Mark Vandegrift
Welcome to another episode of the Brand Shorthand Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Vandegrift, and with me today is our campaign captain, Lorraine Kessler.

Lorraine Kessler
I love it. I love these titles. I don't know where you get them.

Mark Vandegrift
They magically appear. I let Lindsey, our producer, come up with those.

Lorraine Kessler
Good good. Very good Lindsey.

Mark Vandegrift
yeah, yep. I might be able to, I think we're on like, I don't know, episode 80 or something. So maybe I can just go back and recycle.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, I'm glad. It's 10 more than my years.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, we got big brand news today. We got a couple updates. One is one of our favorite ads with Skinny Pop. It's Jennifer Aniston. So we talked about the first one when it came out back in March and how great of an ad we really thought it was. So there's a second one to continue the saga. And I don't know if people have seen it, but Lindsey's gonna throw it up on screen for everyone. And those that haven't seen it, it's two people in the ad approaching Jennifer Aniston with a phone in hand saying, I just have to ask, you know, and you think they're going to say, are you Jennifer Anderson or can I get my photo with you? And instead, what do they ask? Would it be OK if we have some of your Skinny Pop? So Lorraine, what do you think on this one?

Lorraine Kessler
Yes. Well, I mean, I think this is great because it shows something that we preach a lot in advertising, which is once you have a message, it's constancy and consistency, and they do pay off. So unlike some campaigns we've seen where they do a one-off ad and then they're somewhere else tomorrow, you know, attention needs to be built. Repetition is the key to creating a memorable impression. If we just talked impressions, that's super important to building a strong position. So, and I also think it's just the brilliance of this agency and the agency kudos to them is Erich & Kallman and they have had some kudos on their own. They were named in 24, I think by Ad Age as Small Agency of the Year, which we appreciate. Right? Because they have like 51 employees, which isn't terribly large. I'm estimating that their net billings are one to three million, which isn't enormously big, although their gross billings are eight to 11 million. And what people need to know gross billings include all the pass-through costs, like for media, and which is a huge part of an agency's billing, but doesn't truly benefit the people and the workers and all that. But the campaign too,I mean, what I love about this agency is they do humor really well. They've come from a long Eric Kallman, who's the chief creative officer. I mean, he's known for Skittles, right? Who doesn't love the Skittles campaign? So I think this campaign is called Popular for a Reason, which is a great title, because it's not about Jennifer, it's really about Skittles. And, but it really, it's not just the humor, it's that they really play off the vibe or kind of the persona, if you will, of Jennifer Aniston. She's kind of that self-deprecating kind of beauty who doesn't quite believe she's as cute as she is, as pretty as she is, and kind of, you know, is able to make fun of herself. And so it makes it a very approachable commercial. But I think the point is that the shtick is they're sticking with it and they're writing great commercials that are just well done, that deliver in a way. And one of things I like about Eric Kallman that he says is that they want to do this agency, Erich & Kallman, which is weird because it's spelled differently, first name than his name. But he says, like to do ads that people like. It's such a simple concept, but I think we overlook it with some of the highfalutin stuff that we maybe talk about in this industry. So I really appreciate it.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, and their timing was good too. It was about five, six months after the first one. It's enough to remember the first one because they played it for about three months. So it felt like it was appropriate at this point to bring something back and do another one. So from that standpoint, I think even the media timing on it was well done.

Lorraine Kessler
Yeah, yeah. And that's really good. That's kind of the behind the scenes kind of thinking that we certainly consumers who are consuming advertising don't really think too deeply about, but we as agency people do think about things like timing. Timing is extremely important. So I'm glad you brought that up.

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah. Good. And then I'm ready to put a nail in this next bit of brand news coffin.

Lorraine Kessler
How big a nail? Big.

Mark Vandegrift
How big of a nail? Well, the CEO is stepping down from Dun Dun Dun Jaguar. After the Copy Nothing ad, I think our podcast from a few weeks ago got out about everybody knowing that they sold 49 or 47 cars and their sales were down 97%. It's like, yeah, the CEO should have been fired. I can't believe all he had to do was step down.

Lorraine Kessler
The only outdone by the CEO of Astronomer since our last.

