Firebrand

Watching the PGA Memorial Tournament, I saw a beautiful ad for Acura to show off the safety of their ACE body structure. I apologize, but it is not on the web as I right this to share. In a setting that looked more like an art gallery than a safety lab, they pulled a stripped Acura MDX frame into what looked like a giant piece of stained hardwood. The details of this advertisement were brillianty used to promote the upscale nature of the brand, as does the context of the ad being played during a golf tournament. Using high speed camers (or maybe computer graphics) they showed how the frame absorbed energy in the front section, but was perfectly rigid in the cabin.

The interesting thing about this ad is that it would be much more effective for Mercedes Benz owned Smart. Don’t get me wrong, this will sell vehicles for Acura, but it would sell a lot of Smart cars. But if a similar ad was made for Smart to abolish the worry about a very small car being unsafe in a crash. The Smart ForTwo is designed to make the the occupant feel like they are surrounded by protective frame, but why they don’t use an ad campaign to dispel this notion. I was faced with this perception when I purchased my Mini Cooper; people would perpetually tell me that they would love to have a small car but they wouldn’t feel safe. Why not abolish this notion, Mercedes Benz?

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By Colin Finkle. Colin Finkle is an award winning industrial designer who works with large multinational brands everyday designing retail displays for FX Displays in Toronto, Canada. He is the principle designer at Firebrand Creative. He also writes for AMD’s FireUser.com blog.

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The views expressed on this weblog are mine alone and do not necessairly reflect the views of my employer, FX Displays.

Last post I talked about ‘red saber tactics.’ Red saber tactics is a Star Wars reference by the guys at Marketing Over Coffee. They are tactics that could be considered questionable. While they can create short term rises in numbers, they come at the cost of the brand’s future. Red saber tactics are on a wide spectrum between benign and pure evil, and where each tactic lies on the spectrum depends on many variables. For example, using a bikini model to sell insurance is a little different than using a model to sell lingerie. But people know the spectrum by feeling what is in their heart.

I listed some common red saber tactics in the last post. As you read through those I bet you thought of one or two industries. Do you like dealing with companies in those industries? Most people don’t.

If you are a marketer in one of these industries than you may feel that you need to lower yourself to the level of your competition compete. I believe the opposite.

Dirty industries are great opportunity to create great, trusting relationships with customers. Just as a stagnant product category is an opportunity for a game changing product; an untrustworthy industry is a golden opportunity to develop a trusted brand. There are come pretty good side effects of having a trust worthy brand relative to other brands in the industry. Side effects like extreme customer loyalty, high word of mouth, endorsement, testimonials, consistent revenue, and higher ROI from advertising. Some of the side effects of being a Brand on Fire.

It only stands to reason that if you are holding a green lightsaber in a sea of red lightsabers, your going to get noticed. But you have a lot of Sith to fight through. But trust in the light side you must!

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By Colin Finkle. Colin Finkle is an award winning  industrial designer that works with large brands everyday designing displays for FX Displays in Toronto, Canada. He is the principle designer at Firebrand Creative. He also writes for AMD’s FireUser.com blog.

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In the last post, I talked about how design and marketing need to work so closely together in a consumer products company that they should be the same department. One of the reasons that this needs to be is so that there is tangible threads though the industrial design and promotion of a product for consumers to make mental connections with.

I am not talking about high level, intangible vision statements; I am talking about concrete, easily recognizable and executable elements that can repeat themselves both in the product, TV spots, website, print ads, and display fixtures. “Sexy curves” or “light and airy” is not good enough. While having a vision with descriptors is a good thing, it is not tangible enough to be interpreted and implemented the same by different designers. You will waste alot of resources getting new iterations from different designers to get it to match. The threads need to be so tangible that you could write them in a spec, which you should do.

The best example I have come across is the black leather texture on the back of the Blackberry Bold. The back of the Blackberry Bold is black plastic, but it is textures with the relief of a rough leather. A great design element in itself; it reminds me of a high end wallet which is stored and treated similarly to a PDA, and positions the new product as high quality and high end for wealthy business people. It also give some grip for the hand. Well Blackberry uses that Blackberry texture as a background in their website and advertisements. While few customers will ever consciously make the connection between the product and the promotion, it will give them a sense of congruency and commonality in the sub brand. It makes the promotion dollars go further as well, because the tight branding bridges the mental gap between the product and the promotion. (Customer in store: “Oh yeah, I saw the ad for this on The Mentalist last night.) As a fixture and display designer, I know that is an element that I can pick up on to display the product.

This is a tricky thing to implement without constraining designers, of both the industrial, interaction and graphic variety. If you spec it out before the concept generation starts, than industrial designers will let good ideas die on the drawing board because they can’t see how the tread would be implemented. The best part of the design process to write the spec is in the preliminary phase. This is after the product concept has been generated and evaluated. The product hasn’t taken it’s final form yet, but the bones are there. At this point, the industrial designer can come up with ideas for the common thread, and then get feedback on it from the marketing / graphic design. (Eg. Designer: “Can you pick up on these parallel glowing horizontal lines in the advertising?” Marketer: “Yes, I could see that as an element on this print advertisement already.”)

Having the common thread through both the product and promotion will be a great step in creating a 360 degree consistant branding experience. Having that consistant brand experience will allow you to capitalize on the brand you have built in consumers mind, and build it further.

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By Colin Finkle. Colin Finkle is an industrial designer that works with large brands everyday designing displays for FX Displays in Toronto, Canada. He is the principle designer at Firebrand Creative. He also writes for AMD’s FireUser.com blog.