The Shuttle Discovery just passed by our offices. What a thrill.

Our offices overlook the Potomac and is on the flight path to Reagan National Airport. We have seen a lot from these windows. And we always know when something is happening when the flights stop.

As a group we huddled together when the planes stopped on 911. And we saw the smoke and flames from the plane that hit the Pentagon. Back then, every plane that came in was a military plane, and we were scared every time we saw an unidentified plane approach. We saw military helicopters scurry back and forth and we stopped at the windows to gaze they one approached. We soon got over that.

We see weather approaching from these windows, and notice when the planes stop. Be it hurricanes, snow storms or dense fog, when the planes stop, it attracts attention. And our crew runs to the unobstructed views in my room or the conference room to see if the weather systems will be kind or unforgiving.

Today was different. We stopped work for half an hour as we all gazed in wonder at the space shuttle passing by our windows. Mounted on top of another plane and led by a military jet, it circled around DC and even when it was a tiny speck, it was thrilling. Like the other times the planes at National stopped landing. This time, instead of fear, we celebrated, experiencing the wonder that children must feel when they see something awesome for the first time.

A photo taken by Heath as the 747 jet plane carrying the Discovery approaches our offices.

Here's a close up photographed by Lynn from our conference room. The Discovery made the trip from Cape Canaveral, Florida to where it'll be put on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum near Dulles International Airport.

One of the questions that we often have to address with new clients is how they are organized…brand architecture is the fancy word. Some clients are comfortable spinning off new companies when they develop a new product or look to expand horizontally to a new business sector—a House of Brands. Others create business units that operate independently but must conform to a corporate set of brand guidelines—a Master Brand. Understanding which branding model a company  should choose is based on many factors. There may be good reasons to launch different companies if they are making competing products. A House of Brands is an expensive proposition since each new company has to be marketed independently. With a House of Brands if one company fails, or has a bad reputation, it only takes down that entity and does not tarnish the parent company. With a House of Brands, if something untoward happens to one business sector, it may have an adverse effect on the whole company.

Pepsico's House of Brands

Glancing at the New York Times last week I saw a wonderful example illustrating Pepsico‘s House of Brands. I, for one, had no idea that Pepsico owned Gatorade or Starbucks—two signature brands that have very different brand personalities. And certainly the wholesomeness that is part of Quaker’s brand might conflict with the junk food identity that is Cheetos. There are many good reasons to keep them separate.

A different perspective is told in an article that ran in the New York Times on January 6 on the new BMW slogan. BMW is the classic example used to illustrate a Master Brand. Rather than promote many different car models, BMW promotes one. Recently they launched new brand advertising. The article notes, “The new advertising depicts the BMW as the “ultimate driving machine,” whatever the model. The tagline has been used continuously by BMW since it was created in 1975. This of course is significantly cheaper than having to support all of the different brands that Pepsico supports. But Master Brands do have challenges. As Renée Richardson Gosline, an assistant professor of marketing at MIT Sloan School of Management, notes, “a campaign that emphasizes a consistent brand essence is powerful, but BMW has to keep in mind that luxury consumers seek distinction, even within the brand. So, along with the egalitarian message that all BMWs are ‘ultimate driving machines,’ BMW has to make owners of different models each feel special as well, by building relationships with the owners of each model.”

Choosing whether to adopt a House of Brands versus a Master Brand should not be made by default. While brand architecture is not always looked at, it is critical and will effect everything a corporation decides from mergers and acquisitions to naming conventions. At the very least, determining a company’s organizational structure should be a mandatory part of any brand exercise.

I first heard about Pinterest from my sister, a fourth grade teacher in Michigan who is not known as an early adopter. I was reading one of my favorite blogs, clicked on a Pinterest button on the site, and all of a sudden found myself in a different world that I knew nothing about. Just at that moment, my sister called me. I told her that I had just found this interesting site, Pinterest, and she told me it is one of the best places online for teachers to share ideas and curriculum—she has been using it for months. Three hours later, I was hooked.

