It's not often that the death of a stranger leaves you with a personal feeling of loss. We can only imagine what it feels like to be working at Apple today.
Their response on their website is every bit as classy as we would have anticipated from a brand with such amazingly well established values.
Amongst all the bland, prepackaged apples on display in our local M&S Simply Food on pack really stood out. Brilliant for the simplicity and relevance of its concept, but also the brilliance of its execution.
Fairly priced and clearly communicating the food-miles story - but without over-labouring it, the Local Apple Bag makes great use of semiotics to stand-out and clearly demonstrates that M&S's is making an effort to act in a more sustainable way.
We have already been huge believers in the power of storytelling.
However, up until now I have always tended to think of it as a powerful way of wrapping up a brand's core truths, benefits and reasons-to-believe as a compelling and easily memorable bundle for communication to consumers ...
Not any more.
After reading an inspiring article in Businessweek about Intel's Tomorrow Project, I can see that storytelling is an unbelievably powerful tool for inspiring engineers, marketers, in fact anyone tasked with shaping your brand's future, to think more adventurously.
Someone told me years ago that Star Trek has been one of the most biggest influences on product design in the last 50 years ... well now Intel are deliberately harnessing the imagination of four professional sci-fi writers to accelerate their engineers' imaginations to warp speed!
We have integrated a projective module based on consumer trends into our future facing workshops for a long time. I can easily imagine us enhancing and really pushing our delegates' imaginations based on this sci-fi storytelling.
Mention the name Farm Shops and you probably imagine rough, timber sheds, selling fresh-grown produce, alongside quiet roads in the middle of the countryside. All pretty idyllic.
Ok, Daylesford Organic are probably amongst the poshest farm shops you will find anywhere in the United Kingdom: with elegant branches in rural Gloucestershire but also urban Pimlico & Notting Hill.
But what a stroke of genius for the guys at Daylesford to team up with Ocado to offer on-line shopping and home-delivery from their digital "Farm Shop". Harnessing all the warmth and integrity of the Farm Shop concept to a very twenty first century concept.
A stunning example of naming being used to harness and take ownership of the inherent value of a concept.
Maybe marketing is at its best when you are hardly aware that it is being done?
There's a nice piece in this week's Grocer reflecting on the rise of festivals which combine music and food with experiential marketing
Next weekend sees Jimmy Doherty's Harvest festival taking place simultaneously in both Essex, and just up the road from us on Alex James' farm near Oxford. This summer, we have already witnessed brands as diverse as Ben & Jerry's, Sainsbury and Jamie Oliver muscling in on the act.
Innocent was one of the earliest pioneers of festivals combining music and food ... and its Village Fete is still sorely missed by many. It had an impact that extended way beyond its attendees and was pivotal in creation of the warm, affectionate relationship many people still have with the brand.
Whilst festivals are not a tool that will meet everyone's branding challenges, they are an indisputably powerful, but elegantly subtle way of telling your brand story ... and building strong emotional relationships with a surprisingly mainstream consumer audience.
It's not often that a piece of packaging actually stops you in your tracks, but Kabuto Noodles' samurai inspired packaging did literally that.
The brand has just appeared in our local Waitrose store - and the clean, humourous , but most importantly relevant graphics really stand out from the crowd.
We just love the way the graphics and the proposition complement each other.
