See Christmas Ads. Buy Christmas Ornaments. May the Force Be with You.

Doing some mild holiday shopping, I note that the Hallmark Star Wars Christmas Ornament Collection for 2011 includes a Darth Vader in Lego version. The mind boggles, for $39.95 especially. Checking online, there’s a more…festive… R2 set: the black and bronze bodied R2-Q5 and red-trimmed R2-A3 from the original trilogy of films, first offered at the 2011 New York Comic Con – the pair’s available for $119.95 via the web.

LA-based writer Kristie Bertucci has a post on the GadgetReview blog wherein she reveals her top 16 Star Wars Christmas ornaments. From 1997 to the present, here they are to liven up your 2011 Yuletide trees. (Not ours, sorry: I was never quite this much of a fanboy.) According to Hallmark itself, though:

Since 1996, both Hallmark and Star Wars collectors anxiously await the release of the new Star Wars Hallmark ornaments. Always some of the most anticipated ornaments released annually…

The company’s advertising continues to be as heart-grabbing as ever – see one spot running now on YouTube. Evocative stuff given our troops are finally coming home, home from Iraq. My favorite isn’t on Bertucci’s list. Hallmark had a rather early 1998 Boba Fett ornament – see upper left. In the words of Stan Hope, “For bounty hunting the Xmas bounty…” Now $25-$40 on eBay.

That was then, this is now: the 8.5” Boba Fett with Carbonite Christmas Statue from Kurt S Adler. C’mon: the gift-wrapped Han Solo carbonite panel. The thermal detonator with the red bow. The candy cane!

Just six shopping days left. Seriously, how does this not say the Spirit of Christmas to you?

A Meme of Your Own: Ban Corporate Tentacles? Octopi Wall Street, etc.?

Octoponder this: just how many people want a piece of the “Occupy Wall Street” brand? Would-be leaders for a movement that continues to say it has no leaders. Political pundits of a particular slant. Anti-consumerists and other would-be ideologues. And the turnabout T-shirt merchants.

The Occupy movement has become a world-recognized meme – “an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.” (Thanks, Wikipedia.) I’m thinking you can hardly throw a stone without hitting some marketer who claims to have invented or branded the whole idea; or who’d like to. According to the The New York Times this past week:

Kalle Lasn, the longtime editor of the anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters, did not invent the anger that has been feeding the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations across the United States. But he did brand it.

He’s just one. AdAge Mediaworks ran a great set of social media-related charts about Occupy in October. And FirstPost.com blogger Scott Gibson more recently wrote:

As the activists behind OWS began their anti-capitalist demonstrations over a month ago, no one could’ve predicted that they would be fighting for the right to their own name and stop people from cashing in on their movement.

So many people want to grab hold of the “change-the-balance-of-economic-power-in-America meme,” it’s a very powerful drive to ownership. I don’t think that Occupy is ready for prime time, though. Trends and memes are tidal, sweeping into and through and out of our culture at an increasingly faster pace. Sustaining this pace is hard in the face of competing news and events, including the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the upcoming Christmas holiday, the next Kim Kardashian wedding, the next Rose Bowl – you name it.

While we’re all waiting for some definitively sticky Occupy brand, feel free to use mine, above. Or create your own. It’s a free country, innit?

Boston Delight #2: Now Visiting the Home of the Bean and the Cod – and Staples.

Howdy from Boston. Spending too much time in one part of the country sometime makes me forget great brands in other parts of the country – it’s more true now as Signalwrite Marketing than when I was the creative director of a nationally oriented B2B agency. Arriving in Boston, though, it is hard to ignore Staples.

Staples is the world's largest office products company and the mid-1980s were a key growth era. I remember its more-or-less original slogan, “Yeah, we've got that.”

This slogan was retired in 2003 when Staples hired Martin|Williams in Minneapolis to create a new brand. The old slogan was replaced with “That was easy.” Expanding on that theme, 2005 ads featured a large red push-button marked “easy.” In 2006, Staples' new ad agency, McCann Erickson (creative), and MediaCom (media-buying) won a gold Effie for the effectiveness of their "Easy Button" campaign, which has sold 1.5 million prop Easy buttons.

