Glass Is Life™ promotes the quality of glass packaging; it’s benefits to brands, our health and the environment, using a number of glass ambassadors from around the world.

Working with creative from the campaign’s creators, New York business-to-business advertising specialists Doremus, we rolled out the campaign across print and new media executions.

The campaign has been a great success, and Di Marca was engaged to develop creative that incorporated the Glass Is Life™ theme into some specific product advertising.

We began with O-I’s family of bottles for sparkling wine, which is the most flexible on the market, with sizes ranging from 375mL to 750mL in a variety of four different colours. With this in mind, we set about looking at how we might go about communicating this to winemakers in a way that was beautiful and striking, always making sure that glass is the hero.

Now that it has been published we can finally share it! Once again it was great working with Bandits & Co., who helped bring our creative concept to life.

Over the coming months we’ll be showcasing more of the Glass Is Life™ work we’re currently working on with O-I.

Dean Millson; Di Marca Senior Account Manager.

Over the past six months the hottest topic in branding for business is: How does a business take advantage of Twitter to enhance their brand positioning?

Twitter can help build the perception of your business if it is used responsibly, effectively and controlled. Think about it from your customer’s or client’s perspective. Do they really want to know via Twitter that you are at the airport waiting for a flight or enjoying coffee at your favourite cafe? Is it really important to let the world know? I don’t think so and, unless you’re a celebrity, don’t really believe it adds any value to your brand.

The business conversations I’ve been having over the last few months tend to paint social media, especially Twitter, as adding to the clutter of a busy business life and not adding any real worth. A colleague of mine, who I persuaded to make his own Twitter account, quickly found himself in a sea of meaningless mumbo-jumbo that he saw little value in wading through to find anything important. I’m sure this could be passed off as, ‘he was following the wrong people’, (or people who think they are celebrities), and he very well could be.

This brings me to the point of writing this article:

If you choose to use the power of Twitter to help build your brand, it can be a two edged sword.

One side of the sword allows you to cut through the marketplace clutter and directly reach customers with information they would find helpful. Interesting, relevant or even humorous information they feel is good enough to ‘retweet’ and pass onto others. Now this is starting to sound like it has value in engaging your market. 

The other side of the sword has Twitter becoming a serious threat to corporate information protection. Twitter’s greatest asset, many-to-many messaging, can become its greatest weakness. If not handled responsibly and controlled, it can get out of hand very fast and cause quick damage to your business, brand and your reputation.

Also there is the ‘no value factor’ of the messaging you are tweeting under the banner of your brand. There really is only one way to add value to your brand and that is to tweet information your audience will find so enjoyable to read they forward (retweet) it onto their networks. When using twitter to engage our audiences we have to be responsible for our brand communications not being seen as the next best thing to spam.

I endorse companies using Twitter appropriately to engage their customers and create new audiences. There are over 50 million Tweets a day, so start considering and putting down some brand guidelines that make your communications relevant, valuable and engaging to your audience.

Seven important guidelines to help using Twitter to build your Brand:

1. Importance of planning: Using Twitter as part of your Social Media strategy must be carefully planned & considered. Treat Twitter with the same respect and importance as you apply to any other marketing or communications activity your business undertakes.

2. Focus & Target your market - To gain the most benefit from your efforts it is important to narrow your focus, target your market and write in a style they will enjoy.

3. For best brand results - Content must have consistent and quality and be aligned to your Brand Strategy.

4. What is your publishing approvals process? Put processes in place to ensure you’re not the next brand to make the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The last thing you want is something being published that you regret later on. We’ve all read the disaster stories in the tabloids. 

5. Write quality not quantity - The Twitter message (tweet) limits you to write 140 characters. If you want to say more, or use the tweet as a way to push traffic to the entire article in your blog, or on your website, think quality not quantity.  Generate information that’s interesting enough for your audience to talk about. Write short articles that hook them into looking forward to what you publish next. 

6. Keep It Simple - Don’t use a $50 word when a 50 cent word will get your message across. 

7. It’s OK not to be the smartest person known to mankind - Tell your story in an engaging way, share your knowledge and write articles and blogs your audience will find enjoyable to read, talk about and retweet to their networks.

Be responsible with your Twittering and look after your greatest business asset, your Brand.

Steve Alley
Managing Director

The supersite billboard advertises the event on the corner of Grattan and Swanston Streets.

The Australian Boat Race encapsulates the long-standing rivalry between two great cities, two great states and two great universities and is the beginning of a brand new tradition, and is now an annual stand alone event, held year about, between each of the two cities. It is set to become a showcase event on each of the cities’ iconic watercourses.

The 2011 Australian Boat Race – Sunday October 30th at 12.00 noon on the Yarra River in Melbourne.

The course will be over 4.2 km starting from Victoria Dock, though the Bolte Bridge, past Southbank, through Princes Bridge and concluding at the MUBC Boathouse.

Women’s Eights Race – Start 12.00 noon

Men’s Eights Race – Start 12.30 p.m.

Medal and Trophy Presentation – 1.00 pm at MUBC, Boathouse Drive River Front.

