Working Word PR Blog

Branding gets right to the core of your business’ values. It is about discovering and communicating the essence of your business and its offerings to your customers. Your brand creates your business’ reputation and its ‘personality’ and can help you stand out from the crowd.

There are basics to getting this right.  Amidst the furore of this week’s attempts by Cardiff City’s Malaysian owners to re-brand the club’s shirt and crest, we look at whether or not they got it right.

Here, our director Dan Tyte, takes us through five key things to consider:

1-      Brand equity – There is extensive good will in the existing brand amongst fans, potential fans and the football community across the UK.  Any new brand entering a crowded marketplace will tell you that it’s an uphill struggle. Try launching a new cola and taking on Coke and Pepsi.

Would you take on these with a new brand?

2-      Significant brand heritage -Brands give their right arm for ‘provenance’, essentially a compelling story on the origins of the brand.  Look at Guinness’ tale of the Arthur burning the hops or the Marks and Spencer’s penny bazaar.  It’s difficult to sell one thought up purely for exploitative commercial reasons as authentic.

3-      Wrong brand strategy – Other clubs like Arsenal have changed their badges recently.  But changes need to go down the evolution, not revolution, route.  When the City badge changed in the Hammam era, the Bluebird was retained and anchored the new design in the history of the club, something that apparently was negotiated by fan representatives in this instance but wasn’t communicated back to the masses effectively.

Arsenal: Talking 'bout an evolution

4-      Limited power for advocates for change – The Chinese proverb “Tell me and I ‘ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand” springs to mind here. Tan’s plan has been imposed top-down, not bottom-up with the room for insight and input by fans. Okay, the information was leaked online, but the plans were for it go through without consultation.  When fans were invited in, the red kit was presented as a fait accompli.

No prizes for guessing this brand icon

5-      Brand icon- Brands need icons- think of McDonalds and golden arches or Disney and the fairytale castle. The blue shirt was seen at Wembley, complete with bluebird and Malaysia sponsor, by a TV audience of millions worldwide this year.  Why take out all of that free advertising for your brand icon and six months down the line change the offer?

Andy Green, our associate director and fan of Cardiff’s play-off conquerors West Ham, continues:

6-      Lacks significant trigger for change – Brand revolutions work when there is a significant negative event. Although missing out on the play-offs hurts, this isn’t a sufficiently traumatic  episode to warrant revolutionary change.

But did the fans?

7-      Brand evangelists not on side – Brands needs their most passionate fans behind them in order to flourish.  For this to be the case, the board needed to get fans in before decisions were made to give a semblance of ownership.  Some fans now appear on-side with the rebrand through fear, not buy-in.

8-      Limited brand leverage from other brands – Part of the plan seems to be to leverage the  good things about Wales onto the Cardiff City brand.  Cardiff City currently get bigger crowds than the Welsh national team.

The logistics of change costs

9-      Internal cost of brand ID change-over – Any brand that’s changed will know the amount of investment involved and in this case everything from stationary to stadium seats would need to be brought into line. It is an unnecessary expense on a costly exercise.

10-   High existing investment in current brand ID  - Take a walk around Cardiff city centre on any given day; yes, you see the inevitable Premier League shirts but over the past couple of years they’ve become to be outnumbered by Cardiff City merchandise. So much good work has been down here, it seems foolish to go back to square one.

Associate Director Andy Green blogs…

Come to the ‘Barry Riviera’ – a place offering sun, sand, sea, surfing and sailing from its three resorts and five beaches – is the message in a new campaign being launched by Pride in Barry.

The promotion aims to boost tourism for the South Wales resort, famous for its ‘Gavin and Stacey’ connections, and show it offers more than just Barry Island.

The ‘Barry Riviera’ includes the Barry Island, the Knap and Porthkerry visitor attractions, boasting five beaches at Jackson’s Bay, Whitmore Bay, the Old Harbour and Watchtower Bay, the Cold Knap, and Porthkerry beach.

The campaign aims to create an Internet buzz featuring a free ‘Barry Riviera’ poster and artwork downloadable from the campaign website at www.prideinbarry.co.uk. It is designed to complement the wider marketing of the area’s Heritage Coast by the Vale of Glamorgan and Bridgend local authorities.

The campaign and social media work was produced by Cardiff-based Working Word, a leading Wales public relations and social media agency, in support of the local community.

Commenting on the campaign Paul Haley of Pride in Barry said: “The French and the South West of England have their own ‘Rivieras’ – why not have one here in South Wales, around Barry and its five beaches? The campaign captures the irreverent character of Barry people, who pride themselves on not taking themselves too seriously.”

He added: “We want potential visitors talking about Barry – creating a buzz on Twitter and the Internet – and also ensure tourists appreciate there is more to Barry than only the Island. We are very proud of our resort and want to share it with family visitors far and wide, as a great place to visit and to live.”

In addition to ‘Gavin and Stacey’ Barry has also been the setting for the cult BBC TV series ‘Being Human’.

