Category: Advertising

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Miami’s skyscraper-sized billboards

Miami—a city known as much for shady local politics as it is for sand, sun and fun—is in the midst of a crucible of controversy surrounding the City’s proposed skyscraper-sized billboards. Miami city commissioners gave developer Mark Siffin the green light to build 22-story electronic-lighted signs downtown, with hopes of creating “the city’s own Times Square.” Zoning was cleared for two signs nearly 500 feet high that will tower over downtown Miami’s Biscayne Boulevard near the Arsht performing arts center. The towering signs will display flashing ads on giant LED screens, no doubt a real concern for the “condo commandos” residing nearby, fearing the signs would generate such intense light at night as to constitute “an offensive glare.”
Not surprisingly, the decision came down to money—millions of dollars in new revenue for the nearly bankrupt city—earmarked for a proposed museum park. Miami’s downtown continues to struggle to attract visitors, often squandering its resource of precious Atlantic waterfront property. High crime, ugly, incongruous buildings, heavy traffic, difficult parking and exorbitant prices shoo tourists away into the welcoming arms of what many deem the “true Miami”— the South Beach, Coral Gables and Key Biscayne communities. Whether these signs will compete with New York’s Times Square remains to be seen.
Special thanks to the Miami Herald for its assistance with this story.
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Miller Beer “Vortex” bottle

Miller Vortex bottleIf you are like me and have seen the Miller Beer “Vortex” bottle billboard, you’ve probably also wondered why anyone might want their beer to pour out into a “vortex.” In recent years MillerCoors introduced its cold-activated bottle, a useful innovation where the mountains on the label turn blue when your beverage is at its optimum temperature. However, I don’t see the same level of creativity with the Vortex, which, according to a MillerCoors sales rep, is a bottle with specially designed interior grooves that “create a vortex as you’re pouring the beer.” This innovation is intended to “create buzz and excitement and give consumers another reason to choose Miller.” For me, it’s just a different-shaped bottle that won’t provide much consumer benefit. MillerCoors’ advertising agency is Saatchi & Saatchi.

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Today’s “Shack” is more than radios

print ad for The ShackYou may have seen the phrase, “Our friends call us The Shack℠.” Electronics retailer Radio Shack’s new branding experts—California’s Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners, hired April 2009—added the service mark symbol to their clever phrase as a wink and a nod that you are now in the cool club, in anticipation that “The Shack” will gain traction amongst consumers, employees and investors. Some years ago Radio Shack began updating its image by creating the circle-R logotype, and by dropping the space between “Radio” and “Shack.”

The corporate identity nip and tuck continues as Radio Shack joins an expanding list of shorthand names whose companies either wish to appear friendly, to obscure their original identity or to clear up confusion over the original name. The names Chuck (Charles Schwab—”Talk to Chuck!”), KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken—so much more than fried chicken!), The Hut (Pizza Hut—so much more than pizza!), and The City (Circuit City—so much more than… erm, circuits?) are similarly victims of hipster hucksterism. Burger giant McDonald’s has acquired many friendly-sounding nicknames around the world, such as The Golden Arches, Mickey-D’s (Mackey-D’s in Britain), and Makku or Makudo in Japan, to name but a few. FedEx (Federal Express) and Coke (Coca-Cola) are other successful examples.

Will a name change improve the flagging electronics brand? It did not help Circuit City, which declared bankruptcy January 2009. Founded more than 80 years ago, Radio Shack was known as the place to buy soldering irons, capacitors and cheap car speakers. Today the company’s focus is on capturing a share of the small electronics market–particularly T-Mobile’s phones.

As of this writing Radio Shack Corporation has no future plans to officially change its corporate name but will market “The Shack” in its advertising. However, branding expert Drew Neisser of Renegade cautions, “Radio Shack is in a desperate battle to remain relevant.” Neisser believes making a half-hearted name change may backfire. “The whole thing could come across as forced at best and confusing at worst,” Neisser said.

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Rebranding America

Rebranding AmericaBranding matters. To countries just as much as they do to companies. Just ask former UK prime minister Tony Blair, whose mission in 1999, together with the Foreign Policy Centre, was to sell new model Britain to other countries. “The central message is that Britain’s reality has changed dramatically and that its image must be transformed to reflect this.” The “Cool Britannia” campaign was sniggered at by a nation of cynics, but many Americans today believe a powerful cleanser is needed to remove a very deep stain from the tarnished US image. So Paper magazine has summoned the leading lights in advertising and graphic arts to the task of “Rebranding America.” The results of which are available on its online magazine.

Kim Hastreiter, editor of Paper in New York, states, “If America were a company, it would be practically out of business. Our brand has been decimated.” Her magazine asked “creative communicators” to “re-present the United States to the global community.”

It may be merely a punning exercise, but perhaps the idea—that multiculturalism and diversity are not just an irreversible fact but a potentially invaluable asset—may catch fire.

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Tropicana package design fiasco

Tropicana package designs

PepsiCo recently hired PR giant and “branding guru” Peter Arnell—spending nearly $30 million on the Tropicana brand alone, including the juice package redesign rollout. My wife brought home the newly-packaged OJ and you would have to agree with me—it’s a disaster. According to AdAge, PepsiCo is junking the new design it launched early February, switching back to the “orange skewered by a drinking straw” motif.

As an example, let’s compare the orange-pineapple brand designs:

OLD: Deep oranges, rich greens and brightly-colored pieces of pineapple whet the appetite. A clearly-written deep violet label states the product within.

“NEW”: Ever drink Sunny-D? This reminds me of that. An anemic shade of orange (yellow?) in a glass, and no pictures of any actual fruit. The whole presentation seems washed out. Can you find “pineapple” anywhere on the package? There it is! Under the plain Avant-Garde typography reading “100%.” It appears they were using as a springboard Target’s effectively clean private labeling. For me, “I give it only a 42… I definitely can’t dance to it!” Meanwhile, Minute Maid is snarfing juice through its collective noses.