A Distinctive Taste

Brand allegiance is something remarkable.  Take this guy for instance. I would never dress  the way he styles himself. You could never convince me to wear heavy pinstriped DB cut like this. It would also not be in my style to rock leather pants and leather belt. None of that matters because I will wear RL in my casket, real talk. Bespoke straight from the mansion.  The reason I will is because I can buy into the brand, not the overall production behind the brand(which stands in a league of its own),but the brand itself. Starting off as merely a tie company, the brand is now associated with nearly every sporting event where the uniforms can be enhanced by aesthetics.  The U.S. Polo team, Wimbledon and the Olympics.  When Ralph associates his brand with the concours d elegance, he doesn’t throw Polo banners all over the place. He places his personal collection of cars into the contest. He then proceeds to win best in show. When hiring people to work at the Mansion, they could care less if you have a retail background, and more about what your personal brand is. Are you cool? Can you influence people that this concept is still cool?

My main concern is that when I see a lot of industries trying to reach out to masses once they think they know what their brand is, it often falls short. That doesn’t have to happen. Ralph made clothes that he and his friends liked to wear. They all loved J.Press and Brooks Brothers, but there was an obvious disconnect. Those brands didn’t feel that their market was profitable or even important. It also didn’t help that these were the brands of their fathers. Never flashy, and never pushing the envelope among their competitors.  Slow and steady. 

In high school I had the privilege of learning history from employee # 4 at Ralph Lauren. Once the brand went public, he decided to return to his original passion that was teaching history. He told me that they knew people always admired how their group dressed. The group was taking the classic “preppy” aesthetic in a different direction.  Fans of unabashedly prep see this look now and they go bananas. However, these guys were doing this over 40 years ago. All they wanted to do was influence a small group of people and at the time, it was no more than 9 people.

I think you can see where I am going with this. Your brand has to be embedded in the culture that it is trying to reach to, on the ground level.  That means the masses may not have heard of you.  But the people that reach out to those masses not only has heard of you, but they support the brand.  If the brand isn’t embedded in that culture, all of the other raves and review you will get from major publications, won’t mean a thing.   Good luck to each of you on your branding endeavors, both personal and business.  I hope this helps. 


Ladies Stay Fly, Gentlemen stay Fresh. 

-ADT

(Source: corkgrips)

The Week of the Communication: No one can stop communication

Shout out to:jaymug

jaymug:

Agência Guadalupe: Environmental Awareness

Jr. designer Allan taking us through some wireframes for a big new feature… (Taken with instagram)

Can’t wait to see the new developments.  Svvply is continuing to do the damn thing regarding combining the aesthetics of branding merchandise and e-commerce.  Good for them, and I can’t wait to see the new developments. Follow us on Svpply when you get a chance.

Shout out to:svpply

jaymug:

The Ad Agency Bloodline - a look at the mergers, acquisitions, and launches of some of the largest agencies in the world, from the early 1800s to today.