The government are currently reviewing plans to further tighten legislation on how tobacco companies market, extending the current ban on advertising their products by introducing a legal requirement for “plain packaging” on cigarette packets.  This would mean that cigarette packages would be stripped of all visual branding in favour of a government-approved, uniform design.

The idea is part of a longer process proposed by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, who eventually wants to see tobacco companies have “no business” in the UK. Australia implemented the same policy in December of last year, creating a dull, brown packet featuring striking images of the effects of smoking.  While it is still too early to measure the scheme’s effectiveness, Turkey and New Zealand are also considering similar measures.

The plans have led to a contentious, complex issue of the role branding actually plays in the issue of smoking uptake and continued addiction. Specifically, do consumers see and associate a particular brand of cigarettes to a specific emotion which influences buyer behaviour, or is branding used merely to differentiate between products with respect to quality and price?

As a non-smoker myself, it’s hard for me to answer this question, so we’ve gone all BBC and in the interest of balance, here are some thoughts from Greg Smith, our Head of Digital and frequent smoker:

“To me it’s unfair that this is happening to smoking when alcohol is just as large of a problem.

“I don’t think removing the branding will do anything, as they’ve put horrible images on cigarette packets before and they’re just ignored.

“Smoking is more of a social problem than a branding problem, being around smokers is a bigger influence to start yourself than anything.

“It would be better to regulate the contents of cigarettes to make them less addictive rather than keep changing how they are marketed.”

Supporters of the campaign are focussing on how the new look of the proposed packs would potentially be less misleading, showcasing the health warnings rather than pleasing colours and logos. It is also argued that the reduction in branding could make the packets look less visually appealing to children, reducing the number of teen smokers as a result.

Whichever side you’re on, it’s clear that the policy, if implemented, would be a big blow to the companies who have spent years and millions of pounds building their brands, and to all those who continue to work on them now. It will certainly be interesting to see if the plans, if passed, have any noticeable effects on consumer behaviour.

Until then, what are your thoughts?

Bringing a brand to life online can be quite challenging particularly when it involves selling a product that people want to touch and feel. So how can you introduce an element of tactility to a brand online?

The Fine Bedding Company faced this dilemma when they tasked us with developing their new e commerce website. Not only did they want a site that brought their brand to life but they needed the product experience bringing to life too.

This is a brand that is steeped in history, they have been labelled as ‘pioneers’ in the manufacture of award winning duvets and pillows so it was essential that we didn’t compromise this unique status in the online execution of their brand.

With their main trading channels being through store concessions and shop in shop formats, their online representation has historically proved to be a real challenge. They needed to address two things:

1. The quality and benefits of the product, replicating their retail success on the High St.

2. The brand experience and exceptional service delivered by their in-store colleagues.

Our starting point was the brand itself and understanding how they position this in the marketplace. This direction would provide us with the focus we needed to develop a creative and functional solution. Fine Bedding are positioned as being, “The sleep experts”, experts in product manufacturing and experts in advising and selling to their customers, who we also needed to profile in more detail. Who buys from the Fine Bedding range and what do they want from the experience?

Two customer types emerged; those who were loyal to the brand and had been for years, and those who were still exploring the Fine Bedding range, experimenting with the various materials and products the brand had to offer. But the one thing that held both of these groups together is that they wanted the Fine Bedding experience, to feel advised and to feel the product. So our approach was to bring the product experience to life online by combining design, content and navigation.

Of course we could never offer the same ‘tactile’ experience of the product but we could make customers feel they were buying into the brand. So the site was firstly mapped out to deliver a relevant structure of navigation and content, to bring to life the ‘sleep expert’ proposition. An actual sleep expert was created, a character that portrayed the staff that work in Fine Bedding outlets to make users feel as though they were dealing with a human being, a real personality.

The front end design was created to mirror the simplicity of their stores, to make it easy for customers to navigate, locate and buy the products they know and love. So we developed a fully integrated eCommerce system which links directly with their wholesale operations and distribution network. It’s early days yet but online sales figures are on the up!

