Having a moment

 

There’s one High Street slogan that’s been around since before the late Queen was born, but like Her Majesty, has recently become history.  Never Knowingly Undersold was not originally intended as a customer-facing slogan, but became so in 1925, when it was first used by the Peter Jones store in Sloane Square.

Although this slogan is not exactly slick (it’s a bit of a mouthful), it is unusual not just because of its longevity, but also because it’s a firm promise to the customer, rather than an imperative of how the customer should live their life, in the style of something like Just Do It, or a statement of attitude or belief as in Life is for Sharing.

The point about a customer promise is that, even if few customers go to the bother of asking John Lewis to refund the difference on an item bought more cheaply elsewhere, it builds trust in the brand and demonstrates serious commitment to its users.

Of course, shopping has changed beyond recognition since 1995, let alone 1925, and in these days of online retail giants and price comparison platforms, the slogan itself could not sensibly survive. John Lewis have undertaken an 18 month brand positioning process to find a replacement - something that will attract new and younger customers to the retailer.

With my nerdy branding hat on, I must say that it was fascinating for me to see the fruits of this year-and-a-half of branding labour. Some of the positioning statements/slogans (the source articles don’t make it completely clear whether these are strategic/internal or executional/customer-facing) that were considered were these:

• John Lewis: Life is beautiful
• John Lewis: Life well loved
• John Lewis: For every moment
• John Lewis: For the love of life
• For the joy of life: John Lewis
• Life & happiness: John Lewis
• For every beat: John Lewis
• Life made beautiful

And the final slogan is John Lewis: For all life’s moments.

I can’t be the only planner who has also played the “moments”, “life”, “happiness”, “joy” permutations and combinations game at some time in the quest for the ultimate positioning statement. I remember back in the 90s, there was a brand (it could have been chocolates) that advertised with the song Magic Moments, which would be hummed whenever an unsuspecting planner or account person strayed too close to generic “moment” territory.

But moments seem to be having a moment in marketing, if you’ll excuse the trite expression. I keep hearing conversations about targetting moments and have seen some rather contrived but frightening “moments universes” from research agencies to help in this task.

My concern is that the new slogan is terribly generic. IKEA could use it, but they don’t in the UK as they have something infinitely better - a slogan and campaign idea that’s a statement of attitude and a promise in one - The Wonderful Everyday. 

There’s nothing wrong with the new slogan, but there’s not a lot right with it either. It’s not a promise, it’s not a challenge, it’s not an attitude or philosophy. It has no edge, rather like “We’re there for you.”

The new ad to introduce the slogan is similar - sweet enough, hummable music, but ultimately rather beige and wallpapery.

Some new slogans grow on you over time, but I fear this one will simply go in one ear and out the other. 

You put the words right into my mouth

One of the biggest mysteries to me as a writer is this paradox: when asked what they're looking for above all else, literary agents and publishers will talk about Voice, and specifically, fresh new voices.

Yet most of the recent novels I've read recently have felt as if they could have been written by the same person - or even the same AI algorithm. There's very little out there that feels original in terms of Voice (if you must) or what used to be called style.

The homogenisation of language is observable wherever you turn. From novel straplines /Three painful secrets. Two passionate hearts. One forbidden love) through to clickbait headlines through to comments on social media through to newspaper articles.

And in the world of advertising, as this excellent article by Shai Idelson makes clear.

Predictive text is partly to blame, and worse still, what I call assumptive text (all those "Happy for you" "Congrats! Let's catch up" "What an achievement!" suggestions that pop up on something like LinkedIn).

But at the root of it is human laziness. It's so much easier to click on an off-the-shelf suggestion than think up something original and personal.

Please - let's not allow the richness of the English language (or any other language, for that matter) to be reduced to the superficiality of emojis.

Big idea from a tiny brand

It's the season of Fests on every corner here that cracks off on the 1st May and sees us supplied with outdoor food, music, drink and fun until the early Autumn. I'm not usually on the lookout for great examples of branding during these events, but it's always an added plus to see a clever piece of marketing.

The Apfelweindeckel above is from Kanne Ebbelwoi (for the uninitiated, that's how those round here pronounce the word Apfelwein). The slogan is nice, but (I expect) pinched from somewhere. What's really clever here is the slogan in conjunction with the logo illustration, which is at first sight a traditional Apfelwein Bembel.

But look at the design more carefully (possibly difficult if too much Apfelwein has gone down the hatch) and you'll see that it's a map of the world. Neat, neat, neat.

I couldn't find out much about Kanne Ebbelwoi from the internet, apart from the possibility that they are what is called a Besenwirtschaft or Straußwirtschaft, a peculiarly German phenomenon which is a seasonally-open little pub or drinking place, usually on the premises of a vineyard or cider-press, that sells its own wine, along with small snacks.

