The decline of Microsoft
Microsoft’s core problem is that they have lost the hearts of computer enthusiasts. Regular people don’t think about their choice of computer platform in detail and with passion like nerds do because, duh, they are not nerds. But nerds are leading indicators.
In some ways Microsoft seems to be getting more exciting again. Whether it is the good early reports of Windows 7, Project Natal, their Yahoo! search deal, the XBox’s continuing strength or their Bing search engine, things appear to be happening for them again. Nevertheless, they have just posted some very poor results, and there are still plenty of questions about their business strategies. The problem they have, is that whatever they do, Windows is their life-blood. Take a look at John Gruber’s take on Microsoft’s Long Slow Decline.
For the love of brand
The story is now a little bit old, but it is still worth going back to. In early January PepsiCo introduced the new brand identity for Tropicana. It was a huge revamp of a much-loved brand, and while it was bold to make such a move it felt also a little cold and passionless. It had some interesting little details, such as the cute ‘half-an-orange’ caps and the evolutionary use of men in a grocery brand, but to say it fell flat is a huge understatement: sales fell an astonishing 20%. Even with weak rebranding efforts sales tend to increase, if at least temporarily, so this is a truly awful result. Undoubtedly this will have cost PepsiCo tens of millions of dollars.
But it was not just the drop in sales that forced their hand: it was also the reaction out on the internet that made them recognise there was a problem. People genuinely loved the old Tropicana branding, with its straw in the orange and big green friendly typography — it was something they had grown up with, were comfortable with and easily recognised. While it had evolved over the years, it had never been through such a radical change.
Thanks to the internet regular people have gained an enormous amount of power when it comes to shaping the brands they love (or hate). Whether it be via forums, Facebook, Twitter, blogs or plain old email, people can connect with brands in a direct way that they never had before, as well as exert pressure by creating similarly-minded groups. This can be threatening for the brands, but also extremely useful if it is embraced: it’s like free user testing or focus groups. In response companies can tweak their service, campaign or product. Nevertheless, brands need to be confident in what they are doing. Understanding how to listen to customers is an art, and it does not help to lurch around trying to placate everybody, while pleasing no one or failing to move a larger strategy forwards. Sometimes you need to move on despite your existing audience.
The New York Times covered the story, and it is a worthwhile lesson in not only the risks of rebranding, but also the whole branding process as it can sometimes be practiced.
Also worth a read is Newsweek’s interview with Peter Arnell, the man behind the rebrand, as well as DKNY, the new controversial Pepsi identity and many others.
29 July, 2009
London Youth Rowing launches
We’ve been doing a lot of work recently for London Youth Rowing (LYR) – a ground breaking sporting initiative that aims to develop young people through physical activity and make rowing accessible to all. We created a new look for LYR and designed and built their new website. The site is content managed (WordPress) and is also designed to interact with the CRM tool Salesforce.com.
As well as designing their online look, we have also been responsible for other design work – in particular the branding of an LYR initiative called Row East London! This is an initiative aimed at improving the fitness, health and well-being of young people in the ten East London Olympic and Gateway boroughs. The initiative was launched last week on 17th March in the company of Olympic medalists and Kate Hoey MP. The launch took place at The National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships (NJIRC) – which is the largest indoor rowing competition in the world with over 1,900 participants. Photos of the launch event, with the Row East London logo featuring prominently on t-shirts, can be viewed here.
24 March, 2009
Murdoch: people are “hungrier for information than ever before”
Much of the newspaper industry was nervous even before the downturn, but now with the massive drop in offline advertising many are resigned to the idea of permanent decline. Rupert Murdoch though does not agree and he recently made an optimistic speech on why he believes newspapers will continue to be important, but also evolve into new forms. These forms may not exist as a printed edition at all: “In this coming century, the form of delivery may change, but the potential audience for our content will multiply many times over.”
