Corporate Branding Or What!

On a recent family break to London I happened to spot this delivery van parked up.

I wonder how much they paid for that plate?

Branding Chanel

LV= Is The New Name. Where Is The Website?

Liverpool Victoria has announced their £2m investment in rebranding. The result? LV=

I read about this in The Telegraph this morning with interest because of my interests in branding; as a paying investor and as a search marketer with interests in personal finance.

LV= (LV equals) is one of those rebrands that I suspect will give rise to some discussion and possibly some derision. It’s a bit like MoreTh>n who also chose to include a mathematical operator (or meta character) in their brand name and I’m not convinced it works. To me, LV= and MoreTh>n for that matter creates confusion and uncertainty - how am I supposed to pronounce these names? Furthermore, online, how am I supposed to search for a brand such as LV=?

Apparently, Liverpool Victoria only had 2% spontaneous brand awareness. I’d like to hear what improvement they record in the months ahead. I like the new logo and I hope it works for them. The V looks a bit like a heart to me and I surmise that the company thinks so too by looking at some of the graphics on the company website. According to the company, this is what LV= means

The letters L and V have evolved from our heritage as Liverpool Victoria. The equals sign is a contemporary expression of our mutuality. As a “Society of Equals” we are wholly owned by our members and we have a “one member one vote” approach, unlike plcs with their institutional shareholders.Changing our brand name to something shorter and more memorable, that incorporates in a modern way our values of mutuality, we believe maintains the best aspects of our heritage but sharpens up our delivery.

Of course, I can search for LV= (current results). But does it bring back a relevant result for LV= or Liverpool Victoria? Well no, not at the moment. LV= have at least had the forethought to include a paid search ad to capture unsatisfied searchers. Andrew Girdwood, who I understand works in corporate search marketing, has recently discussed similar issues relating to Lynx For Men.

I know that LV= offer an affiliates programme and brand name bidding is not permitted so that should stop any unwelcome brand related, affiliate traffic. I imagine that domain name flippers will be looking to add to their portfolios though (an area that I have no knowledge of).

I wonder what the URL of the official site will become - or will it just remain as is?

Search Marketing Liverpool Victoria Branding

Spending A Penny Costs A Fiver

Hot on the heels of my post about luxury public loos in New York the UK media has been awash (well I could have said flush!) with the news of a new company that is promoting public toilets (for women).

The Powder Room, operated by the appropriately named WC1 company is, I quote

A world away from the hustle and bustle of Oxford Street is WC1, the ultimate ladies’ convenience.A glamorous urban sanctuary, WC1 is the world’s first one-million-pound powder room. It has been designed with impeccable hygiene and the pursuit of beauty in mind.

Enter the sleek, spa environment and you’ll find five-star facilities and discreet, attentive service.

The Water Closet’s oversized, air-conditioned loos have ample space to change in. The Powder Room features deep seating, large mirrors and make-up-friendly lighting. Fresh flowers scent the air and lounge music plays in the background.

Now, at £5 a visit, it’d better be an enjoyable experience. I’m not sure if a mum visits with 2 young daughters or a baby it’s still just £5. It would appear that you can help yourself to free toothpaste and brush, sanitary items and nappies. You can pay by cash or card.

The company has plans for more outlets and plans to franchise the idea too.

It’ll be interesting to see if takes off …or goes down the pan !

And on a related theme, I often find it funny how one little bit of research leads to something else that I have an interest in (a kind of degrees of separation). How do I link this article with my business interests in ghd straighteners? Find out here.

WC1 Powder Rooms

Branding The Obvious

I guess that there’s a lot to be gained from associating your brand with the requirement that your product fulfills. So I read with interest a blog post about the Proctor & Gamble brand, Charmin tissue paper.

The PR goes like this…

Charmin are operating a 20-stall restroom (public toilet for us UK’ers) in the heart of Times Square at 1540 Broadway, between 45th and 46th Streets, from November 20th to January 1st, calling the service ‘Charmin’s holiday gift to New York’. The restrooms will be open from 8 AM to 11 PM, so that people leaving evening Broadway shows can use the facilities.Charmin Restrooms will offer clean, deluxe bathrooms, baby changing stations, stroller parking, seating areas, and of course lots of luxury toilet paper. Cleanliness will be guaranteed by the presence of one bathroom attendant for every two stalls, cleaning after each use. Charmin is expecting more than 300,000 people to visit the restrooms.

10 staff and cleaned after each use….they must be one of the cleanest public conveniences in the World!

This is a simple but obvious branding exercise as it clearly makes the connection between using a toilet and Charmin tissue paper.

Simple but clever.

Branding Charmin

Elizabeth Arden & Hummer - A Strange Brand Mashup

I’d forgotten I’d kept a cut out press article relating to a very strange brand mashup between the cosmetics and fragrance company Elizabeth Arden and the manufacturer of very large cars Hummer.

Arden have struck a rights deal to the Hummer fragrance and have plans to produce eau-de-toilette and deodorant and market them using the Hummer name. Doesn’t really sound like a winner to me. Why would anyone want to wear a fragrance that has a name associated with a fuel guzzling, eco unfriendly, muscle jeep?

