Mark Vandegrift

Welcome to the Brand Shorthand Podcast, a new season or season number three, and happy new year to all of our listeners and subscribers. I'm your host, Mark Vandergrift, and with me today is the advertising alchemist, Lorraine Kessler. Lorraine, how are you feeling about the new year and the new season?

Lorraine Kessler

Well, I am feeling fantastic. First of all, I love snow. We've had tons of it, right? We're buried in it. I love it. And apparently my new puppy loves it too. So that's good. Cause she loves the walks in the Boettler park, beautiful park. But on top of that, my Eagles are back in the Super Bowl. So this is going to be very exciting and they're against their former coach again, Andy Reed.

Mark Vandegrift

Yes.

Lorraine Kessler

A lot of people don't perhaps don't remember Andy Reid coached the Eagles for many, many years. He's a superb coach. Well, we have a superb coach in Sirianni who went to Mount Union. He has roots in Ohio and Ohio football. So this will be good. Yeah.

Mark Vandegrift

Awesome. Yeah,

we have our Super Bowl special coming up next week. So we will be going through all the Super Bowl ads and maybe even get to two episodes out of that given last year's lengthy episodes. So we'll be previewing the Super Bowl ads and reviewing those next week with a special guest, Scott Edwards. Lorraine is unable to join us. She has travel plans. So we are welcoming our

Lorraine Kessler

Fantastic.

Mark Vandegrift

creative director or executive creative director, Scott Edwards. So we're excited for that next week. Plus it's your birthday. Yes. So what a nice gift if they won the Super Bowl for you. Wouldn't that be great?

Lorraine Kessler

Right? Plus it's my birthday.

I want to see them do to Mahomes what they did to Daniels. I mean, Mahomes is like a magician, right? I mean, he's unearthly. He's something else. Yeah.

Mark Vandegrift

He really is, but I was surprised. The Eagles kind of cruised to victory. wasn't a fourth quarter where you had to chew on your nails very much.

Lorraine Kessler

Yeah, yeah, so we'll see. That secondary better be good.

Mark Vandegrift

Yep. Good. Well, to kick off season three, we're going to dive into the latest news that has occurred since we wrapped up season two in the world of advertising. There's other big news. Of course, we have a new president. We had an election, all that stuff. But there's some recent buzz around some of the big brands. And one brand that seemed to gain some major attention was a different animal, not an eagle, but a jaguar.

To give a quick overview for those who haven't seen the ad, back in November, Jaguar released a 30 second teaser titled Copy Nothing to announce its rebrand. And Jaguar states, we're here to delete ordinary, to go bold, to copy nothing. With the video featuring a group of models, I put that in quotations, dressed in vibrant colors.

And I think it's important to note that there was no car mentioned in the ad or shown in the ad. And to me, it felt like it could be an advertisement for a beauty product. So Lindsey, our new producer this season, is going to insert a clip of the ad. And Lorraine, before we dive deep, just give us your first impression of the ad.

Lorraine Kessler

Well, my first impression is it was a homage to what's going on in the culture and the woke. But, you know, first impressions are misleading. I've had more time to think about what they're trying to do. You know, and also the other impression, it reminded me of the cast from Dune with like a David Lynch costuming, right?

Like if you ever saw the first Dune, was like, it was kind of like that. So as I thought about it, first of all, you have to understand that Jag, we used to own a Jag. There we go. The XJ, beautiful, beautiful car. Jag was purchased by Ford, which was disastrous because the first thing my husband and I said to each other was,

I hope Ford doesn't make Jag look like a Ford. And that's exactly what they did. You see those Jags that came out of the Ford Motor Company ownership. They look like a tourist. It's like, how could you take this car that was iconically known for style, beautiful lines, sportsmanship, sports car racing, just a high-end style that no one else had and make it a Ford. Like really bad. So now,

They're owned by Tata. I guess I pronounced that right. It's an Indian company. And they started by building trains and trucks. So now they own it. So one, if we just talk about the purpose of advertising, right? The purpose of advertising, and this is kind of the old school thinking, is to draw attention to the product, not to itself. But we've revolved to brand marketing understandably, ads in this very cluttered environment need to get attention, otherwise all is lost. I think Bill Birnbach said, if you don't get attention, that's commercial suicide. So I have no problem with them getting attention. And the more I thought about it, and that's what I said, I'm less concerned about the politics of the ad and the criticism which is coming from the woke, anti-woke school.

