Author: Chantal Dezarnaulds

I'm a communications professional that has learned the trade from 15 years in specialising in B2B PR across the creative sector. I work with creative businesses providing integrated communications solutions across traditional and non-traditional channels. I believe there is an intrinsic connection between company culture and business success.

The beauty of social

DIALOGUE = CONVERSATION = INTEREST = MORE CONVERSATION = IDEAS = POSSIBILITIES = LEADS = BUSINESS = RECOMMENDATIONS = EXTENDED NETWORK = CONVERSATION ….

connection

Social and digital are the most critiqued channels in the mix. If we strip them right back, the intent is clear. We simply have a fail-proof conversation starter that also happens to be the most far-reaching regardless of the product or service you offer. Social facilitates integration and provides perspectives you never thought you’d consider; it educates and informs. How you engage is your choice, as an individual – as a consumer. The beauty of social is its unique ability to seemingly tie everything together. Just don’t over-think it. There are many examples. Here is a recent beauty.

http://dfergpr.com/2014/03/09/trending-vending-machine-from-oreo-eatthetweet/

Screen Shot 2014-10-18 at 10.49.36 pm

Call to action for the business sector to change their ways

My recent discovery of TuShare and Retrash has helped to validate my belief in the concept of collaborative consumption as economically, socially, politically, environmentally and ethically imperative.

If we extract this moral code – where products are consumed through sharing, or an artist’s work is created using pre-existing materials – and ask the business sector to consider how this perspective could be transposed and applied to a commercial paradigm, it may be possible for brands to move closer to a culture of customer centricity, relevance and functionality. Think product ingredients, useability, value-adding. Surely this is the kindest way to profitability. I’d written this prior to coming across a blog article by TuShare’s CEO James Bradfield Moody in which he says:

Brands that successfully sell their purpose, rather than their services, have much more potential to success in driving loyalty and building community over the long term. And a clear and compelling purpose has the potential to give a brand the opportunity to more effectively connect with its core audience and market.

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Here’s the link to James Bradfield Moody’s article – http://www.marketingmag.com.au/blogs/collaborative-consumption-and-the-sharing-economy-shaping-the-market-in-2014-and-beyond-47488/#.UxsGG-eSzOc

Design’s natural order

Chantal Omodiagbe investigates the value of design’s non-intentional outcomes, challenging conventional practice and embracing creativity’s natural order.

By definition commercial design is a considered process where ideas are constructed then visualised by combining both creative and intellectual thinking. Design is necessarily intentional.  It is most usually steered by project briefs, driven by business goals, and ultimately tested against client objectives. But could design be ‘non-intentional’ and what kind of design might result from such a practice?

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DEZOMO in 2014 promises new and bigger thinking

A broader depth of thinking is on its way. Under-pinning future posts will be my belief in the importance of cultural awareness in management, what constitutes real leadership in the creative sector and the ability to read people’s potential in our world of creative connectivity. Golden hand shakes are long gone – too often they fail to inspire. Relationships are the new sales while confident conversations and collaborative thinkers are the door openers. Can’t wait to share more and grow my readership. Feed me your thoughts. I am hungry for dialogue. Monologues are definitely not my thing.

Facebook wants brands to get liked

Facebook’s Like button is a curious brand metric that most of us take as read. But what does it really mean and to whom? A report conducted by social media specialists, Lithium and the Chief Marketing Officer Council, in the US, surveyed 1,300 consumers and 132 senior marketers to find out. The report, posted on http://www.allfacebook.com – the Unofficial Facebook Resource, makes statistically clear that both marketers and consumers have different understandings of the “Like” function. As an aside it is possible that initially Facebook may have undervalued the strength that the “Likes” function is proving to offer brands, and it is being made increasingly clear by on-line media that marketers will be left behind if they don’t start using this data strategically.

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Brand consultancies getting editorial

Perhaps brand consultancies have finally reached a level of maturity in Australia to be detected by both client and media radars. A decade ago it was all begging and bribery to successfully place a brand consultancy news story, unless you were dealing with a UK journo or a niche trade title. But here we are in 2012 and B&T has run three online stories already this week not to mention the run Campaign Brief has also given a few. I aways knew it was just a matter of time, albeit with still frequent misuse of a word I detest –  ‘logo’ –  and the correct meaning and use of the term ‘brand identity’.

