John Lewis’ Xmas ad: a gift that gives less to the brand
Retailer John Lewis has lost its title as undisputed champion of Xmas advertising, according to System 1 research on this year’s ad (1), starring Elton John. The brand only just made the [...]
3 Black Friday brands benefiting from ‘Fresh Consistency’
Post by David Nichols, Group Managing Partner and Head of Invention This Black Friday weekend I saw several brands reaping the benefits of ‘fresh consistency’: remembering what made [...]
By David Taylor
Posted Why is Direct Line’s brand strategy “best-in-class”?
Direct Line is again a well-deserving winner in the IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards, building on their 2016 success that I posted on here, when I reported on a campaign that built insurance [...]
By David Taylor
Posted Building an effective brand character
‘Brand properties’ help build the distinctive memory structure that gets your brand recalled when people are making buying decisions, as we posted on here. And a ‘brand [...]
By David Taylor
Posted Distinctiveness vs. differentiation: who is right?!
Mark Ritson added fuel to the fire of debate about distinctiveness versus differentiation in a recent column (1). “There is a worrying trend to favour distinctiveness over [...]
Nike’s Kaepernick ad: provocative PR, not purpose-led branding
Nike’s new Colin Kaepernick advert* has been effective at provoking the desired political controversy and polarised opinion: 30% of US consumers feel more positive about Nike after seeing the ad, [...]
By David Taylor
Posted We Transfer: to grow the core, less is more
We Transfer’s co-founder and President Damian Bradfield explained in a recent Times article (1) how he and his team have built a successful brand by focusing on being brilliant at ONE [...]
By David Taylor
In Distinctive communication, Distinctive packaging & design, Distinctive products & services, Driving Distribution
Posted Why big brands win in eCommerce retail, not small ones
Big brands are the knock-out winners in a recent eBrand ranking (1) of performance in UK online retailers, despite the popular view that big brands are losing out to smaller, more digitally savvy [...]
BA’s World Cup ad: big brands can be agile too
Big brands get a lot of stick for being slow and cumbersome compared to smaller ‘insurgent’ brands. But British Airways (BA) show how big brands can be agile, with their brilliant guerrilla-style [...]
TELLING CHAPTERS OF AN EPIC BRAND STORY: HDFC Insurance
[Guest post by Prasad Narsimhan, Managing Partner based in Bangalore, India] Few brands have the courage to remain thematically consistent in their communication over a long period of time, [...]