Pajama

It’s amusing to see how Barclay’s Cycle Hire is rapidly becoming known in London as Boris’s Bikes. This was inevitable. Barclay’s Cycle Hire is too long and too generic to ‘stick’ with Londoners.

What does the Sony brand bring to mind? For me it’s overwhelmingly the Walkman and Playstation, two category-busting products so powerful they’ve become part of the English language. For you it might be cameras (still or video), TVs, hi-fi, PCs, mobile phones, movies, music…the list is long.

Fifteen years ago I said to a major UK client that I could remake his brand to be like Apple. He said he knew which brand he’d rather his company resembled and it wasn’t Apple, it was Microsoft. News this week that Apple has surpassed Microsoft in value reminded me of that conversation.

Brands are like a currency. Trust is an essential factor in their value. When trust is impaired, the currency is debased. This has been the impact of the recent revelations regarding the contract manufacturer Foxconn. Foxconn makes devices for a number of high profile technology brands, among them Apple. Shortly before the iPad became available in the UK news came of a serious problem at the huge Foxconn works, a sealed factory-town of 400,000 workers, near Shenzhen.

Now on London’s Regent Street and in Singapore’s Vivo City you can encounter National Geographic as … a retail experience. Indeed, so surprising and inclusive is the translation that I’m tempted to reach for a more traditional category and call it a department store.

If you’re like me, you don’t let the newspapers limit your understanding of what’s going on in the world – you try to find out what’s really happening. Before the internet there were precious books that came along quite infrequently and shook things up for you. Now you can entertain a dozen unmentionable opinions before lunch, every day, and still get some work done, if you’re quick.

On September 24th Wacom launched its long awaited pen and touch tablet. 
Pajama helped to create the new ‘Bamboo Pen & Touch’ packaging
line. The work also involved a communication platform as well as
look and feel of the new Bamboo positioning. The Bamboo Pen & Touch combines the benefits of Multi-Touch
with the comfort and precision of Wacom’s ergonomically designed
pen. The result: a powerful new way to work with your computer. For more information please contact Jo Williamson on jo@pajamaconsulting.com

There is no automatic equation between brands and representative politics or principles. However in an era of democratic deficit it is at least plausible that some of the energy once associated with political affiliation gets diverted into identifying with brands. After all the brands themselves make an enormous investment to nurture the potential for a very close identification between consumers and their purchasing choices. Effective branding in the B2C arena means generating strong positive emotional connections between people and the companies that make the products and services they buy.