Giant Food, a local grocer with stores in Maryland, DC, Virginia and Delaware, has recently undergone a long overdue brand identity refresh.  Their old identity had become stale and quite dated - not nearly as impressive as some of their closest competitors, many of which had recently undergone brand redevelopments of their own:

Here’s what Giant had been working with until just recently.  Notice the heavy dependence on the G:

Their new identity gets rid of the “G” mark, but presents a more ‘fresh,’ colorful image.

While it’s a nice mark, I wonder if they have made a bit of a mistake by not preserving any of the equity they have been building for decades.  They have not only discarded the G mark they’ve worked so hard to drive home, but they have also changed the color palette entirely.  It is a complete departure from the existing brand.  And on top of that, I think it looks a little Bloom-esque both in shape and color scheme.  If I were Giant, I would have perhaps looked to come up with something that is both new and modern, but also preserves some of the decades of brand equity they had built up.

All in all, I think a rebrand was a smart move for Giant Food.  They needed it badly.  It was important for them to take measures to prove that they are keeping up with the competition and trying to stay connected to the needs of their shoppers - coming to market with a dated, ineffective brand was not a good way to do this, so the new identity should serve them well.

I’d love to hear what you think?!

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

It’s Monday, and aside from missing our favorite blogger and marketing director, Garret, the first thing we all had to talk about was how amazed we were after seeing the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony Friday night. If you haven’t seen it yet - there aren’t many videos that do it justice online yet but here’s a Dutch video that gives an idea. It’s hard to find words to describe the visual power of mass participants as the 2,008 performers created a human kaleidoscope on our screens. Take a look and most likely you will find yourself dropping your jaw in amazement as we were.

Check back this week for some noteworthy design highlights that went into the 2008 Olympics.

As brand marketers, we always seek to find businesses and organizations that have solid business models and a true unique quality that makes them better than the competition - and allows them to deliver a great brand experience. This makes our job much, much easier because we believe that a brand cannot survive on great branding alone. If we were in math class, it would look something like this:

Great branding + Great business model = Success
Great branding + Mediocre business model = Fail!

Unfortunately, not every business that seeks professional marketing help is backed by a solid business model. Many businesses simply exist, with no unique, compelling characteristics that consumers crave. I believe that these businesses, even with the help of a slick brand, cannot survive in the long-haul. And to add insult to injury, it’s a difficult fix that most business owners aren’t willing to embrace.

On the other side of the coin are businesses that deliver an amazing brand experience, yet aren’t supported by a healthy branding effort. The problem with this is consumers use a company’s brand image to decide whether or not they want to engage/purchase/patronize/etc (Think about it the next time you’re in the grocery store trying to decide which shampoo to buy). If the brand isn’t up to snuff, many consumers won’t give them the opportunity to deliver a brand experience because they’ll just move on to the next brand…That equation looks like this:

Bad branding + Great brand experience = Fail!

This happens too often. On a local scale, here in Maryland there are countless brands that I have come across that are truly remarkable brands. A couple that come to mind right now are Terracycle, Carols Western Wear, Chevy Chase Bank and Lemongrass (Thai food). Each of these are companies that I feel deliver a PHENOMENAL brand experience, but could use some help with making sure their brand communicates it. Luckily, I know just the right group of people to solve their problem…

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

p.s. Thanks Alchemy for the image.

As marketers it’s always our goal to connect a brand with a qualified, highly targeted audience. We do this by focusing our creative concepts in a way that will resonate with the target, as well as defining a media mix that ensures the message is heard by the right demo/psychographic. Technology companies are aiming to take that targeting to the next level.

Enter NEC. They have developed and are close to releasing a technology that is essentially a physical display that can instantly identify a viewer’s sex and age range as they walk by and serve them with ads that are relevant to them. Think of the implications of this! No more ads for a Toyota Camry being served to 17 year old males…no more 75 year old women seeing ads for Under Armour training apparel. Speaking of that, I wonder if they will be developing modules that identify body type as well…

To take it even further, the technology includes a system in which the viewer can hold their cell phone over a special device which feeds them a URL link, coupons and other information on the products they’ve just seen on the advertisement.

Technology is changing the way marketers work at a dizzying pace. I love it. Via The Times of India. Thanks Zdnet for the image. What a classic poster.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

I just read a great post from a blog I often read called Thought Gadgets and the author, Ben Kunz, was talking about a concept called “sunk costs.” He goes on to explain that this is an economic term that refers to past expenses or decisions that can never be recovered. The common logic of a sunk cost is that once the money’s gone, it’s gone - but folks often continue to perpetuate the same behavior (spend) because they don’t want to admit failure. Ben relates several well-known historical instances of people chasing sunk costs:

The Vietnam War - Many thought we had spent too much, and lost too many lives, to “stop the war now.”

The Concorde Jet - Throwing money into the program even though it was clear it was going to fail.

I’d say in many regards another glaring example of chasing sunk costs today would be energy companies that are continuing to chase oil as their primary source, rather than investing in developing alternative sources and technologies. The bottom line is that it’s regret and bureaucracy which often keeps these things happening.

Ben mentions toward the end of his blog post that marketers often fall victim to chasing sunk costs as well. This really hit home for me, because it touched on something that I often observe first-hand in my position as marketing director. I can’t tell you how many times I come across companies that are spending thousands upon thousands of dollars trying to communicate a brand that is ineffective and off-target. But they continue to do it because it would take too much effort and investment (and admitting they were wrong) to ‘right the ship,’ so to speak.

But how can these companies compete when the foundation of their being - their brand - is a lame-duck? The reality is, they can’t, and they’re just chasing sunk costs. It’s a sobering realization, but the only way to get them back on course for marketing success is to get the brand back in focus. Only then, should any money and effort be put into trying to communicate that brand.

I’ll bet you can think of a number of companies right now that are chasing sunk costs by spending money on an ineffective brand they’ve settled on. I can think of several brands right here in Baltimore that could use some help…

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

Check out this recent work by Leo Burnett Chicago for McDonalds. It’s a billboard shaped like an egg that opens gradually from 6:30am to 10:30am announcing that McDonalds serves “Fresh Eggs Daily” during that time period. When breakfast is over, the egg closes right back up.

It was put up just outside of a McDonalds location near Wrigley Field to invite hungry customers in for breakfast. My guess is that it met its advertising objective, which was to make people notice that McDonalds serves fresh eggs for Breakfast, but I wonder what the return on investment was? It looks like the ad may have been placed on their property, so they probably saved ad space dollars, but I wonder what the production costs were? Even still, this HAD to be more effective than a traditional billboard…

I think McDonalds needs to install these at every location just to remind me that breakfast ends at 10:30.  Better yet, how about a McDonalds that serves breakfast foods all day long?  Now that would be something…

Via Agency Spy.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com/