Over at the 800CEOREAD blog this week, a couple bloggers, including myself, are posting reviews of Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands.
Below is bite-size chunk of my review ...
What comes after brands? Lovemarks do. So says Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi Saatchi Worldwide and author of the recently published book, Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands.
According to Roberts, Lovemarks are brands that have evolved from simply being bigger, brighter, stronger, and cheaper to being a brand that uses mystery, sensuality, and intimacy to emotionally connect with consumers. Apple is a Lovemark while Gateway is a brand. Lexus is a Lovemark but Pontiac is a brand. Container Store? A Lovemark. Storables? A brand. In other words, brands merely fulfill needs while Lovemarks fulfill needs and desires.
Enticed? Click here for my full review.
My HMOs on Lovemarks run thick … so expect to read more Hot Marketing Opinions on Lovemarks this week on Brand Autopsy.
Is FCUK a lovemark or a sexmark?
Making love has its own terminology. Should it be used to name any brands?
Let’s have a look at some examples in the history of branding. When Mitsubishi launched a new car with the name „Pajero“ on the Spanish market, it became obvious very soon that the name chosen was not optimal because it immediately was the subject of jokes due to its homophony with a Spanish expression related to masturbation.
The same happened to Ford’s model „Pinto“(Portuguese for male genital) in Brazil where it was quickly renamed into „Corcel“(horse).
There is quite a long list of product names that give food to the dirty mind be they chosen accidentally or deliberately. Obviously there seems to be a kind of tradition for this in the history of naming which originally started with place names.
Some of our ancestors obviously were too innocent to realize what burden they place on their offspring when naming places like Pratts Bottom (Kent), Brown Willy (Cornwall), Lickey End (near Birmingham), Booby Dingle (Powys), Great Cockup (Cumbria), Even places such as Thong (Kent) seem to have revealed far too much for not being the victim of lewd remarks.
The European continent, however, is also challenging the innocent mind of the English speaking traveller. In Southern Bavaria they will come across a village with the name of “Petting” and about eleven miles from there, in neighbouring Upper Austria, the shock might be inevitable when they enter the village of “Fucking”. Inspite of the fact that the inhabitants of Fucking have had enough with English-speaking tourists swiping their sign, they refuse to change their name. It goes back to the ancient Bavarian settlement and although this area was christianized by Irish and Scottish monks in the 9th and 10th century, an amendment of the name has never been deemed necessary.
No wonder that in many countries there are restrictions regarding the choice of a place name as a trademark for goods and services. One way around these restrictions is to distort the name so that it becomes indisputable but on a subliminal level takes advantage of the fact that sex sells.
A recent example of successful distortion are the products of a British based fashion retailer called French Connection Group plc with the trademark FCUK.
Linguists tell us that the power of a word depends on its context, and clearly the English word “fcuk” falls into that category. To make it even more explicit, two new fragrances were launched named “FCUK Him” and “FCUK Her”.
On its website FCUK demonstrates a clear picture of its marketing strategy. Whereas the linguistic allusions are close to Shakespeare’s bawdiness, the images remain subdued and innocent, which on the one hand is rather cynical but on the other hand tries to bridge the generation gap because most parents finance the quite conventional fashion attire that their children obtain from FCUK. Thus FCUK’s clients in each major market display a range of attitudes when confronted with the provocatively distorted four-letter mark.
The American Family Association (AFA) promotes initiatives against FCUK such as prefabricated emails protesting against the exploitation of youngsters in such a manner. Sex in marketing is bound to raise demand along with a few eyebrows which in addition either secure the necessary publicity or ban the product from the market. Branding an almost swear word in order to create a cash cow is, however, not restricted to fashion clothing and related products.
On a recent visit to New Orleans I was surprised by the abundance of labels for their traditional hot pepper sauces. Besides the well known Tabasco, there are more spicy brand names such as “Burning rectum” or “Hot shit”. It shows that name design must be ready to apply wit to anything that makes the blood boil and the label sell.
Obviously this does not really work in all economic fields; certainly not in tourism because the places mentioned above are not among the hot spots that travel agents propagate in their catalogues.
Posted by: Namedesigner | June 23, 2004 at 12:29 PM
Is FCUK a lovemark or a sexmark? I say neither. I see the FCUK brand name as an attention-getting gimmick to break through the brandscape clutter.
Using a brand name, like FCUK, can be perceived as being highly offensive, but it does accomplish two things – (1) creates immediate awareness and (2) serves a brand beacon to all those non-conformist conformists who don’t want to wear so-called mainstream clothing brands such as GAP.
Now ... does sex really sell? Or does using sexual innuendos simply an attempt to create awareness?
Just ask Miller beer about this. Their “catfight” television commercials sure did get them attention but it didn’t help them sell more beer.
How about Dirty Dicks Crab House? Their tagline is, “I got my crabs from Dirty Dicks.” That’s not all … they also this line, “Never been to one of our restaurants? … you obviously don’t know Dick.” That's offensive. But it gets them attention.
The tourism industry is also using “sex” to sell. Las Vegas Convention Visitors Authority uses sex to sell the Vegas lifestyle in their “What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas” ad campaign. And, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Corp. is using sex, albeit to a much lesser extent, to sell Philadelphia to the gay audience. I’m not sure if Philly will see more travel dollars coming in from the campaign, but according to the NY Times the campaign has already received nearly $5.0 million dollars worth of intrinsic media value from print articles and television mentions.
Sex has always been used and will continue to be used in branding. However, I cannot think of a campaign that has had sustained success using sex as it’s primary selling message. Can you?
By the way NameDesigner ... with a diatribe like that ... have you considered starting your own blog?
Posted by: johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) | June 23, 2004 at 05:28 PM