Posts Filed Under branding
To each their own
This Sunday, the people of Finland are electing a new parliament. As opposed to France or the USA, Finns will vote for individuals – as opposed to a candidate pre-selected by the party. If a candidate wants to make the cut, personal branding and communication play a significant role. The sample above shows different strategies. Sunday evening, we’ll know which ones worked.
–Update–
Apparently Bob Helsinki did very well since Kokoomus won.
McBrand
This van was parked across the street from my hotel in Helsinki a few days ago. Immediately I thought rip-off gone wrong.
It is safe to assume that McClean was created when McDonald was hip and cool, and the brand conveyed a positive and desirable message. Alas things change… and McClean incidentally tied its brand destiny to McDonald’s. McDonald remains one of the top ten brands in the world, but it has lost its lust for many of us. It is now perceived more often than not as junk, poor quality, cheap global food. These are not the characteristics one wishes for a cleaning service.
Appearances
After 5 years in Finland, I am pretty used to choose products based on brands, packaging and common consensus. Today was my first trip to the supermarket in LA, and amongst other things, I had to buy laundry detergent. This is the selection that was offered to me. All these bright colours, tacky slogans e.g. wash whiter than white, whiten the white and brighten colours, etc made me really really suspicious.
Being a designer (strikes the pose), most of my clothes are black; and I am quite concerned with fading colours. After a few minutes it was obvious all these products do wash very well, but do they convey respect of colours, softness, eco-friendly? I ended up buying a white/blue detergent. I have no idea if it is the best one, but at least I trust the product enough just because of its packaging. Form over function.
Filed Under: branding, design, losangeles, shopping