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According to Brand Week:
“For instance, it was none other than P&G that picked up the Film Grand Prix this year for Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” TV spot from Wieden + Kennedy. There is little doubt about the viral hit’s popularity. Launched in February, the official version has racked up nearly 12.2 million YouTube views.

But sales of the featured product—Red Zone After Hours Body Wash—aren’t necessarily tracking with that consumer appeal: In the 52 weeks ended June 13, sales of the brand have dropped 7 percent according to SymphonyIRI. (That amount excludes those rung up at Walmart.) P&G execs were not available to comment.”

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Most companies would look at these numbers and pull the current campaign, but most companies haven’t had this amount of popularity. So, how do you deal with something this viral but with little impact to the bottom line?

Should Old Spice push on in faith or call a spade a spade and get out?

My gut tells me sales will increase with time. Branding is the discipline of building equity or meaning for long term gains and not always short term. With so much talk around Old Spice it is bound to pay off. However, if it doesn’t, could it prove the attractiveness of “Going viral” is no longer the end-all-be-all definition of an effective marketing strategy?

It almost comes down to Going Viral vs. Getting Results, what’s the real goal?

So you can see the progression of positioning, check out these commercials:

When dinosaurs roamed the earth …

1957…

1970s…

Super Bowl 2010 …

First, if you haven’t seen any of the video responses, stop reading and click here.

After reading several blogs about the campaign, two major things stood out to me:

#1. The Team

A super team of writers, producers, techies, and marketers crammed into a studio in Portland, Oregon and produced 87 short crafted video responses on the first day alone in just 11 short hours. If you break that down, it’s about 7 minutes per video (not taking into account any breaks for lunch or sanity). The total campaign produced over 180 brilliant videos in three short days.

They used social media to track and target “Hi-Profile” social media guru’s and responding to their questions first. Like Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, and Alyssa Milano to name a few, but also responding to many more, famous or not. Here’s a quote from Iain Tait, global interaction Creative Director at Wieden, about how they pulled it off:

“In the room there are two social media guys and a tech guy who built a system pulling in comments from around the web all together in real time. We’re looking at who’s written those comments, what their influence is and what comments have the most potential for helping us create new content. The social media guys and script writers are collaborating to make that call in real time. We have people shooting and we’re editing it as it happens. Then the social media guys are looking at how to get that back out around the web…in real time.”

#2. Trust & Partnership

The parent company Procter & Gamble showed incredible courage trusting this super team to write the content on the fly with virtually no approval or supervision. How many companies have that level of trust and partnership with their “vendors”?

The pay off for that trust?

The #1 most viewed channel of the week on YouTube, Putting it to the #3 most subscribers of all time on YouTube, and giving the Old Spice channel just over 92 Million views. Not to mention the unquantifiable amount of chatter over the brilliance of this campaign and how it could go down in the history books as one of the most innovative campaigns using all channels of social media.

The big question: Are these commercials on Brand for Old Spice? They’ve been known as the “classic” man’s deodorant since 1938, is this campaign too far?

Now, for your viewing pleasure, my top 3 of the 180+ video responses:

In 2000, the oil giant BP Amoco positioned itself as BP, Beyond Petroleum. The rebranding  was  part of an effort to portray BP as an energy  company,  not just an oil company: one that incorporated  solar  energy in its portfolio and was willing to move  away  from oil. BP replaced its logo with a vibrant  green-white-and-yellow sunburst named after  Helios,  the ancient Greek sun god. You can read where we actually blogged about it back in 2007 here.

At the time this rebrand won awards, made it in books, and have everyone caulking at their brilliant strategy. The only problem was at the end of the day the were still an oil company. They are not environmentally friendly, and eventually the truth spilled out.

When a brand positions itself in-authentically, despite the short term gains, the truth eventually surfaces.

How will BP ever rebound their reputation from this? Should they rebrand like comcast and eventually change their name? Or let it be and put with propaganda like the poster below? Strategically, what should they do clean up their tarnished brand?

From Ben Washer, Co-Founder Reach Records:

A year ago, we moved our record label to Atlanta and through a friend I soon discovered a branding company called Matchstic that was making waves in the city.  These guys really opened up my world to how much branding is a part of every single organization in the universe, whether you like it or not.  So when they asked me to be a part of the first Brand Camp, it took about half a second to reply “Yes!”

Probably the most fun I’ve had in Atlanta this year involved my two days at Brand Camp with my co-founder, the matchstic founders, and 4 other business owners from various disciplines.  The energy and discovery packed into that time proved way more valuable to us than the cost of entry.  Call me a Brand Camp fanboy now.

How did Brand Camp help us?

