A friend turned me on to a great story on Studio 360 about signage for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site. Here’s the dilemma: how do you design a symbol that will instantly communicate ‘danger’ to future generations? Think about it. Nuclear waste remains dangerous for thousands of years. The site needs signs that don’t rot or deteriorate rapidly, and those signs must warn future archeologists about the dangers of the treasure inside without much explanation. The future explorers might not speak our language. How do you create a mark that intuitively deters people? It’s not as easy as you might think. A skull and crossbones sounds good on the surface, but it’s also a mark that is associated with pirates … and treasure. By trying to forewarn the treasure hunter, you might actually incentivize him to dig to his death.

The challenge reminds me of a great article penned by Sidney J. Levy and Philip Kotler back in 1971. In “Demarketing. Yes, Demarketing,” they asked somewhat hypothetically how marketing might apply to reverse market situations. We’re very familiar with the conventional use of marketing–trying to drive demand for products and services when there is ample supply. But they asked if marketing, and branding, could be used to discourage customers. Certainly, some marketers have used this in a widespread fashion with dangerous products, such as cigarettes. Levy and Kotler described the tricky process of using demarketing to reduce demand in unfavorable business segments, and they described the ethical issues in doing so. But, while much of their work focused on marketing practices and policies, they didn’t address the big symbolic question: how do you create a brand that discourages product use. It’s worth contemplating. Sometimes, thinking about questions such as these helps the marketer to better the brands that must do the opposite.

This is from a presentation I gave earlier in the week to a large technology company. It’s a mix of legacy content from Legendary Brands and new content from my upcoming book, Brandlore.

One of the most fascinating ways to study brand equity is to study the deviants–the “dark side” of branding. For anyone who thinks that a brand doesn’t have power, look no further than the Mongols, an outlawed US motorcycle gang.

The Mongols took the extraordinary step of securing a trademark for their logo. The brandmark is synonymous with trouble, so much so that the US Department of Justice successfully petitioned for, and was granted, control of the trademarked logo. As a result, the government has the right to seize possession of any item bearing the gang’s logo. The landmark case is causing a first amendment fire storm, but I think branding is the really interesting part of the story. First, you have an example of a government taking control of trademark rights and using those rights to enforce the law. Second, you have a great case of a legendary brand — a mark that is associated with a belief system that drives a narrative and a culture. It is a great example of a brand as the centerpiece of a narrative and social conflict. The brand can literally get you arrested–or at least detained.

Too many brands and advertisers try to sell you on cultural norms — you should use our product because everyone else does. They try to pander to social paranoia. There’s nothing I love more than a brand that says, “maybe you’re not for us.” The new Miller High Life campaign achieves that goal. It takes a decidedly strong point of view with a comic twist. It’s tied to sports and manhood and common sense, and it delights in every way. I may actually be thirsty for a Miller.

I scoured the web to find some examples, but the campaign is still too new. Check out the new Cinemax rebranding. In the high stakes world of premium cable, Cinemax has finally stepped up to the plate. It’s too early to tell whether or not their programming and scheduling will measure up, but the new brand campaign is clever and distinct.
In case you were wondering, they have not abandoned their late night platform. I’m not sure it fits with their new positioning, but it’s there, nonetheless.

I spend a fair amount of time coaching clients on how to apply their brand voice. Brand voice is most often associated with a brand’s personality. It guides the tone and style of verbal and visual identity. It’s easiest to understand brand voice when reviewing copy. Sometimes, the way the brand chooses to express itself in words just feels wrong. When that happens, we say the brand is not “in voice.”

Sometimes, the words a brand uses are out of voice but the brand experience still feels consistent. When that happens, it’s usually the visual system kicking in. Because our minds are wired to read more from pictures than words, we skip over the inconsistencies in the verbal expression and read the visual elements that are consistently in voice. Which leads me to the topic of this short post. (more…)

The (maybe not so) latent nerd in me still gets fired up about NASA and the space program. These photos of a recent Discovery launch are a great insider’s look at how the orbiter is assembled, prepped and launched.

I’m fascinated by the NASA brand. It has such a rich narrative legacy, and yet in recent years, it seems to have lost some of its luster. The agency is still as vibrant and exciting as it was 20 years ago, but the brand system is falling apart. It’s time for some branding.