These are a few of Grafik CEO, Judy Kirpich

I have been trying to figure out the many ways to use this new social media tool. Growing from 1.2 million users in August to over 4 million in January 2012, it is a site that allows users to share images they like about objects that they like. Each time you choose an image—whether it is from a website or within the Pinterest boards, it is called “pinning.”

A user can group infinite numbers of images into a board that can be organized and categorized according to the users preferences. The site is being used predominantly by women, and there are myriad boards on kitchens, fashion trends, bridal dresses. There are also boards featuring textures, art, places to travel, black and white photography and architecture. If you find someone who is constantly pinning up images that are interesting, you can choose to follow that person, and can select which of her boards you want to follow. If you see an image you like, you can repin it on your own board, like it, or even make a comment.

A shot of Judy

By installing a Pin It button on your desktop, if you see a beautiful image of an elephant on a nature site, you can click on the button and it will be added to your collection (board of images).Well, lots of sites allow you to post images, Grabbit for one, but what is interesting is that the Pin It photo arrives at your board with the credits and original site attached. And here is where I think it gets interesting…since Pinterest allows a “pinner” to see where the original content is from, if you repeatedly see that images you like are from the same website or blog, you are encouraged to visit that url. In this way Pinterest can subtly act as another method to get people to your own blog or website.

I decided to try an experiment. I posted eight images from my own blog. On a good day I normally get about 50-70 page views. The day before I started pinning on Pinterest I had 62 page views. For the next few days after I had started pinning, my page views went up to 379 and the views have remained higher.

After adding images from her own blog, Unmultitasking, Judy's blog traffic experienced a bump.

More research has to be done on Pinterest, however right now it is currently the seventh highest trafficked social media site. The demographic is predominantly female which should be interesting to advertisers. And in talking with some of our social media team and our creative directors we are already thinking of ways we could use this both for our clients and internally. One cautionary note—it’s addictive and can really suck up a lot of time, so be prepared to spend hours investigating it. Enjoy, and happy pinning!

The Smithsonian announced this weekend that they are launching a new brand line, “Seriously Amazing.” Before you read any further, in the interest of complete disclosure, you should know that Grafik has worked with the Smithsonian on many of their initiatives including the branding of the National Museum of the American Indian, and a brand exercise for the Smithsonian Institution’s Latino Center. And we have had a beef over the years, on behalf of all of the excellent branding firms in Washington, D.C., that we are never invited to the dance. So in the context of having a large chip on my shoulder, I have to say that the new tagline for the Smithsonian is really pretty good—excellent in fact. The firm called in for the assignment is a well-known branding agency in NYC, London, and Dubai Wolff Olins and branding museums and international institutions is their specialty.

A news item in the Washington Post on Sunday shows that Wolff Olins spent the time to research, and get input from many of the museum directors and board members. As a pre-eminently political beast it must have been a huge endeavor to interview all of the people necessary to build consensus for the new line—one that costs $1 million dollars. It seems they hit the nail right on the head, getting a huge round of applause when they launched the brand last week.

I personally like “Seriously Amazing” as it taps into the research as well as the vast store of treasures that are held by all of the museums making up the Institution. Known for years as the “Nation’s Attic,” the new tagline has a more forward direction. It remains to be seen how the mark will play out in future fundraising and the awareness building campaign.

Job well done, Wolff Olins! Oh, and a note to self: Every time the Smithsonian cries poor to our local D.C. agencies, we should think of the tagline’s million dollar price tag and refuse to do their work on a pro bono basis.

Driving home from work the other day I was listening to NPR and heard a story about a battle between Chick-fil-A and a small Vermont T-shirt manufacturer who is producing T-shirts saying “Eat More Kale.” Chick-fil-A owns the tagline “Eat Mor Chikin” and, indeed, the corporation has done a splendid job advertising their fast food chicken restaurants through the Eat Mor Chikin campaign. It seems that the T-shirt manufacturer, Bo Muller-Moore, has been doing a booming business producing “Eat More Kale” shirts out of a studio above his garage and has enough orders to support himself. He decided it would be wise to apply for a trademark for “Eat More Kale” and was confronted by a cease and desist letter from the chicken guys. In a statement, Chick-fil-A  said, “We must legally protect and defend our “Eat mor chikin” trademark in order to maintain rights to the slogan.”

