What’s Old is New: Re-Brand with an Old Branding Scheme

During a recent Chicago Tribune interview Grammy Award Winning singer/writer/composer Alicia Keys made the following statement….

I used Janis Joplin as a point of reference,” Keys says. “I took that total abandonment in her singing style. You feel like she’s holding nothing back.

Im sure your asking yourself the same question I asked myself the first time I read this statement ” What do these two have in common?” The answer to this question will spawn several blogs with subjects ranging from authencity to maximizing potential. This post will focus on the wasteful practice often refered to as “reinventing the wheel”. Literally millions of marketing proposals have been created by man. One could go as far as saying primitive cave painting depicting hunters killing prey was a marketing ploy used to show to others who was “running it”. In a practical sense companies like alka seltzer have created succes by revisiting past marketing campaigns.

Looking to the past to build the success of the future is a great and proven concept. However one must be careful. To much of a good thing can be bad, or at least very controversial. The small Norwegian software company Double Twist has created a product that allows all music and video files to work in one player. It works through the Amazon Music platform and syncs music, video and pictures with a number of devices including Ipod, Blackberry, and my personal favorite the Palm Pre. Their product launched quietly in 2009. Not because of its innovative approach, but more for its controversial online campaign. tHE center peice was a video remake of the 1984 Macintosh Superbowl ad that depicted then giant IBM as “Big Brother” and upstart Apple as “the people”. In the Double Twist commercial Apple was “Big Brother”. Cute and ironic… you think?

Double Twist- 2009