Often retreats mean you get excited, then forget about everything a week later.  (It would take another post to describe how this isn’t your typical retreat.) Here is why we walked away with valuable discoveries that stuck with us and produced results.

Powerful Communication
You go back home with something called a “Brand Brief”, which basically identifies your company and gives you the tools to describe who you are quickly and powerfully.  I used to take 10 minutes to ramble on about what we do when someone asked us “What is Reach Records?”.  Sure they might end up understanding, but now I can say it in 1 minute with more clarity and punch than ever before.

Consistency Internally
Our staff always knew who we were, sort of, but if you asked each of us to describe what Reach Records was, chances are you would hear something different every time, based on our personal biases.  After Brand Camp, the staff now has what they’ve always wanted from their leadership: answers to the questions, “Who are we?” and “Where are we going?”  They became more excited about their role in our label, and are able to communicate our identity just as good as the founders.

Focus
When you are passionate, you tend to say yes to every opportunity that comes across your plate, because that means more opportunity for the world to taste what you are passionate about!  Unfortunately, doing everything usually means doing nothing with excellence.  Brand Camp allowed us to identify who we are so we can start saying “No” to the wrong things, and “Yes” to the right things.

Even as I type this I’ve got my well worn, coffee stained Brand Brief on my desk.  It’s traveled through several states and many meetings with me.  This year is turning out to be our best ever and our experience at Brand Camp is definitely a major factor in helping us see who we need to be in order to grow and fulfill our mission.

If you are reading this, and you have a company of any size or type, do yourself, your staff, your customers, and your industry a favor by contacting Matchstic and getting the next available slot.

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From Blake

There is one more spot available for the August Brand Camp (Sunday Aug 15th – Tuesday Aug 17th) at historic Blue Ridge lake in the North Georgia Mountains. Get on it quick! Click here to get more information or to reserve your spot.

A Brand is usually misunderstood. It’s not a logo, tagline, or website, but more so someone’s overall perception of an organization. We all have perceptions and reputations that drive our behavior. For example, when I get off the interstate to get gas and see two opposing gas stations, one clean and one dirty, I choose the clean one every time. Because perceptions (like clean or dirty), affect our behavior (which gas station I choose) which in turns determines the performance (who gets my business).

Brand Identity is the art of shaping perceptions. If you can measure current perceptions, determine ideal perceptions, then implement the right brand identity to help align the two you can start to affect the behaviors of your stakeholders which in turn will drive business performance.

*This basic formula was given to us by the brilliant Alina Wheeler. You should buy her book.

The identity is incredibly fun, welcoming, and different. I love everything about it, from the wall decal illustrations to the menu design to the overall color palette. It feels like the new hip and trendy place to be in Atlanta (and the line out the door confirmed that). After the meal however, I heard several comments about the food as… “pretty good”. There were no real complaints but there were no real celebrations either. The funny thing is, even though my burger was hoe-hum, I will probably go back and I’m sure others will as well.

It made me think “How good is good enough”? Can you get away with a “good enough” product by having a strong brand identity?

Could you ever get your brand down to one word?

Most people have trouble cleaning out their closet, much less cleaning out their company’s message. Simplification is hard. Narrowing the focus is difficult. What’s the one word you would want to be known for?

What are some words that come to mind right now for these brands?

Nintendo

Starburst

Ford

BP

What’s your response?

A common response might be, “Why? What does that mean? It sounds weird and it’s spelled funny. I don’t like it.” But, we all know Pepsi is in fact is a great name. You could probably insert Starbucks, Nike, or Apple into that scenario and get similar results. Why is that?

Names are almost impossible to judge or give feedback on within the vacuum of a casual conversation. They need to be lived out in context to be fully appreciated or understood. A brand name conjures up different memories & experiences for everyone, and gathering feedback to make a decision within a storm of mixed emotions takes courage and vision to preserve.

Naming a brand is incredibly difficult, because of the emotion. Brand Names engage the ‘feelings’ side of our brain and rarely the logical. Similarly how human names conjure memories and experiences of other people we know with the same name, whether good or bad.

However, a great name is the foundational driving force of a brand. They are everything. It you have a name that is hard to say or hard to pronounce you are jeopardizing a great deal of your brands potential. So how do you handle feedback and ensure yours is great?

Names should be tried on. They should be lived with. Call yourself and leave a voicemail using the new potential name in a sentence. Develop a script for friends to read to you using the new name. How does it sound? Introduce yourself to a stranger at a party using it. How do people respond? How does it feel?

Great names are hard to find. Change or creation is emotional and great names take courage and vision to survive the frenzy of feedback.

What defines a great brand name?