Sweaty chaps in the UK that are in need of industrial strength deodorant can look forward to using Hummer under their arms in the near future !

Branding Arden Hummer

Pink For A Boy?

Why is pink for girls? Well, google answers that here.

In recent years, it appears to me, that the colour pink has rapidly taken off as a brand phenomenon in its own right. Pink is now synonymous with breast cancer charities (along with the pink ribbon). Girls can now buy just about any item they want in pink, from a Motorola mobile to a pair of ghd straighteners (a brand I have commercial involvement with). Sometimes, a pink product is associated with a breast cancer charity and a percentage of the sale is donated to the specified charity (the aforementioned ghd’s being an example). Okay, so maybe there is an element of brand building by associating with a good cause, but research in to breast cancer (or any cancer) is only a good thing.

But what about boys? As far as I’m aware, an equivalent colour branding and associations with “male” charities don’t exist. Are there products for the male market for which a percentage of the sale proceeds goes to a testicular cancer research charity? Is it because testicular cancer does not have the media coverage? What colour would fit the bill anyway? Would it be blue?

Perhaps Lance Armstrong got the branding mix right for everyone? The colour yellow and the inspiring motto LIVESTRONG

Branding Pink Cancer

Bread Brands

Read an interesting article in The Daily Telegraph this morning about the top grocery brands by sales in the UK.

I already knew that the list would include Kelloggs (1st), Walkers (4th) and Stella Artois (10th). Interestingly, just behind Coca-Cola in 8th place came Warburtons the bread company. The Bolton, Lancashire, based company has invested some £100m over the last couple of years to expand the company and appears to be enjoying some success as a result with sales of some £350m.

Apparently, branded bread sales grew by 9% last year with Warburtons sales increasing by 17% and Hovis by 14%. Branded bread sales have well and truely overtaken the supermarkets own-label bread even though the average price of branded loaves is about 85p compared with a much lower 38p for the own-label loaves. Consumers are going for quality it would seem.

What about Hovis? Well, they came in at 11th, one place behind Stella Artois.

Branding Grocery Bread

GHD As A Brand

I’ve been promoting GHD hair straighteners for about 3 years now and whilst doing some research earlier today I’ve realised just how successful the parent company, Jemella, has been at creating and promoting GHD as a consumer brand.

My research led me here - what a great name for a marketing agency! Propaganda and Jemella have worked together since 2002 and have a common link in Julian Kynaston, who is chairman of the former and also marketing director of the latter. Such is the strength of the GHD brand that sales have increased dramatically from £500,000 in 2001 to £46 million in 2004 and a projection of some £90 million for 2005/06. Phenomenal growth in such a short period.

I personally feel that there are at least three factors at work here. Firstly, the original GHD was a far superior product to any other hair straightening iron available (though by no means the cheapest) and secondly an aspirational brand has been carefully developed and nurtured. When any of my wife’s friends mentions hair straighteners, GHD is the only brand that gets mentioned - it’s like a must-have product and I rather suspect the relatively high purchase price gains peer approval too! Finally, in my opinion, the salon-only availability created brand exclusivity…you can’t just get the Argos catalogue out and buy a pair…this helps to create the must-have demand from consumers.

branding - ghd - propaganda

This is not just a title

Just read this which I found quite interesting and it made me think just how much of an impact the recent “This is not just…..” campaigns from M&S (or is it Your M&S or My M&S ?) have had.

Now I must be an ad mans dream when it comes to remembering slogans (strap lines) because I seem to remember so many of them - though not always the product, so there’s a bit of mis-spent budget I suppose.

This site has some more classics, though the hall of fame doesn’t seem to have been updated for a year or two.

Just a couple of my favourites:

• “It does exactly what is says on the tin” …Ronseal
• “The future’s bright. The future’s Orange.” …..Orange

Bran, bikes and bras

I don’t know why but I always find these sorts of statistics interesting….

Bran

Kellogs have 42% of the UK cereals market, ahead of Nestle on 17.5% and Weetabix on 13.8%.
They also occupy 7 of the top 10 positions for best selling cereals, but Weetabix is the number 1 best seller.

Bikes

In the UK, the high street chain Halfords sells 1 in 3 of all the bikes sold in the UK. I find this interesting in part because I’m an owner of 2 mountain bikes and I’d never dream of buying myself a new bike from them - I’d visit a specialist bike shop.

Bras

9 out of 10 pieces of red lingerie is bought by a man. However, 90% of these purchases are then returned by the women they were bought for.

So, as an affiliate, I wonder if I should sign up to Halfords and to some of the lingerie shops?

I’ve no idea how many bikes Halfords sell online, but unless the web prices are lower than the actual shops I guess that a lot of their customers visit the shops to buy a bike (but I’ll look in to it all the same).

I do want to do some affiliate work with the online lingerie shops…so it looks like I need to expect a high level of clawbacks for red lingerie sales.

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