In my last post I mentioned the nostalgia for children’s toys as seen in the Santander’s commercials. How delighted I was therefore, to see that Lego have pulled from their illustrious archives their award winning stop-frame animation ad ‘Kipper’ by TBWA. It’s a surreal look at the things kids can make out of a Lego with a brilliant voice-over by the late and great British comedian Tommy Cooper. ‘I said a kipper not a slipper. Ha hah ha.”

This master-class of creativity, simplicity and charm has more than stood the test of time – it’s appearing on TV and at cinemas now. Well done to Lego and their agency for having the courage to air it again. Have a look for yourself on YouTube. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY9lctGCZZE

With Spanish financial giant Santander’s rescue of the beleaguered, bankrupt British banks, I’ve watched with interest to see how they manage the change process as familiar high street brands like Abbey disappear forever.

One thing struck me on watching the Santander commercials, and I hope it’s unintended, is the pattern forming of children’s toys from my past. Lewis Hamilton, 2008 F1 world champion spearheads the brand. He’s been depicted as a plastic construction model (Airfix), racing his model car (Scalextric) in front of a plastic crowd, Airfix again. And in the latest unintelligible commercial, we see the construction of a bridge from red toy bricks (Lego – Danish for ‘let’s play’). So here’s my confident prediction for the future – Meccano, the model construction system set up by one Frank Hornby in 1908, will make an appearance very soon.

Are we seeing an unintended ‘mash-up’ between James May on the BBC and Santander’s advertising campaign? Probably not – it’s just that good old nostalgia is back in fashion.

Much was written on the aesthetics of Wolff Olins’ creation of the London Olympics 2012 brand when it was launched in 2007. The controversy no longer rages but having given it over two years worth of the ‘over night’ test, I’m still not a convert.

There’s probably little that I can contribute to the debate other than the fact that Wolff Olins have used a similar aperture technique of placing different images and colours behind the logo for other clients including NYC and Visit London. Old ideas for a new audience, that’s acceptable of course.

www.everyjoe.com/articles/2012-london-olympics-logo-controversy-the-2007-branding-year-in-review/

But, and it’s a big but, is there even a need for an Olympics ‘sub-brand’ for each host country? The Olympic movement has one of the strongest, globally identified brands there is. And it’s reinforced every two years to hundreds of millions of people across the world. Ask yourself these questions. Do you recall the logo for the Moscow, LA or even Rome games? Or the Winter Olympics 2006 in Torino? The answer is probably no.

But you could draw the Olympic symbol from memory couldn’t you? And you probably know that the interlocking circles represent the five continents. The personality of the games, but not the brand, comes through the history, culture and individuality of the host city, enhanced by the sporting heroes of the day – Bolt, Redgrave-Pinsent, Spitz and Owens spring to mind. And that’s an important distinction; the Olympic brand is independent of location. By creating a sub-brand - the offspring challenges the parent and weakens it.

Perhaps a more courageous Wolff Olins might have recommended as the logo for the Olympics 2012 something like this. The Olympic symbol with London 2012 in Helvetica placed underneath. If that was the case we’d probably now be debating whether London 2012 should be in black, blue, green, yellow or red?

Last weekend, I took the opportunity to visit the ‘controversial’ Banksy versus Bristol Museum exhibition. For any cultural hermits, Banksy gained notoriety by using stencils to paint images on a diverse array of outdoor locations – graffiti in other words. The Banksy exhibition presents a considerable body of work and many 3D pieces which were unfamiliar to me. I’m not going to add my opinion to the “is this art, debate? But look at what appeals to me, professionally. He’s a great communicator. A populist, where his work is instant and immediate and not highbrow. You may not like the contemporary subject matter, or his medium, but you cannot argue with his creative power of expression. There’s satire, there’s wit, there’s social criticism. Delivered invariably by the juxtaposition of images and double meaning, all of which is very hard to do, and do well.

He’s a modern day William Hogarth and our streets (and museums) are a better place because of Banksy.

Working with American technology-based clients consequently means working with our cousins from across the water. American Craig Storti’s book Americans at Work is very insightful. It offers advice for those who need to understand more about how Americans work and there are some fundamental differences. Beechwood has selected some direct quotes on the differences in business culture and they are found in one of our Thinklets. Enjoy!

Two important dates this year for the Mini, Britain’s most successful car of all time that influenced European car production for at least two decades.

One - the 50th birthday of Alec Issigonis’ designed Morris Mini Minor and the Austin Seven. Two - the 40th birthday of the seminal film The Italian Job, starring Michael Caine and the Mini Cooper S.

According to Peter Collinson, the film’s director, British Motor Corporation (BMC), who manufactured the car, were not completely committed to the film project at all. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that they offered the filmmakers just three Mini Coopers. The production company had to buy the remaining 25 needed for filming, albeit at trade price. They clearly hadn’t recognised the benefits the film could bring to the brand.

Fiat, by contrast, understood the commercial marketing potential of the film straight away. They offered as many Fiats, and limited Ferraris the production company needed, plus cash of $50,000. The producers turned down their generous offer however as it would have meant replacing the Copper S with the Fiat 500, missing the point of the film, somewhat.

BMC’s management seemed unaware of the value of the opportunity at the time – a full length commercial for the Mini brand. In contrast, BMW the maker’s of the New Mini, understood the opportunity and supplied unlimited cars for the remake of the film in 2004. They also gave some financial support. The film was a critical and financial success, grossing over $170 million worldwide. That’s quite an audience for the Mini brand, which prospers under BMW.

As Oscar Wilde commented,  “a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. 

We relocated to new offices last month after 16 years in the same building. As you can imagine, we had amassed a considerable amount of archive material, old equipment and junk, all carefully stored in our basement. Languishing, forgotten in one of the dark recesses, we came upon our original file server - a Macintosh SE/30, circa 1988. It was configured with a massive 8 MB of RAM and an 80 MB hard drive, which ran at a blistering 16 MHz clock speed! As I wiped off the dust I just wondered to myself. Would it still work after so many years of neglect and damp, not to mention a flood? We powered the old Apple Macintosh up and retired to a safe distance, cowering behind a solid desk just in case. Well, out rang the familiar start-up chime like a long lost friend. Then up came the screen, all nine inches of it, in glorious black and white. What a little marvel, welcome back!

The SE/30 was the forerunner to the current iMac range, a compact elegant computer in an all-in-one unit. It was quite a radical design at the time, although I remember Sun’s SPARCstation Voyager had a similar design philosophy but not a similar price. In 1994, the Voyager was aggressively priced at $13,995! Surprisingly, it didn’t sell, but became hot property when production stopped. Ironic.

Our Macintosh SE/30 now has pride of place in the Beechwood museum alongside a Sun-3 workstation. Not an extensive collection then, I hear you cry. No, but I wonder what will be in the museum in another 16 years? An antique iPhone? A quaint olde-worlde wireless mouse? Or maybe a strange object that used to be called a keyboard?

I first became aware of Wally Olins for the corporate identity work his company Wolff Olins produced for companies like BOC, 3i and Apple Records in 60s and 70s. So when the chance came to participate in an interview with the great man for the business magazine, Pipeline we published on behalf of IntercontinentalExchange, it seemed foolish to refuse.

Although the conversation with brand guru Olins took place six years ago, his insights are arguably more relevant now than ever. I hope you find it as interesting and thought provoking as I do.

The interview republished by kind permission of Philip Algar, economist and energy journalist in our Thinklets section.