On the 23rd floor of a modern high rise is the brain power responsible for creating the brand awareness of the upcoming London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This morning the students of Chapman University had the fortune of hearing some of the big picture plans that are in place for these upcoming Olympics.
Current progress of the Olympic stadium, still under construction.
Yasmine Raffoul shared with us the rules put in place to maintain the integrity of the brandmark as well, as their paced roll-out of campaign materials, weekend events and newsworthy bits to keep the citizens of England engaged with the process of the games coming to their country.
Wenlock and Mandeville, the mascots for the 2012 Games
In addition, we learned more about the two mascots developed for these Games. Initially several agencies came to LOCOGO to pitch their ideas about an Olympic mascot. Big agencies - some with heavy backgrounds in toy development. And, some of the initial concepts were typical objects found in and around London; tea pots, London cabs and even a pigeon. Fortunately none of those were selected. The agency who won the contract had put together a focus group of children - who easily identified with these two characters. Each are designed of a shiny metallic surface to reflect what they’ll be learning on their journey as they travel around England, learning about sport. The single eye acts as a camera to record their learnings and neither actually speak. They squeak and whir allowing for the children to use their imaginations to speculate on their conversations. Their names come from historic references of two men; one who was responsible for starting what we now know as the modern Olympics (Wenlock) and the other who started the Paralympics (Mandeville).
It was very interesting to learn that the games are being managed, in terms of campaign roll-out, much like politics. London is the first city to introduce their brandmark as early as they have, and they are trying to slowly build messaging and awareness campaigns - so not to over saturate or peak too early. Which would dilute the value of the brand and the enthusiasm for the Games.
So in this weeks’ assignment, the students are to create a communications campaign that celebrates on of the lesser known sports in the London Games. By this we mean that they can’t select swimming, track & field or gymnastics. Their campaigns need to make the public aware of that specific sport - and ideally, encourage a younger audience to want to participate.
They’ll be presenting their ideas on Friday, up on the 23rd floor.
Eric Chimenti and myself in the lobby of London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG).
REVO Bicycles & Espresso recently approached Real Life Brand Architecture to create clothing designs for their mountain and road-cycling teams. It was a great assignment, since we’re avid cyclists ourselves.
Darrin Duhamil, owner of REVO, sees these “kits” – the jerseys and matching bib shorts – as a great opportunity to extend his brand. After all, when team riders are climbing up Saddleback or spinning along Coast Highway, they’re often surrounded by REVO’s ideal audience – fellow cyclists.
Mike Heindel says the REVO team is very pleased with their new kits.
For starters, we worked to maintain a high level of consistency with the REVO brand look and feel. So we prominently featured the capital R that acknowledges the iconic signage on the storefront, the inclusion of “espresso” along with “bicycles” that differentiates the shop, and a unique color palette that stands out in a sea of black, white and red schemes.
As we moved to include the required sponsor logos, however, we had to check ourselves and intentionally hold back from turning these kits into display advertising.
After all, while REVO certainly wants to spread its message, we owe it to the team riders as well to create a kit that they’d be proud to wear.
Nobody, including us, wants to be treated as a billboard.
By balancing the needs of the client with the tastes of the audience, we believe we’re able to promote the REVO brand in a genuine, non-pushy way that invites participation.
We often move so quickly from one project to the next that we don’t get the opportunity to review the results of our branding efforts. That’s why a note this week from our client at Carl Zeiss Vision was so welcome.
We had helped develop a solid brand campaign for their newest progressive lens. In her post-launch synopsis, Bernadette Hiskey said the Zeiss Individual campaign was a huge success, and shared these highlights:
It was a strong year for customized lenses, despite the poor economy. We ended the year approx 15% above an aggressive plan.
In December we were awarded the OLA “Best in Lens Design” 2009 Award of Excellence voted on by the independent laboratories across the US. The marketing campaign played no small part in the win.
We just finished clinical trials with UC Berkeley are pleased to say we have strong results demonstrating patient preference, so are moving on to peer clinical publications now.
Our first ZEISS TV spots for Zeiss Individual are now on air in 4 regional markets.
It’s great, of course, for a client to take the time to keep us informed and share this great news. It’s also a reminder for all of us that while our work may wrap up with the launch of a brand campaign, for our clients much of the heavy lifting is just beginning. We need to keep in mind that our designs and our messaging are meant to connect powerfully with an audience and achieve very real marketing and sales objectives.