It’s a brand strategy – reduced in the best possible sense to three words and a visual – that lives long and prospers. In fact, as recently as last week Peter Cohan was blogging on InvestorPlace.com that Staples is a considerably better investment than poor-performing Office Depot.

The Easy Button is one of the great distillations of a wonderful brand solution. Glad I’m in Beantown to be able to blog about it.

M D Anderson Rebranding Program’s Great Story – Behind the AMA Firewall.

Am I committing a faux pas? Or delivering a service?

I ask because Mary M Flory wrote a fine, descriptive article in the just-arrived issue of Marketing Health Services. Titled, “Painting the Town Red,” it’s about the M D Anderson Cancer Center rebrand. And for the moment, it’s for American Marketing Association members only – stashed behind the MarketingPower.com firewall.

This copyrighted article features the institution’s Associate Vice President of Marketing Alicia Jansen – that’s her in the publication’s photograph – and details how the institution’s stakeholder team pulled off its “comprehensive brand overhaul.”

(On a smacking-my-forehead note, I missed the chance to scoop Flory because Jansen presented the story, in person, at our AMAHouston Healthcare SIG event in June. And I did NOT blog about it.)

I am not going to reprise the article, nor take away from the hard work of brand reviewing and rebranding conducted by the MD Anderson Cancer Center team. But I think it’s worth bringing some element out from behind the firewall – the five challenges that MD Anderson had to identify before the brand could be “fixed.” Directly quoting from the Flory piece, they were:

1. Brand interpretation: MD Anderson did not have an understanding of how its brand promise was being perceived across its many stakeholders.

2. Brand asset performance: MD Anderson’s previous logo and other brand assets did not differentiate the organization nor communicate its mission as strongly. In addition, the assets were dated, fading into the current communications environment.

3. Brand voice: With the volume of communications being disseminated from the organization, MD Anderson noticed a dilution of the brand. This dilution was due, in part, to the lack of a unified design and messaging system.

4. Brand growth: Due to growth in the past 10 years and the mission to be a global leader in cancer care, several national and global relationships were established and a brand architecture and management system had not been implemented to unite or tie the strategy together.

5. Brand management: MD Anderson used a cross-functional approach to communicating its brand and did not have a strategy to manage its current approach, much less future growth.

It’s classic “Find the problems” stuff. (Gotta find ‘em before you can fix ‘em.) Well…your institution or company may be facing the need to build a stronger brand voice. So you next steps are: join the American Marketing Association, get behind its firewall and read the article. It’s a fine first guide to rebranding.

Me? I’m grateful to AMAHouston and Jansen for the chance to have heard all the newest parts of the story first-hand. (I did blog about the MD Anderson ad campaign here 18 months back.) Even more, thanks to Flory, Managing Editor of Magazines for the American Marketing Association, for the telling-in-print.

When Your City Rebrands (like Ames, IA), Don't Take Umbrage. Take Advantage.

I wouldn't have paid attention to the Ames Patch post by Jessica Miller if I hadn't stopped in this Iowa college city on Monday for supper . (Sure enough, we pulled into a parking spot opposite Olde Main Brewing Company to see Michelle Bachmann for President 2012 campaign posters in the storefront windows.)

It turns out that the City of Ames hired Des Moines's PUSH Branding & Design to revamp the existing multi-green-colored logo. The experienced agency appears to have executed its usual job of creating a completely new look and approach for the city of 60,000....that's the red version on the left.

The City Council has asked the citizens for their opinions in a posting to the Ames municipal website, where you can see other versions of the new brand, as well as a proposed theme line: Heartland's Leading Edge.

These variations present Ames's biggest challenge – change. Asking citizens to comment, well, I realize it's right out of the “Big Book of City Council Things To Do.” But perhaps they shouldn't have.

Example: one commenter to Miller's blog post notes:

It's the old “If it ain't broke don't fix it!” The current logo has more impact, straight forward, bold, and fully understandable. Why spend thousands of whose money?? [sic] on something abstract that only a few understand. I used to design logos for local small businesses and never charged a dime. The same designers may be found here in Ames that would just take pride and not laugh all the way to the bank. Also, not appreciative of the costs involved in changing letter heads and other signage. What a waste for Ames.

