Hello, and welcome to another episode of behind the madness. I'm your host, James Roberts, founder, and owner of Method. We are a growth agency who are hell bent on unlocking company's potential through creative and marketing techniques. Today I am joined again by Paul and Jamie, mainly because we had so much fun in the previous two episodes that I've invited them back.
So they are here joining me in this episode, but before we jump on in, I just want us to mention a couple of things, which is if you are new, then welcome make sure you give us a like, give us a bit of love around social media and also make sure you follow the podcast. So any new episodes drop straight in on your phone? Also, it's nice to have you on board. So it's not just our parents that are liking and sharing all of our content.
We actually have some actual followers, which would be amazing. So today's episode, we are talking all about brand. So let's jump in with today's topic about branding, Jamie and Paul. Hello.
Hi James.
So brand, let's start this off with, let's talk about some of our favorite brands. I think there's a nice way to do it. And then what we can do is also do, you know, maybe talk about what they're doing, right. And opportunities that we've kind of got to then apply that ethos maybe into some listeners companies. So who wants to start us off.
I'll jump in. So I'm going to talk about one of the big boys. Obviously we'll all know apple maybe a bit of an obvious choice, but I'm going to kind of jump back in time because everyone knows what Steve jobs and his team did, but from a branding point of view, they kind of lit a generation.
Because if you recast your mind back to, if you're old enough to when iPods and marketing campaigns used to have think different underneath, apple logo, it's a really interesting thing because everyone thought, oh, who's this they're thinking differently. Like, what's that all about? And they had various adverts, but then one of the things they did over time is they phased that wording out because their influence of the brand already made people think differently.
When you into one of their or you unpackage, one of their products, when you used it for the first time, you thought differently, you were different. So they didn't need their wording anymore. And to me like that is the power of brand it's connecting with people on such a level that you're influencing and connecting your beliefs as a business with your audience.
Yeah. I think what Apple did really, really well was they were a tech business that could have gone down the tech route of advertising that they did tech and they made amazing tech but what they did was really sell you the dream, which is why now you get people camping outside the apple store just before they released a new product. It's not about necessarily the tech because they're actually, sometimes behind a lot of other companies in terms of their that technology labor release.
But what they've done through their brand is, you know, if you go back to, as you mentioned, the, the iPod, it wasn't around what, you know, how good the music quality was. It was around having I think they said a thousand, probably more than that, but you know, 10,000 songs in your back pocket, that's what boards are saying. That's what, what made us go?
Wow. Not the fact that they were talking about the tech, but in a way that we could relate to and we wanted, that made them uber cool, you know, it's a very hard thing to pull off. VW very, very similar thing where you, you know, you'll pay over the odds for something which isn't as good as some other brands. I love apple don't get me wrong. And I think that what they do is, is they do create these simpler processes. But yeah, that's what created was this way of us buying into the product.
Without being bamboozeled by tech or any of that kind of detail that we didn't need to know.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. They realize what their product was. They realized how smart it was, but they realized that their audience probably just wouldn't get that. They wouldn't be that impressed with kind of, oh, it's running chip is having this iOS. Like you said a thousand songs in your pocket now that's relatable. That's story their could get on board with.
I always remember one of Steve Jobs' great performances and he was introducing the iPod mini and he said, have you ever wondered what that little pocket is on the front of some jeans and everyone can straight away go? Yeah. What is that little pocket for on those jeans? And then he pulled out the iPod Mini and straight away you go genius, Just that's that's the brand. That's the, innovative thinking that then you transmit to your customer. As soon as they pick up one, they go, I am different.
I am a rebel.
Yeah. Yeah. Love it.
Yeah, so rather than going for a particular brand, I've gone for the automotive industry cars Now they've different eras of car, obviously technology moves forward. so more recently seen, well in this or the nineties and the two we saw embossed shiny logos that sort of caught your eye were shiney and new but more recently they've made them a lot simpler. They've got rid of some of the wording. They got rid of the brand name, they've just got the logos now. They've also just using a flat color.
So I mean, some of it just recently changed Toyota, they've just got the circular T. Volkswagen, it's very simple circle with the VW and it's always been like that, but they've just made it a flat one color. Volvo., They got rid of that circle. Last year and the year before I think it was but they brought it back. It was just as a really, simple circle and arrow Nissan, SEAT, BMW have all done the same, it's all nice flat colors. Pretty simple, really easy to read.
