Time has come for yet another country-specific list of funky brands. This time around, let’s look at what’s going on in terms of innovative, desirable and funky brands in Italy.
Italians are famous for their sense of style, and innovating through design.1 This is why almost all of the brands you’ll see here have incorporated superior design as core of their brand strategies.
As in the case of two previous blog posts related to country-specific brands, Spain and Germany, the Italian list is far from being exhaustive. It’s just a beginning, and if you have some more funky brands to add to the Italian list, feel free to do so.
To get a better idea for what criteria to look for, check out what makes a brand funky, and based on that, continue adding more brands in your comments on this blog or SCHMOOZY FOX’s Facebook page. Have fun discovering funky brands from Italy!
Here is a photo of a magazine back page that I took this morning. It made me think of a new trend that is emerging in the area of celebrity endorsements: business celebrities as brand ambassadors.
Even if you are not familiar with the term, you’ve most probably come across brand celebrity endorsements on many occasions. These are short or long-term partnerships between a brand and a real person, usually a celebrity from the world of music, sports or movies. If you’ve seen ads with Hollywood stars next to cars, perfume or other products, then you’ve seen a celebrity endorsement in action.
In such brand partnerships, celebrities serve as the so called meta-brands: overarching, superior concepts that add positive associations to other brands wanting to relate to them. For celebrities, it’s also important to choose the right brands to work with, because at the end of the day, they have to pinpoint these people’s personal brands.
My observation that I want to share with you today is this: most brands, especially luxury products, like to work with celebrities from the world of entertainment and sports.
However, it seems like there’s a whole new trend emerging out there: celebrities from the non-entertainment world. They are not as widely known as entertainment stars, but they nevertheless have a lot of qualities that brands can tap into and benefit from. This trend is not yet very well explored by brands, it seems.
The two other brand ambassadors that Maurice Lacroix chose — Bob Geldoff and Justin Rose — come from the worlds of music and sports, respectively. But Jimmy Wales is a businessman whose name is known to a lesser extent.
What’s known much better is his non-profit foundation: Wikipedia.
What did Maurice Lacroix want to communicate by selecting Bob Geldoff, Justin Rose and Jimmy Wales as its brand ambassadors? I guess, the most important qualities that seems to unite them all are continuity, staying on course, and staying true to themselves. And of course, achieving results.
As brands look for authenticity and natural, not-too-commercial, ways of connecting with their consumers, we’re likely to see more entrepreneurs, journalists, and other people outside of the entertainment world with strong personal brands, endorse products and services.
I was very happy to hear that my Alma Mater, Tufts University in Boston (I went to the Fletcher School at Tufts back in 2001), has been exploring the power of social media in order to identify best applicants for its top-ranked undergraduate education.
As part of their application package (which includes academic test results, essays and other quite elaborate things that require a lot of effort and preparation), Tufts candidates are now encouraged to submit videos that shed light on their personalities. Since a decision was made to allow YouTube video submissions as part of the application package, Tufts has received 1000 videos. Interestingly, 60% were female, and two thirds of the applicants submitting videos were seeking financial aid. As already mentioned in my previous blog post, Digital Anthropology, women are most active users of social media, and the Tufts University applicant videos suggest the same.
When I was a student at Tufts back in 1999-2001, I was frequently amazed at a large number of very strong and individual personalities there. My feeling is that this will improve even further! Equipped with the encouragement of the Tufts Admissions team, bright candidates will be given an additional incentive to demonstrate their unique skills, interests and passions. In the SCHMOOZY FOX language, these students will have a great opportunity to make their personal brand stand out from the crowd. And by the way, it’s not only unique and original products and services that can be funky brands, it’s also people!
Although, wait a minute, the brand in question is actually a perfect fit for any bad gal’. They even have a product called Bad Gal Mascara.
The brand in question is called Benefit Cosmetics, and its place of birth is San Francisco, which happens to be one of my favorite cities.
I guess it was the mention of San Francisco (written somewhere on the product display in a shopping mall) that caught my attention right from the start. To give this phenomenon a proper name, let’s say that San Francisco was my first brand entry point for the Benefit brand.