As Bernadette shared her praise and appreciation not only for us but also for the lab operations teams and sales people — “You’ve all scored a knockout!” — we were reminded that our efforts truly are part of a team effort whose success depends on the collaboration of many many people.
Following up with our clients and measuring campaign results give us the opportunity to really recognize the value of our branding efforts.
Part of our strategy was to convey that the true heroes are not the frames -- but the Zeiss lenses. Our solution was to photograph our talent both with and without the frames, and then accurately create the lens shape for each individual face. Architectural measurement lines were added to the graphics to emphasize the Zeiss brand attributes of precision, accuracy and performance.
Gold medalist Clara Hughes, right, and fellow Canadian Cindy Klassen, who won the bronze, after the Ladies' 5,000-meter speed-skating event in Turin, Italy, in 2006.
We typically see the branding of products and services – or at least that’s what we’re most familiar with. Of course, there’s the branding of events – such as the Olympic Games, as well as the branding of place – such as cities and countries.
Today’s Wall Street Journal had an interesting article regarding the Canadian athletes going to the 2010 Winter Games. Essentially stating that the Canadians are changing their host-like attitude to one of Olympic domination. “Own The Podium,” is their new attitude – or the one that they’ve recently created an entire campaign around.
The Own The Podium campaign’s focus is to draw in funds to hire top-notch coaches and psychologists to assist the athletes in full-time training. As well, the monies are going toward helping the athletes not have to work part-time jobs while training for their upcoming Winter Olympic Games.
Dana Point Police Services appointed Real Life Brand Architecture to collaborate on the development of it’s new campaign: Hide it. Lock it. Or Lose it.Lt. Mark Levy said that they needed a message that would be friendly to the citizens of Dana Point, and was delighted by the fresh ideas that surfaced during this journey.
Real Life designed a symbol that was easily identifiable from a distance – and has the ability to quickly remind people to simply, “hide their stuff and lock their cars.” Students from Dana Hills High School were enlisted to set up scenarios that would truly convey a visual message which are now running in print ads around town.
CHALLENGE: Thefts from unlocked cars represent the most frequently committed crimes in Dana Point, yet are easy to prevent. Dana Point Police wanted an awareness campaign around the message: “Hide it. Lock it. Or lose it.”
STRATEGY: Development of a comprehensive website that carried the message, along with related advertising efforts to raise awareness.
CREATIVE: Brand identity included an iconic symbol that is easily recognized to serve as a reminder to protect valuables from theft.
RESULTS: While currently being launched, Dana Point Police are optimistic that these crimes can be dramatically reduced.
This past week Real Life Brand Architecture launched the sister campaign to Dana Point’s Hide it. Lock it. Or Lose it. campaign. Uniquely named SHWAZOOKI.
As we were developing the Hide it campaign we knew that we needed to speak a different language to get the attention of the younger audience of Dana Point. To the point, the high school students at Dana Hills High School have had their own challenges of petty thefts. Many of which are unattended backpacks, which have things such as cell phones, iPods, credit cards and cash.
We discovered the word Shwazooki frrom the urban dictionary, meaning “to hide or stash your stuff.” Please, take a look at the new site: Shwazooki.com. As part of the campaign launch we’ve printed up stickers for the students to put on notebooks and lockers, as well as surfboard hang-tags to place on their backpacks as a friendly reminder to “Hide it. Lock it. Or Lose it.”
CHALLENGE: As a complementary campaign to “Hide it. Lock it. Or lose it.,” a specific awareness effort was required to target younger audiences in Dana Point with a similar message.
STRATEGY: Enlist high school students to participate in the development of the campaign, which features imagery and messaging relevant to this audience.
CREATIVE: Development and promotion of “Shwazooki” as a slang term meaning “to hide or protect” your belongings.
RESULTS: Campaign is currently being launched, but “Shwazooki” is already gaining attention and use among teenagers.
Well a congratulations is in order for the City of Rio. Now the real work begins.
Since returning from London, and reading continued news on the upcoming London Games – as well as close-minded blogs on their dislike of the 2012 logo. I’ve been very interested to see what will be the next evolution of the 2016 Olympic logo will look like.
Real Life Branding has pulled together some of the more recent Olympic logos – showing you what they originally looked like when the featured city was vying to be selected as the host city. Adjacent to each is the final brandmark used for each city’s Olympic Games.