I think this ad, this 30 second teaser, was a PR stunt disguised as an ad. Right? I suspect that the intended goal was shock to begin with. And to what? Start this conversation, whether negative or positive. And it did that. So from that standpoint, pretty damn successful.

Mark Vandegrift

Good. Well, about two weeks after the release of that sneak peek into Jaguar's rebrand, the design vision concept for the Jaguar Type 00 was revealed at the Miami artwork. And you're going to see pictures on the screen here. Both the original ad and the concept videos quickly went viral and seemed to generate, as you said, negative sentiment toward the idea of this rebrand that we always touch on this and I don't know necessarily where I ever land on it because I think each situation is different. But Lorraine, some would say any PR is good PR. And I think that we believe that bad PR is bad PR. Your thoughts on that? Just give our listeners a reminder of where we kind of fall on that and whether we think there is bad PR.

Lorraine Kessler

Well, it depends. I think you started with that, right? There is bad PR. I would say that bad PR is what happened to Boar's Head when it had meat products with Listeria killing people. There's no good PR that comes out of that because what that was followed with were exposés on how bad this packing plant or meat processing plant that they owned in Virginia was.

how many health violations. So you know what? I've been a boars head buyer for years because I've always believed they had such quality, high quality product. I won't buy it anymore. In fact, my husband went out and bought some stick salami stuff that you cut for the holidays. And I'm like, are you out of your mind? That's boars head. And that probably didn't come from this plant and it's probably fine. But you know what? That's bad PR.

I mean, that is bad PR. Negative criticism of an ad or negative criticism of things you're doing is not bad PR if it gets conversation going and it ends up doing what you intentioned. And I do really think that what the advertisers and what Tata wanted to do with Jaguar was shock the scene, come onto the scene and because...

You know, this is a brand that has been flat lined for many years and certainly fell into this doldrums with this Ford re-, whatever you want to call it, refashioning of the iconic look of the brand. And I don't know how many places they can go with this today. So I would say that the Trojan horse of this teaser that was really a PR gimmick accomplished everything.

Jaguar wanted, including the negative comments, because it's getting it talked about. And so I think it's a very effective way to reposition when you want to take this big of a risk. And they're obviously taking a big risk, that they need to find a new audience. That's not the old starch, kind of stodgy gentry of British wealth or those who want to look like British wealth.

It's a big bet. It's a big bet.

Lorraine Kessler

I think they're counting on something Herschel Gordon Lewis called the shock diminution rule, which is you come out with an idea that shocks and then you repeat that idea over time and it then becomes mildly accepted and finally ho-ha. Right? It just kind of gets normalized. And this is, think what they were counting on. So, and just to comment, a comment on that Miami video.

The car itself is remarkable. I mean, I don't know who the audience is for it, but it is remarkable. It is certainly a different looking vehicle. It makes a statement of its own, but the announcer, I don't know what they were thinking there. He doesn't fit that look or that vibe at all.

Mark Vandegrift

Well, it's known to be a luxury performance sports car. And I think with the new type 00, they're transforming into an eclectic only brand with a kind of a futuristic look. And their color options, I think, were Miami pink and London blue. But that's not all. What else did they do? They changed the look of the logo.

And it deconstructs the logo from that well-known iconic look of a Jaguar to, well, I don't even know how to explain it. It looks artsy to me rather than powerful and elite. It has some symmetry to it and doesn't emulate that beautiful Jaguar that we're used to seeing. So I can't give it a thumbs up on the new logo. What's your thought on that?

Lorraine Kessler

Well, this is a total repositioning of the brand for future audiences and a futuristic look. as I said, you know, what audience exists that would want this or who they are, I don't know. And whether that audience is large enough to make the brand profitable again, I don't know. But I would think that the logo, just in isolation, my response to it was very negative. because it's so simple and like it's just, it's almost contrived to be simple and modern. But when you see it on the vehicle itself, it fits, okay? So there again is some intention in this reposition that they've come out with. So I guess for me, time will tell it's part of that shock rule again. A lot of times when a logo is drastically changed,

it just, there should be a reason for it. Well, there is a reason for this. This car is wildly different. It is building on the past of Jaguar for its style and its uniqueness and that it's always had, it's always stood out in the car market for its lines and what have you. So it is tying back to that, but it's hugely a departure. So I would have to say, you know, if you think about the old logo which is very heritage driven, right? And much more realistic because of that. You put that on this car, that would have looked really strange. So in context, I'd have to say, I understand why they went where they went. It's just different when we look at it kind of artificially in print or what have you, video as just a logo.

