The birth of a brand
You are invited to witness, in real time, an idea fall miserably on its face, or beat extreme odds to become a relevant, thriving brand. The success of this new brand will rely exclusively on social networking. (That means you.)
Write-On Riot is an experiment by Keith Sherman and Rob Dalton, two advertising veterans (circa Darren Stevens) who have decided that, after three decades of communicating brands such as Target, Sprint PCS, Staples and The Wall Street Journal, we could actually conceive and build a brand from scratch.
THIS BRAND IS YOUR BRAND. Like all new parents, we have hopes and dreams for our new creation. We want Write On Riot to be a brand that people will not only believe in, but can belong to. So, what exactly does that mean? It means we’ll bring you into the process of establishing policy, fine-tuning our offerings, suggesting new products, telling us how you would like to be contacted and so on. We will demonstrate this from the moment you click on our website. Like most company home pages, a tagline appears under the logo. But our tagline will be written by a web guest. And it’ll stay there until someone else writes a new one. Why allow ourselves to hang our identity on someone else’s impression of our brand? Let’s just say we’re living up to our promise that this new brand is about you, our customers and friends.
Write On Riot is about “attraction” not “persuasion.” Why? Because persuasion doesn’t work anymore. Successful brands demonstrate or provide real value instead of just talking about it through advertising. This reminds me of an old joke: Q: How does an ad exec make love? A: He doesn’t. He just sits on the edge of the bed and tells her how good it’s going to be. Too often brands are communicated through ads that make empty promises and don’t provide real value. This new brand will be experiential…allowing users to share their unique humor through social media and through the products themselves.
Next blog— The products and the rational and emotional needs they meet. Please send us your thoughts. Your input will influence the direction of this new brand!
Posted by Rob Dalton, Creative Director on October 20, 2009. Login or register to post a comment.