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Kodak Brownie Camera

This is a classic example of a company that was once an iconic brand, yet failed to evolve their brand as consumers and technology were rapidly changing around them.  Founded in the late 1880’s, Kodak’s rich history of product invention included the first Brownie camera – selling for $1 and bringing hobby photography within reach of the everyday consumer.  They also invented the world’s first digital camera in 1975, which pushed company sales past the $10 billion revenue mark and they had a 90% market share of photographic film sales in the US.  By 1988, Kodak employed almost 150,000 globally.

So what happened?  They failed to evolve. As photographic film sales declined in the late 1990’s and other companies entered the digital market, Kodak watched their sales rapidly decline. A successful mass marketer, they could not compete with niche companies that were catering to a demanding and individualized base of consumers.  By 2004, they were forced to cut tens of thousands of jobs as they closed factories and tried to change businesses.  But it was too late.  By 2010, global employment fell to less than 20,000 and they began shopping around their 1100 digital-imaging patents.

Kodak, once one of the most recognizable brands in US history, could not evolve their brand and transform themselves within their dynamic and changing industry.  Their “Kodak Moment” has faded away.

Background:

Buffalo Wings & Rings was a relatively small, loosely organized brand that had experienced moderate success over the years. Founded in 1984, BW&R had grown to nearly 100 locations by the mid 90s, but saw a rapid decline in their numbers due to fast growth and lack of franchise support systems. Ultimately, they saw their store count drop. Over the last 10 years, BW&R has focused on growth and developing their franchise support systems, bringing their store count back to 40+ geographically-fragmented locations, but there was something missing. In 2009, BW&R partnered with Hyperquake to help identify those missing elements and embarked on a complete brand repositioning.

Existing Brand Experience:

During their most recent growth efforts, the brand had admittedly become dated. From the store and menu, to the core consumer and trade marketing elements, the brand had become less relevant and less appealing. During the same period, a major player had emerged and had ultimately defined expectations within their category, along with some new, smaller players who’d carved out niches for themselves.

Brand Evolution Solution:

Understanding that a holistic solution required alignment across all functions of the organization (marketing, construction, operations, training and franchisees) HQ began the evolution process with a basic hypothesis: the category had become so male centric, that females and families were increasingly underserved.

Grounded in category and consumer research, we began to find there was a great opportunity space: BW&R could have a significant impact on market share and volume by appealing to females and families, without alienating the core male target.

Moving forward, the brand would no longer be “just another wing joint”, rather a sports restaurant. With a renewed emphasis on food quality and community involvement, BW&R was positioned to become the kind of inviting place where friends and family like to get together, watch a game and share stories over the best wings and rings anywhere.

With the foundation laid, HQ developed a new brand look, tone and feel across all consumer touchpoints, including: a bright and contemporary store design/experience, a category leading menu, a robust and localized social media strategy, a unique and engaging CRM program and website and an innovative and differentiated approach to franchise sales.

Results:

BW&R has opened more new stores in 2011 than 2009 and 2010 combined. Their consumer database has grown from 0 to 40,000+ members in just 2 years, and Facebook fans and social engagement have grown exponentially (10,000>35,000+ fans). Total website traffic has increased 30%, new visits are up 25% and search results are at an all time high and the new menu design has increased check averages and driven volumes on historically lower selling items while maintaining and/or increasing lead item volumes.

Hyperquake was tapped by Welch’s to help remind old friends, as well as the new crop of health-conscious consumers, that Welch’s juices and products were still as delicious as ever, but also had an unexpectedly healthy twist. To convert the masses we had to first develop a modern new look, vision and attitude for the brand. (To help people reconsider a brand they had known their entire lives, we needed a shock to the system). We then applied our strategy to a broad scale digital deployment.

Welch’s was a heritage brand, with an old-fashioned image, that was starting to lose relevance with its consumers. They had also amassed a substantial website offering limitless information on their vast array of products as well as large amounts of health and wellness information, reports and studies. The site was designed to be purely informational and the large amount of information it housed was not conducive to long consumer interactions.

Brand Evolution Solution

The first task was to update the look and feel of the brand to make it more modern and appealing to a younger, more tech savvy audience. To keep up with the competition, the brand had to feel far more sophisticated and needed a more experiential appeal that matched its strong health credentials.

The next step was to make the site more experiential, not just info housed on endless text pages, but built around consumer desire to understand. We used a number of immersion techniques, utilizing discovery, metaphor, comparisons, content from well known experts and unexpected and surprising nuggets of relevant information to push visitors deeper into the brand.

