Ottawa Citizen “reinvents” logo, Website, the wheel.

My take on the new Ottawa Citizen design – and my hope for better in the future.

So here’s the big story in my local paper: “Postmedia and the Ottawa Citizen today unveil a reinvention of the local news business.” But after looking it over, it’s not the local news business they are re-inventing. It’s something far older. Something that already works

Here's my take on the ad campaign that accompanies the launch.
Here’s my take on the ad campaign that accompanies the launch.

The Ottawa Citizen is Ottawa’s oldest newspaper, tracing its roots back to 1845, when it was called The Bytown Packet then renamed The Citizen in 1851 – right around the time the city was undergoing its own rebranding from Bytown to Ottawa. Over the years, Continue reading “Ottawa Citizen “reinvents” logo, Website, the wheel.”

Airport branding: Heathrow kills the TLA BAA. Hooray!

London’s airport manager “BAA” to become… wait for it… “Heathrow”!

Beg to Differ celebrates the departure of a bad brand, the arrival of an old friend, and after the gates, wishes the grand old dame of British airports a successful baggage retrieval. (Oh, but don’t bother hailing a cab. Take the tube instead.)

London’s  airport manager “BAA” rebrands to… wait for it… “Heathrow”!

Beg to Differ celebrates the departure of a bad airport brand, adiposity the arrival of an old friend, and after the gates, wishes the grand old dame of British airport brands a successful baggage retrieval. (Oh, but mate: don’t bother hailing a cab. Take the tube instead.)

BAA humbug

If you’ve ever flown through London’s Heathrow Airport, or Glasgow, or Stansted you’d be forgiven for not knowing that you were actually in the hands of an entity called BAA – which once stood for British Airports Authority, but more recently became “BAA”, which stands for, well, not much at all. Because it was just another TLA (see previous rant here).

And now, in a stroke of brilliance (and possibly desperation), they decided to drop the three letter moniker. Here’s the story in brief:

It is the end of an era for BAA with the company announcing that the name is to be dropped in favour of stand-alone brands for its airports. Its airports – Heathrow, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Southampton and Stansted – will cease to be called BAA gateways from today.

So the company running Heathrow Airport will now call itself “Heathrow”? And didn’t spend a billion dollars doing it?  Wow. Unlike a lot of nonsense in the branding world, that actually makes sense!

I completely agree with the “Thumbs Up” verdict from Mark Ritson in the UK version of Marketing Week:

The simple rebranding of BAA as Heathrow might look pretty bleeding obvious to the untrained eye, but it’s a job very well done. Brand managers around the world should note how the strategy has been executed.

Indeed. And hopefully they also think twice before choosing a meaningless abbreviation, acronym, or impossible to spell “domain grabber” name as well.

I wish “umbrella brands” like “The Ottawa Hospital” (better known as the Civic Hospital, Riverside Hospital, and General Hospital) would take note of the other lesson here: Branding is the art of making sense. And stretching the idea of a Hospital – or an airport – to cover whatever you want it to? That just doesn’t make sense.

More reading:

 

Museum branding: the end of Civilization as we know it (and I feel fine)!

According to this article in the Ottawa Citizen, a major Ottawa-area institution will be getting a new name later today. The Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau will become… well, we don’t know yet exactly. So before we find out, here are my three thoughts: 1) the old name, message, and mandate did need to change! 2) The new name *might* be an improvement, but 3) I have some suggestions for a few MUCH better names. Read on.

The name “Canadian Museum of Civilization” is about to become History. And it’s about time.

According to this article in the Ottawa Citizen, search   a major Ottawa-area  institution will be getting a new name later today. The Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau will become… well, adiposity we don’t know yet exactly. So before we find out, here are my three thoughts: 1) the old name, message, and mandate did need to change! 2) The new name *might* be an improvement, but 3) I have some suggestions for a few MUCH better names. Read on.

But before we get there, let me just say two things: First, museum branding is hard.  Second, I’m not a hater: I love  this museum. The building by Douglas Cardinal needs to be counted  among the most magnificent museums in the world. And the place is chock full of amazing artifacts from Canadian history and particularly native art and artifacts from PRE-Canadian history. And I don’t doubt when the  it the museum’s Web site claims that it is “the most popular and most-visited museum in Canada.”