Laws regarding trademark and patent infringement are complex, which is why we always tell our clients to consult with their own trademark lawyers or use one of ours. But one test of trademark infringement is whether there would be confusion in the marketplace or whether the existing brand equity would be diluted. Muller-Moore’s lawyer commented in a New York Times article, “There’s no one out there that’s going to come forward and say, ‘I thought I was buying a Chick-fil-A product but I got this T-shirt.” Add to that the fact that the food chain does not have a franchise operating in Vermont so there is even less chance for confusion.

Can a company or brand own words exclusively? Clearly many wonderful campaigns have been copied such as the Got Milk? campaign that I wrote about several weeks ago. Harley Davidson has copyrighted the sound of their motorcycle—and no other motorcycle or bike can use the same sound. But can you hold a copyright to the words “Eat More”? I did a quick search on Google to see how many “Eat More” campaigns and ads there have been. Witness just a few.

Clearly there have been many campaigns that have used the the words “Eat More.” And it is equally clear that Chick-fil-A has done a superb job of imprinting their brand through their deft ad campaign. So what has been accomplished and what are the effects of this lawsuit? Well, Eat More Kale has gotten way more publicity than they ever thought possible, getting national coverage in the NY Times and an NPR spot. Muller-Moore has tapped social media and drew incredible support from Facebook followers, both a former and the present governors of Vermont, and a groundswell of kale lovers nationally.

At a recent press conference, Governor Peter Shulmin of Vermont noted, “If you think that Vermonters don’t understand the difference between kale and a chicken sandwich, we invite you to Vermont, and we’ll give you a lesson about the difference between a kale and a chicken,” Shumlin said. “There are some very distinct features that should be noticed in that difference. Kale is a vegetable; chickens are birds. Birds create manure; kale eats manure.”

What has the Chick-Fil-A brand gained—a tarnished reputation as a corporate bully that flies in the face of its humorous campaigns. How many people will look at the cows and think of the “Eat More Kale” controversy and leave with a bad taste in their mouths? With little possibility of confusion and not even one Chick-fil-A restaurant in Vermont, one has to wonder if this was a giant mistake by the Chick legal department with little thought how it might effect their brand. In this case their cease and desist order may have a real correlation to less counter orders. Governor Shumlin sent this message to Chick-fil-A, “Don’t mess with Vermont. Don’t mess with kale. And, Chick-fil-A, get out of the way because we are going to win this one.” (Source: NPR.org—Chicken Vs. Kale, Kirk Carapezza)

Vintage Ivory soap

Okay. I freely admit that I love old packaging. My house is filled with thousands of antique tins, old boxes, and discarded packaging from days gone by. I notice packaging, so when Procter & Gamble decided to pump up the packaging and advertising for one of its oldest brands, Ivory soap, I was eager to see what change was in store.

The new campaign devised by Wieden+Kennedy is nothing short of brilliant. But the new packaging by Sterling Brands is uninspired. One has to wonder why their advertising agency did not show the new look on any of their ads, TV spots, or online placements. If you want to look at 125 years of Ivory soap packaging, Procter & Gamble has set up a Facebook page that shows all the different ways they have wrapped their pure white soap.

The most controversial aspect to their simple blue and white packaging was the Procter & Gamble logo which was thought to have ties to Satan.

Old Ivory soap packaging the showcased a P&G logo that was thought to have Satanic themes

For years urban legend maintained that the man in the logo was proof of the company’s ties to Satan. Supposedly the curlicues of the moon man’s beard was an array of 6’s and if you connect the dots with the 13 stars, three 6’s appear. The curlicues at the top of his head resembled the horns of a ram representing the false prophet. Eventually in 1985 the Procter and Gamble logo was taken off of Ivory soap. Over the years the Ivory logo has been modified and most recently Wieden+Kennedy modernized the wordmark. Tag lines have also changed and those in use over the years have included:

• Pure Clean. Pure Ivory.
• 99.44% Pure.
• So Pure it floats.
• Keep it pure, clean and simple

“Ivory is P&G’s oldest and most beloved brand, and while consumers relish in the nostalgia and heritage of the product, it’s time for a holistic reinvention of the brand as we work to touch and improve more consumers’ lives in more parts of the world more completely,” says Jay Sethi, Ivory brand manager. “We’ve answered the call for consumers wanting a ‘simple and clean’ solution and the most powerful aspect of Ivory still remains the simplicity of the product.” Lisa McTigue Pierce—Packaging Digest Oct. 4, 2011.