Mark Vandegrift
yeah. Oh my goodness. Well, what do you think on the Jaguar update? This is it. We're putting a fork in it.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, I think you said it best to me in a text because you said something like attention doesn't necessarily equal money. I would say it doesn't necessarily produce customers, which is the only measure of commercial success or of a business is can you produce a customer? And so you can get all the attention in the world and if it doesn't equate to producing a customer, then it's a loser. And certainly Jaguar wins the award. We should name this award. Like you know, like, right. Like they have those.

Mark Vandegrift
Jaguar the ultimate fail in advertising awards is now called the Jaguar.

Lorraine Kessler
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What was it? What was, what's their theme line that you said? copy.

Mark Vandegrift
Copy nothing.

Lorraine Kessler
Yeah. Copy nothing award. That's it. It's the copy. Don't copy this award.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, let's move on to the topic of the day. I saw someone on LinkedIn go through different types of non-traditional campaigns. And I think we're calling this the oversize campaign for lack of a better term, but Lindsey will throw up on the screen some interesting ideas that came out of this. But it's somewhat of non-traditional in the size of the elements or where they were. Just, you know, I don't know how to describe non-traditional other than that. We'll go through the examples and get a better idea of it. So, first of all, what do you think about just being non-traditional? I mean, it's a good thing, right?

Lorraine Kessler
Oh yeah, think at any time you can create a moment in today's overly communicated society that gets attention. I mean, that's great. mean, Bill Bernbach said, you know, attention's first base and without it, it's commercial suicide. I think he said something like that. And so it's really important to get attention. It's just that you want that attention to lead to the ultimate aim. But without attention, you're never going to get to the ultimate aim, which is to produce a customer. So you need that absolutely. And I think in these oversized campaigns, if there's a term for these things, are extremely effective, if done right, and relevant to the product or service or the USP, the unique selling proposition of the product, and or the position of the brand are highly effective in at least getting attention, getting notice, then maybe getting replayed and publicity, which makes them known. So they have value at that point, but they seem to be kind of one-offs, right? It's like a big boom and everybody notices it and then it just kind of goes away. It's like a balloon bursting. You see the big balloon or hot air balloon, then it bursts. I don't mean that in terms of livelihoods and then probably a bad analogy, but then it goes away. So there has to be something more sustaining behind these events than just the event.

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah. Yep. Well, let's, let's start on it. I figured we go through each one kind of like we did for the marketing quotes episode. And I'll just, I'll cue them up to you and you give us your thoughts. this first one is a good example of what you're saying. It's probably something that'll be a social media sensation for awhile because of where it was, how big it is. And that was the Marc Jacobs tote bag. So what do you think about that one?

Lorraine Kessler
Well, I think it's, I mean, first of all, I love these tote bags and I love the bigger is better in this case. This was displayed in New York City, perfect venue to put something like this. It's absolutely relevant to the product and to the USP of the product. So it's, and it's an attention grabber. I mean, you can't not see it, right? So, and it promotes a larger than life tote bags, which have seemed to be the big hit right now. They're kind of like the new Stanley Cup of this time frame. So it made these bags larger than life. So I think it's great. It's a good strategy.

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah. Yep. And that, you know, these are the larger than life campaigns. And I think you saw one where there was a subway one, which is on screen here with an eyelash and the mascara is coming out to like actually put the mascara on to the eyelash that's on the subway. So that one was really cool.

Lorraine Kessler
Right.

Mark Vandegrift
What would you what do you think about that one?

Lorraine Kessler
Well, I think it's a great demonstration of a USP that they're trying to sell with this mascara because, you know, as someone who buys mascara, I always want the bigger lash, the bolder lash. So this is bigger, bolder lashes demonstrated in a really memorable and I think relevant way. So you're going to pay attention to it. Is this for Maybelline? Is this a Maybelline product? Okay. That's the only thing that's kind of squishy in the whole thing is you got to ask yourself, because there's a lot of brands that have long lash or big lash mascara. Now, I'm not sure that this is like a real placement like our first one. I think this is more like a CGI advertisement. OK. And I think that needs to be pointed out. It's very clever, though. This is a tube, I think they call it in Britain, and the oversized mascara wand, if you can call it that kind of brushes the eyelash on the end of the tube. So it's very ingenious. They're very creative and I think that's great.

