ROOFTOP banter

Weapons of Mass Creation Fest is Locked & Loaded

Posted By: 

Jesse

Date: 

May 12th, 2011 /// Industry Insight, Inspiration

Looking forward to this year’s WMC Fest next month in Cleveland. After a long grey winter, it should be just the thing to help fuel a creative and productive summer.

Learn more and get tickets here. Hope to see you there.

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Logo Wars

Posted By: 

2 Cents

Date: 

February 4th, 2011 /// Industry Insight, Marketing Trends

Uh-oh, Starbucks simplified their logo. Will the consumer be able to handle rush hour? Aren’t folks’ Monday mornings hard enough? It’s rough out there for those fond of “their brands;” from the new Pepsi “smiles” and the Gap logo revamp fiasco to Starbucks bringing its little mermaid to the forefront. As we grow old and change, so do the products and services all around us. Even I remember a dark day in ‘03 when I saw that UPS was retiring Paul Rand’s “box tie” logo.

People tend to not agree with what they are not familiar, and may get p.o.’d when a brand they’re close to changes its appearance. And, as with most things in life, change can be great or it can bite you in the butt. Companies will continue to look into the mirror from time-to-time with or without the consumers blessing… but watch-out: social media has created an immediate response-vehicle from the masses.

My personal opinion matters not in response to these recent identity face lifts; for the most part I look upon others’ creative with a “glass half full” eye and I do like when companies throw a curve ball to shock the system. But I’ll end by saying as far as mega-corporations logos go, there have been the bad & good, but I sit here and think the last really clever rebrands seem as long ago as ‘94 (FedEx) and ’98 (Citi).

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The Copy D. Word of the Week

Posted By: 

Copy D

Date: 

September 12th, 2010 /// Copy D. Word of the Week

Smurf [smerf]
-n.; v.; adv.; adj.
1. small blue creatures who live in Smurf Village somewhere in the woods.
2. a word to describe any of or relating to smurfs, their things or their actions.

Yeah I saw him smurfing when I smurfed into town to get some smurf for later; he was pretty smurfed up.

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Piperlime: Bitchy or Brilliant?

Posted By: 

Brandi Hensler

Date: 

August 31st, 2010 /// Marketing Trends

Piperlime’s “Let’s Get Dressed” campaign is creating a lot of buzz. The campaign encourages women to get dressed up and say “no” to sweats & sneakers & such.

The buzz isn’t surrounding the print portion of the campaign so much as the social media. To be specific, some people are a bit salty about their Status Updates. Not like Piperlime didn’t see this coming, with posts such as, “Every time you wear sweatpants in public, a single guy leaves New York.” Is it worth potentially losing fans who consider this language “snotty?”

I vote yes. Personally, I applaud Piperlime for taking a risk, and Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners for selling in the campaign. It’s edgy and appropriate, and the audience they are targeting appreciates it. The potential for pissing off a few people is offset by the opportunity to gain brand advocacy among many others who identify with their position. Talk about searching out qualified candidates. They gained me, for one. As for the haters… I think this falls under the “no press is bad press”  category. Touché, salesman.

Here’s the AdAge article and Piperlime’s FB page.

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The Copy D. Word of the Week

Posted By: 

Copy D

Date: 

December 28th, 2009 /// Copy D. Word of the Week

skul⋅dug⋅ger⋅y [skuhl-duhg-uh-ree]
–n. plural -ger⋅ies.
1. an instance of dishonest or deceitful behavior; trick.

I knew there was some skullduggery afoot when I noticed my chair was on the ceiling.

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