Month: April 2016

Retail Displays

Lee Broom’s Salone del Automobile

By Delphine Hirasuna |

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Food trucks and pop-up stores are proliferating all over the world, but this is the first time we have heard of a mobile lighting showroom. Created by British designer Lee Broom, the Salone del Automobile is located in a moving van that stops in key urban design districts between London and Milan. From the outside, the vehicle looks like an ordinary delivery van, but when the back door is open, it looks like an elegant Italian palazzo with Corinthian columns and decorative stucco details. The interior is painted a subtle gray with an illuminated floor for effect. It provides the perfect background for Broom’s new lighting collection Optical. The idea of a traveling showroom has many appealing, cost-effective advantages. It literally places itself directly in the path of target customers, can quickly relocate to other promising geographic markets, and limits security risks by offering the ability to park the “shop” in a garage.
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Humor

Ford Kuga Appeals to Consumers with Great Taste

By Delphine Hirasuna |


Israeli ad agency BBR Saatchi & Saatchi in Tel Aviv took the claim “great taste” literally in demonstrating the quality materials that go into the making of the new Ford Kuga. It served Canadian illusionist Eric Leclerc savory hors d’oeuvre bites of the seat, steering wheel, window glass, and engine belt on an elegant silver platter, which Leclerc sampled with euphoric pleasure. The implication is that only the most scrumptious ingredients go into the making of a Ford Kuga. Whether this translates to a superior driving experience or not is debatable, but it got you to watch.

Global Trends

Czechia: New Name, Old Country

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Czechia
On the national branding front, the big news is that the Czech Republic has just adopted the shorter, friendlier name Czechia for all but formal occasions. The name change has been under discussion since the break-up of Czechoslovakia in 1993. Czechia is not the first nation to limit the use of “Republic” in its name. The Slovak Republic goes by Slovakia, the Federal Republic of Germany goes by just Germany. “Cesko” is what many Czechs call their country, but it didn’t make the cut because people like former Czech president Vaclav Havel said the name made his “flesh creep.” So, Czechia it is. Now it is up to Czech designers to promote the national brand on T-shirts, coffee mugs, soccer jerseys, and all kinds of tcotchke.

Packaging

Ridna Mapka’s High Visibility Retail Presence

By Delphine Hirasuna |

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Designed by Yurko Gutsulvak in Kviv, Ukraine, the packaging for Ridna Mapka fruit juice line is noteworthy for its commanding retail shelf presence. The juice cartons have identical images front and back, with informational text printed on the flap ends. The wraparound graphics project a highly visible diamond-shape pattern when displayed side-by-side on store shelves.

For the packaging design, Gutsulvak aimed to suggest a nostalgic tone for Ridna Mapka (meaning “native brand”) to appeal to consumers who yearn for the authentic natural flavors of yesteryears. Featuring illustrations by Oleksij Volkov, the Ridna Mapka packaging evokes the style and feel of Russian design in the 1960s and 1970s. The retro look harkens to a time when fruit juices had the unadulterated taste of real fruit.
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Marketing

Adobe Marketing: The Launch

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Everything about this commercial for Adobe Marketing Cloud rings true, except for rerouting the spaceship to another part of the galaxy. Created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners for Adobe, this “Do You Know What Your Marketing Is Doing” ad campaign gives us an extreme look at what can happen when companies move warp speed ahead on their brand strategy before or while collecting, analyzing and understanding marketing data. Invariably reticent managers afraid to express their doubts about the chosen direction, do so at the very last minute when it dawns on them that they would be blamed for letting it go forward. Re-dos cause delays. Delays burn budgets, sometime to a crisp. One reason this TV spot is hilariously funny to so many in the marketing/design business is because it is painfully familiar. Such “war stories,” usually confessed in an inebriated state, abound. At some point, we’ve all been there. Gotta laugh so you don’t cry.