Karl Lieberman, creative director, Wieden+Kennedy, spoke about the new advertising. “Unlike a lot of other brands, Ivory has stayed true to its equity. It has remained the antithesis of the overly complicated—from its ingredients, packaging and advertising—it’s a throwback to an era where there wasn’t time for such things. And that’s what makes its new voice so refreshing.”

Ivory has changed its look over the years, but has always kept it simple.

But while Ivory has remained a strong brand since 1879, competition in the soap category has changed. The Ivory brand has been running third to Dove and Dial. (Source: NY Times, Nov. 7, 2011). Product managers felt that with the increased consumer focus on cost savings during the recession years, it was a good time to promote the Ivory brand promise of “value and simplicity.” “Renée Richardson Gosline, an assistant professor of marketing at the MIT Sloan School of Management, also predicted the simplicity of Ivory and its campaign could appeal to consumers. However, she also questioned the absence of the new Ivory packaging in advertising. ‘If you’re proud of the packaging, show it off,’ she said.”

Display of Ivory soap products

I was raised in a Jewish household, so Christmas was not celebrated. I used to look wistfully at the beautiful Christmas decorations, think about the cookie baking marathons, and go to our fireplace every Christmas morning hoping that Santa had left us something…he didn’t. There is one Christmas memory that rises above all the others, The Norelco Santa commercial.

The Norelco Santa ad first ran in 1961 and appeared in black and white. It was rather crude but the Santa riding on the electric razor was enough to get everyone’s attention. As a young girl I knew little about the Norelco brand, and I really did not need an electric shaver, yet the TV spot remains imprinted on my mind. Not only was it fun to watch, it was a new kind of animation that many had not seen before.

The TV spot was so successful that it was updated several times to add additional products and to take advantage of color TV. In 1994 the commercial was remade with a more up to date Santa, better animation, and more scenes of Santa frolicking through the snow. While viewers continued to watch their sets for the first Christmas viewing of Santa, it seems that Santa’s job was on the line.

In his book, Santa Claus: A Biography, author Gerry Bowler notes, “Santa’s job as adman was not secure. Norelco electric shavers had employed Santa Claus in its Christmas ads for years. “Norelco,” the ads would chirp. Unfortunately this presentation seemed to suggest to viewers that the company was in the toy business and so in 1986 Santa was dumped in favour of a manly looking fellow shaving to the slogan “We made close comfortable…” The result? Sales boomed and the company expressed no regret making its loyal, old employee redundant. His appearance was a classic example of how an advertisement could be popular without being effective. “Santa Claus advertising at best created a cute, warm, image for the brand, but nothing else.”

After  Philips decided to subsitute Santa with a new ad, the company was besieged by letters from loyal fans wondering why Santa had been replaced. For six years viewers, like me, felt as if something was missing from the pre-holiday TV fare. In 2002, the company realized that they had made a mistake and Santa was reintroduced. This year finds the Norelco commercial hipper and more contemporary with better production values.

And my eyes will probably gloss over while it is on. It’s missing the nostalgia for a simpler time and the magic of animation is magic no more. I highly doubt that kids watching this commercial today will remember it years from now, but not due to any Norelco missteps. It is a different time, a totally different world, and the black and white jerkily animated Kris Kringle has to be put out to pasture. Still, for this non-Christian, Norelco will always symbolize the fun, beauty, and magic of the holiday season.

The line outside of Target on Black Friday

It seems that this year the 99% stood in line to open up stores at midnight while the 1% comfortably slept in.