Mark Vandegrift
We should do the rest of the podcast in English. We're using English germs.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, if you can arrange a trip, show us. Hey, I'm all up for like a trip to like London for the brand training. Yeah.

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah, I love it. Well, this next one I love is Revlon. I love it because it's on a bug. One of my favorite or like an entethey call it over there. Looks like our bugs here from Volkswagen, but it's an ente and which means duck, by the way, in German. And what's cool about it is has this big stick of what is what's that the proper term in ladies makeup when you

Lorraine Kessler
I don't know that little thing that you put the, don't know. You'd have to talk to someone else who's much more into, yeah. We had a client who worked with, yeah, his eyeshadow, but I don't know what you call the little, sick thing. Yeah. Paint.

Mark Vandegrift
The stick thing that comes out that it's...

Mark Vandegrift
I think it's eye shadow, the stick thing that comes out. Yeah. But just, yeah, just the way that it was, it was going down the road and leaving a mark. And I don't even know how they get away with that, but, it was kind of interesting, but you know, I don't even know if it can go under the bridges and such. It just looks too big, but maybe it was stationary. I don't think it was driving.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, I don't know. this for real or is this like CGI or AI or something? Okay.

Mark Vandegrift
No, it said it was real. I didn't say whether it was moving. And I'm kind of thinking that it didn't move very far or something, but it's.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, that could be it's stationary. And that red looks like it's a piece of fabric or something that's laid down. they didn't mark the streets in Germany, would be verboten. You could say that verboten. You can't do that. I said that like I'm an Italian German, which doesn't work. So yeah, that's, I mean, it's super clever. It reminds me of the billboard we've seen where the The mower is out of the billboard and cutting the grass and they've actually cut a strip of grass. I mean these these are ingenious and I really applaud the people who think about it. My only problem is I didn't really realize it was revlon.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, yeah, there's a big R on the end of the tube. I don't know if you noticed that. you don't recognize that. OK.

Lorraine Kessler
Yeah, but I don't recognize that. No, I don't recognize that as a Revlon mark. So maybe someone else does. But I buy some Revlon because it's pretty available and, you know, like Meyer and Drugmart and different discount and distribution. It's not just department store or high end. But I didn't recognize the brand.

Mark Vandegrift
I gotcha. Good. Well, the next one, in terms of campaigns, we'll call this sensory campaigns. Okay. So this is where we're using more than just, a visual or an auditory type thing in isolation and a flat environment like a TV. So imagine being in a movie theater. And before you even see the commercial, you hear popcorn popping. And then you hear the cup being filled with pop and the sizzle, the pop and sizzle you get with, I should call it soda cause you're from Philadelphia and, it's not pop over there. Right. Yep. So there are a couple of campaigns that, Lindsey's putting up on the screen for us. The first one says, try not to hear this, which is, which is great. Cause it's Coca-Cola, right. And you're in that movie theater. So, Give us your take on these.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, I think they're extremely effective. mean, we have five senses, right? Sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste. Well, it's hard to taste something unless you buy it. So how can I make you taste the image, I think is what we're trying to do. And I think emotion is key to that. So, and our senses are tied, I think, very deeply to emotions. We hear things and we associate memories.
I mean, who doesn't remember the era they grew up in and they listened to music? By the way, I want to tell you the Billy Joel special or docu on HBO is terrific. And as someone, yeah.

Mark Vandegrift
My fave. Everybody that's listening, if you ever want to send me anything Billy Joel related, go for it. He's my fave.