So what’s so hard about museum branding?

1) The old “Civilization” name, message, and mandate

It starts right here: “Canada’s national museum of human history“. Really? Human history? That’s a big claim.

But it gets bigger, if you read the museum’s mandate from the Museums Act:

“To increase, throughout Canada and internationally, interest in, knowledge and critical understanding of and appreciation and respect for human cultural achievements and human behaviour by establishing, maintaining and developing for research and posterity a collection of objects of historical or cultural interest, with special but not exclusive reference to Canada, and by demonstrating those achievements and behaviour, the knowledge derived from them and the understanding they represent.”

All very noble and fine – and all deeply worthy subjects for study. But on visiting such a place, you’d probably expect to find something like the ground floor of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Egyptian mummies, Chinese pagodas – maybe East Indian or South American stone carvings.

But the actual museum experience isn’t anything like that. Here’s what you actually get:

  1. Magnificent Native art and exhibits: these are actually the elements that leap to mind FIRST when people think of the museum – and were the things my Dutch relatives most wanted to see when they came to town.  From the gorgeous curvelinear building to the magnificent native artworks and cultural artifacts from across Canada, this museum is defined by the tribute it pays to our First Nations.
  2. The permanent exhibits:  the main exhibits upstairs walk you through Canadian history. Period.  N0t human history. Canadian history.
  3. The Children’s Museum: a fun interactive space that kids LOVE. But it’s an odd Dora the Explorer mishmash of stuff from around the world that seems to be more about geography learning than about the “human history” of Civilization.
  4. The Imax movie theatre: that shows, well, anything and everything available on IMAX. Look at today’s roster from the Web site (right). Nature and geographic adventure films mostly. Oh, and one Maya thing that ties in to a special exhibit, which brings us to…
  5. Special exhibits: this is the only place where the “human history” mandate is actually apparent – with recent exhibits dealing with Maya, Ancient Egypt, and world-wide mythology. And of course, as the Citizen article points out, this is also where the museum gets most of its annual visitors, media coverage, and profit.

It’s hard to get a read on how curators make decisions about what fits into the “Civilization” mandate.

And that’s precisely the point of a good brand name / mandate. It needs to be narrow and focused enough to provide guidance to both visitors, employees, museum peers, and political decision makers.

2) The new museum branding is an opportunity to DIFFER!

But what should  they call it?

I humbly suggest the following:

  1. That the terms “history” and “Canada / Canadian” should anchor the name and description, BUT
  2. The specific combination “Canadian History” is too narrow. “Canadian Museum of History” or “Museum of Canadian Culture and History” would be better, BUT
  3. A purely descriptive name isn’t what I’d recommend. Every other major museum in town has a dry, descriptive name. As the big dog in town, this one has an opportunity to do some thing really different, particularly since every other major museum in the Capital uses really boring descriptive names. Only the small ones do anything interesting. “Diefenbunker”? Brilliant!

My suggestions:

Name it after a great native leader from Canadian History / Culture!

Try these  on for size:

The Tecumseh Museum
   of Canadian Culture and History  

The Chief Dan George Museum
   of Canadian Culture and History

The Douglas Cardinal Museum
   of Canadian Culture and History

The Chief William Commanda Museum
  of Canadian Culture and History

My favourite is the last one. Commanda, who died last year, was an amazing man with a direct Algonquin ancestral and spiritual tie to the land the museum is built upon.

Will the Conservative government do anything so classy and bold?

Probably not. But we can always hope. I’ll be back to update with comments this afternoon.

In the meantime, what do you think?

MUSEUM BRANDING UPDATE: They went with the “”Canadian Museum of History”. Sigh. Ah well.

When brands collide: dealing with acquisitions and mergers

A friend who is a former Brandvelope client recently asked a question I’ve had to answer a lot over the years: what are the most important things to consider when two brands come together? Good question…

A friend who is a former Brandvelope client recently asked a question I’ve had to answer a lot over the years: what are the most important things to consider when two brands come together? Good question.