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of such places - can you imagine anything more delightful on a sunny afternoon?

Accentuate the negative?

I've always found going into a T K Maxx store rather like stepping into a Baz Luhrmann musical. You're not quite sure what will happen, but it will certainly be vibrant and colourful and over-the-top. The latest ad in a series of quirky films for the store uses the creative ploy of turning doubts into full-blown dance-til-you-drop "definite dos."

It's an off-the-peg creative strategy, to turn potential negatives into unique positives for the brand, but the execution is definitely made-to-measure for T K Maxx. It's completely in brand character, and there's never the risk of the brand taking itself too seriously.

Which brings me to my second exhibit. Carlsberg. The Orson Wells voiceover "Probably the best lager in the world" signed-off one of the classic campaigns of the 70s, 80s and beyond. That "probably" was a word that said 10,000 other words - understatement, wry humour, self-deprecating amongst them.

But what have the Carlsberg marketers and their agency partners done now? Taken a classic advertising line at face-value, re-brewed and redesigned their product and all that goes with it and "launched its most ambitious and honest consumer facing campaign ever." The line is now:

Probably not the best beer in the world. So we've changed it.

This article by David Mitchell sums up much of what feels simply not right about this approach. As he says, "Probably the best lager in the world didn't feel like a serious claim - it just made you fond of the brand because it was humorous."

Fond of the brand - that's what marketers want, isn't it? Instead of the understatement and wry humour, will all the hand-wringing and hair shirts and po-faced blah-blah about honesty and higher purpose really lead to people having a little place for the brand in their heart, at least now and then?

Probably not.

Nutty campaign idea

Co-creation has to be one of the marketing community's absolute favourite buzzwords since media became social. It can be done well, of course, but all too often it ends up being terribly worthy and simply ticking all the 'correct' boxes.

The reality of most customer reviews is that they're minimal and rather unremarkable. But I was amused to see a campaign for Emerald Nuts that neatly turns this unremarkableness on its head. Thinking out of the shell?

The agency trawled through the customer reviews for the brand and found one that's typical, slightly odd, and consists of the 'two most positive words ever' - Yes, good.

And the following campaign is the result:



This campaign appeals to me for the same reasons as Mail Shrimp. No deep insights, no Pepsi-style trying to save the world. Because, as I've been reminded in this article, advertising is predominantly there to sell stuff.

Good though it is, I fear that encouraging people to join in and write their own reviews for Emerald Nuts may fall flat, though.

Once people know they might be used in advertising, they go all self-conscious.

Provocative or plain stupid?

One characteristic of marketing in the 21st century is the way brands are increasingly taking a stance on societal issues. On the whole, I think this should be applauded and I've blogged about various good examples of this in the past.

But the way these good intentions are executed is often far from good. Take the example pictured above, from Weingut Strieth. The owners of this vineyard in Rüdesheim-Aulhausen have decided to take a stand against intolerance and have designed a new label for their Spätburgunder. The intentions are laudable, but I'm afraid that the label design just doesn't do it for me.

Their intention with the "middle finger" gesture and the thoughtfully-copywritten slogan (or is it a brand name?) is to irritate. Well, it certainly rubs me up the wrong way. I had to listen to one of the wine-growers and a radio commentator repeating the thoughtfully-copywritten slogan ad nauseam before 8am this morning on the radio.

Ah, they've achieved their aim, you might think. Disgusted of Bruchköbel is busy putting finger (middle one, actually) to keyboard and complaining about this rebellious affront to decency, bringing the wily wine-makers and their product to everyone's notice.

The thing is, there's irritation of the provocative, powerful sort, and there's the sort of irritation that the Germans call Fremdschämen - to be embarrassed  on a stranger's behalf. The use of English swear words as "cool/trendy and a little bit naughty" has been rampant in Germany for the last few years. It's bad enough when it's second-rate rock stars on casting shows, but when it gets to Angela Merkel talking about a "shitstorm" my cringing Fremdschämen needle goes off the scale.

Swearing in English just makes the wine-producers look as ill-educated and stupid as the Neo-Nazis that they're against.

Why, I wonder, didn't they use the German equivalent of their thoughtfully-copywritten slogan?

My pre-internet brain

Probably the most resonant of the "21st century slogans" at the Douglas Coupland solo exhibition at Vancouver Art Gallery is this one.

I miss my pre-internet brain.

Now, I imagine that my son (born 2000) would wonder what a pre-internet brain was, and having worked out that it was some sort of vestigial remain belonging to those born way back in the last century, would then question what on earth there was to miss about such a thing.