Lorraine Kessler
Yeah. Yeah, we saw him at Bowling Green in a very small, small venue, the Ballroom, right before he was big. I mean, he was not yet big. And then I saw him later at North Texas State in a bigger venue. And he's always a great showman. But my point, my point of the divergence is emotionally, I connect so much of my life to some of his songs and lyrics and things I was feeling, experiencing. And I think a lot of people do, and that's why they love the music of their era, right? So there's this connection. So I think Sensory Done Right creates this amazing connection between your brand and the customers. And, you know, just thinking musically, who can hear, like a rock, Bob Seeger song and not think of Chevy truck? And who can hear Anticipation and not think of Hines, you know, by Karlie Simon? So we do make these associations through sensory ways that are emotional. And I thought in your bringing this up, I thought this was an unbelievable case study that I heard about and I had to re-research from 2012. And it happened in South Korea and it was Dunkin' Donuts. And what Dunkin' Donuts did in South Korea, as you might imagine, commuter buses are really popular and there's lots of population, takes these community buses. And as it turns out, Dunkin' Donuts, many of them, stores along the route in one of these cities in South Korea. So Dunkin' Donuts created a device that created what they called Flavor Radio. I've never heard of this before. And it was 2012, and I'm like, anybody listening should reinvent this. And what the radio did is it played a spot for the Dunkin Donuts product. And at the same time, it dispersed the smell of fresh brewed coffee throughout the bus. So that smell of coffee associated with Dunkin Donuts. And they would do timeness. Again, we talked about timing earlier. They would time this right before a stop at a Dunkin Donuts it was on the corner. And so was it effective? It certainly was. Their traffic in these stores went up 16 percent. Their sales went up 29 percent. So I just think what a brilliant idea. It's like a scratch and sniff commercial, you know, but you don't have to do anything.

Mark Vandegrift
Wow. Yeah, it is. Well, it makes me think of the ones that come in the mail, the colognes, which I'm highly allergic to. So anytime I get mail that has a colognes or a perfume in it, it's kind of like walking in into the house with it as far away from me as possible and giving it to my daughters or my wife. So, but.

Lorraine Kessler
Yeah, well, and certain stores have the advantage like Body Works, right? You expect or I forget what it's called, White Candle or something, you expect to smell that. But I think a store that used smell, interestingly, was Abercrombie and Fitch. Every time you walked in one of their stores, you had this now, this smell of cologne. Now, does it make me buy from Abercrombie and Fitch and go there? No, but what it does do, which is part of the whole kind of, I think, brand toolkit, is it creates a lasting memory out of an association that can be very positive, certainly for food, for Dunkin' Donuts to be associated with fresh-brewed coffee. And, you know, that's the art of suggestive selling, you know? So...

Mark Vandegrift
Yep. That's for sure. Well, let's move on to another unusual campaign. And this is becoming more popular, which I think part of it is because it's been proven so effective by so many different brands, but this would be known as purpose driven campaigns. So think about Warby Parker's buy a pair, give a pair. And I think they're over 20 million now. The last time I saw like I think they said they were over 20 million. You have Dove's real beauty, which is all about the women and diversity. You have Patagonia, don't buy this jacket, right? That's pretty recent one. So what do you think about purpose-driven campaigns other than they've been around a long time, but it seems like they're more popular now than ever.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, I think they've been around for a while and the theory was profit from purpose, right? And I think these are, there's nothing wrong with these campaigns. I think the more that they fit through the true mission, founder vision, the more tied to a personal vision of an entrepreneur who maybe started this company like Tom shoes or Bombas. I think the more authentic they are or it is to the company and its foundation and its origin, the better. The problem is that so many companies jumped on these feel-goods as a way of of currying favor in what I think is a very pandering way from their audiences. And also I think this kind of drive to have one of these purposes that you could promote. It's almost like that thing, do good, but don't let anybody see you. So when you do something and then you announce it, there's already a devolution to some degree. There's already kind of like, are you doing this? Because you end up profiting from it. So even that profit from purpose idea kind of says it. So I think it gets solid. And then I think it's a very close cousin to some of the wokeism that happened on the extreme, right? Cause we think we're gonna have a cause and we're gonna have something that we're gonna champion at the risk of profits, which wasn't really true. They didn't want to risk profits, it only happened and then they were upset about it and retracted. So I just feel like we're in a different context and time where people are a little tired of this posturing and are a little more skeptical. And I think that's good. It's bad for the companies that are truly genuine in their mission, like Bombas or Tom's, which I think are pretty genuine. It wouldn't make me buy, and I don't think it makes people buy that product. It does give them some notoriety for that brand, but
all things have to be fairly equal in order to make me buy from that brand, right? Or it's a minority of people who would buy a brand just for that reason. In other words, what things would have to be fairly equal for, I think, the majority of people? Quality, price, style. Is everybody else doing it? The social, right? And if those things are fairly equal, then, now I feel good about, it's almost a I not only feel good that I bought something that has the quality I want, the style that other trendy that other people want, but I can feel good about the purchase. But I don't think it on its own motivates very many, if any of the core audience.

