Living the brand: it’s a term that’s bandied around fairly regularly and was first coined by a book of the same name in 2001.  Written by Nicholas Ind, Living the Brand showed organisations how to enthuse and empower their staff in a way that meant they became virtual personifications of their employer’s brand. Scary, huh? But what about speaking the brand? I mean organisations that insist on creating their own language, which they want both their staff and customers to use.

Last week, Professor of English Lynne Rosenthal was reported to have been thrown out of a Manhattan branch of Starbucks for failing to order a plain bagel in the correct manner. Prof Rosenthal asked for a plain bagel; the member of staff asked her to clarify whether ‘plain’ meant without butter and cheese. Prof Rosenthal, being an English professor and therefore aware that such a clarification was unnecessary – plain is, after all, plain – declined to do so and, after some heated words, was shown the door.

Starbucks is a prime proponent of speaking the brand. The coffee shop has created its own language. Drinks come in three sizes: tall, grande and venti. Why not just small, medium and large or regular, large and extra large? Because Starbucks has decided that by using these new words, the whole brand experience is vastly improved. (Tall we know; venti is Italian for twenty and grande is large in Spanish and Italian.) Most of us working in the City and major conurbations are all too familiar with Starbucks-speak, but if you want to see how truly  confusing it is to the uninitiated, watch a British pensioner try to order from Starbucks. They’ll stare at the menu board for a while then, say “Can I just have a normal coffee, please?” Asked by the barista if this means espresso, cappuccino, filter or americano, the pensioner will reply: “Ooh…whatever’s easiest.” Doh!

Some brands entice us to use their language by offering us discounts: ask for a super cheesy burger hot to trot and get 10% off. Others invent new words because the existing lexicon simply isn’t doing their product justice. My favourite of these are air freshener companies who talking about ‘fragrancing your home’. Since when was to fragrance a verb?

High street retail brands do their best to make physical space theirs. By creating a language and persuading you, the customer, to use it, the brand is actually invading your brain. While some of it may seem overly American to UK customers, the trend is surely one that will continue as marketeers seek more innovative ways to make their brands live and breathe.

Written by Adrian Beeby

Never mind the Micky Mouse watch, get a Barack Obama one.

Another article I came across recently I thought would be of interest to you, constant reader, is this one by Naomi Klein from Saturday’s Guardian. Naomi, as I like to call her, is the author of the thought-provoking bit of zeitgeist called  No Logo 10 years ago. The book studied how the growth in branding was affecting many elements of our lives and also looked in particular at how big multinationals like Nike and Starbucks had, in effect, become marketing businesses, having outsourced pretty much everything else that they did.

As a PR practitioner, No Logo made for a fascinating if slightly schizophrenic read. On the one hand, I was appalled by some of the corporate sleight-of-brand (ooo, I like that); on the other, there were some great ideas. I particularly recall the beer company that held a series of free rock concerts to promote itself but, in order to ensure maximum coverage for the brand, only released the names of the performers the day before the gig. Genius.

In this new article, Naomi talks about what’s happened in the decade since No Logo was first published. She looks at how branding has thrived and adapted and become subsumed into corporate culture. She also examines how Barack Obama has become the first president to be a superbrand in his own right.

Really worth a read so click here.

Written by Adrian Beeby

The recently closed Starbucks on London's Fenchurch Street

WHEN ASKED WHERE  a good place was to see real, skillful underwriting, my stock answer for some years now has been Starbucks on Fenchurch Street. Forget The Room at Lloyd’s; forget Minster Court or the crowded pubs of Leadenhall Market; you needed to buy yourself a skinny mochchocachino and descend into the plush basement of the Starbucks sandwiched between the East India Arms and Fenchurch Street Station. There, amid the plump sofas and faux walnut tables, underwriters and brokers clustered around their steaming cups of java negotiating terms and practicing the dark art that has gone on in EC3 for over four centuries.

But no longer. Shock, horror: last week Starbucks on Fenchurch Street closed its doors and began the transformation that will see it reopen as a new branch of the takeaway food outlet Eat. Underwriters were in turmoil. With no warning of the closure, they pressed up against the barred doors and wandered around Fenchurch Street like bewildered, blank zombies from a George Romero horror film. Lost souls, cast out of their traditional trading floor, desperate for another place to do business.

And then they found it: Costa Coffee, just a little further east on Fenchurch Street towards Aldgate. Unfortunately this branch of Costa Coffee is the official FWD coffee shop – our meeting venue of choice, our place for private one-to-ones and less formal get-togethers. Now, with the influx of nomadic underwriters, it has been transformed from a once quiet sanctuary into brash, noisy den of capitalism. No more quiet brainstorms; no more annual appraisals and sleepy mid-afternoon espressos. The lost tribe of Starbucks underwriters has robbed us of the peace and quiet we’d come to take for granted.

By the way, never go into a Costa Coffee and ask for a raspberry frappocino. I did the other week, at the behest of a female colleague I should stress. My request was greeted by the Italian barista with a contemptuous glare that could sour milk. He replied with  a single disdainful word: “Starbucks.”

Well, clearly not any more on Fenchurch Street. Ho humm.

"Bloody underwriters! It was tedious enough queuing see him in Lloyd's; now he's making me queue in the coffee shop too!"

Written by Adrian Beeby