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QuickerFeet than you

Timing is everything whether you’re a marketer or a consumer. Let’s be honest, brands miss out on business just as often as their consumers miss the right deal, but only due to bad timing. Introducing Quickerfeet, a technology that finds consumers and promotes relevant offers when the time’s right and in the right location.

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JWT’s female creatives pull some Kotex punch

“I just started bleeding & I feel fantastic!” Typical image used for feminine hygiene products.

JWT’s latest campaign for Kotex works for all the reasons the media have spelled out. But for many women it will work simply because it was created by women, and therefore makes sense. It’s not that the ads are even that hilarious – JWT could have pushed the humor further – but the campaign is market focused, clever, relevant and fresh.

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Branding spaces = emotional living

Dental Spa KU64, Berlin.

“Have you had a good day?” – the bottom line is that your answer to this question rests entirely on your emotional and physical experiences since waking up this morning. Whether it be your work setting, a trip to the dentist, the production you saw last night, even your train ride home. The state of being awake is your body’s involuntary experience with the world. It moves through spaces, inside and out, in parallel with your emotional reality. Physically and emotionally you are intrinsically bound.

Sears Sky deck, Chicago

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Sex and smokes used to work

Blow in her face and she’ll follow you anywhere

This copy line for Tipalet cigarettes marketed to men, will give you a laugh! How bold we once were.

As a follow up to the last post, I came across some interesting work showcased on Lovely Package, a comprehensive and good looking packaging blog worth visiting. Check out the student designs for Nomad Self Lighting cigarettes by Matthew Smiraldo, Norway’s Andreas Fossheim’s packaging for cannabis cigarettes (if they were legal), and Derek Hunt’s packaging for X Tobacco. Cool stuff.

http://lovelypackage.com/category/tobacco/

Brand-less cigarettes: tobacco companies not happy

Smoking Kids

Australia is about to become the first country in the world to ban tobacco companies from branding their products. As of July 1, 2012, no brand images or colors will be permitted in cigarette packaging design. Additionally, there are to be restrictions introduced online plus a 25 percent hike in excise tax bringing a pack of smokes to about $A16.70 or $US15.40.

In Australia where tobacco advertising is outlawed, the government described cigarette packaging as, “one of the last remaining frontiers for cigarette advertising.” And so it looks like Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd is about to take the big boys down. Only brand and product names will be allowed using a standard color, position, font and size making cigarette packs look similar to a prescription medication.

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Leo Burnett, Sydney and Ben Lee create Space Monkey

Ben Lee – Australian singer, environmentalist

Creative people really do help make the world go round. They make us laugh, they make us inquire, they inspire and they make life worth living by challenging us to experience things differently. It is music, art, design, literature, poetry and communications in all its forms – any place where ideas are king.

Creative expression in any form permits and in fact invites us to understand our place in the world. It is where politics and real life collide peacefully. Once an artistic expression is created and shared it remains a statement of a time, a feeling, a moment, an experience for both artist and audience. It can’t be amended, overturned, re-instated or edited.

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Armani Hotel brand debuts in Dubai

Armani’s first hotel launches tomorrow, April 27, in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa tower. The project was scheduled to launch on March 18 last month but was moved with no explanation by hotel management.

The Armani Hotel Dubai occupies ten floors of the tower (floors 1-8, 38 and 39) and offers 160 guest rooms and suites. Room prices start at $US462.90.

According to a hotel management site, www.hotelmanagement-network.com/projects/Armani/specs.html, the joint venture between Giorgio Armani and EMAAR Properties, EMAAR Hotels and Resorts Inc cost $US8billion! An extraordinary amount of money to be invested in anyone’s name and, in this case, Armani’s empire. However, the opulence will no doubt be jaw dropping to experience. The good news is that Pentagram New York created the naming, identity, visual brand positioning and marketing collateral which guarantees an aesthetic of grace and a degree of visual subtlety –  www.pentagram.com/en/.

Milan is the next city in line for an Armani hotel followed by London then New York.

Armani Hotel, Dubai

Boy Scouts of America shamed

Paul Theroux was right when he said today in the Opinion pages of The New York Times, in his article titled, ‘Troop therapy’, “SOME pizza deliverymen are safe drivers, and though it seems incredible given the recent news to the contrary, some clergymen are pious, some politicians monogamous and some car dealers honest. There are ethical Boy Scout masters, too. Yet nothing is so satisfying to the lazy mind as news that reinforces a negative stereotype.”

Boy Scouts of America, FlagBoy

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