This year marked the 25th anniversary of the Sundance Film Festival here in Park City (thanks Bob). Three things happen every year. First, you need to take the bus, 'cause parking will be scarce. 
Second, it will snow. And third, people will try to hook their brand to Sundance. Sometimes you see the connection and sometimes you just say "huh?". A clever tie-in I saw was the opening of a new night club, the Depot and Butterfly restaurant in Salt Lake City. For their opening, they booked bands with actors in them. Minnie Driver's did a pretty good job. O.K. this makes sense.
Then on Thursday as we were walking down Main Street and I see Intel took over the Mexican restaraunt. Now I've seen the technical horsepower required to product movies and sound both at SkyWalker Ranch and at Third Wave Productions. So I'm thinking we're going to see some great editing software built on top of the Core Duo processor, or something very similar. Instead, it's a very blue color scheme setup showing the lastest Intel logo with a place to check your email and play multiuser first person shooter games. Huh?
Brand image is a squishy area. It's great to sponser events and organizations, but if you are going to have a presence, at least try to show some connection. Or you just wasted a lot of money. And confused a lot of people.
It continues to confound (confuse?) me why marketers "don't get" the confusion problem. In addition to events (and sponsorships) that don't make sense, all sizes and types of businesses change marketing messages, logos, product titles, etc. etc. on the fly - without considering how it'll create confusion in the marketplace - which can often lead to damaged customer loyalty and lost sales. (one simple example: I quit buying Prescriptives make-up because they kept changing colors and discontinuing products. "Hey, what happened to my color of lipstick?")
Posted by: Mary Schmidt | 08 February 2006 at 11:49 AM