How many of these awareness ribbons did you recognize? We got 3, but were surprised the artist who pulled together the graphic above chose to omit Neonatal Alloimmune Thrombocytopenia’s iconic red and gold ribbon.

The red and gold ribbon is, of course, not at all iconic. But ribbons are. In the United States and beyond, the small looped ribbon is widely recognized as a symbol for an altruistic cause. So if we were trying to raise awareness and money for a recondite condition, we’d find a new color combination and start purchasing ribbons with alacrity. That’s what the Komen foundation did, after all. Yellow ribbons had been used for decades in association with the American military, and some AIDS organizations were using rainbow ribbons in the mid 80′s before settling on red in the early 90′s.

When a Brand Should Blend

As loyal readers of this blog know, there’s nothing we love more than originality, so why would we add one more to the sea of ribbons that are already out there? Because it takes time and costs money to start from scratch. Organizations created to address an obscure disease or charity usually don’t have the latter and would prefer not to squander the former. A ribbon is a shortcut that lets people know immediately that you’re up to something noble.

Are you starting a new business or launching a new product without the unlimited resources to cement it in the consciousness of that business or product’s particular public? Consider creating an identity that makes you or your product fit in with the considered set – and makes it easier for potential customers to figure out what you’re offering. There’s a reason most law firms use serif fonts in their logos, and that most tech startups choose quirky, made-up compound words for names.

When a Brand Should Differentiate

On the other hand, some groups are working to galvanize diabetes groups around a blue circle. Diabetes is a well-known and well-understood disease. It affects a large (and growing) number of people. A number of very large organizations all over the world are making long-term efforts to combat the disease, and if they aligned their efforts they would have a good chance of creating the kind of awareness that would put the blue circle on par with the yellow, pink and red ribbons.

Are you starting a new business or launching a new product with a war chest set aside for promotion? If that’s the case, it’a time to bring in the right-brained, lateral thinkers and try to create the next Ally, Accenture or jetBlue.

Of course, we’re oversimplifying things. You can create a safe identity, but use other aspects of your brand, marketing and promotions to help you stand out. It is possible to create something new, spend next to nothing and still see it become a household name. Let’s just hope it’s not because you inadvertently sparked a political firestorm.

*For those of you who must know how many of the ribbons above you guessed correctly (and who trust Wikipedia) here’s a thorough list.

We certainly agree with the pundits that brands now operate in an environment characterized by relentless transparency.  No longer can brands create Potemkin Villages to conceal their true colors because it is so easy to find out what they are really like via the incessant and instantaneous commentary on Facebook, Twitter, Yelp (20+ million reviews alone), Amazon, Ebay,  Epinions, Foursquare, GlassDoor, Google Places/Maps,  Trip Advisor, Yellowbot, et al.  Of course not all of the brand experiences detailed in cyberspace are bona fide with some brands endeavoring to conceal advertising as editorial by hyping their own products and services and others slagging off competitors with false negative reviews. Yet with sufficient numbers participating in the hurly-burly of debate, some semblance of the truth frequently emerges in the form of crowdsourced wisdom with outliers being either explicitly voted up or down a la Quora, or simply being relegated to the margins of consideration.

Yet has all of this transparency caused brands to become too revelatory and confessional?  Remember Netflix CEO Reed Hasting’s sincere, but ham-handed missive last fall announcing (since rescinded) that the company was splitting into two brands and introducing Qwikster? Just as we are not always completely forthcoming in our interpersonal interactions (NO! Those skinny jeans absolutely do not make you look fat!) should brands sometimes adopt the declaratory equivalent of soft focus in what they reveal to actually enhance customer experience and satisfaction?

Case in point: the siren song of exceptional client service has led us of late to frequent travel between BrandCulture HQ in Los Angeles and Atlanta.  This has allowed us to spend some quality time in the world’s busiest airport and aboard the planes of Delta Airlines (Delta dominates the LAX-ATL market as its 4th businest route with over 900,000 passenger trips each year  — a point that has not been lost on Southwest, which is adding service starting in June).  One recent evening our ALT-LAX flight was oversold, but instead of bumping the extra passengers, Delta decided to swap the scheduled Boeing 767 for a larger Airbus A330-300.

So far . . . bravo!  After all 298 of us stowed our luggage and took our seats we waited  . . . and waited.  About forty minutes after our scheduled departure time, the captain explained that because the substituted plane was used primarily for overseas routes, they needed some additional time to conform the aircraft to domestic requirements.  Fair enough; we appreciated the update.  But then he continued that they were actually waiting more specifically for “oven inserts” that would allow the crew to prepare the hot dinner choices for the folks traveling up front.

We’re sure this was welcome news for the 34 passengers who were to enjoy this repast, but if the 264 of us traveling in steerage had a vote, we’d suggest offering the high-flyers a sandwich along with canapes and cocktails as an appropriate substitute if it would shave a few hours off of our travel time. Had the captain simply left the explanation at “modifying the aircraft for domestic operation,” we would have never been the wiser as to the actual picayune (and infuriating!) reason for the delay, and traveled in blissful ignorance that Delta was doing all it could to assure all passengers that we would reach our destination safely and swiftly.

