Marrow Envy & Other Stories

I went along to the marvellously-named exhibition of Kevin McSherry's illustrations at the Alliance Francaise here in Dublin yesterday. The pictures included two which we (Islandbridge) commissioned - one is the signature image for this blog over to your right whilst the other was our new year greeting card for 2006 - and I enjoyed the buzz of seeing them displayed as part of a collection that celebrates (and often pokes fun at) Irish business life and culture over the past number of years.

I also heard with dismay that the Irish Times, which has featured Kevin's and other great Irish artist's work over the years, is to largely discontinue using illustration.

I think this is a great shame. In addition to capturing difficult ideas that might otherwise escape the reader, illustration provides for great warmth and humanity, something that the great newspapers and magazines of the world have long recognised. What a pity that our national paper of record is abandoning this classic art-form in favour of the often-humourless and two-dimensional graphs and stock imagery that now seem to grace their pages.

Reds & Blues

As I write, boxing fans the world over are being whipped into a frenzy by the make-something-out-of-nothing fight between De La Hoya and Mayweather. Of course, there's nothing new in this. Sport has always been about much more than the game being played out on the park.

Watching the European Champions League soccer match between Chelsea (owned by the Russian Abramovich) and Liverpool (recently taken over by Americans Gillette & Hicks), I was struck at how the game played like one of the bad Rocky movies of the '80's (yes, there was a good one - the first).

Once upon a time, we loved to pit the doughty American against the remote Soviet. Mind you, there is a glaring weakness in the analogy in that Chelsea wear blue and Liverpool red; nevertheless...

Chelsea, under a manager who grows more and more isolated by the day, seemed to approach the tie with a bleak and humourless contempt both for the opposition and the game of football itself, whilst Liverpool sought to box above their weight and rely on bottomless courage and energy (and precious little skill, if we're honest) to overcome the grim leviathan. Viewers were once again presented with a classic confrontation which drew on the earliest storytelling.

This seemed to prompt an untypical bias amongst the TV pundits at RTE (who can usually be guaranteed to offer a fairly even-handed analysis of the game) and they were adamant as the game progressed to a penalty shootout that each of them wished to see the plucky underdog win.

This power to oblige us to take sides is what makes story so very powerful and is something that brandbuilders might weave into their own framework if they truly wish to influence the viewer.

Soldier, Soldier

I've been greatly amused at the very different approaches that our party-leaders are taking to woo us in the lead-up to the General Election here in Ireland.

The one in possession, Bertie Ahern, continues to play the 'man of the people' card that has served him so well in previous contests. His challenger, Enda Kenny, on the other hand, has produced a more business-like contract for government which seeks to highlight the broken promises of his rival and appeal to the growing disillusionment of an electorate in what has largely been seen as a marriage of convenience between the existing government coalition partners.

Enda's very modern pre-nuptial agreement may be showing up Bertie's nod and a wink approach as that of a smooth-talking but ultimately unreliable suitor (if recent opinion polls are anything to go by) and it will be interesting to see whether his clever use of the marriage analogy will deliver success for his brand of politics come voting time.

All My Own Work

I'm just back from a break near Barcelona where the change of pace had me seeing the world through different eyes. We sat and watched some sand sculptors on the beach at Sitges and I was intrigued at how passers-by on the beach-front promenade (many of whom were apparently workers taking a stroll on their siesta-break) stopped to admire the extraordinary work and dipped their hands into their pockets without any further prompting beyond the customary, strategically-placed hat (although one sculptor had added a 'Saving To Buy A New Ferrari' note in the sand which drew lots of laughs and probably a few more euro).

Whilst the sums on offer were not huge, I was struck with how easily we part with what commentators like to call "our hard-earned cash" in the face of creativity and beauty. These same commentators would seem to suggest that we must always have our hard-gotten gains prised from our reluctant fingers but it seemed to me as I sat idling on the beachfront that we are just as likely to happily show the money when we are delighted by what's on offer.

This suggests (to me, at least) a shift in how we might approach the whole selling / buying business for our brands and seek out ways in which we might effortlessly charm a contribution from the pockets of our customers.

There Were These Two Guys

Friends and colleagues of mine will know both of my conviction that the great brands build personal relationships and of my own personal affection for the Apple brand. Both conviction and affection are reinforced in Apple's latest series of Online Ads where the personalities of PC (anxious & neurotic) and Apple (low-key and laidback) are neatly contrasted as they discuss a range of functions and operations:

PC: "I get a little nervous when they mess around with my insides."
Mac: "What do you mean? Isn't it just straightforward?"
PC: "Not really. Like a lot of PC's I have to update my graphics card, my memory card...it's major surgery."

Whilst Apple's strategic brand direction has really only paid off for the company in the last few years, the company has always taken a personal, perhaps surprisingly low-tech approach to its advertising and these ads are worth watching for anyone curious as to how they might capture the drama of a brand's relationship with the customer in their own business.