Tag Archives: marketing

AFFORDABLE ART FAIR NYC

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Last weekend the spring Affordable Art Fair was held in NYC’s Chelsea neighborhood. The event, which occurs twice a year, showcases works from up and coming artists in more than 80 different galleries. All the art is for sale and visitors can get their hands on some originals from just $100, with the top priced work at $10,000.

The fair is a refreshing reminder that investing in art doesn’t have to kill your budget – there are plenty of talented artists producing great pieces that can be purchased for a reasonable price. Since the fair is geared to those who are interested in art and not necessarily experts, the organizers provide some advice on their website about collecting. Novices and aspiring collectors can get tips on what pieces to start with and what traits to look for in the artists. The most important factor though should be whether or not you have an emotional connection with the work.

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IMG_1233Look out for when the fair reaches a city near you.

PEPSI BITES THE BULLET & GOES SPORTY

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After 16 years Pepsi has decided to turn the page and unveil a new shape for its bottle, the redesigned structure is claimed by the beverage giant to make the pack more ‘grippable’ and enable Pepsi to tap into a younger market and challenge Coke’s iconic bottle.

Pepsi bottle chance in the past years.

Following its most recent logo change in 2009, Pepsi has taken a masculine approach to redesigning its bottle shape, perhaps due to an increasing number of male Pepsi drinkers. Pepsi claim that the new bottle’s base allows consumers to have a more stimulating, tactile interaction with the bottle itself. It’s clear that the new structure gives Pepsi a more chunky and powerful feel, which seems to have been its aim.

Pepsi

In its endeavour to stand out from its lifelong rival and create a more branded and recognisable shape, Pepsi have lost the curves and grace that served it well back in the 20th century, shifting slowly towards an aesthetic closer to that seen in today’s sport and energy drink category.

The redesign has been a brave move, and is a major step in Pepsi’s ongoing effort to create a more cohesive look for its brand, in reflection of its ‘excitement of now’ positioning. But while its famously alliterated nemesis has managed to create and maintain a timelessly cool, fresh, and smart image, we wonder whether Pepsi’s effort to keep up new will help it reignite the excitement its looking for.

DRIVING CHANGE: Innovative Ideas to Make the World a Better Place

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Dirty Water

Changing the world isn’t easy. Charities and awareness groups face several challenges to not only get their message out there, but to engage the public into response. Firstly, the issues at hand, from poverty to the dangers of spiked drinks, tend to be troubling and overwhelming. People may genuinely care, but no one likes to be depressed and so they shut them out. Rattling people with the truth may only cause feelings of guilt and despair – or even worse, apathy since there doesn’t seem to be a real solution. Secondly, for many charitable organisations the resources available to multi-national corporate businesses are in a different stratosphere, large scale campaigns and monopolising ad space are simply out of their grasp.

Thus, charities and awareness groups must depend on the cleverness of great ideas to capture and captivate the public. They’ve got one very significant thing on their side – the truth. With that in their arsenal, all they need is imaginative and innovative thought to truly make a difference. Perhaps big business could learn a thing or two from the campaigns dreamed up by these do-gooders.

Guerrilla Umbrellas. You could be next. That’s what the ‘Watch Your Drink’ campaign is trying to show you. ‘Nightclub ninjas’ place umbrellas into oblivious people’s drinks to prove how easy it is to spike someone in such an environment.

Umbrella drug awareness

Experience the issue. German publication FiftyFifty altered the air conditioning in German cinemas, with temperatures dropping to the uncomfortable levels that the homeless brave every night sleeping outdoors. The audience were shown interviews with homeless people and given blankets with QR codes on, which when scanned would lead them to a site to donate to a homeless charity.

Thirsty? UNICEF’s Dirty Water vending machine confronted people across Manhattan with reality they mainly see in the media. Vending machine dispensed bottles of water apparently infected with deadly diseases such as malaria, cholera and typhoid. The brown liquid reflects what those less fortunate are forced to drink on a daily basis. Passers by are encouraged to donate through the vender, online or by SMS.

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Real solutions. From raising awareness to positively impacting a community in the long term, there’s only a small, but significant step. UTEC university teamed up with an advertising agency to design a intelligent billboard, which turns air humidity into drinking water that turns air humidity into drinking water.