Watching the race along the North and South banks of the Yarra River
General public can watch the action at multiple spots along the length of the 4.2 km river course, or just sit back and watch the action in one of the many restaurants that line the entire length of the course from Victoria Docks to Southbank and Federation Square.

For more information head to www.australianboatrace.com

If you’re unfamiliar with crowd sourcing, there are quite a number of different companies offering crowd sourced design services over the Internet. How they work is by facilitating what they call a ‘design contest’ situation. The client posts a creative brief wanting a logo for their new business, offering a one-off prize for the winning logo. Designers then submit designs; with the prize awarded to the winning designer in exchange for the rights to use logo the client like the best.

On face value, it’s a pretty attractive offer from a client’s perspective. They see it as an opportunity to set the price the want to pay, engage the talents of multiple designers, and receive a large volume of designs to choose from.

To many new business owners it sounds like a great way to develop the identity for their new brand – but is it really?

The downside to developing your brand’s visual identity by creating a ‘contest’ is the amount of time and professional effort that will be put into work on it. Design becomes a commodity in the context of a ‘contest’. Earning a living becomes a numbers game for the designers involved. Surely your business’ brand identity deserves more respect than that!

If you’re considering going down the crowd-sourcing route to develop your new brand identity, here are a few  things to consider…

Moral Forces v. Market Forces.
Most people would agree that using free labour for profit is wrong in principal, but this is essentially the principal that business models of crowdsourcing websites are based on. They rely on soliciting designers to submit ideas for free. Clients then only pay for the winning design with the ‘prize money’. The websites take a percentage of this, but without the free labour, they don’t actually have a business.

Calling it a ‘design contest’ is very clever brand positioning, because it’s really a commercial transaction where someone is profiting from designers working for free. Some might argue that the success of these crowd-sourcing design sites is proof that its ‘what the market wants’, but when it’s exploitative does that make it right?

Is it original, and are you protected?
Unless you’re dealing with a professional designer who will take responsibility for their work and stand for its authenticity then you really can’t be sure what you’re getting is original. Crowdsourcing treats design as a commodity with an emphasis on quantity over considered, tailored or unique solutions.

What happens if you find out that your brand’s new logo looks an awful lot like something else, or worse, someone claims that your design infringes their copyright? Well, after a quick look through a number of the terms and conditions across the various crowd-sourcing websites, here is a clause to be aware of that I found in some form on the crowdsourcing websites I looked at…

You indemnify [The Company] its agents, officers, employees, and third party providers (“Indemnified”) against any loss, cost, expense or damage (including legal costs on a full indemnity basis) which any of the Indemnified suffer or incur as a direct or indirect result of:

– any breach by you of any representation, warranty or term of this Agreement;

– any infringement by you of the Intellectual Property Rights of a third party including in respect of any Third Party Work; and

– any legal proceedings threatened or initiated against [The Company] by a third party as a result of the events described in above;

– any breach by you of your obligations to a third party, including another Customer or Designer.

What does this mean? Well it means that you’re on your own. In accepting the design you also accept all responsibility for it’s authenticity and copyright. You have no right to a refund, and should you need to start again and develop a new logo then you’ll have to throw out that stationery and all those brochures that you invested in and re-print them too (never-mind any of the brand equity that you worked hard to associate with your logo).

So there are some risks to consider, but I’ve left the most compelling point until last…

Do you know what to look for?
Let’s say that you’re not concerned with the ethical implications, you’ve run your competition and have received original designs from your contestants. You’ve received 20 or more designs, from 5 different people from around the world—what a bargain! All of them are a response to your creative brief, but they all look completely different. So how do you choose your ‘winner’?

Will you choose the blue one because you like blue, or will you choose the logo with the bird on it because you like birds? You like the font Arial, but is that the right font to choose to represent your brand? Is that the correct slogan? Where does it position your brand? What is it communicating to the marketplace? How do you know you’re making the right decision?

What you can’t get from crowdsourcing is the knowledge, expert advice and experience that is part of working with a professional. Great branding is as much about knowing what ideas to discard, as it is about knowing what ideas to put forward and why.

The value of a professional relationship.
The value in a one-on–one relationship with a branding professional is the knowledge and experience they bring to the process. This business relationship will ensure that your new creative is done correctly and it becomes a valuable asset to your business that you will benefit from for years to come.

If you’d like to talk to someone about the merits of a real-life, face-to-face business relationship that will build your brand and grow your business then why not give us a call?

Dean Millson; Di Marca Senior Account Manager.

The purpose of the brand strategy is to provide a clearly defined framework to align the branding effort with the business effort. At the same time motivating and inspiring those charged with developing the brand so that it resonates and positively impacts with people.

In order for the brand to succeed for the long-term, the brand strategy must be aligned to the business plan. This alignment is critical. When the brand strategy is implemented and embraced by your Company, the business plan comes to life in the marketplace.

Today, there are a wide number of companies that think they are branding when they are actually just slapping their logos on marketing material and hoping for results. A brand is not a logo, corporate identity, company, product or service. A brand is your Company’s reputation and lives in the mind of your customer.

