The Art of Branding

Just saw the latest Zappos commercial. I have to say – NOT!

Why – it reminds me too much of the Old Navy, Target and iPod commercials. In fact the first time I saw it, I immediatly began to wonder if my iPod needed charging before I took off on a day hike. If the ad agency was doing the branding correctly, I would have associated it with shoes, looked at my weekend Kicks* and realized it was time to get a new pair. They still do shoes, don’t they? Why were they changing clothes?

What is my rant? How far do you think “Where’s the Shoes” or “Got Shoes” would get? A few laughs from some I am sure, but if you were to use the phrase “Shoes – R – Us” – expect to get sued. My point? Words may be copyrighted and protected, and dancing people in bright colors may not, but from what I saw, I was expecting in this order to show up on the commercial – 1), latest iPod, 2)Old Navy spring sale, 3)Target’s dog spot.

Considering that they are a bootstrap company, and I read recently reaching some 800mil in sales, it would seem that they would have a few extra bucks to come up with something original.

Here is something- how about a shoe, then 2, then 4, then 8, etc start showing up on one side of the screen, then one shoe leaves the pack off the opposite side, comes back on the screen with an outfit, then another shoe does the same, and on and on. Show that they aren’t about shoes* any more.

Just my humble opinion.

*Note (in researching this article, I not only did I actually find out that Zappos sells more than shoes, not lighters, but at one time certain styles of shoes were called ‘kicks’ – go figure)