Mark Vandegrift
Right. Well, I think I've seen some modification too with it. Instead of, you know, buy a pair of this and we'll donate a pair. It's buy this and you are donating a pair. So they're trying to be inclusive in the way that they've adjusted their language. I don't know if you've noticed that nuance lately, but some of them are doing it that way where they've modified it to make it me feel like, okay, I'm getting for what I would normally pay for glasses or socks, I'm getting something, but I am also giving at the same time. It's not the company giving, it's us together. And I think that brings people into a little bit more brand loyalty than the way you characterized it, where it's you buy, we give. That doesn't work.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, I feel what you're saying, but again, it's a little bit of a pandering. Like, you know what? I mean, maybe I'm a rarity here, but I'm in charge of my giving. Like, I can give to things I care about, right? And I think, again, and this may be a fleeting context, but people are so concerned with the pricing of everything, you know? We've lived in inflation and people, I mean, we're talking about the cost of egg, the price of eggs and things like that. I think they're at a point where, you know what, I'll give what I can give on my own time. So I'm not sure that it's as valuable as maybe it was five years ago, 10 years ago. I don't know. It'd be interesting.

Mark Vandegrift
Right. Yep. Well, speaking of pandering, think the next segment or type of unique campaign, and we touched on it again a few weeks ago, are personalization campaigns. The first one coming to mind is the share Coke with the name on it. we talked about that Spotify's getting into that with Spotify wrapped and tailored playlists. there's an AI DJ that uses your name and plays music that you would like based on your listing history. It just feels like it's getting to a point where everybody knows personalization is much easier than what what you used to think it was. does it mean as much as it used to mean? And I would contend probably not. What are your thoughts?

Lorraine Kessler
Well, you know, in terms of Coca-Cola, don't think people buy a Coke because it has their name on it. I think they buy Coke because other people buy Coke and a lot of it. I mean, it's the herd mentality, right? And they buy Coke for the sheer Coke-ness of it, the Coca-Cola-ness of it. They taste images, and that image has been built over a long, long time, and they buy that security and that trust in that brand. So putting a name on it, to me it's like the stuff that you see at the cash register that you never thought to shop for. It's like that impulse buying, you don't really care what sanitizer it is, but it's all, there's a hand sanitizer, right? You still call it Purell, but it's not Purell. And it's all that kind of clutter that's there. So it kind of, to me, works in that way. And then the personalization, we talked about like Spotify and Amazon does this, Apple Music. And there's a real inherent problem with these personalized playlists because it's always about where I've been, not where I'm going or where I want to go. So it's always about what I watched in the past or listened to in the past and it narrowed channels. So it can't introduce to me things that I haven't tasted yet that I might really enjoy. So we talked about one of our podcasts, the nature and the importance of discovery, right? And discovery being crucial in marketing. So if all I'm being shown is kind of things that are like what I've already listened to and not new things, then there's an inherent flaw in that. And you know, who doesn't love sharing, I went to a new restaurant. I saw a new movie. I just told you about a new documentary. We all love that neophilic jolt of being curious to discover new things versus the neophobia, afraid of anything too new. So it serves that neophobia side of us that, okay, if I like this, I'll like this. And it makes it efficient, but it also limits what I'm able to experience. So I think that's the flaw.

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah, exactly. Okay. The next one, our fifth category is guerrilla campaigns. And I think the one that we all know of is Red Bull driving around the country with their in their little cars, giving out Red Bull to everybody. That was probably one of the most famous guerrilla campaigns in the last, I don't know, I'd say probably last 30 years. Coca-Cola now is trying a happiness vending machine and it's transformed into a happiness machine delivering doses of happiness. Okay. There's a smile movie promotion. Paramount Pictures promoted their new horror film, Smile, by sending actors from the film to sporting events. they're, you know, gorilla. It's kind of like the pop-up performance. but this is seeding actors into the sporting events. So give us your take on this one. Why are these effective?