The full digital campaign became a transformational experience. Anyone who was exposed to it walked away with a radically altered view of the brand as well as a wealth of understanding about anti-oxidants and their powerful effect on the body.

The entire digital experience was redesigned with both internal and external sections, rallying the company around one idea.

Results

Site visits increased 300% in the first month. Page views per session increased 85%. Over the last year and a half, traffic has expanded as consumers spread the word and content was expanded. With promotion and cause-related marketing efforts, our Facebook footprint grew from a few thousand fans to over 80,000 fans in three months. The Welch’s database swelled to over 50,000 members. Sales had a year-over-year increase of 4% reversing a 5 year trend of declining sales.

As A Brand Evolution Agency™, Hyperquake is constantly striving to bridge the gaps between creative professionals, artists, students, educators and employers in Cincinnati.  As such, Hyperquake has eagerly awaited the right opportunity to partner with the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) to collaboratively bring the creative community in Cincinnati together.

Hyperquake was awarded the designation of creative and strategic partner for OFFF Cincinnati by the CAC in July of 2011.  The OFFF festival would serve as a catalyst for creative professionals, educators and students to work hand in hand with the CAC, the regions premier art center.

As the creative and strategic partner assigned to OFFF Cincinnati, Hyperquake was tasked with the creation of the brand equity, brand positioning and digital campaign for OFFF Cincinnati. The festival attracted thought leaders within the local, regional and national creative design community.

Designers, inventors, filmmakers, artists, illustrators & technologists, students and professionals alike joined together to listen, learn and partake in a creative festival like no other. The two-day festival took place from October 26-27 with a kick-off event that included an introduction of the installations created by Hyperquake on display in the CAC lobby. Hyperquake presented the mobile app and the tasks displayed on a wall-sized installation throughout OFFF.   Hyperquake demonstrated and explained the wind installation that can now be viewed in Hyperquake’s OFFF Cincinnati video. Thursday also included the Partner Titles video presentation by Lauren Edwards & Joshua Mattie, followed by the presentation of the speakers and a presentation by Hector Aryuso, founder of OFFF. Friday the 27^th included an all-day event of speakers followed by an after-party. One main idea overarched the entire event: Collaborate. We all want to make amazing and beautiful things. By working together and using the CAC as our stage, we can show the rest of the world that Cincinnati has amazing creative talent.

Brand Evolution Solution

The Evolution of the OFFF Logo

offfcincinnati.com

OFFF Collaboration Project App for Android and iPhone

After a few internal brainstorms, we landed on an iPhone/Android mobile app collaboration project as well as an interactive installation within the CAC lobby. The collaboration app project started off rather grandiose with individual displays or even iPads arranged in a giant matrix, each representing an attendee or speaker. With budget, timeline and concerns about participation, we scrapped the individual display idea and went with large projection instead. The apps launched two weeks before the festival. Over those two weeks we pushed out notifications that directed participants to perform some kind of task and take a picture of it. For example, the first task was: “Find a Letter ‘F’: The F can be part of a sign or something that occurs in nature or your environment.” A total of 21 tasks were pushed out prior to and during the event. Some of the tasks were just to get interesting or creative pictures. Submissions were actually paired with others to create a unique display, which we projected on a large screen in the CAC lobby. The third task we pushed out: “Find a Letter ’O’: The O can be part of a sign or something that occurs in nature or your environment,” was combined with the first task to create unique OFFF  logos that Cincinnati creatives collaborated on together. The app also allowed users to post their task results to twitter and see what other participants were doing with a live Twitter stream in the app. We collected nearly 2,000 photos.

Installations

The second part of our contribution was the interactive wind installation in the CAC lobby. The idea started simply as a way for people to interact with the “dust particles” in the OFFF Cincinnati logo. We could have done a motion-based interaction where people walking by disturb the dust, but that seemed too typical. We had yet to see a wind powered interaction so we ran with it. As ideas usually do, it evolved from just the logo to try to figure out how to incorporate video “reacting” to the particles. Another Cincinnati based company Lightborne, stepped in and helped us out with the videos of over 20 people getting hit with wind from a fan at various speeds. We then wrote software to take input from someone blowing on an anemometer, which displayed how the particles and the videos react to how hard or soft the person blew.

