My take on the Nike+ FuelStation. Be sure to read part 1 of this post first.

TOM, 23, LIKES RED STRIPE.

I’d heard a lot about the Nike+ FuelStation on industry blogs, so I was expecting something pretty special from the retail space of the future. As far as I can tell, the main aim is to promote FuelBand, Nike’s electronic motion-sensing wristband. The gadget converts your movement throughout the day into points called ‘NikeFuel’, so you can see how much energy you’ve burned when you sync it with your phone. The band’s special algorithm even distinguishes between different types of activity, so presumably a bit of midnight ‘me-time’ won’t get racked up as an intensive 10-minute sprint (OK, 3-minute sprint).

Anyway, I thought the store itself was, in a word, underwhelming. The interior looked pretty cool, but I couldn’t help feeling that the interactive elements fell flat. The FuelBand guides were essentially electronic brochures on touchscreen tables, and I almost missed the motion activated LED wall in the entrance.

The Kinect-powered fuel pod recorded your movements in a swirly dot matrix pattern (you can see our pathetic display of non-athleticism here which looked impressive, but that’s about it.

I think the problem with FuelStation is the lack of a consistent link to the product and the whole concept of NikeFuel as a way to manage your fitness. It’s like the designers of the experience got so caught up in the technology that they missed some great opportunities to educate customers. For example, the fuel pod could have worked out how much energy you expired during your 30-second video, then given you a NikeFuel score at the end. This would have given users a tangible sense of how the system works, and would have given people more of a reason to share their results.

All in all FuelStation is a nice little brand showcase, but it’s a case of style over substance. A little more thought in the planning process could have made the experience more valuable for Nike and visitors alike.

Aesop, the brand storytelling agency, has created packaging for GSK’s biggest drinks launch for 20 years, Ribena Plus, which goes on sale this week.

Its launch signals a new era for the market leading juice drink, with the addition of vitamins and minerals designed to slake consumers’ thirst for added value, functional and healthy products. Ribena Plus Apple & Peach and Blackcurrant Immunity Support contain added vitamins A, C and E, while Apple & Raspberry and Mixed Berries contain added calcium for healthy bones.

Backed by a £6m marketing spend, Ribena Plus will be unmissable. Naturally it needed a fabulous new look that reflected its marriage of delicious fruity goodness with nutritional science, which is where Aesop comes in. “The launch of Ribena Plus really moves the brand on in terms of boosting its health credentials. So with this design, we moved on Ribena’s visual equities by introducing a healthy helix device that brings together both taste and refreshment and also suggests science and dynamism. It’s the Ribena everyone loves, but credibly healthier,” says Aesop executive creative director Martin Grimer.

“Aesop really challenged us to move beyond the boundaries of the existing visual assets associated with the brand in order to develop a design for Plus that signified this is something new and different from Ribena. The resulting design is one that still retains the quality and fruit goodness cues associated with Ribena, but also introduces an element of health and science to reflect the added health benefits that make it Ribena Plus,” comments Hannah Norbury, group brand manager, Ribena.

Ribena Plus is designed to target two key audiences: young women and mums trying to get added goodness and health benefits into their families. Extensive research has been undertaken to ensure the health benefits and flavours used are the most relevant and the ones with highest consumer appeal. It comes in cordial and ready to drink in a range of formats, including bottles and tetrapaks.

A while ago I read an article about Nike’s new ‘Fuel Station’ situated in Shoreditch’s Boxpark. The article gushed that ‘…the shopping experience of the next decade is to be all about involving you.’ Brilliant I thought: here’s a retailer who is striving for unprecedented levels of customer service.

It continued, ‘The Nike shop is about reacting out to you, playing with you.‘ Now that’s either taking customer care to a whole new level or it’s going all techie and at some point the word ‘sharing’ is going to crop up.

Low and behold the shop, made from a series of shipping containers, included walls that track your movement – so I could be involved – and a fuel pod that recorded people jumping up and down. At the end of the article it stated ‘…the future of shopping isn’t about shopping, it is about sharing.’

