Friday, August 17, 2007

Branded Filmmaking?

This is written by one of my mentors, Wright Massey of Brand Architecture Inc., who pretty much made Starbucks who they are. (Google him.) Imagine taking his ideas and converting them to filmmaking...GENIUS!

Themed Vs. Branding

By Wright Massey, April 7, 2005
There is often confusion when addressing the differences between a Themed concept and a Branded concept. Differentiating the two is crucial when developing a holistic consumer experience. Outback employs a "themed" strategy to communicate the Australian ("Aussie") experience. When companies associate their brand to a familiar subject matter, consumers will assign their own interpretations or apply familiar stereotypes of that subject. With the "Outback" some may envision diving in the Great Barrier Reef, hiking in the wilds at Ayers Rock, visiting the Sydney Opera house, flying boomerangs, Aborigines playing didgeridoos, or creating their famed Bark and Dot paintings.

The unfortunate risk of themes is that they may conjure good and bad associations with consumers. The same theme may have been incorporated by other brands, which may influence the consumer's perceptions. Themes have built-in "visual brand languages" that can be defined by outside influences such as television, pop-culture, movies and competitors who use similar themes. Themes can feed or create stereotypes. A theme may have inherited traits that cannot be managed or influenced by its "owner".

Outback's existing visual brand language is rooted deeply in the mystique of Australian imagery. However, Americans' vision or perception of Australia may have been formed via movies such as Crocodile Dundee in 1986 or Quigley Down Under in 1990. Outback's brand guidepost reflects Dundee's personality of being honest, unpretentious, straight up, and having no worries. This is a very strong and clear brand mantra and one which will insure consistency in developing Outback's future brand communications.

When building a branded environment one must dig deep to find its heart and soul. One must define and create its own brand voice from within. "Owners" must develop their own unique brand story, personality, voice, look, style, and touchstones. They cannot borrow directly from established identities or cultures with pre-conceived connotations. Branding is developing a unique story and a distinctive visual brand language that borrows, contributes and relates to existing conditions, myths, ideologies, legends, cultures… Creating a branded experience is not unlike inventing new and unique DNA, but creating a themed experience builds onto existing DNA.

The Disney Store is a great model of successfully building a theme into a unique brand experience. The Disney brand is comprised of a collection of stories such as Cinderella, Snow White, Lion King, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast and many more. Each story has its own color palette, characters, looks and styles that create a "unique" visual brand language. To "brand" the store, Wright and his team created a brand story to communicate the familiar Disney stories. Nothing new was created. All those Disney stores aided the design team to create and organize the store's branded story. There was no need to develop a visual brand language since it was so richly and successfully established in the consumers' awareness. Outback's challenge is to collect the rich and authentic stories of Australia to create its brand story. Unlike Disney, Outback must enlighten and educate the consumer of the colors, characters, arts, styles, stories, etc. of Australia. Disney Store illustrates the point of creating original stories with a unique and extensive visual brand language to contribute to a holistic branded experience.

Pizzeria Uno Chicago Bar & Grill ("Uno") is an excellent example of a theme that has become a brand. Uno's visual brand language has been derived from the culture, history and the many artifacts of Chicago. It draws its inspiration and storytelling prowess from the early industrial days of Chicago, when Coca-Cola was king and Chicago still had stockyards. Uno's visual brand language is wrapped in nostalgia. The Uno's brand message is not about the quality or the price of the food, but of the experience to enjoy the food.

Uno is a very well conceived and executed "themed" concept that convinces consumers that it is authentic. The themes are varied and intertwined to create a place and an experience that may not exist in Chicago. It is the best of every bar in Chicago - better than the real experience. That makes it a unique brand experience. The Uno's visual brand language tackles many themes; famous sport figures, unique Chicago architecture styles, famous interiors, famous Chicago places, Chicago cultural scene, the arts, foods, drinks, and lexicons. The components of the visual brand language used to communicate the branded experience have been uniquely adopted by Uno. It is so unique that it gives the impression that no two restaurant designs are alike, but the experiences are identical - as with Starbucks! Uno has taken a theme and enhanced the real story to create a unique branded experience. Many of the parts may not even be authentic but Uno's has made it its own authentic Chicago experience.

