Retail

Harvey Nichols (or “Harvey Nicks” for short) and Aardman Studios are collaborating to promote the Fall grand opening of their newest location in England’s westcountry city of Bristol. Aardman Studios is enlisting its talent pool of Wallace and Gromit in a photo shoot featuring high-end brands carried in Harvey Nichols stores.

Wallace sports an Alexander McQueen navy cashmere and suit, D&G white shirt and a Giorgio Armani tie. Gromit sports a navy silk Paul Smith scarf.

The collaboration between the London based department store and the local favorite “actors” Wallace and Gromit seems to utilize a small scale example of glocalization.

The Bristol originated Aardman Studios, founded in 1976 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, creates animation films, which due to the use of stop-motion techniques, are to long-term projects that take years and a lot of patience to complete. In 1989, Nick Park’s Oscar winning “Creature Comfort” short had put Aardman Studios on the map, allowing Park to introduce to the world Wallace and Gromit:

I love animation

Harvey Nichols, founded in 1813, is “an international luxury lifestyle store, renowned both in the UK and internationally for the breadth and depth of its exclusive fashion merchandise” (Harvey Nichols). The luxury lifestyle store (I will refrain from using the word “department store” now) features high street brands like Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Marc Jacobs, Prada, and Tom Ford. With locations in London, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, etc., the brand has decided to open its doors in Bristol, England. The opening of a Bristol store signifies their need to increase consumerism in a largely populated city of 400,000+ that has been “undershopped”. The city of Bristol is known as a hub for culture. My favorite examples include:

• Birthplace of trip-hop or “Bristol Sound” (Look up artist Massive Attack).

• Finalist for the 2008 European Capital of Culture.

• Bristol University graduates include Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Look up my favorite movie Shaun of the Dead).

• Daniel “I Drink Your Milkshake” Day-Lewis and Gene Wilder studied at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

• Darth Vader (David Prowse) went to Bristol Grammar School.

The campaign’s marketing treats Wallace and Gromit like real people, suggesting that although they are characters with only clay intestines, they are a part of Bristol’s culture. Or perhaps Daniel Day-Lewis was unavailable. Regardless, Wallace and Gromit are given the VIP treatment in Harvey Nichols’ personal shopping department. Even Harvey Nicks marketing director Julia Bowes keeps to character by saying that “we are delighted that these two characters so close to the heart of Bristol agreed to appear in our ad campaign…I hope that now they have started they will continue to shop with us.” It is very clever to take beloved yet fashion-inept characters like an oblivious bald man and his dog and put them in trendy high quality clothes.

Wallace poses in a suit by Paul Smith, and Gromit wears a pair of Ray-Bans and purple silk scarf by Duchamp.

They’re better than mannequins, because they’re faces we recognize (perhaps especially for the people of Bristol). They’ve lovable and they’re out of their element, which like their short films, is always the case. We pay more attention to them clothes modeled after the actual brands. The glocalization effect is seen here. If Harvey Nichols is becoming more and more an internationally known company, it should cater to each location’s clientele.  By utilizing Bristol-originated local favorites in their promotions, Harvey Nichols may give people a sense of familiarity and ownership of a brand they enjoy.

I have only seen the photo shoot images and would suspect a promotional video utilizing Wallace and Gromit will not be seen. Stop-motion animation is an amazing art but is a highly time-consuming one. I would love to see Wallace walking down a fashion runway via some motor monstrosity and seeing Gromit come to save the day in his Duchamp scarf, but I doubt that this type of effort would be made for a “lifestyle store” opening. Regardless, overall the campaign seems like good publicity for both companies, giving Harvey Nichols some great connection with Bristol culture, and Aardman some good PR while they work on their next project. Hopefully another Wallace and Gromit film!

Below is the behind-the-scenes clip “When Wallace Met Harvey” of the Harvey Nichols/Wallace and Gromit photo shoot, featuring Nick Park himself along with the art directors:

Click here for the higher quality video on the Harvey Nichols official site.

If your local department/lifestyle store featured local stars/artists/famous personalities, would you be more likely to patron the store? Why or why not?

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Department stores like Sears, Macy’s, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdales give us multiple brands to choose from, great return policies, and huge sales…well not huge sales since I’ve never found anything cheap at Bloomingdales. They’re also family oriented. When you think of JC Penney, you to think “family”:

JC Penney, founded in 1902 as a dry good store, has kept itself relevant in mid-American suburban malls by employing creative agency Saatchi & Saatchi. However, workers from Saatchi & Saatchi New York and Epoch Films entered a unreleased commercial into the 2008 Cannes International Advertising Festival…without JC Penney’s permission. Ah ha! The plot thickens! The entry seen below has produced a backlash from the company:

JC Penney has condemned and has distanced itself from the work and those responsible for it. The irony is the commercial won the Bronze Film Lion! The controversy over the titled “Speed Dressing” commercial has led me to three observations:

1. Whether the commercial aligns itself with JC Penny’s branding strategy, the commercial has created good publicity for JC Penney. When was the last time that JC Penney was part of any conversation topic? Viewers who see this ad for the first time, like me, will be unaware the ad is for JC Penney until the last moment. At the end, they may be pleasantly surprised to believe JC Penney is a creative brand that is not afraid to push the envelope. Oops. I forget. The brand plays it safe. For good reasons that we all know.
2. “Speed Dressing”, like many other commercials, is adaptable and transportable. Take out the JC Penney branding and “Everyday Matters” tagline, you have a commercial that could be used for any brand such as Forever 21, Urban Outfitters, Macy’s, etc. The wit, cleverness, and teen connectionare what make commercials worth watching. We are curious as to what is going on. It’s a story that’s sexually charged but keeps a sense of innocence. A few changes can definitely change the energy. You can change the music to become edgier and less cute. It could have been two adults in a corporate environment trying to get alone time in a conference room or restroom. It is sad that this commercial did not leave the cutting room floor, that it only could make it out to the public through a festival. It may not be groundbreaking, but lots of advertising today lack the emotional storytelling element. “Speed Dressing” does not simply push product, but our own realities.
3. Branding sometimes stifles and hides reality behind a happy veil rather than shows reality. Advertising defines trends, cultures, and our buying habits. Although not a mirror of ourselves, advertising is at least a rippled reflection of our lives and should not be denied. Teenagers have sex.  Advertising is entertainment. It is fun. It is commercial. It sells a product. It sells back to us our own lifestyles. Whether you choose to speed dress on your own time, that’s your choice.

“Speed Dressing”, other than the sexual nature, is not an effective commercial for JC Penney, because it does not follow their brand strategy. The target may be teens within the household, but the commercial deviates from the wholesome image of the American family. Fair enough reason for the ad to not have made it to the public. However…is the ad entertaining? Yes. Is it captivating? Uh yes.

For full background on this commercial and its controversy, visit Duncan’s TV Ad Land or Adage.com

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Do you believe that any entry should be allowed to enter into the Cannes International Advertising Festival, regardless of the work’s affiliation with brands and agencies?

Everyone in the sports world will have seen this clip already:

Regardless of being fake or not (it’s fake folks.*), the pervasive nature of this video is apparent. WIth more than 2 million views, the viral video utilizes YouTube as an outlet not only for creative expression, but product marketing. The timing of the release of this video corresponds with the peak of the NBA season, especially with the Lakers playoffs hopes and Kobe-4-MVP discussions. It makes sense, because as the season vamps up for playoffs, kids are going to look at Kobe highlights online. Type in “Kobe Bryant” and you’ll see the video on the list. Thanks Youtube. Everyone knows you’ve changed the world. Don’t be so cocky.

So what does this mean? One would point out that “the medium is the message“, that YouTube is a medium that has changed the game for marketers and society (McLuhan). They have to be more careful how they shine through the millions of random videos and create something that grabs our attention at the right time and in the right way. TV is a passive experience. They show, you receive. You laugh. Done. Youtube, however, has allowed marketers to measure the effectiveness of its marketing message through the comments and discussions. You see thousands of comments about the whether Kobe CAN physically do this stunt, how the shadows from Kobe and the Aston Martin show it’s fake, and countless other jibber jabber. Youtube is a “cool” medium, as McLuhan MAY suggest, which means we can interpret videos differently in different ways. You may get the feeling that this is the best video ever and you want to buy 24 pairs of these Kobe shoes. I get the feeling the Aston Martin is cooler.

* The reason why it’s fake is because the NBA, the commissioner, the agent, Nike, and everyone who loves money, will NEVER allow Kobe to risk his physical body for an ad. Seriously, sure he can probably jump it, but are you willing to lose millions of dollars over this? Kobe isn’t and the league SURE isn’t going to allow it. His body and talent are too important to too many people. I stick by it being fake until I read in ESPN that it’s real.

**By the way…couldn’t they have someone better than Ronny Turiaf in this video? Is it because he has no shoe deal?

Sources of quotes:
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw Hill, 1964.

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I was enamored of a TV commercial I saw this weekend, so I couldn’t wait to share it with you.

I’m a San Franciscan native, and this commercial really invoked a stirring sense of heritage within me. Clips of the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, the Trans-America building, and the view of the beautiful San Franciscan skyline, coupled with Marlena Shaw’s uplifting “California Soul”, really resonated with me. Is this an attempt by Dockers, a company founded in San Francisco, to reconnect with its roots? The brand seems to have lost a sense of its identity (when was the last time you heard of Dockers?) and is now coming home for inspiration and reinvigoration. Its casual non-distinct style phased the label out of mainstream fashion and into the grandpa/functional pant category (boring!).

Dockers’ comeback strategy appears to be grounded in applying the versatility of their pants to a more hip-urban-yuppie a.k.a San Franciscan lifestyle. This commercial reminded me of JC Penney’s recent re-branding campaigns – “Every Day Matters”, and “Calendar” – whose objective was to change America’s view of the retailer as a grandmotherly place that sells sensibly priced no-frills merchandise (again…boring!). Saatchi and Saatchi’s ad campaign highlighted new, exclusive designer apparel, private labels and updated home furnishings, and positioned the tagline “Everyday Matters” to carve out a deeper more meaningful and emotional relationship with its customers. The message extended beyond its former tagline, “It’s all inside”, by reestablishing a more sentimental connection between the customer and the brand, a connection that was lost for some time. The growth in sales immediately after these campaigns is a testament to the success of JC Penney’s re-branding strategies.

The Dockers commercial invokes a similar sentiment as the JC Penney campaign. The only risk I see with the Dockers commercial, however, may be its attempt to identify itself solely with the San Franciscan culture, and consequently, narrow its appeal to only the Northwestern part of the country. Similarly, Mervyn’s attempted to re-identify itself exclusively as a west-coast brand, and therefore, alienated the rest of the country (and did that help the company? Not so much! But it sure helped JC Penney). Or Dockers could simply be reaffirming its San Franciscan identity because revenue streams in from primarily the West Coast? Regardless, the tie to my home re-introduced Dockers as a notable brand with cache to me, especially since “California Soul” was on repeat in my head all week. Give me something that ties me sentimentally to my roots and my affinity for something (SF) and you’ll get my attention.

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