Bringing a brand to life online isn’t easy, especially when it has such a huge offline presence to live up to. But we’re confident we’ve succeeded and that Fine Bedding customers really can feel as well as see the difference online.

Project background

Located in Stockport,  Merseyway Shopping Centre was one of the first of it’s kind  and has been part of the retail landscape since the 1960s. Over time, a barrage of negative publicity, competition from out-of-town developments such as the Trafford Centre, and a declining public opinion led to dwindling footfall figures, retailers leaving and the centre being placed into administration.

Merseyway needed a refresh; one that directly addressed the problems it was facing, breath new life into the old brand and re-establish its connection with the local Stopfordians.

Old Merseyway branding

Before anything new could be developed, it was important to really get to grips with the aspects that weren’t hitting home in the old branding.  What really resonated was the potential that Merseyway had been missing through dated, dull visuals and a hugely inconsistent brand identity.

It was no surprise that Merseyway had lost its connection with the locals, as the vast differences in brand imagery and the lack of a clear brand message meant that consumers had no consistent identity to connect with.

The dated imagery also made Merseyway look tired, to the point of appearing as if it were shutting down, which led Stopfordians to start looking elsewhere for a contemporary shopping experience.

This research instantly highlighted our key objectives for this project:

1. To develop a new positioning, one with a clear message that would remind people of all the brands Merseyway had to offer, whilst resonating with the existing opinion they had of Merseyway
2. To unify Merseyway’s disjointed brand identity creating a more consistent brand experience
3. To inject Merseyway with a more vibrant visual identity, underpinned by the chosen theme

Laying the foundations

To be able to build that connecting bridge between Merseyway and Stopfordians, we got to know the locals, and submerged ourselves into their mindset.

What became apparent was that many locals were surprised by the number of big brands that Merseyway had.  The convenience aspect of its old positioning sent out the wrong message of Merseyway being a budget shopping location, and wasn’t communicating the array of top retail names it had to offer.

After extensive testing of several positioning statements and ways that people would realistically reappraise Merseyway, ‘Famous brands, fabulously close’ was chosen to not only become our internal brand proposition, but also the consumer-facing strapline which would underpin both our creative and communications strategy.

Bringing it to life

From a creative standpoint, the dull, disjointed brand Merseyway previously had was redesigned into one that was friendly, fresh and vibrant; one that emanated the established brand positioning and would instantly connect with the local Stopfordians.

For the logo, we discovered that the centre is built on stilts over the river Mersey. This element of heritage couldn’t be ignored, so we symbolised water with the flowing feature to the two ‘Y’s.

For the visual brand platform, the concept of ‘The giving tree’ was created as a way to symbolise the entire “Famous brands, fabulously close” theme in a manner flexible enough to use in brand and seasonal events promotions.

The idea represents an abundance of choice, all within easy reach, as well as the positive message of rejuvenation and growth, which fitted the wider project at Merseyway.

To overcome the previous brand’s problem of a lack of consistency, we also developed a series of brand guidelines.  This ensured that all those involved in promoting the new brand represented it in a consistent manner, which has been applied throughout all the centre’s communications.

So what did people think?

Well, the feedback received from both internally and externally has been amazing, with tenants reporting a boost in sales and consumers calling the centre ‘brighter’, ‘livelier’ and ‘vibrant’, showing a positive reappraisal.

Events have been really well supported and the new brand has also attracted new major tenants such as Primark and Costa Coffee, in addition to 100% of existing tenants renewing their leases and an overall unit occupancy level of 91%.

Merseyway has also seen an 8% increase in overall footfall in 2011 and a 78% average increase in weekly website visits compared to the previous year.

Have a look at Merseyway online http://www.merseyway.com or better still why not visit the centre yourself!

For those not familiar with Posterous, it enables users to create simple blogs including multimedia content, which can be easily updated while on the move. The ability to customise the visual appearance of your blog and give it its own subdomain made it very popular with small businesses, who could brand their blog and seamlessly integrate it into their website

Posterous has also been recently seen as a serious upcoming competitor to Tumblr, but for now, their development team will now join Twitter’s to work together under the aim of “making sharing content across the web and mobile devices simpler”.

