Branding ambiguity.

Gandell Properties has launched “The Entertainment Quarter” along with a snazzy logo as the new name for the Fox Entertainment Precinct out at Moore Park, Sydney. The question is was it ever formally identified as this or was it just called Fox Studios or the Sydney Showground? We think the latter. The ad (SMH July 19, 2005) and the need for any type of promotion of this is even more interesting. If there was ever a need for a more formal strategic brand planning, this project needed it. The naming is a mess. The website (www.entertainmentprecinct.com.au) describes the suburb of Moore Park as a “precinct” and the Fox Studios as a “creative campus”. In addition, the area also plays host to a number of other venues including the so badly named Aussie Stadium, the Sydney Cricket Ground, the Royal Hall of Industries and the Hordern Pavillion. So the problem is exacerbated by trying to overlay what is really quite a generic name over what is rightly indentified as a precinct in it’s own right. Within this precinct there are distinct destinations and so the name is meant to provide some point of unity, some way of providing a natural self identification for the area.


When DIFFUSION worked with Lee Wharf Developments, Honeysuckle Development Corporation and Crone in Newcastle we benchmarked numerous world projects that had attempted to define and name specific work and play precincts. The problem is that names are resonant things and they are generally accorded status and recognisability through usage. One of the problems faced by Lee Wharf Developments was what was to call a large site which had already been embedded with multiple associations and uses. We came to the conclusion that like most place brands, the recognition, use and common association of a name by the stakeholders of a place needed to be acknowledged. So we worked back to the original name for the site and developed a brand strategy that gave the whole place ONE name with internal alphanumeric naming for individual buildings and recommended historical or geographic names. We called it Lee Wharf Newcastle because that’s what it was called and where it was. Interestingly the word "Newcastle" was an important addition as Lee Wharf did not, just as the word "the entertainment quarter" does not mean anything without a place holder.

We also invoked the work of Richard Florida, who has made significant contributions to latest thinking on the value of creative culture in recognising, identifying and valuing place. We took Florida’s term “the quality of place” and built a evolutionary and dynamic brand strategy around this that enabled all stakeholders to participate at Lee Wharf.

While the idea of naming this Moore Park entertainment precinct is excellent, the name and logo itself is so generic it lacks specificity and association. The visual articulation of the name, while strong and vibrant, is in itself generic. The use of the sectional quadrant while suggesting part of a whole, never really comes to grips visually with what whole it is describing. It’s merely an amorphic image.

And it’s a shame. A great opportunity to create an evocative new place that will largely go ignored except by the people who did the work because of this lack of meaning and association. Merely another poorly strategised branding exercise.

Do we need new symbols of National Interest?

A recent set of comments by writers to David Dale’s July 12 column www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/07/11/1120934178159.html “How to Australianise”our supermarkets in the Sydney Morning Herald attracted our attention. Dale was commenting on the ability of consumers to buy Australian made and owned products in the nation’s supermarkets. Consumers willingness and ability to buy these types of products is more important these days given Coles Myer and Woolworth’s duopolic dominance. With 70% of the Australian market, they remain the most dominant supermarket retailers in the world and a cause for concern by both consumers, the Australian Competition Commission and competitors alike.

We took a look at the Australian Made site www.australianmade.com.au to see what constitutes an Australian made brand. According to Australian Made, “the Australian Made logo is a registered certification trade mark. To qualify to use the official Australian Made logo, products must comply with the country of origin provisions of the Trade Practices Act. Australian Made products must be substantially transformed in Australia, with at least 50% of the cost of production being incurred in Australia Licensees of Australian Made products must have a current licence agreement with Australian Made Campaign Limited; and agree to abide by the Australian Made Logo Code of Practice.”

Australian Made’s own 2002 research suggests that “the green triangle and gold kangaroo logo is the most recognised country of origin symbol on Australian shop shelves, enjoying a 96% recognition level amongst Australian consumers. With nine out of 10 consumers saying they have purchased goods carrying the trade mark and 66% say they actively seek out products that are made in Australia.” This is not backed by what the SMH commentators say, most want to see more publicity on what constitutes Australian made and owned. They are confused by the plethora of logos and marks and it seems that, on the face of it, the Australian Made logo does not enjoy the recognition it claims.