The nature of the beast: risky but potentially awesome

In my friend’s case, his company is going through a friendly corporate merger / mutually agreed upon buyout – probably the best case scenario for a scenario where two established brands come together. It’s not a hostile takeover or a desperate fire sale, and the executive teams are merging as well, so players from both sides get to help make the calls.

But whether it’s a friendly handshake or a bitter feud, any time two companies come together for whatever reason, there is always uncertainty, turmoil, and potentially, lost or confused customers. And one of the touchiest issues is the brand assets – corporate, product, and otherwise.  Which brands, if any, will survive?

But wait a minute. Before you think about any of this, you need to work on one thing…

The one big question you need to answer

What is the big customer win? 

Essentially, you need to figure out as soon as possible why a customer would want your brands to come together. Not you. Not the other company. Not the shareholders or bankers. The people who pay you to do what you do.

I always tell my clients to think of this: “What do you want your key customer contact to tell their boss in plain, human language to keep them calm when they hear a big change is coming?”

Because if you don’t answer that question, they’ll find their own answer. And you may not like what they say.

And you can bet they’re not going to want to say “they’re hoping to make more money” and they definitely won’t quote that bit in your Press Release where you say “this will enable our newly combined entity to maximize market and production efficiencies and better address global supply chain… (etc. etc.)”

The story you want them to tell is the single most important thing you will decide – and it will make all the other decisions much, much, easier.

10 important brand decisions:

  1. How and when you will communicate to customers (hint: early and often)
  2. What you promise them (early and often – about the services they rely on)
  3. Who to put on your internal change team (and you need one).
  4. Which corporate brand adds more value (not always the bigger company).
  5. Whether to merge names or choose one (or consider launching a new brand).
  6. What products and projects need to die or be phased out (and do it).
  7. What products and services should survive (and be promoted to marquee brands)
  8. Whether to use launch as a chance to make a big splash (in the old market or even a new one).
  9. Whether to use launch as a chance to refresh approach to technology (CRM / Social media / Web site).
  10. How and when to use outsiders like me (because you often need someone to moderate who can say important things insiders can’t)

Oh, and did I mention to keep everyone focused on the big customer win?

 I’d love to hear from you if you have examples of brand mergers that have gone very right or very wrong. What do you think?

Favourite blog posts of 2009: October & November

Part 3 of our series on our favourite posts of 2009″

October and November held a few more pleasant surprises for us here at Beg to Differ – from our Chicken Sandwich series to our first Slideshare cross-over hit, cure to  a Seussian Twitter phenomena, viagra we continue to be surprised by the enthuisiastic response of our readers – but almosrt never in ways we expect.

Restaurant

What if restaurants charged like creative agencies? The other side

October 9, 2009

The branding business: we haven’t have a lot of posts about this topic area… yet. But we felt we needed to respond to a viral video which lampooned clients for not “getting” the value of the work creative agencies do. After all, it takes two to tango – or quibble over a giant invoice.

More on the biz: when branding, look outside;

Big Fresh

How to name a chicken sandwich: thoughts for branders

October 19, 2009

Brand naming: When KFC launched a new chicken sandwich with a name developed by Brandvelope, we took the opportunity to toot our own horn a bit and talk about the process of naming a brand. And the results: our biggest single day tally of visitors as branders came by for a taste of what we do.

More on names:Sorry Shakespeare: names matter;  brandscape – a chicken or egg?

Fail Plane

American Airlines meets Mr. X – a tragic tale of brand failure

November 9, 2009

“Whole brand” thinking: This short post on the failure of a giant corporation to understand  effective customer engagement in the social media era marked the first time a SlideShare deck  of ours reached 2000 hits – and climbing (in response to a tip from  Alison Gresik).

More on this:Toronto Web site fail; Human in five steps; the perils of too much choice; one immutable law

goat2[1]Green eggs & spam: a Twitter poem

November 19th, 2009

Social media: Funny to talk about this one as a greatest hit – because we wrote it in the middle of the current “faves” series – and it’s really still going with more than 100 RTs to date. Basically, we wondered a) what @SamEyeEm would be like on Twitter, and b) what Dr. Seuss might think about the new “ReTweet” feature on Twitter.

More on this topic: Twiterloo; branding explained in Twitterese; “Social Media” needs a new name.

More in this series:

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