The first thing we learned in law school (a story for another day) was that a lawyer should never pose a question to which he or she does not want to know the answer.  Perhaps the brand-building corollary is that sometimes the most effective customer and brand experience involves revealing some, but not all of what goes on behind the curtain.  Just as Chancellor Bismarck noted about making legislation and sausages, the less you know about the process, the more you can enjoy the result. Building brands that rely heavily on customer service is also hard, ongoing work, and sometimes TMI can spoil the experience as well.

But maybe Delta has taken this to heart.  Last week we showed up at LAX to travel back to Atlanta.  We were delayed again, this time on a Boeing 777 that had flown in from Sydney.  The explanation? The crew needed extra time to “remove some international items” that were left aboard the aircraft.  Enough said.

Meet the new Seat Mii, a “dinky little city car”  that comes in at 8.690€ (that’s $11,293 for our American friends), boasts a 1.0L 3-cylinder engine and is capable of up to 4,7L/100km, which is about 50mpg (God bless you google!).

Mii?

Hey, we understand that branding and naming are business, not art. We don’t believe that in order to be good something can never have been done before. We know that it’s often perfectly fine for the same name to be used simultaneously in separate industries. And we’re not above respectfully piggybacking on equity and associations that already exist in the marketplace.

But when one of the best-selling consumer devices of the last several years is called the Wii, and when the digital character that a player creates for her or himself is called a Mii, the best Seat could do was call their car a Mii too?

Frankly, we’re surprised they didn’t go with their alternate candidate, MyPod.

Their auto clients have not only spanned Ferrari to Hyundai; they’ve ranged from Maserati to Mitsubishi; from Rolls Royce to Ford. They’re moving into electric vehicles. Their non-auto work includes speedboats, commuter trains, perfume bottles and luxury hotels. (photos of some of their work below)

How do they pull it off successfully?

1. A Rock-Solid Foundation. If Pininfarina had only designed one or two luxury vehicles and then moved into other segments and industries, the brand would have been relegated to mediocrity long ago. They haven’t and it hasn’t. Pininfarina has designed almost every Ferrari of the last 60 years, creating an extremely strong base from which to grow their brand. It’s the same reason Missoni can sell at Target and sell a jacket for $5,500 a few weeks later.
2. Confidence in their Customers. Pininfarina can trust that virtually every one of their prospects (corporate buyers – not consumers) knows their body of work intimately. That’s why they don’t have to splash Ferrari all over the home page; that’s why they have been happy to work (in moderation) with non-luxury/non-performance/non-automotive brands.
3. Knowledge of Self. While Pininfarina’s business depends on auto work, they do not define themselves as car designers – they define themselves as designers. Their mission is not merely to design cars  - it is to create and innovate with style.

Are Pininfarina perfect? Of course not. They’ve just announced the closure of their auto production operations, they’ve sold their majority stake in their eight-year-old JV with Volvo and their stock is close to de-listing territory. The assertions above are our educated professional opinions, but there is the chance that their brand-building success could just be dumb luck.

Despite the inner volatility, the brand it projects to the outside world remains sleek and desirable. It is, after all, Italian. Anything else would be off-brand.

Ooooh	Aaaaaaah
Niiiiice	Sweeeet
Siiiiigh	Swoooon
Looooove	Must...Have...

What, the person who came up with Very Large Array wasn’t available?

Crowdsourcing is a hot-button topic for people in the branding profession, many of whom see it as devaluing their work; some of whom see it as a surefire way to guarantee a poor result.

We understand the seductive appeal to organizations of generating more logo or name options more cheaply than by hiring professionals, but before you rush out to launch a naming or design contest (either external or employee-only), we urge you to consider the following:

1. A very large part of what a competent creative partner will do is help to tightly define the problem that the name or design needs to solve. Will contest participants do the same?
2. Furthermore, they’ll hold you to that definition of the problem. If you’ve got a tight brief, it’s much harder for the CEO to choose a name or logo by fiat just because it reminds him of his pet goldfish.
3. Finally, you’ll benefit from the fact that professionals spend a lot of time looking at and thinking about names and logos – what’s current, what’s next and what’s yesterday’s news. Names and logos are subject to fads (light flares, or names beginning and ending with ‘A’ anyone?) as much as any other creative field, and it behooves you to be aware of them lest you fall prey to them.

As we’ve written ad nauseam on this blog, creative work is not about coming up with something that people ‘like’. Kraft was sure people liked iSnack 2.0, after all. That is, before they found out that people actually didn’t.

Rather, creative work is about coming up with something that communicates a proposition or emotion effectively. If it does, and if the product or service it’s communicating about is worthwhile, then people will learn not only to like, but to love the name in short order. If you don’t believe us, just ask the folks who came up with Wii and iPad.