I’m a brand HOOLIGAN – !
by Fred Roed on 02/06/09 at 10:25 am
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I’ve always been a student of brands – even when I didn’t know what the word meant.* When I was a kid driving to pre-school I still remember rating my favourite motorcars based on the overall impression they made on me, from the logo to their performance. I love learning new stuff about brand-building, and so I was particularly excited last week Thursday, when Jon Cherry and Heinrich, the legends from Cherryflava hosted a bunch of us at the first “Brand Hooligans” experiential marketing conference. Without going into too much detail, it was flipping brilliant. What a cracking idea, and what a great way to educate and inspire us desk jockeys into kick-starting the creative juices.
In pouring rain, walking to various iconic venues around the streets of Cape Town CBD, we were regaled by a series of legendary brand-builders and incendiary thinkers, from Porky Hefer to Brad Armitage. The general theme was ‘differentiate, create and initiate by experience’. I was challenged in various ways to think differently on how to catalyse a brand into the consumer consciousness. Lovely, cerebral stuff.
I also liked the mix of people there, from Niki to Rich – it was somewhat outside of the usual suspects, which was refreshing (no offense to the loyal Heavy Chef, 27dinner crew).
Thanks Jon, Heinrich, for a wonderful opportunity, and I look forward to what you’ve got in store for future sessions. Love your work.
More about the Brand Hooligans experience here:
*I define a brand as a ‘message’. Simple. No weirdness. No airy-fairy new age ‘the consumer defines your brand’ crap. Sorry, Vega, AAA and the rest of you who believe in Brand 2.0. A brand has always been, and always will be, a message that is defined, owned and maintained by the organisation itself.
Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. Fred is the CEO of web marketing company World Wide Creative and the co-founder of online learning portal Heavy Chef. Fred loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. Follow Fred on Twitter here. View more articles by Fred Roed.
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