Results

Offfcincinnati.com had nearly 6,500 visits and 17,500 page views from 70 different countries. The app was downloaded by almost 300 people, with a total of 2,000 photos submitted. With OFFF Cincinnati as an outstanding success, Cincinnati continues to prove itself as the creative hub for great design.

So what happens when a brand rapidly changes itself or stubbornly stays the same? What happens when a brand doesn’t follow the cues of its consumers or its industry? A brand fades away. And, sadly, a brand risks losing its way.

Why? Healthy brands, like healthy people or relationships, experience evolution. The dictionary definition for evolution is: “gradual development, a pattern formed by a series of movement.”

I’d like to add to that definition by stating for brands, it’s a: “gradual and purposeful development, a noticeable pattern formed by a series of meaningful movements.”

Sometimes those movements happen very fast. Sometimes the pattern takes only a few steps and other times one big leap. Regardless the path, a thread of consistency emerges when you respect the evolution of a brand—you see purpose and can trace the steps of strategic, consumer-centric choices made along the way.

A recent BBC Story “Have Japanese Brands Lost Their Way?”offers the perfect example of how a lack of proper brand evolution can result in losing your way.

The article highlights how Japanese tech companies stubbornly (and somewhat complacently) relied upon previous market dominance to grow their business versus listening to consumers and the ever-changing tech landscape. They failed to evolve and their companies have likewise failed to profit.

• Panasonic predicted an annual net loss of $5.5 billion.
• Hitachi reported a 48% drop in quarterly profit.
• Sony expects a $1 billion loss in the current fiscal year.

A perfect example of this was Sony and its previous market dominance in portable music devices. The Sony Walkman was one of the world’s biggest brands but Sony didn’t evolve within the portable music space properly.  They ran after technology that wasn’t relevant, practical or affordable with their Song MiniDisc player. When Apple released the iPod in 2001, which met consumer needs in a relevant and innovative way, Sony still didn’t properly evolve. Instead they stubbornly held onto its MiniDisc technology till 2007 and didn’t completely sunset the product until earlier this year.

The BBC story is also quick to point out unforeseen circumstances that contributed to these brands’ current circumstances, i.e., the global economic crisis and the Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami.  However, the BBC also notes this problem was one of Japan’s own design. I agree.

When brands “rest on their laurels” they can become stale. When brands are complacent with market leadership, they don’t follow the lead of their consumers or industry. The result—these brands do not evolve; they fade away or lose their way.

I’m not suggesting that Sony will all the sudden fade away or “close its doors” because of their recent choices. However, the BBC story challenges us to evaluate the scenario and ask “Have Japanese Brands Lost Their Way?” And, that is an important lesson in brand evolution and brand leadership for all of us entrusted with being stewards of great brands—global, local or anything in between.

One of my favorite brands, lululemon, recently launched a redesign of their website. Rather than issuing some boring, pedantic press release to announce the site, lululemon did something completely different in a very fun, unexpected manner.

Lululemon posted a blog to introduce the reader to the new lululemon.com: “Meet the new lululemon.com. To get to know her a little better we asked her a few questions (as we do with all new hires).”

The interview was complete with fun questions like “where did you grow up?” and  “if you could have dinner with any three websites, decommissioned or current, which ones would they be?”

Some answers were just to be fun and quirky (check out the song lululemon.com just released) while other answers were fun and helped educate the reader about the site features (like live customer service chat).

As a lululemon fan, I loved checking out the site and its aspirational images that made me feel like I could conquer the world.

As a branding professional, I was impressed that lululemon once again made the most of every consumer touch point as a way to express their brand in a relevant, on-character manner. Even something as simple as announcing the evolution of the website was done in a way that uniquely ties back to their mission statement of “creating components for people to live longer, healthier, more fun lives.”

They also lead by example in carrying out their vision statement of “elevating the world from mediocrity to greatness.” How? By forgoing the expected press release and issuing this clever, viral and fun announcement that perfectly complements their equity and consumer communication approach.

Kudos lululemon. I have known and loved your apparel. Now, I know and love your site.

Those who were able to attend OFFF Cincinnati’s Thursday night kickoff on Oct 27th heard Colin talk about how and why Hyperquake got involved with the Contemporary Arts Center and OFFF. If you would like to read more of Colin’s comments, check out the Cincinnati.com article “OFFF Cincinnati : the back story.” After Colin, I spoke a little about what we did and some of the thought behind it. I’m sure I forgot to mention a few things and maybe some of you weren’t able to attend, so here’s a recap.