Lorraine Kessler
Well, again, I'm going to keep making these points. The more authentic to the brand and people's perception of that brand and relevant to the brand or the product, the better, right? So I think Coke's vending machine is fricking brilliant because for years they've been telling us, you know, teach the world to sing. Coke is joy. Coke is happiness. It's not a new concept.But that concept has been somewhat intangible. It's been a theory and a concept. So all of sudden they take this vending machine and they make it actual, right? They actually serve the product in multitudes coming out to the surprise of these college students. And sometimes there's actual someone in the machine giving pizza or flowers or, I mean, you can't watch what they've done without yourself smiling and thinking, yeah, Coke, it makes me feel happy. That really works. So it's really relevant. And it's a great way to extend the brand meaning, making it a deep emotional connection. It's not in isolation. It's not like they just came up with this and this is how they're gonna build the brand. They're really just mining what they believe the brand already stands for in, I think, very experience experiential way that has some actuality to it. And so it's fantastic. Now the Paramount smile campaign. I mean, again, it's the absolute right emotion. Smiles can be deadly. mean, and these people, it's cringy fear. Like you see these people and you're freaked out and it's perfect for the product, which is a movie. So I think it's, it's just, it's genius. It's so small. And so well done.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, when you think of the investment in marketing, you could be paying people a lot of money to go into these events, right? And it's still a small budget compared to what you might pay for media to do something bigger. And then of course you get all the social media hits and things go viral that way.

Lorraine Kessler
Now what they should do with the Paramount is they should get the smile on the kiss cam and the next Coldplay concert. Because that would be great. I just love that. Well, mean, think about one of these smiles. Just that would be like, it would be great. It would be great.

Mark Vandegrift
You are out on that one, aren't you? That would be funny. That would be great. OK, the sixth category is basically it's defined as digital first, but to me, most of this was augmented reality. So try on hair colors at Garnier USA. Pizza Hut partnered with Pacman to offer a limited edition Pacman box and you scanned it with your smartphone and you were able to play on your phone the Ikea place app, it was an augmented reality experience that allows you to see what furniture would look like in your home. So these are all, they call it digital first, but it's augmented reality. I don't know if you've experienced any of these, they're fun for a hot second. And then you're like, okay, I'm going to move on, but I could see where Ikea that might not be a bad thing. I can use that over and over again. And I don't know about hair colors. I mean, how many hair colors can you try on? But give me a sense for what your take is on it.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, I would say don't confuse the technology with the purpose or use. I would say part of these augmented reality, what you call augmented reality, are visualizers. Okay? And they serve a very functional purpose. I'm buying paint. I just did this with Sherwin-Williams. They have a great visualizer. I was able to take a picture of my room. I was able to upload all these paints that I thought might work. And then I could order them online and they came in these sticky patches that I could put on the wall. So that's like fantastic visualizer and we've seen them. We've done these for sidings, know, from our clients who do siding for whole home exterior. So they're great sales tools, I think, for anything like that. So I would separate like the IKEA and that into a visualizer category. Now the Pizza Hut thing is more of trying to evoke a connection with Pizza Hut in its past, which is very strange to me because its past was at the dine-in restaurant, the Red Roof restaurant, which they've been trying to get away from and invested heavily since 2019 to get away from. So they were trying to get back to this idea that, remember Red Roofs when you did Pac-Man. Well, who are they trying to appeal to? Old customers who appreciated the old dine-in? Or the new customers who are going to be coming to what they call their Delco models and a Delco model. I love how our industry creates all these terminologies, right? Delco.

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah, it's insider country club language.

Lorraine Kessler
A delco model is delivery and carry out concepts and they have like four of them. There's a mini kitchen, there's a kiosk, there's a retail counter, and then there's a retail counter with dining. And meanwhile, they no longer franchise the Red Roof. There are some of those old restaurant in places still around worldwide. I think they're under 2000, but they've been phasing that out in favor of these more kind of fungible kind of concepts, some very small, like I said, a mini kitchen to a kiosk, some to a counter. So it's a mystery to me why they would invest in essentially a nostalgic campaign for someone who remembers the old, mean, I we might as well bring back Howard Johnson's. Remember with the orange roof?