Oh god, really? Is it?

I understand the need for brands to be creative and daring and to embrace new media. However, Nike are also a retailer, so they must also consider the shopper’s basic need to shop; customer service should play a role in a brand’s equity.

This is not a soft measure. John Lewis have it at their core with ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’. Marks & Spencer’s returns policy is built into the fabric of the brand; you can take anything back as long as you’ve not spilt Tropical Reef down it.

So I thought I’d check this Boxpark thing out to see if style ruled over substance, and I took one of the younger chaps with me. We both donned our skinny jeans, and these are my thoughts.

JOE, 42, LIKES SLIPPERS.

The box park itself was a nice, fun, quirky use of the space. Once inside I was glad to see that the presentation of the goods didn’t play second fiddle to all the ‘involving stuff’. The shop was very single minded in its delivery of running equipment – whilst not a runner I could see how this would be a good destination for those that are, and very timely considering the London Marathon. The staff were knowledgeable when probed, and were happy to field questions.

The only negative I thought was it took a while to navigate through the info pods, this could have been manned to give clarity. It did help that we were the only ones in there at the time and the limited space might have been a pain on busy days. On the whole though I thought it was well presented and I didn’t have to do any of that beastly sharing stuff. I thought the retail space was a nice extension of it’s brand mission and the staff were integral in that.

Check back on Monday to hear Tom’s view of FuelStation.

(A MacIntyre family Kodak moment circa 1994)

Real people are interesting and have a story to tell.

If you look at your family album you’re bound to find one: a picture of the family taken on a throwaway Kodak with film. The photograph conveys a story of stretched posed smiles on faces waiting in anticipation of the click of the camera capturing that moment in time forever.

A row of smiles except for the cross looking face in the corner (a forbidden second helping of ice cream or the result of sibling rivalry).

That was then. This is now.

In the modern world pictures are everywhere and capture every occasion. From special events such as holidays, birthdays and weddings to capturing the everyday (the outfit you’re going to wear to work, uploading an image of your morning coffee).  These images are captured on digital devices, uploaded to the internet and shared.

If it’s not picture perfect, you can press delete.

The question: do these real moments in pictures even exist any longer?  And if they don’t, what are we missing by losing them?

This led me to think about one of my favourite American photographers Diane Arbus. When she was living and working in New York in the 1960s, Arbus captured real people’s lives and how they were affected by cultural and political change.

A family portrait taken by Arbus at first glance reveals nothing.

Dig a little deeper and the smiles, the poses, the elaborate hairstyles are all a reflection of the family’s personal story. Arbus has not only captured this family’s story, but the story of millions of Americans at that time. The photograph gives us an invaluable insight into the fashion, the socioeconomics and the general mood of the era. It’s imbued with a resonance and a long lasting appeal that would never have survived had the image been posed and retouched to today’s standards.

You’ve eaten all your Easter eggs, forgotten to bring your umbrella to work (more than once) and spent far too long daydreaming about your summer holidays so there’s only one thing left for you to do til you know for definite that spring has sprung – watch the John Smith’s Grand National.

This year we’ve added another chapter to our ongoing work on John Smith’s sponsorship of the Grand National. Not to blow our own trumpet too much, but we’ve won over 6 industry awards for our work on the project in recent years and this year we wanted to make it even better so we’ve created a film bringing to life the famous John Smith’s ‘No Nonsense’ tone of voice in the world of horseracing.

The odds are that you’ve seen it already (in the unlikely case you haven’t, you can watch it above) but we thought you might like to see what happened behind the scenes on filming day.

We filmed at Sandown racecourse to benefit from the atmosphere of a real race day even though this did mean we got some funny looks from members of the public.

Our tic tac wannabe practices his moves before the crowds arrive. Using just a handful of extras we were able to make the race ground appear full when it came to the final cut.

Our CD Mark Tweddell was very proud to be at the first Aesop TV commercial shoot. He was there to oversee the shoot and to use his own northern ‘no nonsense’ attitude to make sure the brand’s tone of voice stayed on track.

