Following on from the weekend conference where LifePlus's new identity was revealed, I wrote very briefly about the GAP new logo being ditched in favour of the old one, in this post. I thought it would be a good idea to post the two GAP logos, below, so I have them somewhere. I like the old one more. Not only is it familiar, but it is more distinctive. The blue square also looks more meaningful, or more intrinsic to the old one.
Part of my birthday present from Ollie was a disco. He created a tailored CD for the occasion, and the strobe lighting was provided by Poundworld.
I haven't posted any music for a while now, and I have been enjoying this tonight, slowly working my way through emails and some personal admin. Every so often a delicate crescendo slowly takes hold of my attention, without me really noticing, and I am pleasantly lulled away for a few seconds.
I really like Alva Noto. Here is his website, and here, is his wikipedia entry.
Now, I think the music should be left to speak for itself.
I don't know where I have heard that before, but I have, somewhere. And it struck me as very true when I saw the CEO of LifePlus present the new brand identity. He presented it to 3000+ people who were very familiar with the previous identity. The leadership team of the company were very tense. We all knew it would be ok as soundings had been taken at various points in the process, but it was still nerve racking. In this particular case the CEO has a calm authority that won the day. At the end of his introductory presentation the conference audience was clapping. By the end of the day, they were starting to love it. But it was one of those moments that in the wrong hands and done in the wrong way could result in a very different outcome, like the introduction of the new GAP logo recently, though I am not sure why GAP needed to change their logo. There didn't seem to be as compelling a case for change as LifePlus have.
Taking a lunch break from the LifePlus conference I am a guest at. They are re-launching brand identity. I wrote the introductory speech to the reveal of the identity. It is the first time I have had written a speak for a CEO that gets presented to 3000+ people, and I learnt a fair amount. I thought it was short, it needed to be shorter. I thought it hung together pretty well, it needed to hang together better (ie even simpler logic). I thought it was simple, it needed to be simpler. All in all, it went pretty well, but I am a critical. If I have time, I may go back to my draft and re-write it, just for the practice.
I rather like the immediacy of 'real time' blog posts. I can capture feelings quickly and not dawdle on posting. It is less of a chore. But it means I can't get photos up quickly as they are in my camera and I have no lead to download.
Also, I am on a hotel mac, and I have a time limit. And it is rapidly approaching.
Top man and top strategist, Russ Meyer, the CSO of Landor, invited me to be a judge on the 'Innovative Design' category of the AAAA Jay Chiat Awards for strategic excellence.
It was fun, though it would have been more fun if the judges had been able to convene in person rather than on conference calls.
It was interesting comparing this judging experience to the IPA and Effies. Overall, these awards were focused on the creation of good strategy and the resulting creative, whereas the IPA Effectiveness Awards, are, not surprisingly, focused more on effectiveness.
You might have thought, intuitively, that the Jay Chiat awards would have more variance of opinion because the focus was on creative strategy which on the surface is more subjective than judging the hard data of effectiveness, but it wasn't the case. Although there were far fewer papers to judge and far fewer judges to agree there was a lot of agreement on what was a good strategy and why.
In contrast, judging the Effectiveness Awards, provoked more variance in discussion, especially around the subject of effectiveness which one intuitively would think would be more cut and dry. The discussion was often good, but often vague and off point. With so many entries having econometrics in them it put people in an uncomfortable place. Unsurprisingly, a good few judges were not prepared to say "I don't know how to judge this paper" (which would have been a good thing to do but would have made people appear rather dim in front of their peers - they are prestigious awards) and we found ourselves having to look to the specialist econometricians a little too often.
The day spent judging the IPA awards was, overall, fantastic. The sheer rigour of the IPA award submissions were fantastic. Huge amounts of work had gone into at least 40 of the 60 odd papers. In the end the best papers did go forward; it wasn't as though we were totally incompetent as judges, but it did leave me more sceptical about effectiveness whilst the AAAA judging did leave me feeling better about the power of the creative end of the strategic process.
I think this subject may deserve a little go around another time.
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