But I think the first company to do that really was Tesla in 2003. Now they've not changed their logo. In 2003, they just had the T the arch over the top of it with Tesla written underneath it is a flat red and they've kept with it and obviously that's stood the test of time.
14 years later everyone else is doing the same now, so very much, same as James was saying that with apple and Jamie were that sort of trailblazers, I suppose, with their cars, but also with their design the others have picked it up 15 years later.
This happens a lot in industries and I hadn't appreciated it within the cars. Now you've said it, I've got them all up on my screen and having a look through and it would be you're absolutely right. It's it's something which happened with, with Hi-Fis was, it was a brilliant one where a Hi-Fi color used to change. Obviously now it's completely changed. They, they live in our pockets , or they're now pods on our, on our desktop on our worktops and things like that.
But we used to have a black, then all of a sudden you had to have a silver Hi-Fi. reason being, and you could go into the shops and they were all silver or they were all black before then the reason they changed the color was because it made you a black one look old. So you have to then go, oh, I can't, you know, how old is your Hi-Fi?
Especially if you look at the demographics who were buying Hi-Fis, you know your parents, with their full stack that they might've had in their living room, weren't not bothered, but you know, the kids were like, hang on a minute, kind of a black one anymore. The Silver's cool. So there was nothing actually wrong. And this is half of the problem list of things wrong with all black Hi-Fi.
A lot the technology that was inside still was very, very similar, but you just felt it was old because of the black. So now you have the silver one that you had to have. I think the same thing probably applies here where Tesla have come out with, you know, all of their tech and all of their amazing new advances that they've kind of put into cars, and all of a sudden it's making these older brands that they've been around, for a long, long time makes them look older.
So you have to evaluate your brand to stay up with the competition, which is why they've all had to do it. They've all had to look at themselves and go, do you know what we need to go with the trends? And within design, we will have trends, there are trends that go through, they suddenly appear from an industry and they're cottoned onto by other industries and that then drives this movement through, we all used to have buttons with drop shadows.
We used to always have the embossing, you know, talking about websites. Now, all of that's disappeared and websites are flat. So having badges that were embossed that were shiny, that had all of this Chrome effect probably came from relating it to the actual badge. But now we live in such a digital world that just looks old fashioned and they can't have that, especially with a new kid on the block. so yeah, really really interesting.
Like you say, the logos now you get into a car and you see the logo on your steering wheel, But now you get into a car and you see the logo on the massive screen that's next to the dashboard. And that's what pops up. So you want it to be modern. I think you're right with the technology more noticeably than the Hi-Fis was the TVs.
You've got this massive black TV in the corner, and then it changed to silver TV and there was a hideous moment in history where white was the color and it was white TVs and white high-fives and everything. It just it didn't look good. It's been like fashion, it comes around and around. And now obviously we're modern, you've got things like sky glass, where you can choose one of six different colors. You've got Samsung frame you stick the TV on the wall and it just doesn't look like a TV.
So yeah, it's fashion and it moves with the times. Whereas your brand has to do that as well. You can't be a modern design marketing agency with a 20, 25 year old logo because it just doesn't look good If you were designing other companies brands.
That's super interesting. I'm going to, I'm going to jump in with one of my bombshell questions for the two of you guys were talking a lot, obviously about the colors, the logos, how they all feel. So obviously with these changing all the time, what's the core to brands because the vision doesn't change. The mission doesn't change. And the values aren't really changing all the nice bits that are customer facing. What about the internal audioJamesRoberts62926013399: stuff
I think that the logo is just that it's a part of your brand. And it isn't your brand. Exactly. As you said, you have your messages, you have your ethos, you have your mission statement, what you want to achieve as an organization. Those, as we've mentioned on previous podcasts, they shouldn't change. You might tweak them, but you're, you know, the end goals of what you want to achieve. Probably still stay the same. The way that you need to get there is focusing again.
And we say this a lot as a common theme that you need to concentrate on your consumers, on your customers and what their needs are. And if they're all of a sudden buying the white TVs, if they're all of a sudden buying your Chrome Hi-Fis then they need to either buy into the brand, which is why apple, going back to apple, haven't changed their logo so much, you know, it's tweaked over the time because we've bought into them, not necessarily bought into a logo or bought into a design style.
