During a recent marketing training day delivered by IE to attendees from not-for-profit organisations, MD Ollie Leggett made a couple of seemingly commonsensical points about the need for brands to behave with integrity. You probably don’t even need to be involved in the marketing/communications-related industries to understand that the ‘Three Cs’ – or credibility, clarity and consistency – are the life blood of the healthy brand. However it seems that sometimes even the pros let one of marketing’s golden rules slip by.

In a news item appearing in Marketing, CEO of The Partners Jim Prior provides an excellent and highly topical case study of the consequences of disjointed branding by analysing the decline of one of the long familiar faces on the high street, Woolworths. The article is worthy reading material on several levels. Even if all it does for the reader is reaffirm the need for brands to behave in a ‘joined up’ fashion, then it does this in a succinct and persuasive manner. Prior writes: ‘[Woolworths] is a proposition of authenticity, of democracy, of variety, of carefree, guilt-free indulgence… a proposition that everybody wanted but that just never got delivered against. It went unnoticed by the management of the company who, instead, pointlessly fragmented the brand into the Big W warehouse stores and a wholesale distribution business. Did anyone there have any idea what Woolworths really was?’

Prior doesn’t allow Woolworths the luxury of economic downturn as an excuse for the decline which does, granted, seem ruthless, but again he has a point. The weak spot much of the UK had for Woolies just wasn’t enough to compensate for the meagre experience of visiting a store. Do many of us actually know anyone who shops there regularly? Probably not, and there’s a reason for that. To what extent can a couple of generations’ nostalgia for pick n mix sustain a business that actually has little to offer to most shoppers?

I wouldn’t like to claim that IE’s branding experts could have saved the long-ailing Woolworths had they been brought in to do so. However I do think that in the current climate, where already-stretched businesses are competing for the few pennies their customers can afford to part with, an identity crisis – where tone of voice, visual signature and customer experience simply don’t correspond – represents a lot more than just a hindrance on the path to marketing bliss.

Hot on the heels of IE’s Best Brand Award is a new competition, running for one day only, indeed limited to the time taken writing this short article. The Ironic (Possibly Deliberate, Perhaps Not) Shop Signage competition has just been opened, and here is the first entry. No image manipulation used here - just a good, honest photo taken on my iPhone whilst out and about today.

Almost always open, but never convenient.

In 30 seconds I managed to kiss Kate Silverton, Sarah Falkland and receive – on behalf of the IE team – ‘The Creative City Award 2008/9’ for ‘Best Brand’! Not bad going.

We’re a familiar sight at ‘The Creative City Awards’ – shortlisted 4 times for awards – and now winners!

It was a great night. Certainly the best of the past 4 years – not least due to the excellent work of Aquila, whose video work, graphics and titles all added an additional splash of style to an already glamorous evening. Video due to be uploaded today.

IE were also shortlisted to win the ‘Outstanding Innovation Award’ for our work on ‘Periscope’ – IE’s online studio management system, launched just a few weeks ago at the Plus International Design Festival. Find out more and get yourself a 40 day free trial at the Periscope website.

It’s been great to see Birmingham waking up, over the last 5 or so years, to the importance of its creative sector – an industry that now accounts for nearly 10% of the city’s economy.

Alongside our ever-increasing strength in web and interactive media, branding has always been right at the creative heart of IE’s service offering. To win an award for our own brand is genuinely flattering. It’s one thing to successfully build our client’s brands but so many creatives neglect their own.

A strong IE brand means a more visible business and that means it’s easier to reach our clients and easier to recruit great creatives. Competition is fierce and knowing what we stand for – innovation and excellence – really makes a massive difference.

IE was born and bred in Birmingham. To stand amongst the 400-or-so members of Birmingham’s creative community attending the Creative City Awards 2008/9 and be celebrated as an example of excellence was almost as exciting as kissing Kate!

Despite the glut of exciting projects – both new and ongoing – that are keeping everyone at IE very busy indeed, many of the team have at times spared a thought for the events unfolding a few thousand miles across the Atlantic. Hockey moms, pit bulls, the cost of the First Lady’s wardrobe, the US vox pop – it’s all been hard to ignore.

From a marketing perspective, elections can be very interesting indeed. A huge amount of effort goes into persuading voters to leave their mark in the right box. Nationwide market research and opinions polls, voter analysis and segmentation, a deluge of high-value advertising collateral – each one is a vital ingredient in the creation of that all-important political brand that draws in votes.

Delving back into US presidential history – specifically into those dark days pre-web when marketing was just so much harder – I noticed that a common denominator to virtually all campaigns was a strong slogan, often accompanied by a badge. Some are definitely pretty sharp, whereas to say that others are showing their age is generous.

Some of my favourite examples are shown below. However, I certainly feel that if prospective presidents of yesteryear had IE’s team of designers and branding whizzes on side, the look and feel of their campaign collateral would have been much less amateur! Maybe voter expectations were lower…?

Eisenhower US presidential campaign 1952

Lyndon Johnson US presidential campaign 1964

Herbert Hoover US presidential campaign 1928

Wendell Willkie US presidential campaign 1940

David Shrigley's tube map

The reciprocal relationship between London’s underground system and the arts/popular culture has long born fruit, with the tube map itself providing the perfect vehicle for visual punning for numerous artists. The examples are plentiful, and range from Simon Patterson’s 1992 work The Great Bear to David Shrigley’s more abstract representation of the arrangement of intersecting coloured lines. Continue reading