Laurence Vincent

"Brand value is very much like an onion. It has layers and a core. The core is the user who will..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:34:13 -0700

“Brand value is very much like an onion. It has layers and a core. The core is the user who will stick with you until the very end.”

- Edwin Artzt

nevver: Poorly drawn lines

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:15:47 -0700

nevver:

Poorly drawn lines

nevver: Ads of the World

Thu, 16 May 2013 20:28:17 -0700

nevver:

Ads of the World

I’ve been so uninspired by advertising … and then...

Mon, 13 May 2013 20:57:23 -0700

I’ve been so uninspired by advertising … and then this came along.

Dollar Shave Club: Part III

Fri, 10 May 2013 20:50:00 -0700

When I was doing interviews for the release of Brand Real, I was frequently asked which brands are “doing it right?” It’s a tricky question. The response from most is “Apple.” I purposefully don’t say that. I look for great branding in unexpected places. And it was about this time last year that I started talking about Dollar Shave Club. Like many others, I was struck by the introductory video that went viral and made the company an instant sensation on YouTube. But I liked DSC for more reason than a clever video. I became a member and I was delighted by the consistency of branding at every touch point in the experience—from web to package.

Today I received the brand’s latest endeavor—a starter kit that includes a new product: Dr. Carver’s Shave Butter. Once again, the brand doesn’t disappoint. Here’s photos from the unboxing:

One year in, the brand keeps to its no-nonsense creative approach: cardboard and stickers. But it’s got personality.

Once inside the box, the confident voice and familiar artifacts surface. I love the concept of a “better bathroom” for men.

As I have come to expect every month, there’s the fortune cookie style message in a packing card. Agreed: starting a land war in Asia is unwise.

OK, brand storytellers, take note. At the end of last year I was asked to participate in a survey by DSC. It asked questions about how much of a fit a shaving cream product would be for DSC. Apparently members agreed with me and said it was a good idea. But the great branding bit here is a continuation of a thread in the YouTube video. Remember Pop-Pop? The “handsome-ass” grandfather who had one blade … and polio? He surfaces here with the introductory card on Dr. Carver’s Shave Butter.

On the flip side of the introductory card is an instruction set, and again that tone of voice that hooked me at the start is alive and well. “Let your face marinate in the butter for about 15 seconds. This is approximately enough time to remind yourself just how much ass you’re going to kick today.”

Cards out of the way, let’s see what’s inside. The sticker and tissue paper may be a bit much, but you’re a member so go with it.

Everything on the inside sticks to the script. It’s clean design that consistently makes you feel good about taking care of your face. It’s not frilly and it feels like products of high quality.

And the writer in me love’s the consistent tagline: Shave time. Shave money. This is a brand that exceeds expectations through product, through tonality, and through design.

Emptyage: Generation X Doesn't Want to Hear It

Fri, 10 May 2013 05:38:12 -0700

Emptyage: Generation X Doesn't Want to Hear It:

Earlier generations have weathered recessions, of course; this stall we’re in has the look of something nastier. Social Security and Medicare are going to be diminished, at best. Hours worked are up even as hiring staggers along: Blood from a stone looks to be the normal order of things “going…

A note from my generation.

A fascinating look back at brand identity design circa 1969 with...

Wed, 08 May 2013 12:45:00 -0700

A fascinating look back at brand identity design circa 1969 with the legendary Saul Bass on assignment for AT&T.

Scenes from a dinner

Tue, 07 May 2013 05:00:03 -0700

Scenes from a dinner

I received this Fuji X100S about 3 weeks ago for my birthday....

Sun, 05 May 2013 16:07:44 -0700

I received this Fuji X100S about 3 weeks ago for my birthday. All my photography friends have been raving about it. The phrase “the best camera ever” keeps surfacing. I have to say, the more I play with this little gem the more I love it. You can take it everywhere and the quality is beautiful.

It’s tough to be a pug.

Sun, 05 May 2013 16:00:29 -0700

It’s tough to be a pug.

Photo

Sun, 05 May 2013 15:52:31 -0700

The Call to Adventure in Cupertino

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 07:58:00 -0700

I’ve been asked the same question for the past week: Is Apple’s brand on a decline?