In other words, it generated enough curiosity in order for me to continue exploring Benefit products.
And what did I find out?
Well, first of all, very funky product design. It was a true eye-catcher. A bit of a retro look combined with vibrant colors looked candy-like. The shape of packaging also somehow felt right. I picked up a small bottle of perfume and just enjoyed holding it in my hands.
Second of all, there’re funky product names. Check it out: “smokin’ eyes”, “some kind-a gorgeous”, “my place or yours”.
Product quality? It seemed fine, although I can’t be an authority on this subject — I was in a hurry and thought I’d experience first instead of buying right away. So, I simply don’t have an opinion on how long-lasting these products are, if their texture and scent are pleasant, etc. But I have a feeling that this stuff is nice.
Benefit Cosmetics was founded by twin sisters, Jean and Jane Ford, formerly models in NYC. After earning enough cash during their modeling career, Jean and Jane decided to invest it into something they knew very well — make-up. And so Benefit was born.
As you can imagine, the business of cosmetics and make-up is extremely competitive. Dominated by huge powerhouses such as L’Oréal and the like (and this is just one market segment!), cosmetics brands have to struggle very hard in order to break through a huge level of competition. Therefore, it’s important to stand out from the crowd.
Benefit for sure did it quite well through its packaging, product names (and the brand name itself which is pretty successful!) and its ability to tap into the city brand of San Francisco.
And, importantly, it is highly profitable, one of the important characteristics of all funky brands.
Does this mean that there’s no need for any brand strategy and positioning work any more for Benefit to do?
Not at all. Benefit’s consumers and their interests are evolving. New creative and funky-to-be competitors are coming to the market. There are indeed a lot of things to take care of if one’s funky brand is to stay funky!
Some of you have already noticed that www.schmoozyfox.com has changed its look! I am happy to be running the site of SCHMOOZY FOX brand and marketing strategy consulting, www.schmoozyfox.com as well as the blog about funky brands, on this new WP theme!
Many thanks to Cristian Eslava, a WordPress wizard from Seville, for helping me to set up this theme and make sure that everything is up and running correctly! Also thanks to my friend Ellie Zachariadou (who’s by the way the author of the cool fox logo) for her tweaks and advice about graphic layout.
Working with Cristian motivated me to re-activate my Spanish: it was a lot of fun exchanging emails about widgets, plug-ins and cascading style sheets en español! It’s been also coincidentally fun to realize that Cristian’s last name, Eslava, which means “Slavic” in Spanish, somehow resembles my own last name, Slavkina.
For his great help, I want to give my link love to Cristian!
Cristian’s site, http://justtellmewhy.com (the Spanish version is available on http://pqpq.es/) is a mix between a blog and a discussion forum. One could call it a Web 2.0 platform for debates.
One of its interesting features is that visitors of the site can post questions to which they cannot find answers in “real life”, and wait for crowdsourced solutions. The good news is that one does not need to register in order to ask an answer or leave a comment. The anonymous character of debates can encourage wider participation.
To show you how the site works, here is an example of what I posted on justtellmewhy. Check it out and submit your opinions. Let’s get the debate going! You can also use it for starting opinion polls and sharing them with your friends through various online channels.
Another important feature of the new look is a photo of truly yours on the page About Olga. This is just one image from a whole range of absolutely beautiful images that were taken by a talented Brussels-based photographer Michael Chia. Michael’s main talent is that he is able to reveal his clients’ personal brands through photography.
My photo session was a mix of cool music and Michael climbing the ladder with his camera, meanwhile “chatting me up” to make me feel comfortable. I am very happy about the result, and you will soon be able to read an interview with Michael to learn how he helps build personal brands through photography.
And meanwhile, enjoy the new look of SCHMOOZY FOX.
Dear fans of SCHMOOZY FOX, funky branding and funky businesses! With this short post, let me wish you a wonderful holiday season and lots of success in your professional and personal projects in 2010!
SHMOOZY FOX is off to one of the funkiest cities in Europe — Berlin!
I’ll be back in January with more tips on how to build exciting and funky businesses, and I feel there is a nice blog post on city branding coming up!
This photo of yarn packaging made me smile this morning.