Afterwards I moved to Charleston, SC where I was hanging out on the beach until I could find an opportunity to begin my career in the design world. Which is why I am here at Matchstic. After seeing the post for an intern on the AIGA job board, I did some research on Matchstic and the people that make it up. I researched their work, read their philosophy and values, looked at their twitter accounts, checked out their blogs; pretty much internet stalked them. I saw a business that cared about it’s work, it’s community, and it’s clients. All that research let me know that I could trust them in helping me lay a foundation that I would be building the rest of my career on (and maybe it gave me an edge in the interview?). Outside of all those things, part of what prompted me to try for the internship was the unique application process of making a poster and a story. I loved the challenge of creating something of substance out of random elements and seemingly restrictive guidelines. Going with the phrase, “Say It Simple. Be Calm. Smile.” I decided to lean on a more minimalist style that touched on my design process. Lucky for me, the guys at Matchstic liked it.

And here’s the “story:” OK, so these are my restrictions and guidelines. I’ve got an idea: this phrase is like my design process. Yeah, this and this here, and that there; yeah, that fits. But something is missing. Or maybe there’s just too much; either way it’s not right. What’s wrong with!? It’s not working. Hold on, what was I doing again!?! I’m pretty sure I’ve overcomplicated this. It’s not that hard. Let me just say it simply. Show a visual metaphor for your process within a calm and simple design. Yes, simple. OK, I’m getting it, but I need to hurry. Don’t stress. Stay calm. The deadline is coming up, but stay calm. It will work out, it always seems too. Keep going with it. Hmm, stay calm….where was I going with this again? Oh yeah, butterflies are tranquil, calm, evolving, collaborating with flowers to spread and create beauty, becoming better….like a process! The butterfly relates to the phrase, so unify them visually, annnnnnd there we go. Simple and calm. And now I can smile. Why did I ever get so stressed out? That was fun!

I’m looking forward to the next three months and all that I will learn. There are a lot of “real world” things that school couldn’t teach me, and hopefully by the end of summer, I’ll not only be more knowledgeable, but also prepared for the next step in life. Here’s a couple of samples of my work, and you can check out some more of my personal stuff on my blog:
http://www.ifoundthisinmypocket.blogspot.com/

If the World Cup was a hot dog, then the uniforms would be the relish. This year alone Adidas estimates to make $1.8 billion in sales from the World Cup, which makes one big hot dog and some very valuable real estate on the backs of each player. A friend of ours, Jared Taft, blogged yesterday about his favorites and was curious to see our thoughts, so here is my Top 10 list.

I judged each uniform on originality, simplicity, function, and flexibility (how well it did within the home/away system). What are you favorites?

10. Argentina

Like most of Argentina’s fans, I choose them solely on their use of light blue. Even back in my days of playing FIFA Soccer on Sega they were my go to because of that distinct color, and I really like the stripes.

9. Brazil

It’s hard to have any sort of World Cup Top 10 list with out mentioning Brazil. That and the echoing of the stars in their emblem help them take my #9 spot.

8. Cameroon

It’s hard for me not to like Lions, they are my favorite big cat. The simplicity of the lion face on the shoulder and the ever slight roaring lion on the opposing side is beautiful.

7. Italy

An all white simple jersey just does it for me. No fluff. Just classy. I love the hits of royal blue under each arm, sure to cover any excess perspiration.

6. USA

I couldn’t leave our guys out of it, but more so I really appreciate the boldness of the solid stripe. My only critic would be to lighten the blue a bit and add this guy.

5. Algeria

I do not know if I’ve ever seen a mint green used as the primary color for a jersey in the World Cup. It contrasted with the red makes a dynamic color scheme. I love the simple stripes and the white sleeve cuffs.

4. Serbia

The cross from the nation’s emblem is echoed beautifully across the entire jersey, and the reason for making my #4 spot. Nothing says Communism like all red, so I was glad to see some blue on the sleeves.

3. England

Ah the motherland. England’s away jersey made my #3 spot for their functional use of the sleeves. Some might see this as a negative given the summer heat in South Africa, but after 90 minutes of sun and slide tackles, a little coverage might be nice. My favorite detail of this jersey is the all blue emblem. It contrasts the solid red beautifully.

2. Switzerland

It’s hard to deny the simplicity of the tried and true Swiss cross. The line work on this jersey is beautiful and I enjoy the little character on the right chest, even though its a bit cheeky.

1. New Zealand

This is absolutely the best World Cup uniform I’ve ever seen. Having a single symbol, the leaf, is incredibly powerful. Combine that with the classic black and white color scheme and you’ve got yourself one amazing looking set. I don’t know how the Kiwi’s will do, but their uniform is the winner in my book.

And my least favorite? France due to the 1988 swooshing lines.

What are your favorites?