Mark Vandegrift
Hojo! Hojo, baby! Yeah.

Lorraine Kessler
So I just feel like it's off key and it's a gimmick. just like, it's not, it doesn't serve the same purpose as those visualizers, which really bring me closer to the product without me leaving the home and being able to select something for my home in the privacy of my whatever, wherever my computer room is. And I just think they're very different purposes.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, and you make a good point here that we should call attention to for listeners, and that is you can get through a list like this and go, I need to do this thing, this thing, this thing, and this thing. Well, just because there's a description for it and you could go do it, if it doesn't fit your brand as an extension of your position, or you think a gimmick's gonna get you somewhere, That's all it's going to be as a gimmick. And if it fails, it's going to fail miserably because it'll give you more bad, negative press than what might otherwise be mediocre acceptance. Right? So it doesn't mean carte blanche. Everyone that's listening should go out and do these seven categories of things. And all of a sudden you're going to be successful. It can go the other really well or really badly. And even something that kind of goes, well, now you've spent a lot of money potentially on something that just kind of worked.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, and that's the point too. Everything you add, and you do, and of varying value is a distraction from the things of greater value. So you're not only are doing things that have little value, just because you think, you know, FOMO, fear of missing out, I should do this because everybody's doing it, whether it's relevant to my product, service, or brand, or has a real purpose of value. But it's distracting from everything else that you do really well or that you should do more of. And I think companies have to prioritize and they have to make decisions based on what it is that they're trying to do with their company, with their brand that creates lasting value.

Mark Vandegrift
Mm-hmm. Good. Well, let's talk about the last one. This is experiential campaigns in real life, IRL, experiential campaigns. And we just talked about Legos not too long ago with race cars. So this one was a pop-up event in New York where you could build your own Lego flowers. That'll be a neat one to see on screen. I think experiential is great, but again, it has to be a natural extension of the brand. Give us your thoughts and we'll close out this episode.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, Lego is a brand, right, that you manipulate, you interact with. So you experience it in a very practical, physical way, not just mental and creative, but you're touching the pieces, you're putting things together. And so what better way than to have an experiential garden, flower garden, right? I mean, you can see the connection. It's not like a huge jump. I think moreover, the thing that we should talk about Lego is they're an example, a great example of a brand that, who star was dying. It's very hard. And you've heard me talk about when fascination leaves and competition comes in, it's very hard to re energize a dying brand, but they went through serious trouble in the nineties. were, their sales were declining pretty rapidly. Their patents had expired in the 80s. They got complacent in their leadership, which is deadly as we know, talking about some of the mistakes that you can make. Complacency and leadership is terrible. We know a lot of brands, Kmart, Sears, whatever, they're all gone because of that complacency. And then what happened is they had tons of competitors as a result of these sequential events happening. Mega Blocks, Mattel came out with Brick Shop and many other low priced kind of Lego knockoffs. So they were in serious trouble. And what they did, and I think this is instructional for anyone listening, is they decided that we can't just say we're the leader or the first. We have to be leading. It's an active verb. We have to be leading. And so what did they do? The first move that they did is they started doing licensing with Star Wars and Harry Potter. And then they came out with their own movie, which was very successful, the Lego movie. We talked about the Formula One, the technology. Now they're integrating Legos with technology, with AI and all sorts of stuff. And experiences and theme parks are part, and concept stores are part of this.Reimagining their leadership in a way that creates enormous distance between them and their competitors. So I think the Flower Garden, you know, brilliant extension and, you know, take a time to stop and smell the Lego roses.

Mark Vandegrift
Good. Well, let's wrap up this episode of the Brand Shorthand Podcast. Lorraine, thank you for joining us as usual. And thank you to our listeners. We ask that you like, share, subscribe, subscribe and subscribe and tell a friend, a cousin, doesn't matter who, a stranger if you want. And we just thank you for joining us and as always have an amazing day.