We have definitely bought into apple, the brand. We understand what they want to do, and we just, you know, almost love them.
It it's like a friend, isn't it, rather than a company, like when you get on with someone, just one of your friends, it's probably because you share similar values or you like the same kind of things. It's like you said, it's building out that knowledge of your we've said this before as well, that buyer persona, that knowledge of your audience and why they love you, why they connect with you. That's the core really? And that's why they'll stay longer.
Yeah, I think using the car industry, as an example with that, is that
I think he wants a new company car James.
I do, and if one of the next few that I mention, be more than happy.
Going back to that. We're going back to mentioning a load of brands. Like we haven't done a whole subject around branding. We had to mention a few more. Yeah.
If it works for socks, works with Ferraris. So companies like Ferrari Lamborghini and Porsche, haven't gone down the lines of flat logo. They've kept with maybe a slightly embossed logo or a shiny logo, or more of a 3d effect on them because I think that. James just mentioned this, you buy into their brand, like apple is a premium brand. They don't need to wow you with their logo, you know what they stand for already. You know what quality you're going to get. It's expensive.
It's expensive for a reason.
Well one of those funny things, isn't it does that does that joke of why Lamborghini don't advertise on TV? And the answer is because that demographic aren't sitting around watching TV.
Yeah. that will be in a glossy magazine somewhere.
they might be listening to our podcasts. This leads me quite nicely onto who I've picked now. I've picked a company called tribe. You may or may not have heard of them. They essentially make protein bars or kind of plant protein, vegan, gluten free type bars. Now they are aimed very much at runners or the runner kind of community where you were getting, say they do some active oats and things like that. So you're kind of getting this protein in a day.
I found them because I wanted something that I could have as a snack throughout the day to kind of top you like, we always get that little lull in the afternoon and I didn't want to be reaching for, you know, some chocolate bars or something else. I wanted something which was a lot healthier.
So I actually found them through their product, but then learning more about them they actually have the Tribe foundation now the Tribe foundation, and I am reading this off their website, just so I can get it right. They essentially started off in 2013. Tom guy and Bob who completed what the first run for love, where they did a thousand miles across Europe, and it was all to fight child trafficking. So they were joined by a load of other runners.
I think on that point it was 250 runners that joined them to raise some money to help, build up awareness around child trafficking, which you know, is an amazing foundation. Now, I didn't know anything about that I bought the Tribe bars, I think I'm right in saying when they were doing their runs, they were creating these kinds of bars for themselves to keep them going.
You know, it's a huge, huge distances that they were kind of covering and they needed this protein and all of the goodness to kind of keep them going. And then they suddenly realize, well, hang on a minute, if we make a product that we can push out to a market or a sector and then get their buy in, which is exactly what happened to me. So I was in that demographic. I, you know, I, I try and run. I wouldn't say I'm a runner. But I found these bars because it was something that I needed.
I didn't find them because of their foundation. that was a consequence. Them selling their bars. They give some money from every bar into the foundation. So they are as a byproduct. Their goal is what we've been talking about here. Their, their kind of whole movement is to raise awareness for child trafficking. Now they've obviously got their foundation set up. They've got their charity setup, which they are trying to get people involved in.
So well-worth and look while I'm talking about it, their foundation is tribe freedom foundation.com. So go and have a look at that. But they are obviously trying to raise awareness about this issue.
And as a byproduct, they realized that selling their bars was a good way to get to a sector to bring them in through something they wanted through something they needed, but then educate them later, which I think is a super, super interesting idea that they've moved on from what their goal was, or their mission is still there, but they've moved on and how they're getting that message out there.
And they've actually created a product to drive that, to use the kind of enforcer you guys heard of Tribe, or do you think of audioJamesRoberts62926013399: tribe
Yeah, I I think I tried one actually on one of our last content creation days. And I didn't know the story either. And I think it's, again, it's going back to that connecting point. Like now you can connect with them on a different level, not just what the problem solves and it's making you almost feel like you are part of the tribe..
You are their community, like we've heard community, whether it's in social media world, whether it's in the branding world, whether it's in every world and business now it's, it's what everyone wants. I think those connect points are so pivotal because like we mentioned before, it's that friend to friend, rather than that big corporate to a buying customer, just make sure that emotion gets involved and then you are connected. You're more likely to stay longer.