I do not quote “Jo” in full to be patronizing. Having reviewed a couple of dozen city-rebrand stories over the past several years, though, I suggest that these posted comments encompass most of the complaints I've seen in other civic branding challenges – nothing wrong with the existing logo; new logo costs “thousands” of taxpayers' money; design too abstract/obscure/doesn't fit the civic persona; why go out of town for a design firm...and so on.

Yet whether the new brand proposed by PUSH is awful or awesome, look back a couple of paragraphs for that magic word, “change.” Properly, the City Council of Ames has decided that the 15-year-old green logo (on the right) is...dated. It is broken. It's the Council's job to fix that problem – without even reading the city charter, I am as certain as the Straw Poll it's charged with promoting economic and cultural growth. A new brand of any flavor ought to push in that direction.

It's also the City Council's job to spend money. Not foolishly, not wastefully...but productively. Generally, we pay taxes so that our governments can get on with the job of providing for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...by spending that tax revenue on a wide variety of projects and services.

It's a recurring fallacy that governments should not spend our money...or refuse to make decisions that cause change. Transforming the Ames logo mark to RED from GREEN is, I suspect, a really big one.

I leave aside the observation that someone might design logos for businesses and never charge a dime. Any good worker is worthy of his hire. Without knowing the parameters of the RFP, maybe PUSH Design could fulfill the terms and Ames agencies could not. Or PUSH brought a level of branding experience to this project that local outfits couldn't match.

So take another look at the Des Moines design firm and decide for yourself if it has the chops for the Ames rebrand project.

Feel free to weigh in on the Ames City Council request for feedback by emailing sgwiasda@city.ames.ia.us – today's the last day the Council will accept your thoughts; or comment at the bottom of the Miller blog post.

I'll say this: the proposed Heartland's Leading Edge line (leave out the article, please) makes good sense when I read how much research and development, agricultural and otherwise, goes on around this 60,000-people city. And as with every brand change, the more you promote it, advertise it and take advantage of it, the better off you'll be.

First, though – go with it!

How Rachel and Alison Help Make Up for Missing International Pickle Week.

Keeping an advertising blog while traveling is highlighted by happenstance. Today's post is powered by the appearance of a jar of Gedney State Fair Baby Baby Dills in our rooms here in New Prague. I had forgotten that Minnesota is so much of a “pickle state.” Wisconsin gets cranberries; the Land of 10,000 Lakes gets kosher dills.

Among many other varieties and circumstances. You can eat your way through the State Fair on pickles as Baking Junkie blogger Aimee demonstrates, “...a Pickle Dog. A pickle spear wrapped in cream cheese and pastrami. Absolutely fabulous and just like eating a giant pickle roll-up (another typically midwestern appetizer)”

International Pickle Week was last May, according to Minnesota Monthly writer Marie Flanagan, who also offered the classic Deep Fried Pickle Recipe...from Gedney. Which is why it's a pleasure to note that constant exploration and food purchasing by Rachel Baron and Alison Bond is such a great payoff for a marketing blogger like Signalwriter.

Not only didn't I remember the pretty darn famous Gedney Pickle Company from up here, but I didn't know that the...pickle giant...had been marketing a perfect peck of pickle products for this part of the world: its “State Fair” line-up.

Briefly, the first Gedney pickle factory opened in Minneapolis in 1881. A hundred or so years later, as a Minnesota State Fair sponsor, the company began packing and marketing top-prize-winning pickle recipes from ribbon winners there in 1991 with the Kosher Dills of Genevieve Spano and the Bread & Butter Pickles from Nita Schemmel. (The present jar of Baby Baby Dills is a prize-winner from Kathy Earnest, Lindstrom, MN.) And the locally famous jingle, “Get me a Gedney, it's the Minnesota pickle,” created by freelancer Sandy Buckholtz, grabbed hold up here.

