Welcome to the new Brandworkz review of all things brand, marketing and brand management. This will be a quarterly series where we highlight some of brand and marketing stories that made the headlines, best practice tips from third party sites, developments in the world of brand management and take a look at some of the recent rebrands that caught our eye over the last three months. So, let’s jump right in.
News for the world of marketing
QR codes are dead, long live QR codes
Eight months after listing QR codes at the top of her ‘Seven technology and marketing predictions from the 2010s that aged badly‘, Rebecca Sentance is back to look at how the little black-and-white squares are making a comeback and enabling innovation in this COVID-19 world.
‘How QR codes are finally enabling innovation in 2020‘ looks at how diverse industries such as healthcare and hospitality are driving a second-coming for the decade’s old technology and analyses the reason why, this time, they may be here to stay.
Messaging in a pandemic
We all know messaging is vital for any brand or campaign, get it right, and you break through the noise and engage with your target audience. Get it wrong, and you will end up doing more harm than good.
In the UK, no messaging has been more critical than the government’s campaign to protect the public from the threat of coronavirus over the last few months. Ellen Ormesher from The Drum has taken a deep dive into the series of campaigns run by the government in her piece ‘How the UK government’s coronavirus messaging has developed over the summer’.
Marketing and branding best practices
Webinars that work
2020 might be remembered as the year of Zoom. But with physical events such as conferences not being a runner for the foreseeable future, brands (including us) have turned our attention to webinars as a way to engage with broader audiences.
Running a webinar series is tough going though. Developing an engaging topic, finding the right speakers, sending invites, promotion, and follow-ups are essential to maximising your ROI. Amanda Sibley, Marketing Director at HubSpot, has created ‘12 tactics that take webinars from good to great, according to HubSpot Marketers’ as a checklist to guide you through the planning of your next webinar.
The content craze in 2021
With a quarter still to go in 2020, it feels a bit early for the 2021 list articles to be appearing. But given the way 2020 has gone, maybe thinking about 2021 is not such a bad thing.
As Joe Lazauskas points out in his ‘The 2021 content marketing checklist‘, “content is the hot new marketing buzzword again’. With marketing budgets being diverted away from in-person events, he is right that more focus will be back on creating excellent content. This handy checklist (and associated webinar) will give you everything you need to get your 2021 content plan in place.
Recent rebrands
Locking in the brand
Household name (and Brandworkz client) Yale has released a rebrand to celebrate their 180 years of heritage in the security solutions industry. The new identity, which includes an updated logo, sounds, colours, typeface and other design elements, focusses on warmth and trust, emotions that consumers feel towards the Yale brand. Read more about the rebrand here.
The Spirit of Ecstasy redesigned
If you are looking for a luxury and iconic brand, you don’t need to look much further than Rolls-Royce. So, taking on the challenge of a brand refresh must have been a big job! Design agency Pentagram did just that and have modernised the look of the brand to help them appeal to a younger audience. The goal of redesigning the iconic Spirit of Ecstasy emblem became the focus of the overall refresh and has now replaced the double-R as the primary company logo. The redesign involved a simplified modern drawing of the emblem to fit better with modem times. Read more about the rebrand here.