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PACKAGING TRENDS: Synergetic Brandmarks & Structures

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Building equity through synergistic brandmarks and pack or product structures appears to be a successful tactic for brands in their increasingly competitive categories. By finding elements of consistency throughout design from brand to pack and product, there’s opportunity for brands to tell consumers their story through simple on shelf interaction.

So which brands are playing the synergy card and playing it well?

Isklar – We often beging our packaging trends with a design of our own and aptly this one was a Design Effectiveness Award winner fro Blue Marlin. When we worked on Norwegian glacial mineral water brand Iskar we repeated the shape of the diamond shaped logo to provide structural shelf stand out.

Nivea – The worldwide cosmetic and personal care brand have recently released their new face care packaging with a new brand identity inspired by the iconic blue, which holds Nivea Crème.

P’tit Louis – Not long after launching in the 90s, P’tit Louis changed its generic shaped brand mark to a round green mark echoing the product within.

Whiskas – Whiskas Temptations’ structural packaging is directly linked with the brand’s identity. The kitty’s head shape is used as a visual in the brand mark and also as the shape for the box.

Dewars White label – The tail of the D was designed into the glass bottle as a debossed area.

If you can think of any more packaging examples we could’ve included we’d love to hear them.

GREEN SAFFRON STAND AT IFE13

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Green Saffron was exhibiting at IFE today (International Food & Drink Event). We took a trip Eastwards across London to the ExCel centre to see the stall which we designed.

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Green Saffron jars

You can find out more about our work on Green Saffron Spices here.

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT: Branding for Generation Z

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As the first wave of millennials begin entering their 30s, it would be smart for brands to shift their focus to the generation on the rise. Born within the time frame of 1997 – 2013, the new kids have been referred to as Generation Z (another spin of the uninspired naming cycle) as well as the Pluralists. The most notable characteristics of Pluralists is obvious – they are highly-connected and super-digital tots, toddlers and tweens. A look deeper will provide us with true insights that will illustrate how best to reach this group.

Pluralists are distinct from their ultra-positive, pro-active, ‘can-do-attitude’ Millennial predecessors, in the sense that it’s empathy rather than ego that drives them. This emerging group aren’t particularly concerned about making a name for themselves by changing the world; they are more interested working in collaboration to improve and bring calm to the world around them. They’ll be the most diverse generation ever, exposed to and influenced by more cultures and will socialize with ethnically diverse groups. This leaves a question for brands: How will they make themselves relevant to this sensitive, techno-savvy group of youngsters bent on social progress? Here are some brands that are moving forward in the right direction when it comes to appealing to the next generation.


Don’t mislead by the simple logo. The UK-based Tinc. is selling more than pencils and notebooks, it’s a ‘colourful, creative world of extraordinary stationery, gizmos and gadgets.’ In making school supplies fun by mixing in vibrant colour, technology, social interaction and cultural inclusiveness, Tinc. strikes all the right notes for a Generation Z audience.


In addition to the quirky stationary, Tinc. has an online community, Tincville, in which children can create a profile and join one of five ‘tribes.’ Tincville even has its own monetary system based on ‘Pebs,’ which parents can purchase on their children’s behalf allowing them to manage transactions themselves. What a great way to start them young.

Firefly Mobile sensed an opportunity and seized it right away. By designing mobile services and products for kids and teens, they reassure the parents of their kids’ safety – a completely justified need given that generations born in a time of turmoil, be that economic or any other, tend to be overprotected by family. This generational archetype known as the ‘artist’ perfectly fits the rising Generation Z and is what most likely drove Firefly to design their phones with different parental control features.

On Nesquick’s website, visitors are given a choice of how to explore the site as kids or adults. The “Frown-Free Zone,” speaks directly to little ones, offering a selections games, downloads, and activities, as well as facts about their product. The flavoured-milk brand understands that to there are more places to market to children than during Saturday morning cartoons. Children are considerably more comfortable online than their parents, thus the creation of a page specifically for them. It’s not only Nesquick working on this platform, the online kid-zone platform is already hugely popular with brands and organisations from McDonalds to the CIA. The site’s effectiveness is driven by the engaging content and experiences on offer, which is all very clearly brought to the user by the brand.