He rightly sees the internet not as the ‘enemy’ that will kill them off, but an opportunity. For someone who came so late to the internet, he now seems born again, an optimist who sees the internet as a catalyst for new ways of doing things. People are “hungrier for information than ever before… Readers want what they’ve always wanted: a source they can trust. That has always been the role of great newspapers in the past and that role will make newspapers great in the future.”
Read more coverage by the Associated Press and ReadWriteWeb.
5 December, 2008
COPE launches
We are pleased to announce the launch of the site for COPE – the Committee on Publication Ethics. COPE are the “the kitemark of medical journals” – working towards high ethical standards and safeguarding the integrity of the scientific record. In other words, they “help scientific journals to get their houses in order”.
We developed the brand for COPE and designed and built the site from the ground up. COPE wanted the site to be a forum where publishers and editors of peer-reviewed journals could discuss issues related to the integrity of work submitted to or published in their journals. Also required were different levels of membership to the site, each with varying degrees of access and functionality. To cope with this (excuse the pun) we built the site using the modular content management system Drupal.
The site launched successfully and has received great feedback from COPE members – of which there are 3022 to date. A big thank you to the COPE team and, in particular, to COPE’s Jeremy Theobald and Linda Gough for their hard work and dedication on what has been both a challenging and enjoyable project.
27 November, 2008
The Story of “O”
Steven Heller interviews Sol Sender in the New York Times about the design of the “O” logo for Barack Obama. A striking thing about the campaign was how it concurrently had a strong grip on the identity internally, never letting the wrong colours or typography to be used, but also the way it benefited from how it was constantly reinvented externally by supporters, whether in viral videos, handmade banners, cake designs or any other form imaginable.
Politicians will learn from Barack Obama, but probably should not do it like this
Benjamin Netanyahu, the right-wing Israeli politician has been inspired by Barack Obama. Many people may find this inspiration slightly ironic considering the differences in fundamental world views, but learning from his successful campaign techniques makes sense. That said, what Netanyahu really shouldn’t do is copy wholesale the brand design and general look and feel of the whole campaign.
Jane Wentworth Associates launches
We’ve been busy recently – we’ve also just launched the website for Jane Wentworth Associates. JWA are a consultancy that helps cultural organisations, like Somerset House, the V&A and the Natural History Museum, understand and clarify their brands. The website will be evolving over the next few months as more case studies are included.
22 October, 2008
HoweMello launches
We’ve been helping out our friends at HoweMello with their website. HoweMello are a brand new company focussed on using copywriting and graphic design to “bring brands to life”. They have worked with a wide variety of clients, including Colors Magazine, the Tate and Donna Karan.
20 October, 2008
The design of the Olympics through the years
The Colourlovers website does a great overview and history of the brand design for the Olympics, from 1896 through to the ever controversial 2012 games. Via Daring Fireball.
Digg and brands that are loved
People moshing at a ‘chatshow’? That’s Digg. For a website that essentially makes it easy to share web articles with other people and see what is the most popular, Digg has certainly created an incredible brand that people really love. Zoe Margolis of The Guardian talks to Kevin Rose, one of the founders of Digg.
The making of Monocle
A fantastic article about how the website for the magazine Monocle came about, the thinking behind it, the design and the style. Written by Dan Hill who has worked for the last year on the site, it goes into great detail about the challenges staying true to the style and brand of the magazine while also working in the medium of the web. There are many good insights made, many that remind me of our projects. For example, while discussing whether user-generated content should be in the Monocle site: “my view was that we didn’t need comments on the site as people increasingly have their own spaces to talk, discuss, comment – whether that’s blogs and discussion fora, or the social software of Facebook et al.” — an insight many organisations could learn from and feel comfortable about. Monocle, the magazine and website, are also recommended.
The Obama brand
Newsweek on the Barack Obama “brand” – including a reference to how Hillary Clinton is actively copying it, typeface and all.
Obama vs. Clinton, a question of design
The New York Times (login required) compares the relative website design of US presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, to the debacle between Macs and PCs.
“But how good is the work?”
Adrian Shaughnessy for the Creative Review visits Wolff Olins, the company he was critical of due to their Olympics 2012 logo… and has his expectations confounded.