In the seminar previously this week, we did a group task based around comparing brands, be it fashion, beauty, sport, food or drink. This activity got me thinking about my use of words when describing traditional brands and when talking about more unknown brands. We worked together to generate key words in a mind map format and then expanded on our chosen words and started to match them up with the polar opposite brand.
Looking at the brand ‘Jack Daniel’s’ and ‘The Haig Club’ , both brands of Whiskey, we came up with some initial words that related with each company. The brand ‘The Haig Club’ is one I hadn’t heard of before, it focuses on cool hues and tones. The promotional material we were given looks like it’s set in a busy, fast paced city such as Dubai, perhaps getting across the message of this whiskey being one you would buy on the go and when you are travelling for work. They used David Beckham as the face of their brand, he is a stereotypical popular figure and he was dressed in a suit holding the drink. The use of David Beckham proves that their target consumer was generally men who have a high paying job. At first, I mistook the drink for an aftershave as that’s what the bottle suggests, promoting the idea of the drink being an accessory rather than something as a one off. On their website their slogan seemed to be ‘Winter is Coming’, indicating to the idea that whiskey is supposed to warm you up in the cold months. The warmth of the whiskey was highly juxtaposed by the cool and deep blues used in their brand. These are some words we came up with:
crisp, minimal, suave, high end, expensive, provocative, travel, patriotic.
The other brand that was given to us was ‘Jack Daniel’s’, which is a well known, popular brand of drink. The company focuses on targeting older men who know and love their brand. The style that they use is usually wild west themed and contains a man on a motorbike in a dingy, dirty setting. We decided that the brand Jack Daniel’s was very obviously focusing on targeting men, hence the use of a male on a motorbike and also the name of the brand itself. The face of the brand has been the same for many years, people continue to buy it as it’s well known and has value in the alcohol industry.
well-known, active, intense, dingy, dirty, cowboy, dark.
We thought of ten or so word pairs to describe how opposite these brands are such as :
clean cut vs grungy, contemporary vs traditional, styling vs substance, new vs familiar
BETHAN SANDALL 