Notes

so they're
barely noticed.
You know, you do this, say, every year.
If you look over 20 years, the difference
from the
first one to the last one is very very
hard.
And so there's a lot of packaging examples
which we can show you.
Where just with tiny little tweaks each
time, you still believe it's the same
product.
But if you look from
one, one version to a version, 65 years
later,
you'll see a radical difference, and the
brand stays modern.
Many consumer packaged goods do this kind
of just noticable difference positioning.
Anothedr way to do it is what's called the
butterfly effect.
And what this says, is that, I'm going to
move from one to antoher, in a big jump.
You are going to notice that it's
different.
It's not a just
noticable difference.
It's a bigger difference.
And the reason I'm going to do this is to
keep it modern and new.
Because, for some categories, like
cosmetics, like clothing,
and this is the notion of clothing The
idea of keeping it modern and keeping it
fresh is part of the reason to buy.
And in that case, I don't need the change
from one to another to just be subtle.
I can make it.
So that it is kind of a little bit
exciting, and more modern.
But, it doesn't necessarily need to but I,
it's,
it's more modern, but it still stays
within believability.
And, and that's called the butterfly
effect.
So it's not so extreme.
That I don't think it's the same thing.
but it is noticeable.
And, so these are two different ones and
we
can show you a number of different
examples on
those two different ones.
Okay.
And, then I can show you some examples of
evolving trademarks.
here's the Jolly Green Giant, that was
kind of out of date, he
And, they made a new Jolly Green Giant
that was fitter more athletic.
Taller, stood up straighter.
and looked more like a modern I guess,
giant.
then there was please don't squeeze the
Charmin.
And, they updated
that packaging.
Updated that spokesperson to look more
modern.
These are subtle changes.
There was another change, Charlie the
Tuna.
I mentioned him earlier, very fun,
animated
character, kind of got a little outta
date.
And they made him more modern and changed
the colors a little bit,
changed the perspective of him, and just
kind of made him a hipper guy.
More recently, there was a transformation
on the,
the, hamburger chain, Wendy's.
And again, I, I know a little bit more
about the market research, so I went into
this.
There was a lot of changes here.
One of the changes here is they got out
their slogan.
Their slogan that used to be part of the
sign was Old Fashioned Hamburgers.
Wendy's menu is gotta be broader now.
They do more than just hamburgers, so one
of the things they pulled out was that
slogan.
They changed their typeface.
They went from an old fashioned
typeface to a more modern typeface.
They did find when they did the
market research that the character, this
Wendy character,
which was Dave Thomas's the founder of
Wendy's, it was his daughter at the time.
People identified with that Wendy
character
and they liked that Wendy character.
So, they kept the character.
But they made her, you can see she used to
be in
a little circle and she used to be
contained in the circle.
Now she's kind of bouncing out of the
circle, and
so all of that made the logo seem more
modern and more expansive.
You know, lots of things are possible that
you can get in a Wendy's now.
And with these subtle changes, it's still
very much identified as a Wendy's.
you can keep the brand, you can keep the
brand modern, but connected
enough so that it doesn't, people still
know it's Wendy's and it's not a surprise.
There are other kinds of ways that people
have named that's actually to change the
brand name,
so Boston Chicken was the original name of
the
of the chain of restaurants that provides
dinner food.
Obviously, Boston Chicken suggested
they're just selling chicken.
and so they, and they sell way more than
chicken, and so they changed their name to
Boston Market and in that case, what
they're doing
is trying to broaden the flexibility of
the brand.
Weather Channel found
out that they were going to make a lot of
their revenues not off
TV anymore but off Apps and different
kinds of ways of saying weather.
So, they change their name from the
Weather Channel to Weather Companies.
And, Starbucks very famously changed their
name
from Starbucks coffee to just their image.
They just have the image of the mermaid
now.
They not only got rid of coffee, but they
kind of got rid of Starbucks.
But, people still know that it is
Starbucks by that image.
So what's the best way to do it?
The best, one of, a brand that's really
done
a very good job of keeping themselves
modern is BMW.
BMW could have been in the same situation
as
Oldsmobile because it was a product that
your father drove.
it, it, BMW was a lot of associations.
It was a certain type of car.
It was a German car.
It was an expensive car and it was a car
driven by the baby boomers.
At one time, all of this was good.
In fact, BMW's were called Beemers.
You know, they were thought of as driven
by the baby boomers.
But, these things get old.
It could have been that the car was seen,
the car design was seen as not practical.
Being a lot of money was seen as wasteful.
the baby boomers got old and they are
stuffy.
And German could be
seen as staunchy.
So, although these associations started
out as positive,
if they're not carefully cultivated, they
could turn negative.
How did BMW cultivate it?
They did it though a lot of sponserships.
They not only were very careful with their
advertising, they,
their, they mean performance, which is
something that can stay modern.
But they also changed their design of the
cars.
They, they had BMW sunglasses.
They sponsored high performance bikes.
They sponsored golf tournaments.
They associated their brand name with
young, and powerful, and good imagery.
And so their associations never did turn
negative, and they stayed a very positive
association.
Budweiser Beer has done that also.
this could be your father's beer.
He drank, your father drank Bud just as
much as you do.
But, Bud stayed very young with their
sponsoship,
with their advertising, with their clever
advertising.
That, with all of those kinds of things,
their slogans etcetera.
And, that's a way to do it by constantly
positioning your product.
Subtly, sometimes just noticeable
difference, sometimes
a little bit bigger difference, like a
butterfly effect, but always within the
brand
DNA so that people believed the changes.
So, major points here.
Consistency over time is very valuable in
building strong brands.
You do, it's kind of, you know, a fine
line.
You do need to keep your brand modern.
But, if you do something that threatens
the consistency
chain that I was talking about, people
won't believe it.
So, it's got to be something that is
consistent,
with the brand DNA, but is constantly
moving it forward.
When you think about all
the brand elements, you want them all
to work in harmony to communicate brand
identity.
And, it's important.
To to change when it's necessary but be
careful because if you do things
that are too big a change or the customers
won't accept, it just won't work.
If you really want to do a good job in
keeping your brand
modern, you really have to understand the
brand mantra, the brand DNA, the brand
positioning, your target segment.
These are the things we've talked about in
the beginning.
You have to understand what the points of
parity are, what the reference frame is.
You have to really understand what the
point of differentiation is, what is
strong about your brand, what is positive
about your brand, and what is unique.
And you have to be consistent with that
kind of brand image as you make these
adjustments.
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