How Twitter will use the technology Posterous brings currently remains to be seen, although it’s expected that Twitter will at least take advantage of its “Spaces” service, which would potentially allow users to hold private group discussions on Twitter, among other features.  It’s also being rumoured that we may see improvements to the way we share and view media on Twitter as a result of the acquisition, which with Posterous’s focus on making the user interface simple and accessible, would be a welcome feature.

There are, however, concerns about the long-term future of Posterous, with Twitter informing users that, while there are no imminent plans to change the service, there will be “clear instructions” on how to backup/transfer existing content being disclosed in the coming weeks.

Regardless, Twitter has certainly succeeded in snapping up a great, up-and-coming service, whose development team will undoubtedly make a noticeable improvement to the Twitter experience.  And it would be PrePosterous to think otherwise!

(Sorry, couldn’t help it!)

The point being that men should embrace their generally recognised questionable sense of fashion by wearing the worst shirt known to man. The creators clarify that the ShiteShirt is for those who “want to have fun and do something a little off the wall”.

You can only find these shirts online and you don’t get a choice over the shirt you will receive, as the process of buying a ShiteShirt is a complete lottery. You simply fill in your address details, pay a pretty hefty £33 then wait for the surprise of finding out which ShiteShirt has been appointed to you.

Now you may be thinking, £33 is too expensive for a novelty shirt, but I think you’d be surprised about how many people already own them and I can see it only getting worse (or better, depending how you look at it). Bob from Leicester explains, “I never thought owning a ShiteShirt could change my life in such a way. I have literally changed my approach to life. I get high fives and man hugs from the lads and lots of kisses from the girls. I go out much more and love the vibe I get. I love you ShiteShirts.”

I’m not saying that the ShiteShirt is actually life changing but it’s a great idea that will make the two inventors behind it a lot of money. With the company already gaining 150,000 likes on Facebook and distributing their shirts worldwide, they have even declared future plans to expand the ShiteShirt range. The Canadian-duo explain their ultimate goal as being “A sea of ShiteShirters taking over the globe in a mishmash of colorful randomness.”

So there you have it, never underestimate the power of a novelty shirt.

The principal director Sam Moreau explained, “If you look back to origins of the logo you see that it really was meant to be a window. Windows really is a beautiful metaphor for computing and with the new logo we wanted to celebrate the idea of a window, in perspective”.

A good explanation, however I don’t think it quite redeems the logo enough for me. It’s not only that I have issues with the design itself (for example, I don’t instantly see a window, I see a blue version of the St. George’s cross) but it also seems to have lost everything about it that signified Windows, even their trademark colours!

I can see Windows were going for a whole new brand approach. It appears they wanted something clean, fresh and minimal as it is currently more on-trend and stylish, but in my opinion this style of branding is far too similar to that of Apple.

Attempting this minimal look but not as successfully as Apple is a risky idea. Windows have a lot of loyal fans and have a good reputation for many reasons but being slick and trendy is not one of them, so why does their logo try to portray this?

So, for me it’s a case of ‘out with the new, and back in with the old!’

Just like people, you can’t make people fall in love with a brand. Or can you?

It depends on what kind of brand we’re talking about.

Some brands are seen as functional, we need them because they fulfil a requirement we have in our lives. We buy our food from Tesco, but do we really love the brand?

Whereas other brands are really seen as being integral to our lives, they become part of our routine and without them we’d be a bit lost.

Old council branding

On the face of it Cheshire West & Cheshire council  leisure services, doesn’t exactly sound like a brand people would love, but at the heart of the business it had the potential to strike an emotional connection with it’s audience.

Our job was to expose what lay beneath a very corporate, cold looking service and get people to see this brand for what it really was, something that could be at the heart of peoples lives.

Cheshire West & Cheshire council own 17 gym facilities and three golf courses throughout the Cheshire region. As an organisation they are bigger than many of their Private gym rivals such as Total Fitness and David Lloyd. They also offer a greater diversity of services such as Conference Facilities and evening events including a popular Comedy Night held once a month.

