Month: October 2012

Barter and Brands

It all started with a red paperclip. On July 12, 2005, Kyle MacDonald, posted a picture of a red paperclip on his blog and in the barter section of craigslist and asked if anyone wanted to make a trade with him for something bigger or better. A few days later he traded the paperclip for a pen shaped like a fish.  Then he traded the pen for a doorknob.  And so on, each time trading for something bigger or better. After 14 trades he finally wound up with a house!

(Image: Source)

Along the way he went on to win some great media attention, wrote a book about the adventure, went on to hold a Guinness World Record for the Most Successful Internet Trade, got featured in TV shows, shared stage with celebrities and even had commercials shot based on his story!

All because of one red paperclip and a bit of weird ingenuity! 

During September 2012, Oscar Mayer – a processed meat brand from Kraft Foods launched a new line of its bacons called Butcher Thick Cut bacon. Understandably, as part of its launch campaign, the Oscar Mayer marketing team wanted to communicate that this is the new ‘Gold Standard’ in bacons and worth its weight in gold! But in order to cut through the existing clutter they went on to develop an imaginative way to promote the bacon keeping with its Campaign Idea. It’s called BaconBarter.com – here’s the ‘deal’:

Josh Sankey – the actor/comedian was roped in to be the man with a mission and a trailer full of ‘bad-ass bacon’ for barter as he drove from NY to LA. See his ‘offer’ here:

The highlights of his ‘journey’ were made available live via a dedicated Twitter Feed, YouTube Channel, Instagram channel , facebook page and PR all tied in to a well designed website. Stats like Josh Sankey’s real time location, the number of bacon blocks he had left with him, the bacon exchange rate at any given point in time were all made available through the site lending the campaign a very realistic feel.

After a couple of days he succesfully completed the drive from NY to LA and pooled in interesting (and in many instances very realistic) accounts of his ‘bacon barter’ across the country. And from the looks of it, this seems to have been a very successful and an innovative launch campaign for the brand in the States.

Amusingly, around the same time as Oscar Mayer’s BaconBarter, Heineken embarked on a campaign along very similar lines. It’s called Heineken Passport:

This campaign by Iris Singapore, consists of 4 webisodes documenting Justin’s journey from Mangolia to Thailand with “no money, no maps but just Heineken”. It also had a Facebook application named The Heineken Passport, that gets you to share the journey to win points, giving you the chance to win a journey to Sensation Taiwan for you and 3 friends. See the first of its 4 webisodes here:

(See all the 4 webisodes here)

While I must admit that this execution lent itself to the idea of Heineken Opening Your World, it definitely lacks the feel of realism and drama that Oscar Mayer managed to capture through its ‘BaconBarter’ campaign. For starters, what are the chances that in the inner Mangolian region, while wandering along some random fields you stop a tractor chugging along and successfully manage to make a barter deal with the locals by communicating in just English?

Nevertheless, it was very interesting for me to discover these 2 campaigns being executed along very similar lines (at around the same time) while also comparing and contrasting their executional specifics.

Which execution did you like?

Colors

Fiskars is the world’s No. 1 scissors brand. Visit its website and you would notice that the landing page features not the picture of its scissors, but just that of its handles – Orange handles, to be precise. Why?

It’s because Fiskars as a brand is synonymous with its flagship product: The Orange-Handled Scissors™ (yes, they really did trademark this name!). Known for its quality and precision the world over, this particular type of scissors has sold over 1 billion since 1967. What is interesting is that these scissors have become so popular that the company has actually registered its trademark Orange color by the name Fiskars Orange®.

(Image Source: Fiskers PDF – The DNA Of a Design)

Today it is one of the most recognized (and imitated) color for a pair of scissors across the world. So much for a color, you’d think?

On April 1, 2012, Seth Godin (author of the best seller: Purple Cow) wrote a blog post announcing that he would henceforth start filing lawsuits against people that use the color purple! He stated that his “lawyers were able to trademark the terms Purple® and Purple Cow®, and beyond that, to get a design patent on the idea of using Purple® in the marketing of a product”. Of course it was an April Fools joke. Interestingly, exactly 6 months after this blog post, this has actually become a reality. Only, it’s not Seth Godin this time. It’s the world’s 2nd largest confectionary brand – Cadbury.

The brand, which had used the purple for more than 90 years, has apparently been locked in a legal battle with Nestlé for the last four years over the use of this color. Nestlé’s appeal was overturned on October 1st 2012 in the UK High Court, where it was ruled that the color has been distinctive of Cadbury for its milk chocolate since 1914. Thereby Cadbury retains the exclusive use of Pantone 2865C purple. (Interestingly, a 2008 book on Cadbury by John Bradley was named: Cadbury’s Purple Reign)

(Image source)

So much for a color, you’d think?

Not till you realize that Purple as a color is associated with royalty, luxury, sophistication, creativity, mystery, and magic. Moreover, by some studies, Purple has been found to be evocative of ‘desire’ and proven to be a good choice for feminine design. No wonder then, Mondelez International – the snacks division of Kraft Foods uses purple as its signature color. (Milka, another major chocolate brand from Mondelez also comes in purple!)

Evidently, Color plays a very important role in a brand’s subliminal messaging and thereby heavily influences its consumers’ perceptions. So major brands significantly investing in owning colors, for all they are worth, has become a common phenomenon.

Luxury Brands are no exception too. For eg, the distinctive “Tiffany blue color” is protected as a color trademark by Tiffany & Co in a number of countries globally. Befitting its luxury credentials, the color is so exclusive that it is produced as a private custom color by Pantone, with PMS number 1837, the number derived from the year of Tiffany’s foundation.

Today it has come to exude the material symbolism of romance and evokes the emotions of care and pampering. In many ways it is associated with all things exclusive and personal – intimately evoking those waves of ‘free spiritedness’ from deep within a women’s heart. May be that explains why a number of luxury brands try their hand at using this iconic color in their branding.

Can you think of any other distinctive color that is owned by a brand?