Some who asked were from the media, others were clients. Today, the market will ask the same question and await clarity in the answer Apple provides when it releases its earnings report.

Why are so many obsessed with Apple’s brand health? The obvious reason is that Apple has been the center of our attention for so long that we naturally want to see what happens next. But there are other factors at play. There’s a new king on the throne and we aren’t sure what to think of him. He’s clearly not Steve Jobs, but we can’t match him to a clear archetype. He’s a mystery. Mystery breeds speculation.

Second, Apple gained our attention by being a magician. Once a year it wowed us with a technological feat that left us asking, “how’d they do that?” Lately, Apple has moved away from Vegas-worthy spectacles of innovation. Instead, it’s been serving up a steady stream of incremental improvements to existing platforms. The consumer response is akin to an audience subjected to Chris Angel doing routine card tricks. Our expectations from Apple are very high. It has promised us “insanely great” technology from a company that believes you must “think different.”

Finally, consumers love their heroes to fall. If the story doesn’t end the moment after you slay a giant you can be sure the audience expects some new foe or unfortunate event to surface. When it doesn’t, when the brand lingers to long in “happily ever after,” we start looking for a new hero (Samsung) and hoping for something to put our old hero back in the fight. At the moment, Apple is no longer a challenger brand. It’s the emperor. And consumers suspect the emperor is complacent.

As a life long Apple fanboy, I hope our emperor reconnects with the people and embarks on a bold new adventure. Only then will people stop asking me if the Apple brand is in trouble.

"The photograph itself doesn’t interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality."

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:27:20 -0700

“The photograph itself doesn’t interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.”

- Henri Cartier-Bresson

Branding by Price

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 14:34:00 -0700

We don’t always think about pricing as a branding decision, but for some customers price sets an expectation about your brand’s quality. Price may also reinforce a belief inside the person making the purchase.

For example, when buying a bottle of wine, many consumers assume that the higher priced wines taste better than lower priced wines. Or, they assume the higher priced wine is less of a risk than the lower priced wine. This effect is amplified in direction proportion to the consumer’s knowledge of the brands she is evaluating. But it can also be driven by an internal belief about one’s passion for and/or sophistication about wine. There are some consumers who won’t buy lower priced wines that may, in fact, be quite good.

The relationship between price, perceptions of quality and internal beliefs can have a profound effect. For example, a number of years ago Dell ran a famous advertising campaign featuring a college-age student who proclaimed his enthusiasm about being able to afford a computer by uttering, “Dude, I got a Dell!” The campaign became a catch phrase that made an indelible link between Dell and affordable value. Unfortunately, it also had the unintended consequence of scaring some IT professionals away from Dell as an enterprise server solution. These customers perceived Dell’s low price positioning as an indicator that its hardware was not high equality enough to power their company’s network infrastructure. With their professional reputation on the line, the link between price and quality often impeded a rational analysis of functional value.

A recent study published in the March issue of the Journal of Consumer Research took a closer look at how price functions as an indicator of quality. Specifically, it examined the types of customers who are most likely to use price as an indication of quality. It validated previous studies that found that customers who view brands holistically (they look at the big picture) are more likely to connect price with quality. These holistic thinkers are most prevalent in eastern cultures. However, this new study found that price becomes an important link to quality across nearly all segments when the product was positioned as being symbolically important to the consumer’s life. In other words, when the product or brand was positioned to relate to consumer’s core identity, price became a far more reliable predictor of perceived value, and a strong moderator of purchase behavior.

For brand marketers, there are several implications to this study. First, if you have a premium-priced product, you may be able to gain share and grow sales by targeting interdependent cultures that are apt to think holistically and equate a high price with high quality. It is no coincidence that Asia and middle eastern markets are consistently the top buyers of luxury goods.

