Mad Men and the Marketing Manager

In the Don Draper days – despite the fact you couldn’t see your hand before your face for cigarette smoke and whiskey fumes – life was smoother for the ad man. But here we are, forty odd years older and wiser and advertising as well as branding have moved on in ways unimaginable back then!

And there’s no question of not playing the game – any brand which isn’t innovative, or at the very least keeping up with the pack, simply won’t survive long enough to correct what it did wrong. No longer does print dominate: the world has gone digital and social and we all need to adopt adaptability. Here at Grain our focus is to create compelling (and consistent!) brand worlds across all channels.

We always have our eye out for superb examples of brands embracing channels, in the sense of giving them a bear hug that squeezes them all together!

Chopard jewellers this year celebrated its successful partnership with the Cannes International Film Festival and at the same time capitalised on the eternal screen-icon fascination of Marilyn Monroe. Chopard displayed previously unpublished Milton H. Greene images of Marilyn, which murmur nothing less than luminous, timeless glamour, together with a freshly-designed ‘Diamond Tribute to Marilyn’ necklace. Milton Greene’s images say it all, and the connection does the rest. Dream branding and positioning!

But no laurel-resting for Chopard! Not only did the image exhibition preview at Cannes (world tour following) but the initiative was given a dedicated area of the Chopard website which led, smooth as you like, into social media. Consumers, able to visit the Chopard Facebook page and Twitter feed for real-time updates, images and videos were invited directly into all the gloss and glamour of Cannes.

Also taking digital and social firmly in hand and with an eye fixed firmly on the wedding market is another brand which seems to know exactly where it’s going. Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts have used their own intrinsic lushness and superb locations to place themselves on the luxury wedding planners’ list.

Four Seasons have gone about attracting the attention of brides worldwide in a true multi-media manner. Without neglecting the still powerful impact of a great glossy, with their own wedding magazine distributed throughout their properties, for the iPadded there’s a dedicated wedding app and from Twitter and Facebook flows constantly updated input of expert tips, brides’ experiences and details on different resorts. And not for a moment of course has Pinterest been ignored; indeed it might have been invented for just such a branding promotion which is dependent on visual gorgeousness and desirability.

Two different but equally astute uses of what’s out there…Don et al would have been very proud!