The other day we were walking through the flower department of a local Home Depot when I spotted this sign:
Go ahead, take your time...
Yep "Proven Winters" and it seems that three dollars will get you ten dollars... That's better than the casino.
So why post this?
We all get caught up in "hurry up". The client wants ______ tomorrow by noon so somebody rushes and there is an error. Or rather than do a really good job at proof-reading we skim it and...we end up with "Proven Winters".
Slow down. Spend the time and energy to work the project. If you are a business who hires an ad agency don't demand "great" and then give an unreasonable deadline.
During the past week we've seen and heard a bunch about the new name for Iowa Health System now called Unity Point Health. We understand this name
transition has been going on for a while. We can't confirm but sources have told us the effort has been going on for nearly two years. Clearly, based on the large number of television ads, the marketing team has been working on this for a long time.
We "get" the name change. After all when the company is doing business in multiple states it makes sense to brand the product using a more universal name. However, as you can see by the logo...not much really changed. We would have rather seen a more dramatic alteration of the old logo but, here too, we understand the emotional attachment to the old.
However we're puzzled by the scripts used in the radio ads and voice overs. Here is an example. Listen carefully.
Not trying to be snarky but is Iowa Health, now Unity Point, admitting that for decades they have had this health care thing all...wrong? Just now they have decided to put patients first? Just now they are coming to grips with coordinated health care between the physician, hospital and clinic? Just...now?
It's a head shaker and the result of when scriptwriters get ahead of themselves trying to re-make a brand when, in reality, only the name has been changed. That's our take...yours?
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We've used the business blog to share thoughts and strategy about our
craft of advertising. It really is a craft. We don't make a thing other than create messages and ideas that drive consumers to our client's products/services. Like with any serious craft what we do takes time which is why I need to share this story.
One of the most commented on pieces we've posted is "How Much For A Logo?". It seems lots of people are interested in how much it costs to create a logo. Most of the comments have come from internet companies who make it their business to design cheap "off the rack" logos and they use our traffic to push their website. It's something that we deal with all the time and we usually delete the comments and mark them as spam.
However, on this post we decided to leave most of the comments intact. For no other reason than to share with you our strong belief that buying cheap is...cheap. In our original post we said "...we don't know how much a logo will cost a client because the cost has so many variables". We think a custom logo that is built around the client is much better than buying a "stock logo off the rack" that might be in use in many other places. But, hey...that's us.