Gedney has grown far beyond selling pickles from the back of horse-drawn wagons – it expanded by buying brands like Cain's to capture New England; and produces pickles for both Del Monte and Target's Archer Farms brand lines. Most important: Gedney's State Fair line maintains a resolute local focus, the “pickles here” of grocery marketing and promotion. For a company like this, thinking local continues to pay off, whether local equals Massachusetts or Minnesota.

Travel broadens one's view of advertising and promotion, alongside regional foods and events. Good to pick up a little fresh knowledge (and some pickles) while on the road. We'll be trying out these at the Slavik family reunion. Maybe I can tell you how Kathy's recipe has turned out.

PS: You betcha – that's Kathy right there on the label.

We Don’t Need No Trademarked “Seal Team Six” – We’ve Got Gurkhas.

Reality comes to the rescue of blogging again, even about advertising. So, first, if you didn’t share a huge guffaw over Disney’s application for a trademark on “Seal Team Six,” you missed a great chance to laugh at the company…again. And the company did this the day after the Abbottabad raid.

(Honestly, some days they’re worse than D Trump.)

Now you cigar smokers, current and reformed, will recognize the ad format here. It’s from the latest Thompson Cigar catalog and it’s touting Gurkha Special Operations Churchills. Since I’m certain that the catalog was in production before the US raid, serendipity is obviously at work. In fact, the king of mail-order cigars has had this offer floating around since last year:

The Gurkha Special Ops Gift Set takes Gurkha brand-owner K Hansotia’s support of our men and women in uniform to a whole new level. The Gurkha cigars are full bodied, but surprisingly sophisticated and employ a top-secret blend of well aged Dominican long fillers finished with a zesty Dominican wrapper.

On the one hand I’m charmed by the coincidence. On the other, Thompson (Since 1915) is  presenting its own special blend of silliness, starting with the inclusion of a 12-inch long knife instead of the kukri, the traditional long knife of the Gurkhas and other Nepalese hill people.

Even considering the historical use of Gurkhas as a special unit of the British Army (to this day: the Royal Gurkha Rifles); and their fearsome fighting reputation; the last time I can recall any sort of special operations being undertaken by the Gurkhas was in Hollywood’s “King of the Khyber Rifles,” in 1953.

So it goes: marketing will find a way. This is what drives the creator-cartoonist of “Dilbert” nuts. Plus the cigars are good, insofar as I remember them. Anything is better than one more over-reaching Disney exploitation.

Remember what these monsters did to “Winnie the Pooh.”

Force Mobility! Cyberwar! Is Sotera a Re-Brand or a New Brand? Let's Talk...

There are likely to be many reasons why Global Defense and Technology Solutions has changed its name to Sotera Defense Solutions. In the case of this mid-sized defense contractor, though, why would it have called the change it announced on April 5 a “re-brand?”

Milspeak buzzwords aside, let's go back to basics – what is branding? The American Marketing Association says that “a brand is a customer experience represented by a collection of images and ideas; often, it refers to a symbol such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme.” So the new Sotera identity is a brand.

What does it stand for? The company's press release notes:

...the name Sotera is derived from Greek mythology and represents the spirit of safety preservation and deliverance from harm. Officials said the new name reflects the company's focus on meeting national security needs.

That's what the company's new website says:

We deliver Technology and Intelligence Services and Field Mobility and Modernization Systems to protect the safety and economic well-being of our nation.

So it is not a re-brand but a new brand. Analyze it and we'll get to the core of the company's revised position. (In fact, Soter is an ancient identifier of Zeus as protector; more recently, Sotera is a Greek girls' name, and both forms mean savior.) Consider that Sotera has just been purchased by a private equity group for about $315 million, and that the purchaser is an affiliate of Ares Management LLC, it looks as though the new owners are going to go through the entire Greek pantheon eventually.

Despite the generic logo and color scheme, there's good news: Sotera's stakeholders are so defined, so focused, that there's little chance the company will ever be a strongly branded player even in the defense industry – an arena whose players are rarely noted* for strong public brand awareness. Sotera will simply continue to be a good source of highly specialized military/intelligence services and a good money-maker.

