SURPRISE: BRAND TRANSITIONING,
SPECTACLE AT SHELF AND EPIPHANIC REDISCOVERY
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We were talking to a team of people about “epiphany at shelf.”
Goes like: “there’s a product that I know. It’s familiar—I’ve heard something about it, I’ve seen some promotions, someone told me about it—maybe I have a relationship with it, some history.”
Finally, “I come back to the shelf, I come to—or come back to—the brand, and it’s different, it’s brighter, it’s more detailed, the packaging is tighter, firmer, better—it all fits together; coherent as a system—most importantly:
it’s touchably sensate.
In this reference, below, the brand is similar to where it was, but strikingly better.
It shines—systemically, it’s disciplined and integrated as a compelling story and brand system.
We talk metaphors, poetry, allegory and archetype about brands—there is always more to a relationship than product attributes. Goes deeper.
It’s out there, the horizon—the rock of the idea, under a new light. Time moves around, waves pass. But now the telling is better. It’s brighter, more interesting, magnetic, compelling.
And there, in the presentation: the shine.
Walking the street, I spied this installation — a shine brush in a window.
And it urged a recollective meditation on the allegory of shining.
What can that mean in the context of brand, story and engagement?
Shining is a luminous metaphor to reach out to in response to that question—
enchantment, a striking new “song” that lights up that epiphany and weaves connection with community. A thoughtful brand, well-refreshed, with a coherently retold story, transitioning from one degree of recession to another tier of evolutionary messaging, visualizations and hybrid expressions. Once it was dim, now it is shining.
Illuminate what you have to offer. Make it shine.
A famous retailer—a man who built gigantic retail empires; and a speaking engagement at his conference, led to a questioning with him—a conversation with Les Wexner; the key, as he put it to me: “if people stop by your shop window, they might see something they like, a story is told, and they come in. Really, it’s about watching, it’s about the shopkeeper’s care — it’s about watching people that are visiting your store, your store front, your story front.”
What’s the story that you tell? And most importantly, who cares?
The shop owner needs to care about who’s there,
what are they looking at, and what are they buying?
The notion of shining is about light, the shining of discovering. At P&G we talked about the concept of shelf epiphany. When a customer approaches the shelf, what is the epiphany, the shining of the brand that engages the viewer [and the buyer?]
It is about shining.
When you think about brands that shine—what comes to mind?
TSG | OSEAN+GIRVIN
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