Archive for March, 2009

Sample Work: Jewellery publicity

March 31st, 2009 Dean

Client: Gold & Silver Jewellery

The idea:

Gold & Silver wanted publicity for their latest range of high-end jade jewellery pieces. The local jeweler had been around since 1940s but has not gotten any form of media coverage. They also wanted their brand to reach out to a wider consumer group.

The challenge:

The purpose behind the publicity was simple enough. Unfortunately, for this very reason we believe it is going to be tough to media interest. Just pitching for a product line may get them token snippets in magazines. But for us this is not good enough. We want more for our clients.

The strategy:

We sat down with the Creative Director, who is the force behind their jade collection, to dig out any interesting story around their jade collection. The chat uncovered the history of her passion for jade and we learnt some surprising technical details of the gemstone that most layperson may not realise. Herein lies an interesting human story that could be weaved around the technical details of jade gemstone.

We also found out that more and more young ladies are buying jade pieces from them because of the modern designs that Gold and Silver produced. Despite jade being a very oriental gemstone, even Westerners were buying from them because of its quality and potential investment benefits. We decided to package this as a trend.

We pitched the story with slightly different angles to Channel News Asia, newspapers and women’s magazines. Radio was intentionally left out due to the visual nature of the story.

The outcome:

We managed to get Prime Time Morning interested in featuring the Creative Director as an avid collector of jade. To impart some credibility to the interview, we arranged for a gemologist to accompany her on the show.

Business Times, TODAY and My Paper picked up the story, each with its own variation of story angles. Business Times went for a more commercial angle. TODAY used the personal collector angle, while My Paper picked up the ‘trend’ angle.

The jade designs were picked up by Female magazine and Tatler’s annual supplement The Best of Singapore 2009 gave them a good 6-page coverage. We did a promotion with HomeTeam NS magazine to reach out to the mass market. For that our clients got a full page article. 

In Summary:

Total Broadcast coverage: 1

Total Print (newspapers & magazines) coverage: 6

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You don’t own your brand, your customer does

March 16th, 2009 Dean

It is a common knowledge among big boys and the branding circle. Once your brand becomes popular and you have a loyal consumer base, you don’t own your brand anymore. After all the effort you have put into building a strong perception for your brand, it would be entrenched in the minds of your consumers, especially the loyal ones. Then if you want to change it, you better seek their advise, or else the backlash might be bad. And as business owners, we can’t afford it.

Here’s an example of a not so small company who changed the look of a well liked product and was met with very unhappy customers.

Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice thought it was time for them to get an updated sleek look on their packaging in early January. But interestingly, their customers were not ready for that and they were not quiet about it either. 

…consumers complained about the makeover in letters, e-mail messages and telephone calls and clamored for a return of the original look. Some of those commenting described the new packaging as “ugly” or “stupid,” and resembling “a generic bargain brand” or a “store brand.”

“Do any of these package-design people actually shop for orange juice?” the writer of one e-mail message asked rhetorically. “Because I do, and the new cartons stink.” Others described the redesign as making it more difficult to distinguish among the varieties of Tropicana or differentiate Tropicana from other orange juices.

 

Technology has made it possible for consumers to make their opinions known quickly, loudly and direct to the companies. If we as business owners don’t respond then we are in for trouble. Remember True Yoga debacle?

But does that mean we have to listen to every complain, comment and criticism? Because it might just hamper innovation. What do you think? Add a comment.

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