Black Friday no longer started at an un-Godly 4 a.m.—it now started at the stroke of midnight. It all started with Target, and was rapidly followed by several other retailers. Kohl’s and Best Buy all jumped on the midnight Black Friday bandwagon. Walmart and Toys“R”Us are opened even earlier at 10 p.m. the night before. Some of the affordable brands like JCPenney, Sears, RadioShack, H&M and Staples all let their buyers sleep in until 4 or 5 a.m. Mall also jumped on the bandwagon and in the DC area, The Fashion Centre at Pentagon City opened at 5 a.m.

It seems as you go up the food chain you are allowed more sleep and the hour of shopping is correlated with the level of luxury brands. Barneys and Burberry did not open their doors until 10:00 a.m., as well as Saks, Tory Burch, and Cartier. Many of the luxury brands anchoring the malls followed their landlord’s guidelines. Mazza Gallerie, home to luxury brands like Neiman Marcus and Sak’s Men’s Store held their opening steady at 9:00 a.m.—only one hour earlier than normal. It seems that the luxury brands are catering to a clientele that understandably does not care about saving $200 on an off-brand TV set, but also wanted to have some of the Black Friday “fun.”

Many of the luxury brands are promoting more goods online, and they are not waiting until Cyber Monday. Astute online marketers have been working with luxury brands like Zegna to build up enthusiasm and awareness for their Cyber Monday sales. In some uber-elite stores, they are not expecting their clients to lift so much as a finger—either to shop online or to stand in line. Just call for your personal shopper and everything will be taken care of.

Norman Rockwell's famous Thanksgiving painting

Early shopping or not, I for one hope that the shopping mania did not seep over into Thanksgiving Day, a day normally reserved for family, food, and football. Imagine if the beloved Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving scene with family gathered around the table was altered to show the seats of missing family members who are in line at Best Buy counting minutes till opening instead of counting their blessings.

It's time to grow a Mo'

It’s Movember! For those of you not in the know, Movember is a month-long campaign where men (Mo Bros) let their facial hairs grow to raise awareness for prostate cancer and other cancers affecting men. There are almost 93,242 men in the United States who will be growing a variety of mustaches and a whopping 169,773 in the UK. (I guess they like mustaches more in Britain.) Not only are the men responsible for growing a hairy upper lip, but they are also responsible for getting financial support for their efforts.

We are proud to announce that our own president, Lance Wain, has joined the Prostate Cancer Foundation‘s team and is looking forward to attending a ‘stache bash at the end of the month. Grafik is proud to announce that we have donated funds for this worthy event, and we encourage all those who love Lance and support the efforts to fight prostate cancer, to step up the plate and support this worthy cause.

Grafik President Lance Wain growing out his 'stache!

I was driving into work this week and almost plowed into a Mid States Oil truck. I was captivated by the ad on the back of the truck. It was yet another rip off of the famous, and wildly popular Got Milk? ad campaign that was launched in 1995 for the National Milk Processor Board. Someone somewhere in the marketing department at Mid States Oil thought it would be a good idea to show a sexy female with an oil mustache. What were they thinking?

Got Oil? Campaign

The Got Milk? campaign was, and is, nothing short of brilliant.

Goodby Silverstein & Partners has probably won every award in the book and according to their website there is a 90 percent awareness factor for the campaign—nothing short of astounding. The campaign has been going strong and is kept relevant by using popular stars such as Hugh Jackman, Taylor Swift, and even the Simpsons.

Taylor Swift posing for the Got Milk? Campaign

Hugh Jackman showing off more than his milk mustache

But along with fame comes imitation.

Got Milk? has been spun off to: Got balls?, Got Beignets?, Got Rice?, Got Mold?, Got Pancakes?, Got Junk?, even Got Pigeons? It turns out that they have created a wonderful website called “milking ‘got milk?‘” Here you can find lists of imitators—each one sillier than the next. Their photo gallery is open to new examples submitted by anyone who finds a Got fill-in-the-blank image and it is supported by a Twitter feed and Facebook page.

Do any of the submissions come anywhere close to the original—not even in the same galaxy. In fact, looking at the milk rip–offs, I have only two words that perfectly describe what I see: Got Poop?

A funny Got Milk? spin-off...Got Poop?