Bread Line Design

Inspired by the ludicrous number of design studios using coloured animals as company names I’ve created the incredible fantabulous breadline design company naming machine. Follow the link and cast aside your tired and boring corporate name of yesteryear, embracing quirky naming wonderfullness! Huzzah!

Two years back asking a ten year old when the Christmas season started they’d likely have said when the red trucks adorned with a soft drink supping santa hit the TV screens. These adverts have been replaced now, which i think was a big mistake. What Coke were close to achieveing with their annual Christmas TV campaign is nothing short of the brand Holy Grail: They were gradually attaching their brown sugary liquid to the birth of christ, and to the second happiest day of every child’s year. No mean feat by any means.

So how on earth were they managing this? In two ways. First they masterfully crafted a visually rich advert with a catchy tune, and secondly, but much more importantly they left it virtually unchanged and repeated it year after year after year. Combine this with the urban myth that they created the red Sana Claus and you have a very powerful campaign that was beginning to span a generation.

Coca Cola aren’t alone in their efforts to brand Christmas. Perfume behemoths Chanel now have their eyes firmly fixed on a similar Christmas tie in. Chanel’s advert, featuring a runaway Australian actress and an absurd star-gone-missing-meets-beautiful-no one plot is high budget, blunt with its message and gratuitous in its execution. Its also run unchanged annualy for three years. Give it another five and I bet I can tell you what Mrs Claus will be getting in her above average sized stocking.

However if you want an example of a brand that has truly owned a cultural event you need look no further than Guinness beer and Saint Patricks day. The beer and the day are becoming virtually one, with March the 17th punctuated with over sized Guinness hats, beer coasters and even Guinness branded parade floats in Dublin itself. Bombardier beer are attempting a similar cultural coup with St Georges day, although they have a real up hill struggle ahead, as the English are as attached to St Georges day as they are to the Eurovision song contest.

I’m probably not alone in finding these brands efforts to own cultural dates a little upsetting. I like the idea that certain cultural stories remain free of commercial exploitation and that we as a people will maintain and evolethem without the aid of multi-national capitalist giants. However in truth brands like Coke, Chanel and Guinness help push these events into the populations psyche far more than folklore can. Coke didnt invent a red Santa, but they did feature him on a hundred thousand posters. Can any non-commercial outfit claim the same?

I’m a realist. You can’t fight nor regulate any brands efforts to associate themselves with cultural events. Instead I’m going to controversially ask for more. Burns Night in my home country of Scotland is a fitting example. Year on year this wonderfully Scottish event fades a shade. Throughout my high school years I saw numbers dwindle every January the 25th, and down here in England the majority have never heard of it. If Bells Whiskey would simply throw some budget into pushing their brand onto this special date it’s profile would be raised and numbers at Burns Nights would grow. Many Scots might feel the day would be being exploited, but surely this is a fair price to pay for increased exposure?

Event branding is a difficult fact of modern life, a difficulty that’s here to stay. We as consumers can either reject it, and vote with our wallets, or embrace it and encourage other brands to back lesser events. Because if they don’t Burn’s night may one day be forgotten, or worse be branded with a Coke drinking Aussie wearing a Guinness shaped hat.