Comments on: Branding: big pipes vs. little ones

By: Grant

Grant — Thu, 19 May 2005 14:10:27 +0000

Anthony, thanks again, that is the other way to do, to allow brand extensions to do all the heavy lifting and to allow the mother ship brand to coast merrily along. I think in a perfect world, the big brands are multivocal, with enough constancy to supply a homing beacon for the consumer, and enough diversity and freshness…um, to be diverse and refreshing. And then there is that focus group problem, that great herd animal that tramples all creativity in its path. Thanks! Grant

By: anthony pigliacampo

anthony pigliacampo — Wed, 18 May 2005 19:42:09 +0000

good points grant. i agree with your opportunity cost assessment, though i wonder whether coke can do better overall by leaving the old standby unchanged and then spinning out a new brand that is filled with ‘innovation’. i find it interesting that whenever coke or pepsi buys a brand, they slowly ruin its uniqueness, eg. snapple. it seems like it would be an easy play to use these brands to both test out innovative design strategies rather than muddle with the staple brands (coke, diet coke, etc). interesting stuff, and i think, having worked extensively with one of the big two as a design consultant, they could both use a big of design to spice up their offerings. actually, they pay consultants tons of money for great work and then it never makes it past the bane of every designers existance….the focus group!!!

By: Grant

Grant — Wed, 18 May 2005 10:30:41 +0000

Anthony, good and useful skepticism; thanks; naturally, we would need to keep some visual identifiers constant; in the Coke case this might be the brand name in Spencerian script; and this is so locked into contemporary culture and our experience of the branding world that i think it would be enough; (naturally all these propositions need testing);

I respect the argument that argues against too much dynamism here; but two points: 1) Coke’s great problem at the moment is that it look relatively lifeless compared to all the brands, 2) this effect will grow worse as contemporary culture grows more lively and changeable (and I think it’s safe to say it will). (It is precisely point 2 that creates point 1.)

In sum, there is a very real opportunity cost for sticking to the old strategies of packaging, that Coke drifts farther from the fountain heads of contemporary culture and becomes increasingly that “boring old standby.”

Thanks. Great question. Best, Grant

By: anthony

anthony — Wed, 18 May 2005 01:47:20 +0000

Great post, though i wonder if people buying the manolo bottle realize they are actually buying a coke, and if that is a good thing or not. even though coke trademarks it, i wonder if the average consumer is sensitive enough to the coke brand to understand the bottle shape and pantone colors associated with it to know that this graphic skin is the consistant soda taste that they came to the store to buy. confronted with this package vs a standard pepsi package, would a consumer who really knows there soda go for the new package or the old standby, with its predictable taste. the new packaging and graphical treatments seem less risky for new brands trying to win consumers, but for the established brands that people know and love, does it really help the bottom line to jazz up packaging?

By: Grant

Grant — Tue, 17 May 2005 11:08:02 +0000

Ed, thanks for the hello. I think MT is disabled url postings and trackbacks as a way of diminishing blog spam. Whatever they’ve done, I am grateful I used to spot 20-30 minutes a day weeding. Best, Grant

Tom, well, no, exactly, the problem is not the conceptual one (how do we reconceptualize the brand so that it can be as dynamic as the culture to which it must respond) but the organizational one (can a group of people locked into a corporation, a corporate culture, and all of the stasis this represents, actually sustain prime the new pump.) And I thought our conversation was particularly grim. Even organizations primed to be more innovative are failing often to get it. We await your book on the topic. Thanks, Grant

Piers

There is no blushing in blogging.

Thanks for a great website.

Grant

By: Piers Fawkes

Piers Fawkes — Tue, 17 May 2005 09:10:28 +0000

(blush)

By: Tom Guarriello

Tom Guarriello — Mon, 16 May 2005 23:15:12 +0000

Yes, Grant, PSFK is a great site, for sure.

Here’s my question: will large brands be able to remain sufficiently organizationally nimble to pull off the kind of fast-paced campaigns you describe, or will “big-companyisms” of the type we discussed the other day gum up the works with “process?”

By: Ed Batista

Ed Batista — Mon, 16 May 2005 21:08:33 +0000

Hey Grant,
Fantastic posts lately. Talked about this one today at my site. I tried using your TrackBack link, but it appears to still be broken. Hope all’s well–