Let us merely hope no one ever calls for a cyberwar scenario analysis and ends up with a hospital patient vital signs monitor...from Sotera Wireless in San Diego.

*For this post, put aside the “classic” defense contractor brands such as Boeing; as well as the politically notorious ones And clearly, Signalwriter would like to hear what the company's Loren Peduzzi and Ares's agency representative, Bill Mendel, say they're going to make of all this. Thanks in advance for the blog fodder, you guys.

Bowling the Brand: CORROSION 2011 a Just-Right Re-Launching Pad for MATCOR.

Say you held a rebranding and everybody came? Week before last, MATCOR President and CEO Jeff Stello brought his whole gang to the NACE exposition in Houston.

To name just a few, Eileen Jacob and John Rothermel, Ted Huck and Carlos Fuentes came down from Doylestown-Pee-Ay, maybe the first time they’d been warm all winter. Helen Morgan came over from Mobile. Brian Biek and Rebecca Harding were at the convention center from the Houston office – and Trevor Eade, the company’s new Director of Marketing and Communications.

They brought the new MATCOR brand with them.

One of the marketing gamebook’s best plays is using a big tradeshow to create extra thrills about a client’s brand – past posts have highlighted Baker Hughes and Wood Group promos, for example.

Even though MATCOR has been creating cathodic protection products for more than 35 years, it has been readying itself for a bigger role, a leap into the comprehensive design and engineering of cathodic protection and corrosion prevention systems and the supporting services that are important today for a global company, with clients worldwide.

“Everybody at NACE” saw the new MATCOR…the total rebranded look. Being close to the company’s rebranding program reminds me that MATCOR is in the business of systemic cathodic protection and that frequently involves galvanic anodes.

In MATCOR’s case, “galvanic” means more than a direct current of electricity.

So, certainly, there was brand-new from top to bottom, from dramatic logo to purple color scheme to QR codes to bowling night. There was new literature, new (and memorable) handouts, a new corporate theme, a new client support program, a new Web 2.0 site.

The entire MATCOR team seemed to be powering some electric effect, as in intensely exciting. The week-long company presence was vivid and memorable and filled with personally powered interactions.

Stello clearly enjoyed the new excitement…but I don’t think he was distracted by it. He told me, “At the end of the day, we still have to execute, we still have to get the job done for every client on time and on budget.”

No matter how fast the company grows, keeping everybody’s eyes on the integrity part is still the secret to a 300 game.

MATCOR is a great Signalwrite client. Thanks to Jeff Stello and Trevor Eade for inviting me to participate in the adventure. All photos courtesy of Studio Holloman.

“Andrex® Shea Butter Knickers” Drive TP into UK Top Brands List?

In a Sunday story reporting the Top 10 Brands in British grocery stores, it wasn’t the news about best seller Coca-Cola that attracted me. I was riveted by Andrex – the toilet paper that’s the No 9 brand in the grocery stores over yonder. (It is in The Grocer ’s annual Britain’s 100 Biggest Brands survey.)

The puppy is so charming – and the “Be kind to your behind” slogan so clearly British – I could hardly wait to get to the brand’s website. That’s when I discovered the most luxurious toilet tissue ever has tapped Ayten Gasson, identified as a British lingerie designer, to create its limited edition range of Andrex brand Shea Butter Knickers. Just ₤10 the pair.

Now I have received certain – so to say squeamish – comments about using a beautiful, luscious, four-color photo of Italian lingerie model Elizabetta Canalis in a previous Signalwriter post. This time I’m playing safe: you get the pup. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

However, Dear British colleagues, here’s your chance to help me get to the bottom, ha ha, of this special announcement. American’s have had their own love affairs with TP (“Please don’t squeeze the Charmin’,” 504 TV commercials, etc.)

So give us the story behind Andrex, ha ha. Some of us Yanks want to know what we are missing.

CIA 21st Century Re-Brand Avoids Controversy, Uses No Black Helicopters.

To see an article about “rebranding” the Central Intelligence Agency – right out there in front of God and everybody – I admit it’s a shocker. America’s first formal civilian secret intelligence service is now otherwise. The CIA has a Facebook page. The CIA has a YouTube channel.