The success of any retail concept is found in the holistic usage of the brand components. Uno's branded kit-of-parts creates an environment that resembles a stage set; it immerses the consumer in the Uno's experience. The effort easily connects with consumers to communicate in a real, authentic, straight up, unpretentious, easy-going, and "popularist" view of Chicago rather than in an elitist, stereotypical one.

Another well-branded restaurant is the The House of Blues ("HOB"). HOB is by far the most immersive brand experience in the industry. The HOB experience is unique, highly imaginative and it is always a challenge to fully process the experience. Great brands go the extra mile. Great brands do not apologies or make deals. The folks at HOB live and breathe their brand and they never compromise.

Every aspect of HOB venues has been designed and scrutinized. Not one corner of the venues has been left out of the branding experience. Every element seems to fit naturally and effortlessly. The folk art is totally integrated into all communications, products and services. With such integration one would expect a degree of excess that could lead to a perception of being unauthentic. But the opposite occurs and the experience feels more real than life. HOB has raised the bar on themed experiences.

HOB has developed a visual brand language inspired by southern American folk art. One can easily argue that HOB lifted southern folk art as a theme and turned it into their brand. HOB spared no expense to create a real sense of authenticity. This no compromise approach has paid off and proves that consumers seek and approve such efforts. Even at a premium price, consumers are willing to support HOB because it presents an exemplary, straight-up and unpretentious experience.

Both Uno and HOB draw their inspirations from a specific region and explore its people and culture. The Outback story is every bit as rich and can be extremely interesting, authentic, engaging, and surprising. Brand Architecture ("BA") needs to raise everyone's (our designers and OSI's executives) brand awareness expectations. Outback's brand experience has been described as having a western bar feel with Australian objects sprinkled on the walls. Outback does not depict a holistic story. The objects found in Outback are the ones that you would expect to find in an Australian bar. Fosters beer can, surf boards, aboriginal art, wooden booths, metal light fixtures, neon beer signs, low lighting, wooden floors, all creating a very masculine feel.

This all worked very well in 1986 when Crocodile Dundee first lit up American movie screens. Times have changed and the story is now a little dated and does not quite resonate with the 20, 30, and 40-somethings. The objects used to communicate the story seem artificial, stereotypical and contrived. For example, rather than showing a real, scuffed surfboard hanging on the walls, Outback features a miniaturized version with its logo on it. The materials used to make the surfboard are not authentic. The Outback name placed on the surf board has turned what could communicate as a real artifact into a promotional gimmick. Such actions commercialize the experience. Is this surfboard straight up, unpretentious, honest and real?

Surfing is a part of the Aussie experience. To have made the surfing theme a more genuine brand experience, one could have researched the most famous surfer in Australian, copied his or her surfboard and found a more "unique" way to impart his or her story. The current props and artifacts in Outback restaurants seem to be "engineered" to easily decorate the walls with canned items. The objects seem to be packaged for easy installation. Another example of commercializing an authentic story is the vast array of "framed" aboriginal art. Aboriginal art is unique and warrants thorough research to seek out the ways to heighten its relevance to communicate the Outback brand story in a larger-than-life approach.

Outback's visual brand language is limited, ineffectively integrated into the environment, lacks attention to detail, and does not create a sense of surprise. Great brands pay attention to detail. Both Uno and HOB are all about details. Many causal dining experiences are using the playbooks written by the QSR concepts years ago to efficiently and cost-effectively package experiences. The differences between QSRs and causal dining concepts are the use of upgraded fixtures and finishes to communicate their branded experiences. QSRs are now creating "quick causal" dinning experiences. Brand Architecture created such a concept for Jack in the Box called JBX and another example is Chipotle. QSR executives are beginning to recognize the importance of the lessons taught by Starbucks in developing the third place concept in 1995.
The competition for America's stomach is ratcheting upwards! Restaurant environments are slowly becoming more intelligent, expensive and relevant with consumers' values. Brand communications can no longer remain obvious (such as, "we serve fresh vegetables" or "our food tastes great"). Chipotles says it best on one of its in-store posters: "Food quality should not be an oxymoron."

Every time a new brand enters the marketplace it looks at the competitive environment and strives to outclass the competition. This ratcheting is why it is extremely important to develop a unique visual brand language that is flexible to avoid the "McDonald's Syndrome." BA will develop a broad and flexible continuance of the Outback brand story. The outcome will be uniquely and abundantly applied to all aspects of the brand to insure its lasting relevance and to create an authentic consumer connection that will define a larger-than-life Australian experience.