MAM
Branding Overboard
Here are ten clues that your entire branding campaign has gone overboard.
Get the lifeboats ready!
One: There is a specially built underground tunnel between your HQ and your branding agency.
Most downtown complexes have these situations where services are set up for very quick and easy next-door access. There is nothing wrong with the access, but for a corporation to get pinned by proximity is surely a signal. Corporations should be more strategically driven than geographically motivated.
Two: Management will find any reason to add and invent new products, whether they are needed in the market or not.
As long as they fit a creative theme, executives without a good grip will support any promotional idea that alphabetically fits the catalog.The dilution of brands and constant change is the number one problem hindering long-term marketing. Most new innovations have a 90 percent failure rate, as most are rushed on fads, trends and quick blitzes for copycat ideas. Originality and long-term thinking is so rare it’s becoming extinct. It’s very wise to invent for real needs and not to fill the gaps in a branding theme.
Three: The creative innovation has become so complex that not even experts can figure out the launch campaigns and promotional themes.
Most advertising and branding is very often either apologizing for its blatantly raw message or explaining very hard to customers about the hidden messages behind its campaigns. Customers are fed up; they want clear, honest and simple messages. The overly creative twists and turns are just burdens. Most agencies are often scared, so they just copy ideas left and right and twist them for avoiding the obvious. This explains why almost all logos, names, identities and commercials are so similar. Remember, simplicity and originality will always win.
Four: Half of the entire HQ has become a multimedia center, and the staff frequently dress in Disney characters and skateboard the halls.
Most corporations seriously think that free-flow creativity is the way for modernized hip-hop success. They fail to see that real creativity is a very serious and a somber thing. Oversized creativity can cause fires.
Five: The boardroom is too small for big creative meetings, so local theaters are rented for the pitch and presentations.
It is good to get the larger teams of management involved with the branding issues. The bigger the space, the bigger the budgets; this is the Hollywood training of the glitzy noisy campaigns. Often, however, they really fall flat on the deaf ears of the product’s end users. Know thy limits, cut to size.
Six: There is nothing outsourced; with so much in-house now, there are even talks to completely drop the original business model. Why not become a branding agency?
Far too many businesses lose focus so easily. They become trapped in a branding circus and forget the real and original cause. Often, the message gets so twisted that it can cause a corporate meltdown. This is also one of the reasons why most corporations change agencies so frequently.
Seven: There are plans to change the zoning bylaws so as to accommodate the gigantic visuals, multi-story inflatable structures and the Ferris wheel.
The three dimensional dinosaurs of the past — once called visual aids — are the things of the past. Miniaturization of screens and gadgets are more in the play now, and customers want quick and cute access. Old graphic formats are gone.
Eight: There is a talk to repaint the entire HQ in the corporate color, and also the entire buildings nearby, and all the surrounding blocks.
The concept of the corporate color that grabs attention is a lost cause. With a billion businesses and only seven colors, no one remembers what corporation a particular color belongs to. Though it is a good idea to have a decent corporate color, to impose it on people as a calling device or to claim its exclusivity in courts is just dreaming in Technicolor. Get 3-D spectacles.
Nine: Now there are conveyor belts from office to office that carry newly designed displays and point-of-purchase innovations.
When there are far too many activities pulling the campaign in different directions, then obviously there will be an explosion of confusing selling messages, slogans and taglines with irrelevant graphics flooding the marketplace. Stop the presses.
Ten: There is talk of clearing space at the HQ to make a runway for a 747 to land for a photo shoot … and also to enable the creative teams to take off to exotic resorts on short notices.
Wildly creative ideas are really good, provided they are harnessed and controlled under professional leadership. The burst of profane exuberance in branding with an “anything goes” syndrome has already reached its climax. Perhaps it’s not a bad idea for the overly zealous creative teams with their extreme advertising mantra to take off to a relaxing island … make it a one-way trip, perhaps.
Brands
Uidai partners with Google to help users locate Aadhaar centres
Verified Aadhaar centres to appear on Maps with services and access info
MUMBAI: Finding an Aadhaar centre may soon be as easy as finding your favourite café. In a move aimed at making public services more accessible, the Unique Identification Authority of India has partnered with Google to display authorised Aadhaar centres on Google Maps. The feature, expected to roll out in the coming months, will allow residents to locate verified centres quickly and confidently.
More than 60,000 Aadhaar centres, including state of the art Aadhaar Seva Kendras, will be mapped. When users search on Google Maps, they will be directed to authorised facilities rather than unverified listings, helping curb misinformation and confusion.
The listings will do more than drop a pin. Users will be able to see the nature of services offered at each centre, whether it is adult enrolment, child enrolment, or limited to address and mobile number updates. Details such as operating hours, parking availability and divyang friendly infrastructure will also be shown wherever applicable.
Uidai CEO Bhuvnesh Kumar, said the collaboration is part of the authority’s continued effort to improve ease of living for Aadhaar holders by making authorised centres simpler and faster to navigate.
The partnership will deepen in its next phase, with Uidai using Google Business Profile to manage information and respond directly to public feedback. Looking ahead, the two organisations are also exploring the option of enabling appointment bookings through the Google Maps interface, potentially allowing residents to plan their visits with greater efficiency.
Google India country head, strategic partnerships Roli Agarwal, said integrating verified Aadhaar centres would help millions access trusted services with confidence, bringing essential government infrastructure closer to the people who need it most.
If all goes to plan, a routine Aadhaar update may soon begin not with a queue, but with a search bar.