Our tic tac man was professionally trained by a real bookie to make sure his hand actions were realistic. It clearly worked as a few unsuspecting punters even tried to place bets with him.

The end frame of the John Smith’s pint shot was actually filmed first by a separate. There were over 10 people involved in the filming of this shot including a specialist on hand to make sure the pint stayed looking its freshest.

It wasn’t all work of course. Our ECD Martin Grimer lost his lunch money on a horse he was told would walk it. Unfortunately he didn’t realise the person meant it literally.

A lot of time, thought and planning went into the production of the film and John Smith’s brand manager Karen Crowley paid testament to the team involved, saying she thought the shoot went “fantastically well”.

Martin got in on the joke by having a go at a bit of tic tac himself. Unfortunately what he actually said is not repeatable.

There was a mere two weeks between filming day and the reveal of the ad online which we think is a massive achievement and a credit to the hard work of all those involved.
So there you have it, an insider’s glance into the making of the John Smith’s Tic Tac film – the highs, the lows and the downright absurd.

If you’re lucky enough to be attending the John Smith’s Grand National this weekend you won’t be able to miss our No Nonsense branding and if you’re watching on TV, keep an eye out and I’m sure you’ll spot a comic comment or two.

The Grand National will be shown this Saturday on BBC1 at 4.15pm.

Living in London, it seems like everyone is using the Olympics to sell something. What I like about this project and the other BA projects (including a Heston Blumenthal mentored competition winner’s onboard menu and a film written by an aspiring writer/director, assisted by Richard E Grant, to be shown pre-flight), is the Britishness. Some of the country’s biggest names have coached emerging British talent to create art for one of the nation’s most well known companies. When every other brand is giving away those peskily illusive tickets, BA has given us creative Brits a chance to show our talents off to the worldwide audience London is attracting this summer.

The Olympics is all about sporting prowess, but with a very few exceptions, we’re not the sportiest of nations (sorry Team GB). We are, on the other hand, well known for our creativity. So for this reason, I applaud BA – and of course the organisers of the Olympics.

Danny Boyle, Stella McCartney, Paul Smith (I love the stamps!), Wolff Olins, Peter Cook and Anish Kapoor are the official headliners, but the full programme for the Cultural Olympiad shows off up-and-coming British talent as well. I can’t wait.

Here’s Richard Baird’s take on our work:

Based around a neat combination of initials and an oversized cheese and knife illustration, Aesop’s design has a subtle duality that confidently mixes a slightly quirky personality with one of knowledge and quality. The geometric simplicity of the images along with cuts across the typography has an underlying abstract and early 20th century poster or book cover sensibility that today looks clean and contemporary. A deep blue colour palette introduces the theme of professionalism, a perception of heritage and tradition that compliments the natural colour and detail of the cheeses while the vivid highlights characterise the sharper flavour profiles infused into each variety. The bold san serif and script combination of the logo-type, one you might associate with a popular vodka brand, appropriately resolves the aforementioned themes but in a fairly conventional way. The slightly cheeky informality and conversational tone set by the written content keeps the design from appearing too fussy or pretentious to the supermarket shopper and fits the quirky combinations.

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves!

The HEINEKEN – owned brand has sponsored the Grand National since 2005 and has traditionally supported the tie-up with a heavyweight multimedia campaign embracing billboards and ambient media, but this is the first time that Aesop’s award-winning work on the sponsorship has been extended into broadcast. The 2011 campaign won at The Best Awards, which took place earlier this month, demonstrating how Aesop’s brand storytelling approach can be successfully applied to sponsorship.

The new ad uses the brand’s trademark No Nonsense humour to illustrate the absurdity of real life, according to Aesop creative director Mark Tweddell. “We show how John Smith’s cuts to the chase,” he says. The 40 second commercial features a bloke trying to signal to his mate that it’s time for a drink, but getting involved in increasingly comical tic tac conversation with a bookie, until another pal rescues him using the universal sign language for having a pint.”

It is Aesop’s first shoot since the multidisciplinary agency launched last year.

