Throwing Curved Balls

Tomatoes in a fruit-salad?

Irish rugby legend Brian O'Driscoll had me a little worried following his startling line at a press-conference before last weekend's match against England. In replying to a question about Martin Johnson, O'Driscoll is reported to have said that, 'knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit whilst wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad'.

You wha'?

Brian, have you lost it completely?

But writing in the Sunday Times after the game, journalist Peter O'Reilly suggested that O'Driscoll's colourful remark was more likely a response to "the mind-numbing exercise where captains and coaches have only one concern - not providing their opponents with any motivational fuel". O'Reilly goes on to say that English soccer players responded to the boredom of post-match interviews in a similar way by trying to get as many song-titles as possible on record.

And I needn't have worried. O'Driscoll turned in one of his greatest performances in an Ireland jersey as he willed Ireland over the line against the English. And not a tomato in sight.

But O'Driscoll's response is quite telling.

I think customers often respond to the inane communications from brands in the same way. People pillory the earnest efforts of sales pitches. Commentary on the internet is full of spoofs on popular ads. And it's not only commercial brands that suffer from a little mickey-taking. Census-takers find an improbable number of people reporting 'Jedi Master' as their religion.

It's easy to dismiss these wisecracks as the work of dunces and smart alecks but there's no doubting the professionalism and serious intent of O'Driscoll once he crosses the white line onto the pitch. Nor his commitment to his team-mates on the training-ground.

But sometimes the only response to a charade is to play the fool. Too often, brand-owners ask customers what they think and scarcely wait for the reply. As often again, they script advertisements that beggar belief and treat the audience as boneheads.

How many times do we hear a shrewd enquiry in amongst the silly questions asked of a sportsman or a branded message that really gets us thinking?

Until we commit to a serious exchange with our customers, we shouldn't be surprised if a few choice tomatoes are aimed in our direction.

Wherefore Art Thou, Oh Apple?

I'm tickled at the recent report that Bill Gates doesn't allow Apple products into his home.

According to Mrs. Gates, Bill suffers no rivals to Microsoft for his family's affections - although she did confess to a sneaking desire for the iPhone (or, as she might have said, that rather cute Capulet boy).

I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised; the great brands can bring out the wanton in all of us. And, of course, this wouldn't be the first instance of an apple proving too tempting for a woman to resist...

Desperate Housesellers (Series 2)

Regular readers of Open-Heart Branding will recall my reaction in a previous post when these beauties dropped through my letterbox to lure me to the debauched surroundings of Bellingham in Co. Laois.

Well, clearly my blog isn't read by the desperate housesellers as another flier landed on the mat yesterday. Either that, or I'll need to find a less subtle way of discouraging junk mail.

Or maybe it is working and people are leaving the city in droves to sample the under-appreciated charms of that neck of the woods?

Somehow, I don't think so.

Scrap Of Sense

Here's a great idea from Dublin design-agency Dara Creative: A Website Scrappage Deal.

At Islandbridge, we ask our clients to think in terms of 'what are you like?' in order to help them help their customers make sense of what they do.

Dara's use of metaphor in this case is both elegant and effective, particularly in a downturn when the idea of getting something in return for trading in a 'banger' of a website is very appealing.

Vroom, vroom, Dara; this has my engine purring.

Many Words For Play

They say that children have as many words for play as we do for work.

Yesterday, I was delighted to see that even those children whose brains we suspected had grown addled through their addiction to virtual games had only one word for snow when they awoke to a whiter world: Play!

Mobile phones were (almost) forgotten by the moody teenagers who attend the school near our home as they got stuck into the age-old game of snowballing. Meanwhile, snowmen soon dotted the once-green areas, and some lone walkers found themselves under attack from a sudden flurry of white missiles.

Of course, the phones did come in handy when it came to recording the action or the works of art for posterity.

"Ah," said the old man with a smile, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

A lesson there for brand-owners too, methinks.