The Branding Judo Chop

JetBlue. How many times have you heard that name in the past week? If you've been under a rock, in a cave or took a trip to space, let me fill you in. JetBlue had a flight attendant, Steven Slater, who had a run-in with a confrontational passenger. The passenger was not kind to him, and the flight attendant pretty much lost it. And by lost it I mean went into an explicative-filled tirade on the intercom, activated the emergency slide, grabbed two beers and exited the aircraft in sheer folk hero style. I rarely see JetBlue advertising since they don't fly from my local airport. But the buzz about this story is definitely widespread.

However you dissect this situation, both JetBlue and Steven Slater are now world renowned. CNN notes a Thai website that depicts an animated Steven Slater on the job, swearing over the intercom in Thai. People are donning duds that proclaim he should be a free man. He's been all over the national news, and has TONS of supporters. As mad as Steven Slater was the day he lost it on the job, his actions have actually brought more attention to the company for which he worked for so many years. My question is: In what direction does JetBlue move? Do they wash their hands of him? Do they have him come in and make satirical safety videos where passengers try to cram oversized carry-ons into a tiny space, he stands off with them, puts them in their place & then he takes off down the emergency slide like a super hero? 

Reviews and comments on the company's blog show very few negative nods to JetBlue because of this situation. Most negative feedback is due to the company not standing behind Mr. Slater. So I ask, does this incident get chalked up as a pro or a con for the JetBlue brand? 

So yeah, LeBron James is now a member of the Miami Heat. Not really my department. I pack the most punch in regurgitating celebrity gossip "stats." However, the open letter posted by Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert caught my attention. Yes, there are juicy insinuations of cowardly betrayal, and promises of championship rings... but how can one take these remarks seriously when they're plastered on the screen in none other than Comic Sans?!?
www.nba.com/cavaliers/news/gilbert_letter_100708.html

I won't use this public forum to bash Comic Sans. This juvenile typeface does have a place in our world. It's on informal invitations to your niece's birthday party. It's on flyers that your teenaged neighbor created to advertise her babysitting services. Not all over a seething letter to the world that condemns a man for making a challenging decision about his career. I'm sorry Mr. Gilbert, I just can't take your rage-filled letter seriously. It houses a childish "Well, then you can't come to my birthday party!" feel, and I'm just not sure that's what you should be going for. You should be going for the stoic and straightforward look that a font like Avenir or Helvetica has to offer. Something that portrays your emotional loss of The Chosen One in a business-as-usual manner. Aside from the importance of your message, the typeface you choose to dress your message in is equally critical. Choose, and choose wisely.

So, packaging is kind of my thing. I'm guilty of being one of those people who buys products based on their brand identity and the aesthetics of their packaging. I'm drawn to companies who push out swanky media kits and annual reports. There, I said it.

I recently got a new Speck CandyShell case for my iPhone, and was completely floored by the packaging in which it came. It was beautiful! The words fresh, modern and inventive don't really do this piece of packaging justice. Aside from the look of the package, it was also utterly easy to reassemble, say you needed to repack your item and return it. It was multi-lingual, yet not overwhelming. I work on bilingual packaging, and it's often difficult to treat multiple languages equally. This piece made accommodating six languages look effortless. It also incorporated basic snaps as closures instead of something permanent like glue or a perforated tear strip. I kept the packaging out and continued to go back and admire it over the course of a whole weekend, until my husband began to make fun of my analytical dissection. Yes, the box was cool, but the case for my phone was even more amazing.

Another example of "knock you down & draw you in" packaging is Benefit cosmetics. While aimlessly wandering the aisles of Sephora one day, I passed the Benefit section. Like a zombie drawn to brains, I was instantly loading up my cart with these products that lived in bold and exciting packaging smeared with comic book style imagery and drastic dot patterns. Before I knew it I was sneaking back to the Benefit section of Sephora every week, hoping my husband didn't notice the abundance of new make up I'd acquired.

It shows just how much a company cares about their brand when its products are wrapped in the loving arms of creative and innovative packaging. So I ask, what does your packaging say about your brand?