Mark Vandegrift

Well, we always talk about repositioning and trout has some guidelines around this. Why don't you remind our listeners of kind of the rule of repositioning in this regard.

Lorraine Kessler

Yeah, well, one thing he always says is you have to tie back to something in your past that people regarded you for or understood or believed you were about, right? So you don't want to jump from where you are to something that's totally foreign because you have to tie to something. So when you look at the Jaguar,

It was always known as classy, a high-performance car. It had a kinship to racing, and it was known for these, I recall, sleek designs that really balanced elegance and boldness, uniqueness. So, and as I said, it did appear to like Britain's gentry, you know, the kings and the nobles, the people that owned manors and wards and people had money and anyone in the world who wanted to identify with that wealth or appear to be that cool, that British cool. So I think that this new style is just recasting those attributes or associations with a very, very futuristic vibe. It's just saying, and in a way, as I said, I don't know where Jaguar could go. It really can't go back to its past unless it wants to be a museum kind of car, and there's plenty of these around that people could buy and cherish, on whether to go forward. And so it's a big bet. I don't know if it's the right bet. It's a big one. But I have to say they put their whole body into the pool with this.

Mark Vandegrift

Well, search went through the roof for the Jaguar brand. So they did accomplish attention. Whether it's the right attention, that'd be interesting to see. Yep.

Lorraine Kessler

I'm not, we would no longer ever be a Jag customer. Right. I mean, even if I could afford a new one, that new design does not appeal to us at all. We would more be in the market for a used, you know, refurbished old one. Right. So that's my point about the total customer market. I don't know who the market is for this.

They must be counting on it being big enough to be profitable.

Mark Vandegrift

Yeah, well, they're putting all their chips on the table, I think here. Well, staying on the topic of cars, Volvo, one of our favorite brands to cite in the past because Volvo stands for.

Lorraine Kessler

Safety or safe cars.

Mark Vandegrift

Yep. But they got away from it. And we've bemoaned that fact for probably 15 to 20 years now as well, pointing out that you can't walk away from your position and think you're still going to own it. So Volvo recently released a three minute and 45 second long ad featuring their new Volvo EX90. And to provide a quick overview, this ad tells an emotional story. It really is neat of a man first learning he is becoming a father and how the Volvo safety features work to protect and save the lives of his family. The video includes the caption, designed to be the safest Volvo car ever made. And again, Lindsey will run an ad for us here on screen. Lorraine, what are your thoughts on the video and Volvo returning to its formerly solid position of the safe car?

Lorraine Kessler

Well, I'll start with their second question, return to safety as a position. I don't think anything proves the efficacy of positioning like Volvo. I think obviously that return is much needed and great. Now they have dabbled in it. They've kind of been swing saw or seesawing on this over the years. I mean, sometimes they've come out with a safety add and whatever, but they kind of have lost it to Subaru who's been pretty strong

with the safety ads. But, and every time they stray from safety, as you mentioned, as their reason for being or as Simon Sinek would be their why, we believe in building safe cars that people love and enjoy and find to be beautiful. See, I didn't leave out the beauty. Because if you remember, one of the problems that Volvo had was kind of like Domino's Pizza. If you're making a car, you can't afford to make it ugly.

And the old joke about Volvos when I was in when I lived in Dallas in the 1980s, you know, where a lot of people owned Volvos is they, sounded like lawn mowers and they kind of look like them. So, you know, they had to fix their styling. They did that. But what you want to do is that's table stakes. You just, got to have a pizza that people want to eat, not just have delivery.

That's your differential. I always say it's table stakes plus what makes you different. So the fact that they beautified the car, and it is a beautiful car in that commercial. It's absolutely gorgeous. But every time they bring back safety, they win. And we like to say branding is boring business. And it is. And you stick with that idea because that idea really sells cars. And I think it'd be really interesting to compare what you started off with the statement about their ad statement about making the safe car, how plain that is, how logical, how rational, compared with the statements made about Jaguar before, which were very kind of arty and out there and a little different. One proposition's a true proposition. The other is a lot of highfalutin kind of drama or showmanship, if you will. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Now in terms of the brand storytelling, yeah, who would watch a four-minute video? It is so well done. The story there, the brand storytelling in this little four-minute video is captivating. It's really like a mini movie. It's so believable. And that punchline, I love great copy.

So "sometimes the moments that never happen matter the most" is just exquisite. I mean, just beautiful.

