Patagonia is a brand that’s not afraid to stick with what’s working. Its very first product, the Stand Up Short is still in the line after 37 years of service. The brand’s marketing collateral too, uses elements that have been in the creative mix for 20-odd years. The consumer catalog is no exception.
In terms of product styling, page layout, and the way product and non-product content is woven together, the books employ many of the same tropes they used in the early 80s. (Some would say the design look and feel is stuck there too but that’s a topic for another post.)
What struck me about the Heart of Winter 2010 catalog that came in the mail today was the sheer length of the editorial content. In comparison to most consumer catalogs, that statement is a double whammy. Few apparel catalogs have any editorial content at all. Except for a paragraph or two of brand fluff to position the brand or romance a collection, few books offer anything but vaguely emotive lifestyle photography and product images with corresponding product descriptions. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re a design studio. Staffed by designers (and others) who take pride in personal creativity and working with their hands. That said, we work very differently than we did 10 years ago. The difference isn’t a new philosophy or a new way of approaching design or branding. It’s a difference in how we step design concepts out into finished pieces that serve our clients.
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In researching a piece for SNEWS on how outdoor brands use expedition stories and images to define themselves, I connected with an Australian academic doing work on the ways sporting goods brands incorporate athletes and sponsorships into their marketing. While much of his work relates to brands partnering with professional sports teams, he has an interesting section on surf brands and their use of athletes and imagery. He could just as easily be describing the outdoor market: Read the rest of this entry »
Fresh in my inbox this AM is a marketing email from Nau—or is it from Horny Toad. The lines are beginning to blur. I’ve been waiting to see signs of brand bleed as Horny Toad marketers begin to influence the Nau messaging. The new promotional email is the first hint that this is beginning to happen. Read the rest of this entry »
Backpacker Magazine posted this to Twitter yesterday afternoon:
Newbie campers are coming—get ready for a crowded summer: http://tinyurl.com/d2o6gp
The link is to a blog post that in turn references this CNN piece on a potential boom in car camping this summer. Never mind the issue of newbies crowding out state-park regulars. A growth in car camping participation is welcome news for outdoor specialty retailers and suppliers. And Walmart. Uh, especially Walmart.
Chances are that the bulk of the newbies will be inclined to buy the sort of down-market camping goods available in the big box sporting goods and general merchandise stores. But there’s also a good chance the camping spike will manifest among more affluent consumers. It may even surface some ex-campers looking to get their game back. Both of these latter groups are likely to frequent a specialty retailer. The bottom line is that anybody who sells camping gear is likely to encounter more newbie campers than they would in a “normal” spring. So how do you make the most of this new traffic. Tips for retailers follow. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s possible that this is old news. I’ll confess that I haven’t read the Title Nine catalog in a while. There’s not much new to report except that they are showing some product using the dreaded Territory Ahead styling gimmick: clothing merchandised on hangers in unnatural places.
And, as best I can tell, they may have a new semi-logo. A number of Title Nine branded items are emblazoned with the Sherpani-esqe flower shown above.
While a careful parsing of the shapes will reveal a Title Nine “9,” what I see first is a Nike swoosh.
Sometimes you have to invent the ruler before you can take measurements. When marketers decide how to explain the merits of a product, they look for words and concepts that they think will be meaningful to their target audience. Clorox “kills germs” and “whitens fabric.” Quaker oatmeal is “heart healthy.” For many products, these concepts are a no-brainer. Consumers have built-in benchmarks (cleanness, healthfulness, taste, calories, etc.) with which to evaluate products. For some products, however, marketers have to invent those benchmarks before they can boast about how their products measure up.
David Pogue, the NY Times technology columnist, has a great piece on this phenomenon as it applies to digital cameras. In “The Myth of Megapixels,” he chronicles the rise of the megapixel count as the red herring of digital camera specs. It turns out that comparing megapixels won’t help you find a better camera. Picture quality is dependent on lens, circuitry and sensor quality. A megapixel count tells you how many dots the image has, not how good those dots are. Still, camera marketers push pixels and consumers have long ago accepted this as the benchmark for digital camera evaluation.
The outdoor market is full of similarly questionable benchmarks. Some are imperfect but generally accepted, like temperature ratings for sleeping bags. Some are scientific but unhelpful, like the air permiability rating (CFM) some apparel makers use to describe a fabric’s windproofness. Read the rest of this entry »
Icons are everywhere. From packaging to advertising, marketers make extensive use of graphic symbols to communicate brand and product attributes.
Do they work? Well, sometimes. Our design firm has a white paper all about it. Read all about the good, the bad and the ugly in “Combating Icon Overload” at brandchannel.com or on the Satellite Design website.