Rellana, a German yarn and knitting supplies producer, wanted to target knitting fans who look for something special during this Christmas season.
The packaging clearly communicates that this kind of yarn is good for making hats and scarves.
The packaging of Rellana Hair is way more advanced than the style and design of Rellana’s corporate site, for example, so I guess they still have a lot of stuff to do to build a strong brand.
But this packaging is a very good start towards making this yarn brand more funky.
Having already spoken about a company called Naked Wines, as well as Naked Chef, I am now going to speak about naked… vodka.
Getting “naked” for brands is a demonstration of authenticity, openness and being perceived for what you are rather than what you look.
The “naked” tendency is becoming the sign of the zeitgeist.
Have a look at this “naked” bottle of vodka. It has no logo, and no name. Do you recognize it?
Image source: http://lovelypackage.com
Even if you are not very much into drinking vodka, you must have guessed: it’s Absolut.
The brand that has dressed up its famous Swedish bottle, designed back in 1979, into so many “outfits”, is recognizable even “nude”. This is a smart move, Absolut’s response to the spirit of times, but something that only a VERY well-known brand could do. If your would-be-funky brand cannot boast any significant brand awareness yet, you gotta dress it up nicely first.
“For the first time we dare to face the world completely naked. We launch a bottle with no label and no logo, to manifest the idea, that no matter what’s on the outside, it’s the inside that really matters. The bottle visually manifests our belief in diversity and our standpoint when it comes to sexual identities. Of course it is also a wonderful piece of delicate and minimalist design, a true collectors item” says Kristina Hagbard, Global PR Manager at The Absolut Company (See original source).
In the past, Absolut has already made some associations with nakedness. Here is an image from my marketing assignment paper prepared together with my MBA team at IE Business school:
And here is a little analysis snapshot from the same paper we wrote:
You can see that one of the main product attributes is the “medical level purity”. The naked bottle does a good job communicating this important feature of the Absolut brand.
I’ve recently caught a glimpse of Zumba on TV, and the funky Latin workout caught my attention. And not only because I myself like to move to the steamy Latin tunes. I’ve heard about Zumba from some friends here and there, so I was curious to dig a bit more into the concept, and analyze the brand.
So, what’s Zumba really? Is it something you do to get fit, lose weight, or just have fun? To get a better idea what it looks like, have a look at this video I found on YouTube:
It’s a bit of a mix of various Latin dance styles – there’s some salsa, merengue, samba and something else I can’t quite determine. It also looks like fun. But is Zumba just a kind of fitness program you can follow at your local gym, or is it also a profitable business? Importantly, does its business model support the brand and its values? Here are some branding clues SCHMOOZY FOX is happy to share with you.
What exactly is the product?
The core “product” of Zumba is its fitness workout. It is actually a “service” rather than something tangible you buy at a shop. You go to your local gym, move around, dance and sweat for an hour to funky Latin tunes. What you get as a customer is an experience, fun and positive emotions. Most probably, you’ll burn some calories along the way. In terms of tangible products, there is some Zumba-branded merchandise available on the site, such as DVDs, music, umbrellas, T-shirts etc. Not too exciting, but not too bad either.
What’s the business model?
Well, that’s a good question. I did some googling around to find out more, but all I can do is simply assume that Zumba sells licences to designated fitness instructors around the world. Or maybe, cash flows come simply from the fees instructors pay to Zumba for the obligatory qualification courses. Whatever the current business model, SCHMOOZY FOX could come up with at least several more ways of how to create and capture more value for Zumba!
As far as instructor training, it’s not clear from the site if an instructor has to follow all of the offered 8 levels or only one. For instance, in Belgium, there are several basic level workshops available for the price of 325$ per two days, and no previous Zumba experience is needed. I wonder if you actually have to be a dance or fitness teacher to start with, or can I also take that 2-day course and start teaching Zumba next week? I suggest that Zumba.com sheds some more light on this point, in order to make things more clear for potential instructors.
Who are Zumba’s customers?