As we note in our previous blog on the specificity of brands, more accurate Place of Origin branding would make it easier for consumers to choose Australian made and owned brands and would perhaps force retailers to stock more of this Place of Origin product. German supermarket company Aldi has established a considerable beach head in Australia and already uses the “80% Australian made ” as a point of difference, but the new Woolworth’s Select range (a name we know was “copied” from Tescos Supermarkets in the UK) and the new premium GC Coles brand would also be perfect vehicles to adopt the Australian made and owned branding.

One of the problems with endorsing brands like the Australian Made logo is that it is not an absolute benchmark and thus can create a tendency towards ambiguity about ownership. While Australian Made rightly makes the point that people can feel more confident about products that carry this logo, the evidence from the small sample of comments in Dale’s article is that people do not necessarily trust this and other words carried on packaging. They’re looking for a recognisable symbol of both aspects of Australian production and ownership. More importantly, we believe that Australian Made should be raising its limits on what constitutes an Australian made brand and sponsoring a move to an an absolute benchmark for Australian made and owned. 50%+ production in our mind does not constitute this and from the SMH consumer comments, the use of this symbol continues to reward those companies that are no longer Australian owned.

Replacing place, the specificity of luxury brands.

Many luxury brand customers have developed an almost arcane adherence to the brand values of uniqueness and authenticity derived from place. It is the ostensible idea of an historic solidity, a departure from the more peripatetic attention to fashion and seasonal remodelling of consumer brands, that serves to distinguish the specific identity of luxury brands. Many luxury brands rely on the fact that they do not look externally for inspiration, that they only need look to their place of origin, of manufacture. Place, whether it is Tuscany or London, is what DIFFUSION argues contributes to the soul or essence of a brand and delineates it. So what happens when a luxury brand decides that place is no longer such a source of inspiration?

While consumer brands everywhere continue to seek to manage ever diminishing margins as they ride the wave of affordable affluence, luxury brands across all categories have, or are considering, moving manufacturing to global factories like China for much the same reason as their lesser counterparts.

Interestingly the move to “Made in China” seems to be coming from the franchisees of many of these luxury brand owners, rather than brand owners themselves. While many luxury brand owners such as JPTodd have avowedly rejected outsourcing manufacturing, others have embraced it. This new place label “Made in China” is already being borne by a swath of companies in Europe and the US, including Steiff, Coach, Kate Spade, Paul Smith and Armani, who have already shifted some of their manufacturing to mainland China. In Australia, much of the Oroton Group’s stable of brands has already migrated to the far east. And according to Bear Sterns it’s a trend that is showing no sign of abating. For example, they estimate that by 2010, 50% of all US manufacturing could be outsourced and the new place of manufacturer is likely to the be the global factories in China and India.

Which begs some questions: Do companies confuse country of origin with country of manufacture and believe their consumers can’t tell the difference? How will consumers be able able to tell the difference between the output of brands all manufactured in the same country? What will the nuances be? What do they believe consumers are motivated by – product or price? Do they only see value displayed by logo and name rather than quality? How do they value their brands on the balance sheet? What risk assessment do firms make of the effects on the brand associated with outsourced manufacturing? What account do they make of the the risks inherent in sharing manufacturing techniques and skills with potential competitors? How can product delineation and quality be preserved in the global factory?

For luxury brands the idea of place is critical to the identity, authenticity and uniqueness (we call this the “specificity”) of a brand (otherwise why would counterfeiting exist?). Place provides an aesthetic counterpoint to the “generic” of the chain. The authenticity of a product, as Virginia Postrel notes in her book The Substance of Style, is determined by purity, tradition and the aura of history – all elements that are determined by place and which can define a luxury brand. Yet, these brand owners are willing to re/place and subsume identity, determine authenticity only by logo and destroy uniqueness with an authorised non-specificity (authorised counterfeit) - all because it preserves margins and retains profit.

We think the idea of specificity is being overlooked by many brand owners and demands a careful rethink of current brand strategies, built on strong customer recognition derived from place of origin and manufacture.

Photo copyright Amanda Tsui 2004 Pratt School of Art, New York City