The project started off pretty much like all of our other projects. We met with Molly O’Toole, Janelle Hopper, and Josh Mattie from the CAC. We decided to tackle an overall equity theme, a logo and a website. The easy things, right? It’s what we do everyday for our other clients, no big deal. Then something miraculous happened. Molly turned around on her way out the door after the meeting and said “If there is anything else you guys have ever wanted to do or want to do now, DO IT!” (During my talk, I think I cracked a joke here about the clouds parting and a ray of sunshine shining on Molly as she levitated. It was much funnier in person.)

So the pressure was on. What could we possibly do in two short months that would be worthy of the Cincinnati creative community and the talented artists speaking at the festival? After a few internal brainstorms, we landed on an iPhone/Android app based collaboration project as well as an interactive installation within the CAC lobby. Keep in mind, we had two months, equity and a website to build as well, not to mention a full plate of other client work on top of that. We felt so strongly about what this festival stood for and what the CAC was trying to accomplish by bringing it to Cincinnati, that we looked forward to the sleepless nights. We were going to go all out! The first thing we realized was that we couldn’t do it alone. So in the true spirit of OFFF and collaboration we enlisted Scott Durban and Ben Nicholson from Lightborne. Scott and Ben were great, they brought their experience with large scale projection and helped us flesh out the ideas even more.

The collaboration app project started off rather grandiose with individual displays or even iPads arranged in a giant matrix, each representing an attendee or speaker. With budget, timeline and concerns about participation we scrapped the individual display idea and went with large projection instead. Display aside, the heart of the app remained. The apps launched two weeks before the festival. Over those two weeks we pushed out notifications that directed participants to perform some kind of task and take a picture of it. For example, the first task was: “Find a Letter ‘F’: The F can be part of a sign or something that occurs in nature or your environment.” A total of 21 tasks were pushed out prior to and during the event. Some of the tasks were just to get interesting or creative pictures. Others were actually paired with others to create a unique display which we projected on a large screen in the CAC lobby. The third task we pushed out (“ Find a Letter ’O’: The O can be part of a sign or something that occurs in nature or your environment.”) was combined with the first task to create unique OFFF logos that only Cincinnati creatives could have created. The app also allowed users to post their task results to twitter and see what other participants were doing with a live Twitter stream in the app. We collected nearly 2000 photos and are currently working a way to showcase all the creativity interactively on offfcincinnati.com. So check back soon.

The second part of our contribution was the interactive wind installation in the CAC lobby. The idea started simply as a way for people to interact with the “dust particles” in the OFFF Cincinnati logo. We could have done a motion based interaction where people walking by disturb the dust, but that seemed too typical. We had yet to see a wind powered interaction so we ran with that. As ideas usually do, it evolved from just the logo to trying to figure out how to incorporate video “reacting” to the particles. Once again Lightborne stepped in and helped us out with the videos of over 20 people getting hit with wind from a fan at various speeds. We then wrote software to take input from someone blowing on an anemometer, which then displayed how the particles and the videos react to how hard or soft the person blew.

We had a blast doing the app and the installation and an even better time listening to the speakers and meeting amazing talented people during the festival. None of it would have been possible without the Contemporary Arts Center and collaboration with other agencies. So just as I ended my talk, I end this post with a challenge to the Greater Cincinnati creative community: Collaborate, we all want to make amazing and beautiful things and by working together and using the CAC as our stage, we can show the rest of the world that Cincinnati has amazing creative talent.

Note: More images and video of the festival will be posted on offfcincinnati.com

His tendency toward experimentation began as a kid and is a habit he never parted ways with. Like Brosmind, there is a overactive kid present in Joshua Davis’s creative approach and work. He takes his profession as a journey that has an undefined path. This inevitable means that there will be failure on the journey, but this failure is a key component to the design process. It’s by working through failure that unique and innovative work comes to life.

Instead of seeing failure as a dead end, Davis sees this as an opportunity for mutation (see also: evolution) which makes for a stronger solution. This cycle of failure and mutation is fed by the constant thirst for experimentation. The drive to experiment is something Joshua pleads that design studios continue to foster.

And like Julien Vallée, Davis also makes a case for not leaning on technology as the crux for design decisions. This is a theme from today that is worth repeating and makes for a great closing thought for the conference.

Technology is just another tool. “Build your career on ideas, not tools.”

P.S. IBM’s Watson really makes me think of this guy.