If you invest in branding without a clearly defined brand strategy, it is like taking a long road trip and navigating from A to B without a plan. Pointing your car in the general direction of the destination may get you to B in the long run, however, the road you could have taken with a clearly developed plan would have made the journey faster and more enjoyable and rewarding.

In today’s cluttered and competitive marketplace there may be no distinguishable differences or obvious benefits between brands. By taking the viewpoint that ‘products and services are the same’, your brand strategy and positioning is everything!

A truly great brand will be the result of a clearly defined brand strategy and great branding. The more focused and aligned the brand strategy and application is, the more effective and positive the impact and associations will be.

Brand clarity leads to power.

Steve Alley, Di Marca Creative Director

The customer’s experience of your brand is created from all the interactions they have with your business, product or service. Brand experience is created by turning your brand strategy into a positive customer experience at every point they can contact or interact with your brand.

Brand experience equates directly to the value, trust and reputation of your business and lives in the mind of your customer.

We can’t build the brand with facts and figures alone. Emotion is why people engage. Creating simple emotionally driven brand experiences that align with the brand strategy will result in powerful and memorable branding that people immediately connect with.

A brand is a living entity and every moment of every day you write the next chapter in your brand’s story; when your receptionist answers the phone, when a guest is greeted, a product is sold, a meal is served, when your accounts department handles a question about an invoice. Every one of the hundreds of interactions adds to your brand story and reputation in the same way the advertising campaign, exhibition, public relations or your website does.

At the end of the day, your brand is defined by people, not companies, organisations, market places or the general public. It is shaped by individuals creating everything from customer service to product innovation to marketing material. Your brand lives in individual people’s minds and is defined by each person creating their own ‘truth’ about your brand based on their brand experience.

Your people are your most valuable asset in delivering what your brand stands for. Empower them to deliver the brand experience at all touch points and start building your brand today.

When you engage enough people who have aligned thoughts, emotions and pictures in their minds about your product or service, you have a strong brand.

Steve Alley, Di Marca Creative Director

When you create an integrated communication and visual language, you will maximise exposure, increase comprehension and generate higher levels of familiarity and response for your brand.

Today, there is a wide range of media available for marketers to promote their products and services ranging from traditional advertising, TV/Cinema, brochures, outdoor, PR, though to websites and social media such as Twitter and Facebook. This is called 360°marketing.

When you control your brand’s visual style and communication across this media is not about restricting the creative effort by producing marketing material that all looks the same. It’s about creating a powerful communication style that is immediately associated with your brand and stands out in today’s crowded marketplace.

Therefore, all tactical and brand marketing materials should be developed to have an integrated look and feel that is unique to your brand and distinguishes it from the competition. This aspect of branding creates a system that unites and reinforces a consistent and cohesive brand visual style and message. The ultimate aim is immediate brand recognition of your Company’s products and services at whatever point the brand is accessed, regardless of whether the brand identity is present or not.

When you create brand and marketing material it is a substantial investment for your company. Make your investment pay dividends for your brand by implementing 360% marketing.

Steve Alley, Di Marca Creative Director

That moment when your customer interacts with your product or service is the ‘touch point’ where trust and reputation is either created or destroyed through their experience of your brand.

These moments of truth are happening hundreds, even thousands of times a day for your brand.

Controlling the brand experience across all touch points is critical to the success of your brand. Touch points are all the points a customer can come into contact with the brand. The brand and its reputation is built in the mind of the customer by creating positive, and motivating images, emotions and associations that are consistent in delivery and create a clear, focused image for the brand.

Every time the public, a customer or employee experience your brand, they file a response to the brand in their mind. These responses are built up over time and become the ‘story’ they tell and what they believe to be true about your product or service. The question is; what story are your customers telling about your brand?

I was flying to the US a couple of years ago on Christmas Eve, the busiest day of the year for an airline. Arriving at Reno Airport, I found myself staring at the baggage carousel and realizing my baggage was not there. Having travelled the best part of a day, navigated LAX Airport and finally arriving at Reno ready to drive to Lake Tahoe, California, lining up at ‘Lost Baggage’ was certainly not on the itinerary my travel agent had planned for me.

Lost Baggage Claims for an airline is a big, hairy and ugly touch point where delivering a memorable brand experience could be challenging. However, at the moment of truth, JetBlue delivered a perfect response to my lost baggage, made me feel comfortable and assured me the problem was in hand and my bags would be delivered to Lake Tahoe tomorrow before noon, Christmas Day.

It all happened smoothly, with great communication and the right amount of concern for my situation. I felt like I was their only customer. I actually had a great customer experience at a very difficult touch point for JetBlue’s brand and I’m still talking positively about my experience today.

JetBlue had a strategy, and its people were well trained to deliver an experience that has resulted in a happy, returning, and loyal customer.

You need to use every available touch point, even the big hairy ugly ones (we all have them) to spark dialogue and build an ongoing relationship with your customer that delivers a brand experience that will keep them coming back for more.

Remember, if your customer doesn’t win, your business loses!

By Steve Alley, Di Marca Creative Director; Published in: 3004 NEWS – Issue 40, Summer 2010