There are two main kinds of customers in this case: those who will take classes, and those who’ll teach them. As regards course participants, I wouldn’t be dwelling only on such criteria commonly used in marketing as age and gender, and where they live. SCHMOOZY FOX would also focus on the deep emotions that trigger potential customers’ decision to sign up for a Zum’ba course. Is it a desire to lose some weight? Become more sexy? Meet a potential date? Have fun? Build self-confidence? These are some of the questions Zumba should keep in mind to get a better idea about its customers. For now, its targeting seems a bit more fuzzy rather than funky.
In order to reach instructors, Zumba should be doing a different kind of analysis. After all, instructors’ reasons for teaching Zumba are totally different. Here, emotions play a certain role, but incentives and rewards are equally important. Zumba should build a community around the instructors, and preferably give them access to some perks: use your imagination here, there are plenty of great opportunities available!
Importantly, customer touch points (I explained what they are in my article about Abercrombie and Fitch) should be thought through in relation to both groups of customers. The funky web site alone (actually, it’s only the home pages that looks good, whereas national sites are pretty weak) will not do the job of maintaining the brand, and the biggest challenge for Zumba is to ensure that the quality of courses, instructors and spaces where courses are held, is consistent.
Orchestrating so many elements around the world (Zumba courses are offered on a global level) certainly requires a lot of dedication and consistency, but if this huge effort pays off, a true funky brand is born! Consistency of services is by the way one of the biggest challenges for any service brands, and only few get it right, on very rare occasions!
How is Zumba being promoted?
The most obvious channels that drive the buzz around the Zumba brand are its web site, and coverage in the world’s leading health, beauty and fitness magazines. I would imagine that a lot of the marketing is also word-of-mouth driven. In addition to these channels, Zumba has partnered with The Kellogg Company to participate in a joint health and fitness initiative targeted to the US Hispanic market at some point, but this was an initiative undertaken only in the US. The name of this initiative was Zumbando con Kellogg’s.
Something that Zumba could consider to build a brand would be celebrity endorsement by a Latin star – a dancer, fitness instructor, actress – plenty of opportunities here. Remember how strongly aerobics is associated with Jane Fonda? That’s definitely something to consider in the Zumba case.
Apart from that, just like any respectable service brand (I am being a bit sarcastic here, as there aren’t that many of those around!), Zumba should keep in mind that “point of sale promotions” (the actual fitness rooms where classes take place) as well as instructors themselves shouldlive the brand, breathe the brand, and promote it. Just look at a very large selection of amateur Zumba videos on YouTube: each of them has a totally different look and feel with the only common factor being Latin music! More consistency is required!
From would-be-funky to truly funky
Building brands for services companies is surely one of the most challenging activities to engage in, as this requires so many elements to be in harmony at all times. But if you manage to get it right, you can reach unbelievably good results. If Zumba wants to move from being would-be-funky to a truly funky brand, there are so many things it should still work on! In addition to the suggestions above, it should also know its competitors, position itself very differently from them, and get those brand core values sorted out in a more of a … Zumba way.
This week the stream of my friends’ posts on Facebook has included several photos of hosiery — socks and stockings — displaying logos and messages related to popular social networking sites, YouTube and Twitter.
This made me remember another similar trend that I noticed several months ago during my trip to Rome: posters advertising presence of small Italian shops on Facebook. Both hosiery and posters are examples of “traditional” marketing used to promote brands on the web (more…)
I am fun, energetic, positive and sometimes nerdy. Some say that I am schmoozy and foxy.
Originally from Latvia, a small country near the Baltic Sea, I’ve lived in many countries and managed to pick up several languages along the way. Now I am living in Brussels, Belgium, where I founded SCHMOOZY FOX.
My main activity is brand and marketing strategy consulting. For my professional credentials and references, visit my LinkedIn profile.
Contact
SCHMOOZY FOX is based in Brussels, Belgium and serves customers internationally.
Here is a photo of a magazine back page that I took this morning. It made me think of a new trend that is emerging in the area of celebrity endorsements: business celebrities as brand ambassadors.
Some of you have already noticed that 
Dear fans of SCHMOOZY FOX, funky branding and funky businesses! With this short post, let me wish you a wonderful holiday season and lots of success in your professional and personal projects in 2010!
