19 February 2010 /

Wally on creating a brand for Europe

by Wally Olins at 4:42 pm 19 February 2010
Filed under: Home Page

What’s your view on a brand for Europe?
Leave a comment.

16 December 2009 /

Season’s Greetings From Saffron.

by Wally Olins at 9:06 am 16 December 2009
Filed under: Identity

We’d like to wish you all, that is clients, partners, suppliers, friends and above all our own people

Merry Christmas.
We’d like to; but we can’t; because we are a global company, miniscule (about 50 people) but global nevertheless. It’s inevitable therefore that many of the people who work for us or with whom we deal aren’t too bothered about Christmas.

They may be Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, or Zoroastrian and so on; or for that matter people of no faith at all. All of them love the holiday season — don’t we all, but their religious affiliations lie elsewhere.

That’s one of the things about being a global company, even a tiny little one like Saffron – you’ve got to learn to watch it.

So

Happy Holidays everyone!
PS: No offence. Nothing personal.

24 November 2009 /

Branding culture

by Wally Olins at 7:05 am 24 November 2009
Filed under: Home Page

Cultural organizations are increasingly becoming global brands. Some argue that this will mean an increasingly homogeneous and bland world. This is not true. Read more…

24 November 2009 /

Branding culture

by Wally Olins at 6:50 am 24 November 2009
Filed under: Branding

The next four or five decades are going to be an important time for cultural branding. Branding has long entered sport (Manchester United), the arts (Tate), music (Vienna Philharmonic) and culture generally in a big way, both for better and worse. For better: because it makes them more professional, more effective and more available. For worse: because it inevitably has the effect of commercialising them.

Huge cultural organizations are increasingly becoming global brands – the Louvre moving into Dubai is an example. Three or four very well known universities now have campuses all over the world. These aren’t campuses in the traditional sense, they are franchises – the word ‘Columbia’ or ‘Harvard’, for instance, will be treated as a franchised brand. Not all of it will be a good thing. But if it means that first rate education or culture can be made more widely accessible , it’s not all bad either. And branding is the means by which it will happen.

Some argue that this will mean an increasingly homogeneous and bland world. This is not true. No matter how globalised the world is or becomes in terms of universities, galleries, or whatever we are talking about today, there will always be new companies, new people, new ideas that pop up. Even the ubiquitous Starbucks is now re-styling many of its outlets as neighbourhood coffee joints with only a small Starbucks endorsement.

So I don’t think we need to worry about a world in which everything is the same everywhere. Like culture itself, successful brands are forever changing and adapting – producing a new experience for their audiences. Cultural organisations that can harness the power of brands will benefit hugely over the coming decades because their brand will clarify what they do and what they stand for to a broad audience. This will provide the means to keep young artists in business, preserve ancient culture for future generations, bring international sport to remote locations and so on. Branding, it could be said, is the greatest gift commerce has given to culture.

29 July 2009 /

Petrol brands forget their #1 touchpoint

by Wally Olins at 6:00 am 29 July 2009
Filed under: Architecture, Branding, Identity

Petrol station forecourts are a throwback to the 1960s – or earlier. They are dirty, the lavatories are frequently filthy, the pump technology is forty or more years old; all that dribbling and no electronics. Now, as large parts of Europe are en route to summer holiday destinations, they’re especially nasty.

What a missed opportunity.

Even though some of the major fuel retailers have undergone re-branding exercises over the past decade, they seem to have forgotten that they have customers who take notice of these things. Think of what grocery shopping was like forty years ago and compare it to today. Why haven’t petrol stations  moved on? Why can’t they be as pleasing as a drive-in bank or cinema? Surely cleanliness, well thought through amenities and convenience should by now be taken for granted. But they’re not.

What a huge opportunity!

What if Starbucks designed a petrol station? Or The Four Seasons? What would they bring to the table that the likes of Shell and ExxonMobile can’t seem to grasp? It’s time for a major change. We won’t, perhaps, see Isadore Sharp get involved with forecourts. But we will see brands emerge which realise that the forecourt is the place for differentiation. Our friends at Rompetrol have made a good first step with Litro. Who’s next?