Let Your Voice Be Your Guide

August 24, 2010

Your company probably has a brand standards guide – a booklet of standards for how to use logos, colors and other graphic specifications about your brand. But how much do you think about the voice you use to talk to your customers?

Honing in on an irreverent, honest tone for its new product line is why we admire the new advertising campaigns for U by Kotex. Kotex boxesYes, that’s right, we like ads about tampons and pads. The brilliance about these ads is that Kotex took an outdated way of talking to its customers and (ahem) flushed it down the toilet.

With tongue firmly in cheek, Kotex used its own footage from previous advertising campaigns to poke fun at the absurd way the brand previously has talked about periods – women wearing white, twirling on the beach, dancing. Let’s be honest here. Dancing is about the last thing women feel like doing at that time of the month. Based on research of its key targets, Kotex rethought its brand voice. With U, Kotex is encouraging women to talk honestly, and, well, be less ashamed, about their periods. And women have responded positively.

OK, so you may not be selling feminine hygiene products. But it does matter how you talk to your customers. Are you speaking in a way that makes your customers want to listen?

By amie

Filed Under Advertising, Marketing, Criticism

Penn and Misspeller

August 10, 2010

Penn and Misspeller
It turns out that even criminals need to be branded. According to a recent CNN story, thieves with a clever nickname have a higher chance of being caught and prosecuted. It’s a long-standing strategy that’s helped law enforcement officials publicize crimes and nab culprits like Pretty Boy Floyd.

More and more, criminal nicknames such as the Barefoot Bandit are given careful consideration so the public will remember them. The methodology to catch branded bandits today is akin to a well-mapped marketing strategy.

This makes me wonder: could branding office mishaps help curb the occasional office faux pas? If I hang some “Wanted” posters around the HenkinSchultz office, would fewer people swipe my writing utensils and more people clean out the microwave?

Nah, that probably wouldn’t work. They’d probably just take away my writing privileges.

By amie

Filed Under Off Topic, Advertising, Marketing