kind of wealth. I don't know much about Branson's story (and I should really), but if he is going to keep using himself as the brand icon for Virgin, he should get an ace PR/personal branding crew on board to develop a personal brand strategy for him and start executing on it. I don't know what the exact opportunity is (and I don't really feel like thinking about it right now) but it needs something it doesn't have right now.
Want an easy one? Do something that screws Trump. It would be a quick way to start repositioning the nice-guy image to something more maverick.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 9:05 AM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2006
One Accord - The Digital Box Set - kind of but not really
After 5 years of great intentions, I finally put up some mp3 of some music I did while playing in my old gospel worship band - One Accord.
I was thinking the other day it's been 10 years since I've done a full-length album and so it's kind of neat 10 years after the fact to reflect back on it and put some of it up on the web.
www.derekleverington.com/oneaccord/
Posted by Derek Leverington at 8:22 PM | Comments (0)
March 3, 2006
Why not bulk anti-perspirant?
North americans buy the oddest things in bulk i.e. potato chips, candy, ketchup and all manner of things that it really doesn't matter that much if they run out of.
But who wants to run out of anti-perspirant? And there's not many thing you can be certain that you are going to continue to use for your whole life.
So only have one stick around makes no sense to me anymore.
So, rebel that I am, the other day I went out and bought 3 sticks of anti-perspirant at Shoppers Drug Mart. Cost me about $10 which is lot of money really for what I suspect is something pretty cheap to make. So Gillette, rather than spending millions on how to make fancier razors and charge an extra two bucks for refills, how about you just figure out a nice easy way for me not to ever run of anti-perspirant and pay a little less for it.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)
March 1, 2006
Brown Makes Adrants
Well, it looks like the 3D boards are making a little buzz beyond the local traffic and the people I know who mention it when I run into them at the local Starbucks.
Brown showed up on Adrants this morning and I see that fellow local blogger Eric Eggertson has covered the outdoor on his Mutually Inclusive blog.
These projects have been fun to work on and they are nice outlet (no pun intended) for the creative department to have some fun with.
Neat...
Check out all the Brown outdoor board at Brown's website.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)