But unfortunately the council stigma had resulted in a decline in new members as people saw the Private run gyms as a more attractive proposition, despite the higher membership fees.

So there were three main objectives for this project:

1. To remind people of the range and quality of services offered appealing to a diverse audience base
2. To encourage local people to re appraise the brand and join
3. To enhance the community message as the brand USP, something the Private run companies cannot claim

Name that brand

After submerging ourselves in the market and getting to know the locals, we embarked on a re brand project that involved creating a new name for Cheshire West and Cheshire Leisure services. Through our research it became apparent that this had to be more of a consumer brand, something that positioned it alongside the Privately run competitors and communicate the breadth and strength of offer.

The name Brio was selected following an in depth process of longlisting and legal checks. It’s meaning – to have vitality, energy and enthusiasm – made it the perfect choice.

A supporting strapline was also developed to clearly promote the positioning of this brand in the community. ‘At the heart of life’ captures the diversity of the brand, that it offers a variety of lifestyle activities for everyone to enjoy. It also supports the fact that Brio is on your doorstep. The location of their facilities means that it really is accessible to all and at the very heart of people’s lives.

Bringing it to life

Creatively you will see how we have turned a very corporate brand into something that is friendly, warm, exciting and appealing, everything that will resonate with the local community. From the photography right through  to the tone of voice everything is underpinned by the ‘heart of life’ proposition.

Given the extensive marketing activity undertaken by the business it was also essential that we develop not only a brand guidelines document but a brand story. This ensured that everyone involved in promoting the brand did so consistently and fully understood how to represent the proposition through every communication channel.

So, do people really love the new Brio brand?

Internally we have some amazing feedback from colleagues. They love the vibrancy of the brand and are proud to say that they work for Brio, shedding off the old council stigma. Externally both existing and new members have responded positively. In the first three months of launch, the new Brio website attracted 20,000 visitors and membership enquiries showed an increase of 30% on January 2011.

Take a look for yourself www.brioleisure.org

The advert consists of special high frequency whistles that only dogs can hear, that in theory should lead to a dog’s reaction when they hear it, almost as if they are being communicated with.

Without a doubt this advert has caused quite a stir within the media, with a real mixture of opinions, not to mention what the dogs must be thinking!

The company responsible for this controversy are Bakers, who provide “dog meaty meals” for canines all over the UK. Therefore it surely makes perfect sense for them to aim an  advert directly at their targeted audience – dogs.

Well unsurprisingly this concept has been completely slated by a lot of people, with some saying the advert had no affect on their dog and therefore was a waste of time.

I think these people are completely missing the point, whether the advert makes dogs want to eat Bakers food or not the fact that everyone is talking about it is what makes this advert so clever.

Before this advert, Bakers were not a well renowned dog food brand (compared with Pedigree for example), however now most of the country are talking about them. This will lead to the brand name ‘Bakers’ sticking in people’s minds and possibly swaying their dog food decision when they next go shopping. Especially if they think that Bakers, really are in touch with what their pets want!

The two people responsible are Craig Redman and Karl Mairer. When asked of their motive, the design and illustration duo explained, “The objective of the project was to breathe new life into the space (the underground car park of an award-winning residence in Sydney’s Darling Point by architect Marsh Cashman Koolloos) which, having been rendered in concrete with little inlet of natural light, felt quite dark and heavy,” clarifies Maier.

As the design of car parks is usually based around location, convenience and accessibility, I find it refreshing that two designers have looked past the fundamentals of a car park and have used the geometric architecture to drive their design with sharp angled shapes combined with vibrant and complimentary colours.

However there is a more logical side to this argument. Although the car park presently appears aesthetically pleasing, I do have to admit that the practicality of it does not quite match the visual in terms of success. The fact the floor is the main focal point of the design means that not only will it rarely be seen but in a year or so it will inevitably be left covered in tyre marks. This, in my mind does make the design slightly “floored” (excuse the pun) but does it matter? At the end of the day it’s refreshing to see new ideas in regard to day-to-day design. Car parks are so bleak and dull, anything to make them look more appealing can’t be a bad thing!