Mark Vandegrift

Yeah, it's well done. Do you think with more and more cars prioritizing safety, you mentioned Subaru, but Kia has really pushed that button with their safety writings and such. And Kia, you don't get that feeling of a cheap car that you used to. They've really come around. Do you think Volvo has a chance to earn that number one spot again that we think Volvo equals safe car?

Lorraine Kessler

Yeah, because I think they have the lead. I think they still... I mean, I wouldn't know. You can quantify this with research. It's a good thing with research to say statistically, what brand do you associate with safety? My bet is Volvo would still win that, maybe two to one over any other brand, or at least with a significant margin. So now if you press it...

if you really, you know, bleed it and you keep repeating it. Like, I hope this commercial isn't a one-off and this campaign isn't a one-off. I hope they stick with this theme. Yeah, then they are in the best position to own it. Instead of, they gave up ground, but I think it's ground they can get back if they do the right things.

Mark Vandegrift

Well, something else curious happened. Volvo and Jaguar, as we've mentioned the two brands so far, Volvo dropped that video in September, but it didn't really gain much recognition until the same time as the Jaguar rebrand videos hit in November. And what was interesting is some of the comments under the Volvo video even mentioned Jaguar.

And one of them was, "thank you Volvo for not being like Jaguar". Another one was "the whole Jaguar disaster brought me here". And then "dear Jaguar, this is how you make an advert." Which that had to be an English person because we call them advertisements here. Dear Jaguar, this is how you make an advertisement. So it's interesting the way we're consuming media now that these two kind of got put in parallel with one another even though it's different audiences. What's your take on that?

Lorraine Kessler

Yeah, I just think, I mean, I think you have to take those comments for what they're worth. I doubt very, very much that the person who's a Volvo buyer is considering Jaguar in their selection set. That those, very different audiences who care a lot about different things. And of course, from the advert for Volvo, you can tell they're targeting families. They're targeting people who care about other people, passengers. That's not the Jaguar buyer. The Jaguar buyer is someone who's arrived in their life financially and is looking for sport and sex appeal and lots of other things and not taking care of the family. Taking care of the family is a primary goal and feeling like what they're driving is safe. So I just feel like you have to take some of these comments with a grain of salt doing two different things. And as I said on hindsight, you're right. Who got more buzz going? It seemed negative at first, but I gotta tell you, it's set up everybody waiting to see the car. Everybody with Jaguar, everyone now wanted to see the car to see if it lives up to all the hype. And for the person who's interested in that car, and again, I don't know who that is, because it's not me and I hope there's enough of them. It certainly delivers.

Mark Vandegrift

Well, we'll see when the rubber meets the road as to who sold more cars as a result of their advertising,

Lorraine Kessler

And it's not just who sells more, but who makes more higher margin on, I suspect there'll be far less buyers for the Porsche and Volvo, not Porsche, I'm sorry, Jaguar, see how that happened, than the Volvo, but they're going to pay a lot more per car, per unit for that car and whatever the profit margin is. So I think that's the measure.

Mark Vandegrift

While November seemed to be a significant month for advertising buzz, Coca-Cola was among the names receiving major attention due to the recent commercials. And Coca-Cola is known for bringing the holiday spirit with their annual Christmas spots. But fans had a lot to say about the brand's change in scene. This year, Coke released a series of AI-generated ads that reflect a remake of the brand's 1995 holidays are coming ad. And there was a lot of buzz started to generate about how Coca-Cola lost the nostalgic feel associated with their previous holiday ads. Did you have a chance to catch that commercial?

Lorraine Kessler

Okay.

Yeah, I did. And it's, it's kind of funny. I think nostalgia is a double-edged sword. We feel good about it, but it can be deadly for a brand. If you get stuck in your past, I think that's like, then it starts feeling like a sweater you took out of a closet that has moth holes in it. You know what I mean? It's been in there too long and it has that funky smell. So it's time to get.

Time to get a new sweater. You might still love sweaters, but you need a new one. So Coca-Cola is an American institution. This brand is fantastic. And its association with Christmas goes back to 1920s. I applaud kind of using new technology and new ways of filming to bring that forward. This is how people live today. I'm not living in my grandmother's house. I'm not.

So I think that it's, I don't have a problem with it. I think the overall storyline was fantasy based. So some of the computer generated or AI generated visuals work in the fantasy based kind of thing. Now, overuse of anything can be a problem. as having been trained as an artist to begin my early career, a painter and printmaker and a drawer, you know, I was always cautioned by props, you know, don't, don't settle on a gimmick. Don't let it become a rut, right? Don't because that's easy for you to do. Don't stick with that. So, I think anything overuse can fall into those traps. so, but I don't see that they're going to do that. I don't think all Coca-Cola commercials are going to look like these or this one. And so.