The commercial, which will be shown on screens at Aintree and other racecourses across the country, posted on YouTube and aired on digital channel Racing UK, dovetails with the outdoor and ambient activity that has seen John Smith’s consistently get more bangs for its sponsorship buck. Aesop’s campaign surrounds race-goers on their journey from Liverpool city centre to Aintree racecourse bars, with humorous, racing -related messages that make the brand an inescapable part of the event. Creative use of ambient media, such as messaging on all winning horse blankets across the three days of the race meeting, means that the brand values will be beamed into around 9 million  homes through the BBC TV coverage.

John Smith’s Senior Brand Manager Karen Crowley said: “This is great addition to the marketing mix that we have employed over the years for the Grand National and for the first time we have created an ad around our racing platform. This allows us to communicate our sponsorship well in advance of the Grand National and extend our reach of the campaign to a broadcast and digital audience.”

*Now you know how to say cheers in Ukranian.

Most people can only claim an odd Uncle or an eccentric Granny in their family tree (two in mine), not so with Dan Edelstyn. After stumbling across a copy of his grandmother’s semi-biographic manuscript in an attic, he discovered a family history that sounded more fiction than fact. Amongst the romances and Bolsheviks, Dan uncovered a wealthy Ukranian vodka-producing great-grandfather.

As a film-maker and all round story-teller, this was an opportunity not to miss. So Dan went on a pilgrimage to Douboviazovka, to find his roots and returned to the vodka distillery his grandfather had owned. After meeting the impoverished local villagers, he decided the most natural way to help them was to take his grandfather’s place at the helm of the factory and bring a new lease of life to the distillery. And so Zorokovich 1917 Vodka was born.

At the heart of the project is Dan’s mission to bring more jobs to the area and improve the living standards of the locals. Isn’t it lovely when there are real people at the heart of a brand? Especially when there is so much tangible history, and there are true considerations of the social impact of production.

Dan, the hero of our tale, is making his voice heard back here in the UK through the release of his film (which he wrote and stars in): How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire. This method of sharing the brand story is very innovative: it really is product placement to the extreme!

Even before the completion of the film (released this month, and aired on Channel 4 later this year), people had already taken an interest. Some so much as to help fund the production of the film, showing that it’s a brand people are ready to believe in, and I think that has a lot to do with its author and hero, Dan. I think this will be a chronicle to follow, as the story unfolds through different media, from marketing to packaging.

It’s all a bit like something out of a Jonathan Safran Foer novel…

We have well documented how we apply the power of stories to brands and marketing, but the same ‘beautiful science’ can also be applied to internal communications and leadership issues.

Leaders have long relied on stories to give groups a sense of identity and purpose. Coaches inspire their teams with tales of past dedication and victory. Politicians tell their personal stories and give voters the narrative of change.

It’s no different with business leaders, who must set out a vision in order to make change happen.

The word ‘storytelling’ in a corporate context may often be viewed scornfully; what place do stories have in the world of balance sheets, ROI models and commercial logic? Whilst analysis drives business thinking and excites the mind, it doesn’t offer a route to the heart, and it is here you must go to motivate people. So why are stories so powerful in winning both hearts and minds?

A short, concise story with a clear moral will cut through the noise and jargon of corporate speak.

Stories set against a real life backdrop will feel personal and relevant – charts, graphs and PowerPoint presentations are simply too distant, too boring and too abstract .

To effect change it is not enough to recount a story just once; it needs to be told again and again and again. The compelling nature of stories means that those who have heard it go on to repeat it to others. Effective leaders harness the power of stories to turn their employees into powerful agents of change.

Stories can be used across many corporate objectives: driving change, transmitting values, sharing knowledge etc. The purpose of a story will determine its form. The teller must choose one that the audience can relate to and readily apply to their own situation.

Stories already abound in the business world – stock market crashes, innovative product launches, all-conquering chairmen or moral crusaders. It is not whether stories have a place in business, it is more a case of when you use them, use them in a way that serves you best.