It’s discussed in yesterday’s article by Sheila Shayon who wrote, “…the CIA is keeping up with the times, and presenting a new image to the public with a digital facelift – a prerequisite for any brand presence in the 21st century…”

Discussed but not revealed: the CIA itself exposed its new brand initiatives in a press release.

I could show you examples of the CIA’s videos; or the recruitment ad campaign that the agency’s has been running for the past couple of years. (They’re creatively pedestrian but hey, it’s a clandestine government organization.)

It is hardly a Wikileaks coup, though: you can see all of these for yourself on the agency website’s “View Our Advertising” page. Families welcomed; kids, have a great time with your very own US intelligence apparat…hosted by a friendly black Labrador named Bradley.

The dissonance of the thing is galling, though these community-embracing efforts aren’t actually so new. One would like a bit more of an edge, though, for a government outfit that’s routinely accused of black helicopters and blacker operations.

That’s why I was thrilled to find a 1998 article written by a former CIA officer who declares, “…the Agency is just no good at what it's supposed to be doing.” This is 13 years ago, mind you...ancient history as far as Facebook initiates are concerned. Yet it makes interesting reading and it has finely pointed illustrations by Ross MacDonald (see one above). He’s one of America’s great illustrators, as well as a writer of children’s books and a maker of movie props.

Signalwriter is as much public entertainment as brand insight. This post gives you the critical data you need to [a] review MacDonald’s 1998 illustrations which the CIA ought to have used in its rebranding effort; [b] read Atlantic Monthly’s “ancient history” article as a go-around-come-around piece.

And [c] examine the CIA’s brand activities with a view toward picking up some pointers for your own practice.

NOTE: Illustration by Ross MacDonald, copyright © 1998 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly, February 1998. “Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?” Volume 281, N. 2, pages 45-61.

From Bland to Brand! Eight New Branding Rules to Rock Your 2011.

With the new year kicking off so much consumer and business branding/re-branding activity, now’s the time to look at some new rules – all focused on a single thought:

Be bold – it makes selling stuff easier.

That’s not just my opinion: some ideas* here are based on a four-year-old blog post I’ve been saving. When you read ‘em, though, remember what Hector Barbossa (Disney pirate captain and MTV “Best Villain”) said as regards the Code of the Order of the Brethren? It’s “more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules.”

1] Stand-tall branding sells better. So make a stand. A brand with no P-O-V has no point. Whether you hate Fox News or love it, you do know where it stands on the issues. Ben & Jerry’s is more than just ice cream; it’s a company (even though owned by giant Unilever) that stands for a cause. Younger consumers – even IT pros and refinery managers – have grown up in a consumer world. I think they want their brands to stand up and be counted.

2] Feed the leaders. Consumers are more selective, more experimental, more interactive…and they lead from the front. They have strong opinions on brands, and a lot of brands are getting consumers involved. Even with engineers: check out the Emerson Process Management blog for superior customer-generated involvement. Adopt the leaders as your brand stakeholders.

3] Customization is today’s thriller. Customize whenever you can, whether it’s for iPod tunes or oilfield control systems. Consumer-wise, the power of the Internet has all kinds of customers wanting something all their own. Customers say, ‘I need just what fits my life.’ The best examples are Apple’s iPhone app store or Starbucks.

4] Deliver clarity directly. Quicker information, literally. Tell customers (or website visitors) as concisely as possible what you are selling. Anything that simplifies understanding for customers is a big thumbs-up. Strong brands recognize you have to be concise about what you’re selling at the point of contact; even complicated Athens Group is pretty direct, for example.

5] “Brand” is the promise of an experience. It’s a simple mandate: find the best way to give consumers a brand experience. Manage the whole experience. Consumer brands like Coca-Cola and Coach have done it. Forget the transaction, even forget about the logo or the tagline; deliver an experience and sales will follow. Can big industrial brands say the same? Compare Apple and Schlumberger websites.