The resort’s other claims to fame include being the birthplace of Australia’s first woman Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who was born in Barry in 1961.

Pride in Barry was established in 1994. It is an association of voluntary organisations, local authorities and others who have combined together to strive to improve the local environment.

Pride in Barry aims to increase civic awareness, promote environmental improvement and enhancement, and to generate greater pride in the town, to make Barry yet better.

Associate Director Andy Green…

Why is it, 100 years on, the story of how one ship sunk in 1912 still holds such fascination for contemporary society?

A century old story is now even inspiring the opening of a new museum – the Titanic Belfast.

There have been other major sinkings with an even greater loss of life (the story of the sinking of the cruiser ‘Wilhelm Gustloff’ with its loss of over 9,000 lives in 1945 was not helped by it being on the ‘wrong’ side in Word War II).

But what is it about the ‘Titanic’ story that still makes it compelling?

One reason is that ‘Titanic’ has become a meme – a word of mouth icon and metaphor for human frailty and folly.

But the crucial element to why the episode of the sinking of an Edwardian ship is so meme-friendly is how the story of ‘Titanic’ actually combines the two great core story themes.

In my Brand Story and Creative Writing classes I highlight how communicators are essentially story tellers. I don’t necessarily mean we get our target audience and either sit down on the carpet or around the campfire.

Rather, the essence of any communication is that we tell stories.

By appreciating this core ingredient you can then integrate into, weave your messages in the fabric of storytelling models. As a result you will create far more compelling and effective communications campaigns.

So, going back to ‘Titanic’, the story of how the ship hit an iceberg, the loss of life, with its sub texts of hubris, class war, the meaningless of material things, and the many individual human stories can all be traced down to the two great story themes: ‘David v Goliath’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

Most great stories use one of these themes. The ‘Titanic’ story has evolved to encompasses both – and that’s why it still resonates today.

The ‘David v Goliath’ theme is about the little man beating the big man, overcoming adversity to win.

The ‘Romeo and Juliet’ theme is about how two people can come together to take on the world and win on their terms.

The ‘Titanic’ story embraces both themes. It is both David v Goliath – of individuals surviving against the odds (and maybe nature overcoming the hubris of man who thinks he has built an ‘indestructible ship’) – and it is also ‘Romeo and Juliet’, particularly the James Cameron film version, of the two lovers’ unrequited love in the context of the sinking ship.

Next time you see any epic film or novel – think back to how it relates to the two great story themes.

Why are sports so popular? All football matches are essentially either ‘David v Goliath’ or ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (my beloved West Ham being a particularly sad tragedy).

You will be surprised, whatever media, no matter how complex the storyline, it will more likely be distilled down to one of the two great stories.  And a truly great story encompasses both.

Titanic is meme-friendly. Not only does it embrace great story lines, it has a distinctive easy-to-remember name; I wonder if the story would have been so popular had it been called the ‘S.S. Gertrude’.

The meme has significant icons: the iceberg, the ship’s design and images of it sinking are powerful visual cues that are triggered each time the message is replicated.

As a result, even though the actual news of the Titanic story becomes more dated, its meme, unlike the boat, will be unsinkable over the next 100 years.

More about memes and brand story telling can be found at www.andygreencreativity.com

Pa mor aml wyt ti’n ymlacio’n gyda gwydryn neu ddau fin nos?  A wyddost y gallai hyn dy roi mewn  rhoi mewn perygl o ddioddef dros 60 o afiechydon?

Mae Newid Am Oes, yr ymgyrch genedlaethol i gael pobl i fyw’n iachach, wedi lansio ei ymgyrch gyntaf i godi ymwybyddiaeth am beryglon yfed alcohol.

Mae canllawiau risg isel y Gwasanaeth Iechyd Cenedlaethol yn cynghori na ddylai merched yfed mwy na 2 i 3 uned o alcohol y dydd yn rheolaidd (dim mwy na gwydriad o win 175ml safonol) ac ni ddylai dynion yfed mwy na 3 i 4 uned o alcohol y dydd yn rheolaidd (ddim llawer mwy na pheint o lager, cwrw neu seidr cryf).

Gan fod cymaint o bobl yn cael trafferth i ddeall yn union  beth yw uned o  alcohol rydym wedi dyfeisio graffeg-wybodaeth  i’w  lawr lwytho i dy  ffôn i ddangos faint o unedau y byddi yn ei yfed ar y tro.

Do you regularly unwind with a couple of drinks in the evening? If so, you may not be aware that this puts you at risk of more than 60 diseases.

Change4Life, a nationwide drive to get people living more healthily, has recently launched its first alcohol awareness campaign.

The NHS’ lower-risk guidelines show advise that women should not regularly drink more than 2 to 3 units of alcohol per day (no more than a standard 175ml glass of wine) and men should not regularly drink more than 3 to 4 units of alcohol per day (not much more than a pint of strong lager, beer or cider).

With many people finding it difficult to understand the unit measurement of alcoholic drinks, we’ve created a handy infographic to download to your phone so you can know how much you’re drinking on the go.