Since all but the most recent 2012 logo was designed as part of a general design competition – there were really no rules or design objectives that were put in place – other than represent the country in some manner. When I say rules, I’m speaking of branding guidelines. Something that would have a more concrete purpose to fulfill rather than to just look pretty.
Since I have an architectural background – I would liken this to having a client give me a piece of property and tell me to “design something.” What does that mean? Whereas if that client had given me a 40-acre parcel in Napa Valley and told me that they loved to entertain, typically 8 to 18 guests – that would tend to set up some boundaries. Imagine this same property and the client said that he and his wife liked the quiet views of the valley and reading books. Would those not be two very different homes?
It’s been quite humorous to have read blog postings of various designers who criticized the 2012 logo – knowing that they’ve never read the brand brief. As well as having never traveled to London to understand what the culture of the city is like. For this aspect, I’m truly looking forward to the London Games – giving London the opportunity to show off their new brandmark in its best light.
So my biggest curiosity for the moment is to see how the city of Rio will treat this new task at hand? Will they return to the mediocrity of the past Olympic brandmarks? Or will they forge ahead, continuing the new vocabulary that people like Frank Gehry have given to architecture, and Wolff Olins has given to branding of the 2012 Games?
I’m down to my last few hours in London, and wanted to unload some additional information that was very enlightening for myself - and I hope for the students of Chapman University.
When I initially watched the closing ceremony of the Beijing Games, and London’s presentation of their Olympic logo was revealed to the people of the world, I held my judgement - yet was a little underwhelmed when I saw the double decker bus performance.
Now that I’ve spent three weeks riding the crowded buses and Underground trains, walking thru the markets and seeing the diversity in the city’s people, food and architecture - that London performance makes perfect sense. In fact, in watching it again, I liked it even better.
I had a conversation with Allard Marx, principal brand strategist for INCIDE. We both agreed that in developing brand marks for clients - some solutions feel immediately comfortable, while others sometimes take a bit of ’sleeping on it’ to sink in and grow on you. The latter of these situations is quite often the outcome of a creative solution that is pushing boundaries. Taking people to places that might even be uncomfortable, particularly when it’s their own company’s brand mark. They tell us to take them to the “next level,” yet when it comes down to it they are quite often afraid to push those boundaries and truly take a stand to stand out.
When Wolff Olins was charged with creating a brand mark that would “shift” how we had previously been presenting the Olympic Games, they were already challenged by the issues that face a brand agency that’s to present a mark to the world. What cultures would see this logo? What languages? What religions?
No pressure, right?
Once the brand mark had been concepted, and potentially approved by the client - Wolff Olins had to present this logo to selected groups of people from various religious backgrounds, languages, age groups, etc., so that they could show them this brand mark from the front view, backwards and upside down. They would ask these groups if these shapes, or rings, or colors offended them in any way, or if they saw images in these shapes that were against their religious beliefs.
In the brand world we’re always asking clients about audience. But in THIS brand world, this one of international exposure, the Olympic logo being the most recognized brand mark, as well as the most protected brand mark in all the world. This puts a very different set of questions and rules on an agency to uncover as they develop their design solutions.
As I walked through this diverse city, and observed the people, clothing styles, languages, and those things that give London its unique flavor as a city - I grew to really embrace what this new brand mark embodies. It’s jagged edges, its wild color scheme and the ability to contain “infills” that truly represent London, sport and the Olympic Games.
I spent my last day, yesterday walking through my favorite neighborhoods. Eating at my favorite cafe and having that last pint of English ale. As I looked back on that first night in town, trying to get on to the new time zone, sirens and the noise of the city keeping me awake - and now, having made new friends and zipping around town like a local, I realized how quickly London became an easy place to fit in to. The intensity of an urban city that has its pockets of gardens to escape noises and people. Even the short train rides to the country for a real breath of fresh air. Yet this city is in an intense undertaking to build a grand park for the world to come and see - and judge - and I hope, embrace what London and it’s design community have put together.
Monday was our office visit to Buro Happold, the engineering firm who worked side-by-side with EDAW on the master plan, and legacy plan of the Olympic site. Our purpose for this visit was to expose the students to the finer aspects of professional collaborations and to gain a stronger sense of thinking, planning and designing for sustainability.
The presentation by the Buro Happold team was fantastic - along with the Q&A session that followed.
We wrapped our day with a spin around the London Eye - appropriately timed for sunset.