However, this study should also encourage marketers to spend more time considering how price can play an important role in your overall brand strategy. Though it may frighten product managers and financial analysts to price higher than competitors, many brands have an opportunity to charge more for their product or service and increase the attachment consumers will have to that product or service. Like so much in branding, this potential depends on how well the brand is aligned with a consumer segment’s values and beliefs. The more the brand is symbolic of their self-concept, the more willing a consumer will be to pay a premium price—a price that connotes quality and validates belief.

your junk deserves PMS 424

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:19:48 -0700

adverve:

Now there’s Pantone underpants - or Underpantones, if you will, for boys and girls who love things in wonderful designer-friendly color. Genius. (Thanks, Eliza!)

explore-blog: In 1987, Ebert’s words of encouragement made a...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:11:27 -0700

explore-blog:

In 1987, Ebert’s words of encouragement made a strong impression on me, a brainy fat kid who felt less comfortable in his skin than in the darkness of a movie theater. I didn’t grow up to be a movie critic (or a journalist or an actor). But in that year, I began to feel more confident in myself as a writer. I found my voice, and in time, felt less awkward in my body.

The letter Roger Ebert send a teenage boy who aspired to be a film critic. Also see Ebert’s advice on writing and life and how Alfred Hitchcock had similar impact on a boy’s life.

"The proper measure of success is not how much you’ve closed the distance to some far-off goal..."

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 20:52:13 -0700

“The proper measure of success is not how much you’ve closed the distance to some far-off goal but the quality of what you’ve done today.”

- Justice Sonia Sotomayor

OSH catalog with fresh look and clever tone of voice #rebrand

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 10:45:43 -0700

OSH catalog with fresh look and clever tone of voice #rebrand

The Name Exchange

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 09:29:00 -0700

Instagram photo by mommysanchez85

I have a confession to make. I am terrible with names. Though I never find it difficult to create brand names for clients, I struggle to remember the name of the person I just met. Most of the time, I feel anxious that I will get someone’s name wrong, so I end up referring to them in the most generic way possible. “That’s a really interesting point … you … guy with the pink shirt.”

While my conversational skills are slightly better than the above snippet, I kept thinking about this character flaw on my way home from a busy weekend at South by Southwest, where I met dozens of new people (and numerous new brand names). Many of the people I met knew my name. They greeted me in a lobby with a firm handshake and a confident, personalized introduction. I tended to recall the names of people who knew my name more than people who didn’t. It got me to thinking about the way brands focus on names.

Naming is nearly always a passionate pursuit. Many clients obsess over it. They worry that a wrong name for their project is tantamount to certain doom. They invest a lot of energy into the process, testing names and cylcing through endless discussions and debates about why a name is right or wrong or in need of refinement.

That energy is perhaps misplaced.

It is misplaced because when I confess my personal weakness about names to others in conversation I am often surprised to learn that they suffer from the same affliction. A lot of people struggle to remember names. This is as true for people’s names as it is for brand names. That’s why a lot of my client work is focused on creating names that are easy to remember; names that stick in memory without requiring much conscious thought. That said, I’ve read study after study that indicates that neither recall nor favorability for a brand name is highly correlated with preference. That’s right, your choice of name is a statistically weak driver of preference. Many of my colleagues will attest to the fact that great names generally inherit their equity through experience, not birth or linguistic creativity.

Which leads me to my second observation. Most brands worry about people remembering their names when they should worry more about remembering their customer’s names. The people I recall most from my sojourn to Austin are the ones who greeted me by name when they initiated a conversation. I remember the experience more, and I am more likely to remember their name. Research supports this observation. While brand name recall/favorability is a fairly weak indicator of preference, personalization and engagement during experiences are strong and reliable moderators of preference.

I often say that naming is a dark art. It’s truly a work of art and science. I would be lying if I said that a great brand name doesn’t matter. Great brand names, like great logo designs, can inspire a brand’s audience and give a brand an edge. However, real brands worry more about knowing the names of their customers than they do about having customers know their name. The former goal helps them achieve the latter.

I had the privilege of speaking at The Drucker Business Forum...

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 16:30:00 -0800

I had the privilege of speaking at The Drucker Business Forum with KPCC’s Matt DeBord on Thursday. The topic was Brand Real. We had a sold out audience who asked fantastic questions. Here’s video coverage of the conversation.