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Kacha: Welcome to Branding Bites, my name is Kacha, I’m the Executive Creative Director here at Skidmore Studio.
Shawn: Hi, I’m Shawn, the Design Director. We’ve got one topic for you guys today and it’s all about knowing your audience.
Kacha: Knowing your audience. So important. We can’t just rush out there and talk to anyone and everyone, right?
Shawn: Well you could, but it wouldn’t make any sense.
Kacha: Yeah, it doesn’t really help and people get confused by the messages. So, great story, we were just working with a parks system who wanted to do a rebrand and their thinking was “we need to attract all the poeple who don’t come to the parks right now.”
Shawn: I love this idea! Except…
Kacha: Yeah, it doesn’t really work out. Because, as we discovered, 50% of people in a recent survey say they never once went outside last year on purpose for any recreational activity.
Shawn: Nope. Just to and from their car after work. Isn’t that terrifying? 50% of people.
Kacha: Yeah. That speaks to why we have so many other problems. But beyond that, that says our audience for this park system are people who come to the parks. So what we want to do, strategically, is let them know more about the other parks that are in the system, the other amenities are that available to them. Not spend 5 to 10 times more trying to convert non users.
Shawn: Absolutely. We want to do that visually by systematizing the parks, make it feel like its part of a connected whole. So when they’re driving by the parks, they see something from another park and understand that it’s the same great amenities that they get at the local park that they do go to. We just want to open up all the parks and all the systems to all the people.
Kacha: Yeah, absolutely. Cool.
Shawn: We’ve also been doing a lot of work with the Detroit food scene recently.
Kacha: Yeah
Shawn: And we’ve got to know some of their audiences, and I think one of the coolest takeaways from this whole set of projects has been the fact that they really view each other as friends, not competitors. They know that they’re not going to get you every night to come to their restaurant. So, if they can get you one night and they can push you to their friends, they’re going to do that. They share guest taps, ingredients, resources, its a really, really neat scene.
Kacha: Yeah, I love this because they know their audience. The Detroit food scene is all about inclusivity and supporting the scene, not about pushing off everybody else, but about saying, “this is what we stand for, but we welcome and partner with others and what they stand for.”
Shawn: A lot of camaraderie.
Kacha: And then, a more national, kind of global example… GoPro and red bull. Have you seen this?
Shawn: I have seen this.
Kacha: They’re doing a Lot of things together, which makes total sense from a product standpoint as well as from a marketing and communications standpoint.
Shawn: Thats right, GoPro is now the sponsored camera. They’re the ones taking all of these crazy Red Bull clips. Which is great because Red Bull is the fuel for what they want to take pictures of.
Kacha: So you fuel yourself up, take a video of it, and then you post it. All of those collaborations just totally make sense. So, if you’re going to collaborate and work with others, know your audience, know who you’re talking to, and when those audiences overlap, that’s a win.
Shawn: Have you seen the Geico commercials recently?
Kacha: Yeah.
Shawn: I saw this the other day, thought it was great. Goldilocks comes in, steals some furniture from the house and Geico is going to replace it with enough money so you can go to Crate and Barrel. Which, it was odd, but it works.
Kacha: It works. It makes total sense. So, when your audiences overlap, make sure you know your audience and do a strong collaboration.
Shawn: It’s lot of fun.
Kacha: So now is the time on branding bites when we do bittie bites, and bittie bites are where we pull out of the magical envelope things that have been happening in the world of branding and marketing and we give it a thumbs up or a thumbs dumb, based on our opinions.
Shawn: Every week. So…can’t do branding bites without Cheetos.
Kacha: We are always talking about Cheetos. Alright, set this one up…
Shawn: So, there was a pop-up restaurant in Manhattan.
Kacha: New York. Yup.
Shawn: And, it featured Cheetos.
Kacha: Anne Burrell was the executive chef.
Shawn: Anne Burrell was the executive chef, that’s right. I think it only lasted 3 days.
Kacha: Yeah, but menu items created by Anne, covered in Cheetos and Cheetos meatballs, etc… this is great. This is totally on brand for them and continues to reinforce what they’re doing.
Shawn: Love the concept. Terrified of the food. Let’s move on. More food, we’ve got Heinz doing their posts, swipe up on their posts.
Kacha: “Irresistible posts” I think it was called. So, if I see something, some food porn that like, I swipe up on it and then Heinz delivers that to me. Of course I’m going to repost that to everybody in my network. Love it. What a great way to bring digital to meat space.
Shawn: Tinder of food, love it. Kingsford and Wilfork.
Kacha: He just retired, pro football player, Kingsford sponsored a tweet about his retirement, I love this because it’s a brand getting into someones next phase of their life in a really interesting way. Because this guy is now going to pursue his passion for BBQ.
Shawn: Watching this 300 pound football player kick up his heels at the end of the spot, made me the happiest I’ve been all day. Big thumbs up. I thought it was brilliant.
Kacha: Super great.
Shawn: Loved it. Oh, this is a good one. World Market talking about knowing their audience.
Kacha: Yeah.
Shawn: They know them by name and where they live.
Kacha: Yeah, so World Market talked to their actual consumers and got their stories and then created a marketing campaign around those stories about how they decorated and created a small space inside of their homes. I love the personableness of this, even if I’m not that person, I can relate to who that person is.
Shawn: I want to be a part of it, I love it.
Kacha: So, that’s a lot of thumbs up this week.
Shawn: Mostly.
Kacha: That’s true, Mostly. Well this has been fun, thank you everybody for tuning into branding bites with us. If you have any questions, hit us up @skidmorestudio on Twitter and as always, you can look us up skidmorestudio.com. Alright, take care.
Shawn: See ya.