This week we had the opportunity to visit with Wolff Olins, London. They are the agency who have created the new brandmark for the 2012 London Games. As a graphic designer, I have always looked at the Olympics - and the branding of - as one of the highest achievements in our profession. It entails the creation of an icon that should last a lifetime. The ability to design the “look and feel” of an event that would be seen, and ideally embraced, on a world stage. It would need to clearly communicate to all cultures and languages. In our industry, quite possibly a legacy to leave behind.
So let’s start with a little bit of Q&A. Who are these Games for anyway? What are they supposed to represent in their ideal form? Would you agree that it is supposed to be about sport? And inspiring our youth to get involved, get outdoors or try new things?
If we look at some of the past brandmarks - it’s become a little embarrassing. Russia: seems a bit like constructivism. And what followed between 1984 to our latest Beijing Games completely seems formulaic.
1. Pretty picture on top
2. Name of event location
3. Olympic rings
Really? Are we that afraid to draw outside the lines? The agencies who get to sign the big contracts and get paid the big bucks - is this the best they can do? When you look at what Frank Gehry has done for the vocabulary of architecture, then why hasn’t the graphic design community expanded their vocabulary with similar strides?
The Olympics have become my parents’ Olympics. Corporate opportunities and sponsorships that outweigh sport or inspiring our youth.
New Rules
Enter Wolff Olins; and a brand brief that specifically asked to make a shift in how we celebrate the games. They, the client, the IOC, have also noticed the formula designs and overdone corporate aspects of the games. They’ve also noticed that cities dating back to the 1972 Games are STILL paying for the party.
Rather than building a billion dollar party space, that’s only to last 4-weeks, it was time to begin thinking in a more economically sound way. London won the Olympic bid as a result of master planning a derelict property and revitalizing it FIRST, then overlaying how an Olympic Games might fit into the new master plan. Certainly the IOC thought it worthy.
So when Wolff Olins was put to task on creating a brand mark for this event, they had some new territory to explore. Boundaries to push.
It’s one thing to create a brandmark for a company selling a product or service. You have control over everything; the print, the packaging, the multimedia. But when you’re creating a brandmark for an event, it’s a completely different set of rules. You have to be willing to give up some of that control.
In the past, these brandmarks that you see (left) were placed on products, ads and wearables like a postage stamp. Regardless if the colors clashed or the fonts didn’t work well together. The postage stamp was it. No questions, just rules.
In working out how this shift might take place, Wolff Olins looked at how they might get the key sponsors to embrace the brandmark as part of their message - part of their look and feel.
Initially they tried some of the “safe” logos; images of London’s skyline, the River Themes, etc. But they continued to push beyond the comforts of a conservative brandmark. And truly, what they have done is fantastic.
As you look at the two columns of words, note that the first column is what we have been doing with the Olympics in the past - and the second column is where we are going to make that shift the IOC was looking for. The Olympics are for PEOPLE, no longer NATIONS. It’s an attitude that should be with us EVERYDAY, not just 2 WEEKS. It’s about SPORT+, appealing to ages 5+, it will be viewed everywhere, on the STREETS, internet, phone devices, etc. And no longer is it just for the ELITE, it’s for EVERYONE.
One of the brilliant aspects of this mark was that Wolff Olins created a area of “infill.” These colored zones that you see can be replaced with an outside sponsors own brand colors and imagery - leaving the framework of the London Games still in good form. No longer will sponsors be stuck with the postage stamp add-on that muddies up their corporate look and feel, like an afterthought. They will now have messaging that will truly embrace the look and feel of the London Games and maintain their own corporate identity. The example show is Lloyds TBS. They’ve used their own colors. Adidas has also stepped up their materials by photographing athletes around London, and placing their images within the framework of the 2012 logo.
So what happens with we purposely decide the break the rules, and go against the traditions of society? We get black eyes. When the London press saw the logo for the first time, without having been given the background or viewed the lead-up presentation, they began burning crosses. And when you have a city that’s pushing the 10-million mark in population, sensationalism newspapers can truly ruin a good thing. So yes, Wolff Olin got thrown under the bus. To a point that paparazzi were camped outside the homes of the Wolff Olin Principals, waiting to photograph wives and children for a scandalous news story.
The bad press has faded. Good corporate brands have embraced the new rules and are now running toward 2012. So as we move closer to the London Games, I hope that you might look at the new rules of branding an event as Wolff Olins had done with the 2012 Olympics.
