This year we’re going to make Branding News a regular part of our blog. Our goal in doing so is to: bring you up to speed on what some major, well-known companies are doing, highlight the latest trends in branding, and inspire you with stories of creative, unique branding moves.
Here are three of the most interesting branding stories to come out recently:
Nissan debuts brand scent. In a bid to woo car-lovers at the North American Auto Show, Nissan is appealing to consumer’s olfactory senses by testing a ‘brand scent’ that they may roll out to dealers if successful. Nissan describes its brand scent as “quite a modern smell — a bit Oriental”. The brand scent is part of the automaker’s new multisensory brand experience. According to Nissan, “The new Nissan exhibit is designed to interact not only with the senses of sight and sound, but also touch and smell.”
The goal is to make people feel “at home” and of course, spend more. Nissan is certainly not the first to use brand scents, but we haven’t heard of it in the auto industry in many years. Brand scenting is common in the luxury hotel and retail industries; Victoria’s Secret, Abercrombie and Fitch, and Singapore Airlines all use it. Overall, this trend is more than just brand scents; it’s actually the multi-sensory brand experience that we see emerging.
MAC puts female bodybuilder in cosmetic ad. MAC cosmetics is well-known for their unconventional choices to advertise their brand. They typically are a cutting edge brand who has used Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj in their advertising campaigns. They’ve gone a completely different route this time, though, to advertise their makeup line called “Strength”.
Instead of using waifish models as the rest of the fashion and cosmetics industry usually does, in this new ad they feature bodybuilder and fitness model Jenna Abbou. And she is ripped! We’re talking well-defined muscles here, not just toned. The tag line for the new line is “Flex your femininity with a color collection that’s fearless, elegant and strong. Strike a powerful pose, stand out, redefine the notion of beauty – and do it with strength too irresistible to ignore.”
It’s a beautiful ad, and frankly we love the fact that they’re embracing a new standard of beauty!
Lipton launches “Drink Positive” tagline in the U.S. We were intrigued by this story because, well, Lipton is not really a very exciting brand. It’s been around forever, but they have been overshadowed by specialty tea brands with exotic flavors, as well as their own newer lines like green tea, tea in pyramid-shaped bags, herbal tea, and iced tea. Now, however, they’re focusing on the flagship black tea product that comes in the highly recognizable yellow box.
Interestingly enough, the Unilever execs (Unilever owns the Lipton brand) are saying this new campaign is the first extensive effort to be devoted to Lipton black tea in the U.S since 1989! The new campaign targets Millennials, whom the executives describe as “life embracers”. The branding efforts also include making the yellow box even brighter; maybe even to a ‘lively’ shade of yellow?
With this campaign, Lipton’s carving out their unique benefit by focusing on the feeling you will get from drinking the tea, rather than their expertise or origin of the tea, like many other companies do. All in all, we think this is a very smart move by Lipton and will be following this campaign to see the results!
That’s our branding news roundup for this issue. For more interesting and relevant marketing news, please Like our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter!