Douglas Coupland is now 52 and explains his nostalgia so: "I feel like I have willingly or unwillingly become a new person ...we've all been completely, neurologically rewired." Or so: "The internet has burrowed into my head and laid eggs, and it feels as though they're all hatching."

The re-wiring is fact, not just fancy, and it's estimated that 10,000 hours of exposure to a medium - say, the internet, is enough to rewire the neurones. That is less than 1.5 hours per day on the internet for the last 19 years, which I'm sure I must be approaching.

So, for the benefit of those millenials, what was a pre-internet brain like? While the internet brain is spontaneous and even a little flighty, the pre-internet brain was considered, ponderous, deliberate. The internet brain is agile, nimble and smart, but a touch superficial. The pre-internet brain had depth. The internet brain is extrovert, has all the answers. The pre-internet brain was an introvert, and knew that it didn't know.

Pre-internet: never forgets, faithful, with a questioning attitude.

Internet: easily distracted, faithless, demands instant gratification, credulous.

And finally, I have the feeling that my internet brain is transparent, a standard issue, and public property.

Whereas my pre-internet brain was mysterious, original and my own. Private. 

What's your line?

When I was a very little girl, we had a Sainsbury's in the High St. I still remember clearly the decoration and tiling and the store interior, a broad corridor with counters at either side where shop assistants would carve ham, cut cheese with wire or simply hand you a packet of Sainbury's own brand cornflakes.

A few years later, Sainbury's opened a supermarket in the new town centre. I recall the simple but striking graphics of their own label range - from the cola to the golden syrup.

It's interesting to see that Sainbury's have changed their endline from "Try something new today" to "Live well for less". To put that in context, I have pinched a list of Sainsbury endlines from this article.

SAINSBURY'S SLOGANS

1882: Quality perfect, prices lower
1918: Sainsbury's for quality, Sainsbury's for value
1945: It's clean, it's fresh at Sainsbury's
1959: Good food costs less at Sainsbury's
1991: Sainsbury's - everyone's favourite ingredient
1997: Fresh food, fresh ideas
1998: Value to shout about
1999: Making life taste better
2005: Try something new today
2011: Live well for less

It's amazing to think that the endline that is most familiar to me was knocking around for 32 years. And I think that the reason for its longevity was that it's more than an advertising endline, tagline or jingle. It is more a statement of what the brand is about - a brand slogan, if you like, than simply a neat summary line of the advertising campaign.

I'm a bit sorry to see the "try something new today" line being ushered out so quickly. As I understood it, this was more than a catchline for the advertising - it's actually a positioning for Sainsbury's which is based on a clear commercial strategy of increasing the average spend per shop, and casts Sainsbury's in the role of the shop where you find interesting and inspiring new ideas - more competitive, I would have thought, than yet another creative iteration of the value equation.

Or maybe the ad agency just decided to act out their own slogan.

Wir sind We

Trendbüro and slogans.de have updated their analysis of advertising
slogans from the German-speaking world. I blogged about last year's study here.

Interesting that only one of the trends has remained - Gemeinschaft, or "Feeling of Community". I'll come back to that later. As far as the others go, I guess that brands have taken a step down from idealism onto a lower but more realistic rung. Which is not a bad thing in the current climate.

So Exklusivität has become the more accessible Qualität, the rather idealistic Nachhaltigkeit (Sustainability) has moved to a more basic Leistung (Performance) and the theoretical, non-specific Orientation has outed itself as a clear direction: Optimismus. It seems that brands have to give a good specific account of themselves in the here-and-now to appeal to people today.

Going back to "Gemeinschaft". The experts at Trendbüro detect a broadening of the "Wir" feeling across borders to "We", suggesting a sort of Global Cuddlefest. They could be right, but I take a different angle. I am convinced that Mr Obama has succeeded in making English socially acceptable once more, after the rejection of the language by "Old Europe" a few years back. And I expect we'll see English slogans in German advertising gain ground once more. As long as Douglas don't go back to "Come in and find Out."

Bring on the cliches

Now, here's an interesting challenge. In their recent analysis of 5,732 advertising slogans in Germany, slogans.de and Trendbüro have identified the latest themes in German advertising to be Orientierung, Nachhaltigkeit, Exklusivität and Gemeinschaft. That's orientation, sustainability, exclusivity and (feeling of) community to my non-German-speaking friends.

Apart from finding it a terribly interesting job to sit down and analyse 5,732 slogans on a socio-linguistic basis (not kidding!), I also thought it would be quite an amusing exercise for anyone with copy writing ability to try and write a slogan containing all four. Now, I appreciate that it will end up sounding earnest beyond belief, but I'd love to see any ideas...and don't forget to say what the brand is!