You're looking at these brands who are trying to build like a hundred year brands and you're seeing more of them, obviously, a lot of them aren't there yet, but you look at some like Virgin or Apple or even your Microsoft's, which aren't as riveting, but they have that loyalty. They have that emotional connection. Yeah. Oh, and by the way, the Tribe bars were delicious.
They are amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. interesting. I think as well, two points to come back to is one. They have got that product now in Ocado, Boots, Sainsbury's, Wholefoods, loads of different places. So, you've probably seen their bar, which interesting cause I don't think. It's as easy to get a foundation or to get a message out there.
And certainly you wouldn't go into Sainsbury's or Boots or any of those, if you were just the foundation yet now you've got that bar in front of so many different eyes. And then if you like the bar, like exactly like I did I actually bought a few more off the website, I subscribed off the website. And then as part of that, they have two separate websites. One's for the bars and one is for their foundation. But they are interconnected.
So when I was on the bars at the bottom, it was got, well, why are we doing this? This is why we're doing it. And what was really nice was I bought the bar because I liked it. And it was something. Why else would you, would you buy them? But one of a sudden I've got this fuzzy feeling because it was like, oh, I've kind of helped something, which it's this amazing combination of, I bought a good product and it is a good, good product. I've enjoyed it.
But I've almost got this reward as well, which was this kind of a little tap on the back to say, well, well done, you've done your you've done your bit. And that felt good. And as a consequence, I've learned more about them as a consequence from that I've brought it up on a podcast. So it's, it's clearly doing the right message.
A hundred percent and I think before kind of any, like, we look to wrap things up on this one, there's a quote by Maya Angelou, which says, people won't remember what you say. People won't remember what you do, but they will remember how you made them feel. And I think when it comes to branding that's so apt.,
I think with tribe were being quite clever with their brand and marketing, is that if you go into a shop buy a Tribe bar, you're more likely to pop onto the website and buy a box of Tribe bars. whereas you go into a shop a Mars bar I don't think ever been on the Mars website I've been eating Mars products for, I don't know, 25 years. That's the story behind it. And you go and find the story because you liked the brand.
James says you've got this, you've got their story into every major retailer in the country with ok that they might have fought to get their product in there, but they fought product in on their story and onto their website and buying a pack of 25 and then finding about the foundation that's rewarding
I think what's nice about everything we've picked is obviously and just kind of wrap it all up is Apple knew it was going to be tech-based when they kind of started off. I think it was in the garage with Steve jobs and
Steve Wozniac.
they kind of knew that it was going to be a computer that they were going to kind of create. It was very much in that, in that marketplace and they haven't moved away from that. They've definitely, they're creating some amazing products. Why would they they've obviously looked at other tech base. Cars were always kind of going to be cars. They're looking at different ways that they can, that they can transport people.
But a lot of those that car industry have always been a, a car, not necessarily transport. I think a lot did come around. I think they were all apart from Lamborghini that were obviously tractors first and Jeremy correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty certain it was it was Lamborghini's attracts was first before they started building cars, but essentially the cars of. What's interesting about tribe is that wasn't their goal. Their goal was to raise awareness for a problem.
And then they went into, into the products. It's very similar to one of our clients in Remarkable, where they are very much eco thinking and reducing waste, reducing plastic waste. As a consequence of that they sell stationery and then known oddly for the stationery more than the background story around that, because it's a way of getting to that to the marketplace. Another one to check out actually is Remarkable. They make some amazing products.
And I think that's, what's really interesting around brand is how you can focus about getting your message out there in so many different ways? So, thanks again, Jamie. Thanks again, Paul. Really enjoyed that. Make sure that we get our social media is out there. So we are obviously on Instagram hello, underscore method. We are on Twitter, we're obviously on Facebook, we're on LinkedIn.
We're pretty much everywhere that you can try and find us make sure you're subscribing to our podcast, as I said. So it kind of pops up on your mobile phone. Make sure you share it. So it's not just our parents that are liking it and also feed back. Let us know what you think about it. What you'd like to hear next. And we can try and get any of those kinds of comments back in the, into the podcast. We're getting some great feedback from you guys already.
And we want to obviously build on that and create content that you guys are enjoying listening to. So until the next time, thank you very much.