6] Innovation is still a boardroom favorite. Brands are inspired by Apple more than anyone else. They continue to transform the computer business, the music business and the telephone business. Smart branders watch them like hawks. Procter & Gamble, 3M and GE drive this too – they have made innovation the core of their corporate strategies as well as their brand.

7] Do be responsive. Are you getting bad comments about your most recent brand change? Boo-hoo. We live in a world where everyone not only has an opinion; each one feels free to express it online. Participate with your brand’s stakeholders, let them vent. Take it like Starbucks recently – in good spirit. (and see Rule 1.)

8] Know what’s happening to your brand. Our instant-on culture isn’t forgiving. More people know instantly when a brand makes a mistake or if a website isn’t good enough. Negative PR will stick no matter what you do to correct it. Brands like Nike and Walmart still suffer (somewhat) from negative PR about alleged abuse of workers outside the US; BP is still hammered by Macondo. Use marketing research to find out where you’re vulnerable. Be open about fixes.

Bottom line (IMHO) – being bold is good. When it comes to branding, though, be smart-bold. Try to avoid the stupids in 2011. Now feel free to share your own “rules of branding” with the rest of us, eh? And that’s your pieces of eight for today.

*Based in part on “New Rules of Branding” by Derek Day, Branding Strategy Insider. Day deserves all the credit for the good ideas; the bad ones are probably mine. Or you could read the McKinsey version. “Hector Barossa” is © The Walt Disney Company. All rights reserved.

Ball Watch Website Brand Punch: More Steam, Mad Gleam.

You can read this post or avoid the words and go directly to BallWatch.com for one of the most “atmospheric” websites I’ve run across recently. For brand vision and sheer evocative power, the presentation is hard to beat.

I’m fond of big machinery like locomotives. Especially the steam-powered muscle machines of yesterday. Ball Watch has successfully evoked this yesterday by combining the romance of steam and the love of highly accurate time pieces in a sound-and-sight-show that works superbly on the worldwide web.

Sure enough, Ball watches are expensive. I don’t remember the precise line, but looking at the Ball price list is like hearing a collector say, “Only the really costly ones are interesting.” Ball watches are not, however, the most expensive watches in the world. They do seem to have an intensely loyal following: very few used Ball watches seem to come up for sale on “fleaBay,” for example.

What caught me – catches me still – is the imagery and the scoring. Old black-and-white film footage with evocative music overcomes my sensibility about the amount of time Flash intros normally take. For a brand guy who’s heartily tired of sneering athletes and faux-shock appeals to youth, Ball Watch calls up strong images of a vigorous industrial America. A great branding job.

Unfortunately, that’s not directly apparent in much else the company does. The two-column-by-seven-inch ad that caught my eye in a recent Wall Street Journal is much like other expensive watch ads…except for the “Official RR Standard” line which reminded me I’d been meaning to check the company out for some time. The particular watch, a Fireman B and O “First Mile,” is the kind of historical detail I notice but a third of the ad is dealer listing.

I wish the company website delivered more business detail about the company itself. You need to burrow deep into the Internet to discover that, as of 2007 at least, Ball Watch USA “incorporated under the laws of New York and our major investor is an American citizen.” (This is from Jeff Hess, self-identified president of the firm. “Owners are an investment group. CEO is Francisco Harreraa formerly of Citibank. Two of the main investors are a Swiss guy and an American citizen. VPs are a guy from Kansas City and a guy from Canada.”

No precision there. Still, it’s not the first time that we have looked deeply into the eyes of the watch business and seen the mad gleam of great brand development driving the…train. (Remember the Flying Tourbillon and Watch Obama posts.)

Return to the main point: Ball watches appear to be quality goods. Trend-wise, they look fine. Plus its Explorers Club idea, which could be hackneyed, isn’t because this particular web segment is beautifully scored with a haunting version of “Amazing Grace.” Way more evocative than the sonically ugly Youtube version, by the way.

Though I do not own a Ball watch and am never likely to, I’m calling the website a great branding job. For this could-be consumer, more Americana please, mad gleam and all.

Main photo: Wikimedia.org and US Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division, npcc.32807 digital ID. All rights reserved.