Salon.com > Branding

“Downton Abbey” inspires retail line

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:57:00 +0000

ITV's surpise hit "Downton Abbey" is expanding its global empire with a "range of products," turning itself into a brand. According to a CNBC interview with Gareth Neame, the show's executive producer and production company Carnival Films' managing director, you'll soon be able to wear "Downtown Abbey", cook like "Downtown Abbey," smell like "Downton Abbey," look like "Downton Abbey," write like "Downton Abbey" and sit in rooms like "Downton Abbey":

"We'll be working across an entire range of products coming out this year. From fashion, apparel and homeware and furniture to wallpapers, beauty products and stationary," Neame, who is also the show's executive producer, told CNBC.

"Some of these things have been available since 2012 and we publish books and have made a music album, but the more complex products take time," he said, adding that there would be even more scope for merchandizing in the future.

Coke goes on the defensive

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 20:55:00 +0000

Of all the iconic, untouchable brands out there, Coke would surely be leader. It's like baseball and Snoopy and your grandma rolled into one. Sure, it deluges you every day with a steady stream of magazine and television ads and those promos before the movies, but it's the cola that always somehow acts like it doesn't have to. It's Coke, for God's sake, our great munificent giver of sugary elixir!

But the company, once unassailable, has come under attack. Mayor Mike Bloomberg's ban on beverage portions that are bigger than an average toddler — a late-night punch line just a few months ago – survived the heavy-handed folksy, WHADDAYAKIDDINGME? lobbying of the beverage industry and is about to take effect. Soda sales are sliding, and more and more schools are pushing to phase sugary drinks out of the cafeterias. The home carbonation biz, meanwhile, has been booming, helped along by consumer infatuation and the promise of less wasteful packaging. So you can see why Coke might be feeling a tad defensive. And to that end, the company that has generations been luring the thirsty with the promise of carefree refreshment is doing something unique: It's actually addressing obesity.

New U.C. logo: A sad sign for higher education

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 18:47:00 +0000

"It's not only ugly because it looks like a Swedish flag being flushed down the toilet," wrote New Inquiry blogger and University of California doctoral candidate Aaron Bady of his university's brand-new logo, "it’s ugly because it so perfectly crystallizes everything that’s been going wrong with the University of California for years."

U.C. recently unveiled its new logo. Gone is the traditional arrangement, centering on an open book adorned with the institution's founding date. The new logo features instead a simple yellow, almost Comic Sans style "C" -- or perhaps it's a swish? -- on a sky blue "U" background. An 11-person team spent three years developing the logo, which aimed to project a "forward-looking spirit" according to U.C. officials cited in the L.A. Times.

Bilbo Baggins says, “Buy this!”

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 23:00:00 +0000

After Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” ruled the megaplexes for most of the early years of this century, it was inevitable that “The Hobbit” would follow. What was perhaps also inevitable — given the way the film industry and popular culture, in general, operates these days — is that after turning J.R.R. Tolkien’s massive three-book fantasy trilogy into a massive three-film fantasy trilogy, Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema would turn the slender folk-tale prequel into … another massive three-film fantasy trilogy.

That Hollywood is driven more by market forces than by artistic ones is a cliché so old it’s almost become axiomatic. Blame the collapse of the studio system in the 1960s. Hollywood did just fine when all the major studios were in the business of creating, as well as financing, the films bearing their logos; they even went so far as to seek out new talent, nurture it, and develop it over the course of years. Today, studios are just the money men, and projects are developed by independent production companies — every actor and director has his or her own — and then brought to MGM or Fox or Disney in supplication with the hope of a big, fat bankroll.

How consumer brainwashed are you?

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:54:00 +0000

For his 15th birthday, I gave my son an iPod Touch, a piece of technology that would have seemed like the purest magic to me when I was his age. He likes it, a lot, and I like to watch him use it a lot, because paying attention to how teenagers interact with modern consumer technology is an endlessly fruitful way to learn about where the intersecting forces of capital and entertainment will push society next. But even with long experience at this voyeuristic style of technology journalism, I was a little taken aback when I saw what he was doing with his new favorite toy last Sunday.

He was playing Logos Quiz, a game that is based primarily on the ability to identify corporate logos.

I was appalled and amazed. We've all become quite used to product placement in our entertainment, to living in a world in which TV shows like, say, "Hawaii 5-0" don't even try to hide their primary function as vehicles for Victoria's Secret and Microsoft Surface marketing campaigns. But to make the ability to recognize a brand into the product itself -- that's pure genius. A 15-year-old's attention span in 2012 is perhaps the most fickle thing to ever exist on this planet -- to see my son trying to guess whether a certain squiggle signified BMW or Mercedes Benz was astonishing.

Brand USA takes a hit

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 16:08:00 +0000

The Country Brand Index (CBI) compiled by brand consultants FutureBrand annually looks at nation-states through the lens of consumer perceptions. If every country is and has a "brand," how do these brands fare against each other? According to the 2012-2013 CBI report, due for release Wednesday, brand USA is on the decline.

Listed in eighth place in the CBI top 25 country brands this year, the U.S. has fallen eight places since 2009, when the U.S. took the top spot and FutureBrand found some truth in the jingoistic chant "USA, number one." The CBI Index this year found Switzerland to have the top country brand, while the U.K.'s brand enjoyed a two-place leap to eleventh place, likely due to London Olympics attention.

In a release, FutureBrand explained how country brand perception is measured for their annual report:

Brainwashed by junk food

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:50:00 +0000

Do your children light up when they see those golden arches?

Well, they’re surely not alone. A new study released this week showed that brain activity in areas connected to rewards and appetite control increased in children when they were shown well-known fast food logos.

Researchers from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Kansas Medical Center showed children, ages 10-14, 120 popular company logos — 60 food and 60 non-food logos. During this process, researchers used MRI technology to scan the children’s brains and monitor their activity. The study found that fast-food logos triggered an increase in brain activity compared to the non-food logos.

Researcher Dr. Amanda Bruce said that while viewing fast food logos, the children’s increased brain activity was not that much different than when the children saw actual food. She said children’s interest and familiarity with food logos is “concerning,” as the logos are marketing food that is unhealthy.