27 March 2009 /

Selling Lithuania smartly

by at 8:50 pm 27 March 2009
Filed under: Identity, Nation Branding

Saffron’s six-month project with the Lithuanian Development Agency to devise a six-year strategy and action plan for developing what the client called ‘the economic image of Lithuania’ (and what Wally and I thought of as ‘the image of Lithuania, particularly with respect to commercial considerations’) has wrapped.

We had a press conference in Vilnius yesterday. The twin themes we suggested form the heart of the strategy — the core ideas — are lively and ‘romantic’, and thoughtful and reliable. Both are genuine sides of the genuinely interesting nation that is Lithuania.

And for crying out loud, no slogans! You can see what we advised instead in the communications guidelines section of our full report, which is available as a hi-res PDF no less, on the client’s site.

24 March 2009 /

“Best tire branding. Ever.”

by at 3:51 pm 24 March 2009
Filed under: Home Page

Brand New had some awfully kind words (spelt the American way) for our  branding work.

18 March 2009 /

Wally Olins on listening to your staff

by Ben Knapp at 5:27 pm 18 March 2009
Filed under: Home Page

Wally writes about why internal alignment and having your team behind you is so crucial. And about what happens when you launch too soon, are ill-prepared and overestimate yourself.

18 March 2009 /

Knowing who you are and what you can do

by Wally Olins at 5:22 pm 18 March 2009
Filed under: Branding, Identity

I have a little story to tell.

Many, many years ago when Britain still had a flourishing industrial base, my then company was appointed by one of the largest machine tool companies to create what we were starting to call a corporate identity programme.

Our client was about to launch a new range of CAD CAM machines – that is computer aided design and manufacturing equipment. We were told that CAD CAM was going to sweep the world and that the new machines were state of the art. Breakthrough in design, relatively easy to operate, superb global back up and service. That was the intention.

The new corporate identity was to relaunch the company. The combination of the new machines and the new identity would jointly turn our client from a lowish profile, respected, conservative, rather traditional organisation into a high profile world leader.

We did our homework very carefully. We carried out interviews amongst competitors, suppliers and customers. We learnt that our client’s company was well respected in the outside world, but regarded as a bit conservative – even old fashioned. Read more…

10 March 2009 /

“You can’t shut your ears”

by at 1:21 pm 10 March 2009
Filed under: Branding

Cliff Jones from the Sync Agency popped round to our London office today to give us a primer on sonic branding.

The main takeaway for me is that there really is some science to putting brands to music, and that — as with many things — NOT getting it wrong is halfway to getting it right (bookings went down after British Airways inadvisedly switched their telephone theme music to John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane”).

Jones says we’re influenced by music, and we even make decisions based on it, quickly and unconsciously. We have little or no control over how it affects our emotions.

Most remarkable of all, Jones claims that even if you hate a particular tune, you will, in spite of yourself, manifest the intended physiological response to it when you hear it in an advertisement.

‘What we do,’ he says (and I’m paraphrasing), ‘is engineer people’s moods using music for emotional leverage.’

Sounds dangerous. Sounds interesting. Sounds like an opportunity.