If 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.
Past Perfect vintage music
It may seem odd to write about music in these pages but I just received a distressing e-mail newsletter from a British record label called Past Perfect that specializes in restoring 20th-century (primarily jazz) recordings, whose very fine engineers utilize the latest audio restoration technology. In a word, the sound is incredible, considering the sources are from the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.
The distressing part is that Past Perfect’s chairman has had an unhappy birthday due to the recent lack of orders! To help keep them going, I urge you to browse their site and sample some of the many riches found there, from Fred Astaire, Benny Goodman, and Noel Coward, to flappers, World War II, and film music. Each holiday season my family and I enjoy their Christmas songs CD. While a great starting place for the uninitiated is the Past Perfect music sampler, they’ll gladly ship a pre-loaded “Vintage Collection” iPod (starting at roughly $419.00). And most of its catalogue is available for download from either Past Perfect or from the popular eMusic site.
I’ve bunged in my support by ordering some CDs and downloading several eMusic tracks. Don your spats and topper, tuck in with a P.G. Wodehouse novel, and pop Past Perfect’s music on the Victrola. Now where did I set down my g & t?
Today’s “Shack” is more than radios
You 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.