What inspires us: Branding
The ideas that have grabbed our attention today

I’m not a fan of packaged produce but global organics makes it look so fresh!

Globus Organics — The Dieline — TheDieline.com — Package Design Blog.

In the early 2000’s we became aware of a cultural shift towards sustainability — social and environmental consciousness, both in the way businesses were run and in what customers began to demand in brands. Since then, consumers have only become increasingly better at exposing underperforming offerings. So a business may have engaged in green behavior, but in all reality, the bottom line never really changed. At the end of the day they still wanted you to buy more so they could make more.

This article suggests that we may begin to see this changing, and Patagonia seems to be the aggregator — telling their consumers to “buy less”. Most traditional business minded folks might say “but how will they make money if they are actually telling customers to buy less?” I think it’s because Patagonia has done an exceptional job at understanding their customers lives, and building an emotional connection with them that results in brand love, trust and Affective Loyalty. How can a brand fail if it has successfully built honest emotional connections with customers, (in a way that those customers are emotionally connected their family members) based on things that the brand (i.e. stakeholders) actually care about? It’s like what we always try to do with the brands that we work with, find out what the brand truly cares about that aligns with what the people truly care about. The empowering thought in this is that maybe together, we can actually make an impact, create environmental change, or whatever that thing that we the customers, and the business that we support, truly care about in life.

“Affective loyalty is the strongest form of loyalty and will be the most difficult form to compete against.” – Brand Building in Norwegian, Samuelsen, Peretz and Olsen

Fast Company: “Patagonia Asks Its Customers To Buy Less”

Coke’s strict adherence to its brand standards means that when they make their first non-red can, it’s noticeable in a big way. They’ve decided to do that for their conservation charity program, and the results, by Turner Duckworth (who have also masterminded their Coke and Diet Coke can redesigns) are gorgeous.

A few cool things to know about, if you don’t already…

The Fearless Revolution is a consumer advocate project started by ex-ad man Alex Bogusky (of Crispin Porter + Bogusky) where he highlights the new relationship between people and brands, with an emphasis on transparency, sustainability, democracy and collaboration among businesses and consumers. http://fearlessrevolution.com

His second project Common, is the world’s first collaborative brand which is a social community “harnessing the power of true, rule-breaking creativity to launch socially beneficial businesses…”: We believe the fastest way to do that is through collaboration. We believe the tired old concept of competitive advantage must give way to a more meaningful system of collaborative advantage.” http://www.common.is

Hanna Roisin

The idea that a girl-power movement is happening seems to be all over the web and blogosphere right now.

Slate Magazine recently wrote an article about this season’s primetime television being all about women in the dominant role, with one show even being inspired by Hanna Rosin’s 2001 article “The End of Men”.

A few of us at Pompei AD are going to attend NYU’s Intellegence² debate tomorrow where Rosin will be up against Christina Hoff Sommers (well-known for her critique of late-twentieth-century feminism) where we will be asking ourselves, are we really at the forefront of a girl-power movement? And what would this shift of values mean for our broader cultural landscape and the brands that we work with?

Walgreens has just launched a redesign of their house brands, consolidating several of them into a new brand called Nice! It’s unusual to see a chain put so much care into creating a real brand for their house products. Check out some of their other packaging below.

Monsoon has just reopened their Oxford Street, London, location with a completely overhauled environment and branding by Pompei A.D.

Our recent rebrand of international retailer Monsoon has just appeared on branding blog Brand New. It’s great to see such a positive reaction from our peers!

Monsoon — Brand New.

Gustav Johansson has created a series of commercials for Education First language schools that perfectly capture the excitement and adventure of going to a new place and learning a new language. The typography by Albin Holmqvist really captures the essence of each city.

I just noticed that Halls puts short encouraging quips on their cough drop wrappers. A clever way to inject some lightheartedness into a product meant for someone not feeling their best.