Mark Vandegrift

Good. Well, moving on from the news of Cars and Cola, on January 13th, so just a couple of weeks ago, Walmart announced they were introducing an updated brand identity for the first time in 17 years. So, 17 years, you're talking kind of a generation there, right? Some of the key features of the brand's refresh was a bolder font. And we talked last season about all of these fonts recently or these logos pulling up with bolder and bolder fonts. And then they also emboldened their yellow spark that accompanies their Walmart name. So they went from what I would call a softer blue to a brighter blue and the softer yellow to a brighter yellow. The Walmart CMO said this, William White said, this update rooted in the legacy of our founder, Sam Walton demonstrates our evolving capabilities and longstanding commitment to serve our customers of today and tomorrow. And Lorraine, you're gonna say something, I'm sure, about getting paid by the word.

Lorraine Kessler

Literally, I don't know who wrote that for him, but, that is such... talk about fantasy. I mean, this is when they make when marketers make too much out of a small thing, right? This is in four words. This is much ado about nothing. I doubt that if you show the new logo by itself, all of the loyal Walmart customers that one would say, look how the font is bolder and look how this, whatever you call that mark, the spark is a little thicker and a little bolder and the color, they're not going to notice. They're just not, I didn't notice. I had to like, what, did they change? And then to hear these highfalutin justifications is just, it's painful. It's just painful.

But that said, I love logo evolutions and maybe you can show the tide evolution over the years, right? Most people don't even realize a change. That's good. That's really good people because when you don't really register the change, emotionally you may have or you may have or intuitively you may notice it, but you're still connecting to the brand. You haven't lost connection and we know when a brand or a logo goes too far, there's a greater risk in changing a logo, of losing your audience than keeping them or making them feel good. So I'm a big fan of evolution, unless, unless, and there's always a caveat, there's a real reason to change your logo dramatically because you've either had a crisis or competition or just change.

Is so prevalent that you need to change it. So I just think they're mistaken. This wasn't changing it. I like it I like what they've done. It's a better logo but Or an improvement. It's not a better logo. It's the same logo just improved but I wish they would just shut up about it and just let it happen

Mark Vandegrift

Not naked. Yeah. Well, certainly there's going to be people that notice it because people pay attention to big brands. But like you said, we encourage our own clients to iterate their brand in a quiet way. It's like updating your clothes closet, right? No one walks in one day and goes, you have a new style all of a sudden. It's more like, I like that shirt, you know, yeah, I just got it for my birthday. And so, you know, that might be the evolution starting into a new style, but you know, when you announce it and you come in and you know, if Mark Vandergrift showed up with pink hair, I think everyone would notice that would be out of character for me.

Lorraine Kessler

I Don't know too what this has to do with Sam Walton at all because the first Walmart logo is really stodgy and I think if you go way back this one that happened 17 years ago was a great refreshment. I mean it was really a great move and they've just iterated on that. So I don't know how this speaks to Sam Walton whose whole idea was being really a bully on buyers and using technology to manage inventory, cutting costs structurally so he could offer a lower price. That was his genius. I don't think how the brand looked or any of that was even in his mind. In fact, I even did business with Walmart for Champion Spark when Sam was alive. And I can tell you it wasn't an aesthetic environment at that time. So I don't know what they're talking about there.

Mark Vandegrift

Well, like you said, they probably got paid by the wordhow the agency got compensated. Well,

I think that wraps up today's discussion and hopefully we caught our listeners up to speed on some of the brand news that happened. We have a big week plan next week for the Super Bowl podcast and just possibly the next two weeks, depending on how juicy the discussion gets with the Super Bowl spots. I'll be on a local radio station discussing the Super Bowl. So if you're in the Northeast Ohio area,

Tune in to WHBC 1480 Talk Radio at 7.30 a.m. on both Friday, February 7th and Monday, February 10th to hear my interview with host Pam Cook. And I'll be discussing some of our feedback on those ad spots. The main reason most of us watch the Super Bowl if we're not Eagles or Chiefs fans, right?

Lorraine Kessler

Yah, Which I understand is probably not the best for the advertisers. I don't know, but it's a squeak from a fly eagle's fly.

Mark Vandegrift

Well, thank you to our listeners for joining us today. And remember to like, share, and tell your friends about the Brand Shorthand Podcast. And as Lorraine likes to remind you, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. Until  next time, have an amazing day.