October 25, 2006

Being the Brand

Few brands have a more potent presence than Hermes. The look is distinctive; the design and packaging, impeccable. What began as a saddle maker in the 1830's has evolved to an almost-billion-dollar empire of fashion.

Like many high fashion companies, Hermes sells a perfume line. But, unlike virtually all others, they do so with their own in-house expert ("the nose," as the job title says) and they market the perfumes without any celebrity endorsements.

In Hermes's case, the nose is Jean-Claude Ellena. He recently described the company's non-celebrity marketing strategy by saying, "What we sell is a product line that is the result of a lived experience. You won't smell like Jennifer Lopez; you will be yourself. You might try other products, but you will always come back."

That "lived experience" notion resonates much more powerfully than the idea of smelling like the celebrity-du-jour. And, since Ellena joined Hermes in 2004, perfume sales have skyrocketed. It shows that helping people be themselves is a road to marketing success.

Design Matters...

For several years, the National Design Awards have been presented annually by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York. This year, they added a new competition - the People's Design Awards - in which anyone could nominate anything for consideration.

The website (which is slightly irritating because it requires yet another version of Flash just to get in) was visited by more than 80,000 people which shows there's real interest in how things look in our world. And people nominated a wonderful array of products - from those legibly designed prescription bottles at Target to iPods to public sculpture (notably the work of Anish Kapoor who created the deliciously reflective "bean" in Chicago's Millennium Park and recently installed a piece on Fifth Avenue at New York's Rockefeller Center.

The strong response to the competition shows how important design is to people's every day lives.

...And So Does Being Green

The New York Times had a great piece today about magazines and advertisers wanting to be more green. Some major publishers are seeking ways to be carbon neutral. And some advertisers are requesting that publishers release information on their paper and printing sources so that they can estimate the total carbon emissions of their advertising and then offset those emissions by planting trees.

Aveda apparently sends sustainability surveys to publications to help decide where to place its ads. The surveys include questions about greenhouse emissions.

So we're seeing a three-way effort here. The public is pushing for more environmental responsibility among publishers. The publishers themselves are pushing for it. And so are the advertisers. Very encouraging.