People don’t always love brands

 

Brands are great, brands are wonderful, brands are the new legends of tomorrow some planner recently told me. The truth however, is that lots of people don’t want the brand appearing out of context, it’s not always appealing to be associated with brands, even if they were ones the audience thought as being very appealing and refelctive of their personalities.

And surprisingly at least one brand seems to understand that, and dare I say better than ad agencies do. Above is a complimentary bag given to the frequent flyer cardholders of Singapore Airlines, the client has actually overcome the urge to use this ‘Opportunity to create brand presence among the affluent audience’ and put the logo discreetly on a label inside the bag. This requires insight born from understanding the motivations and mindset of the customer. Even though all research would indicate that people look forward to, even want, free gifts from brands, they don’t want their peers to know it was something they got ‘Free’.

I tip my hat to the client responsible for this and invite the person to a drink on me, this indivual I am sure had nothing to the recent hideous ads being done by the airline. It may seem like a simple thing, and there may be other companies out there who do it, but for a premium brand to recognise human behaviour and apply it is a rare find these days.

Now, in contrast let’s look at the geniuses amidst us. Below is a jute bag (the ‘green’ option) that was given as a door gift to all delegates of the World Effie Festival. A place where award winning effective ideas inspire you, a thousand speakers went on and on and about the importance of consumer insights and how clients need to be brave to use them. And it was in celebration of this that the bag had the Festival logo huge and filling almost the entire surface.

Of course, not to mention that at the festival everyone was going on about the need to be single-minded, thus a bag with not just the logo but also a completely irrelevant environmental message, which never resonanted.