Fat Face – a brand without seams...

Seamless branding is almost expected of companies these days. The public expect continuous branding to run through all media; owned, earned and paid for. Limiting any effort on their part to work out which brand they are consuming/reading about etc.

 When we see these distinctive letters it takes milliseconds to register whatever it is falls under Google's umbrella.

'Fat Face' is an active lifestyle brand; generally targeting families, selling practical yet fashionable clothing, footwear and jewellery.  They are a key example of a brand which has maintained a very strong and consistent brand personality since their birth in 1988. The story began with two friends in the pursuit of adventure but lacking funds. They began selling t-shirts on the ski slopes to fund their exciting lifestyle and this grew beyond belief; arriving at the brand we all know today. Its launch was the complete opposite to a large corporate company's would be. I believe this is one of the main reasons their brand values and personality has stayed so strong and constant.

Fat Face is a rarity, in that they do not partake in any paid for advertising, instead they immerse themselves in sponsoring events like night surfs. This has worked well for them so far and is in keeping with their relaxed un-commercial image.

According to Campaign (2009) “Fat Face has worked with a small number of agencies on a project-by-project basis in the past, producing small-scale viral campaigns.

In 2006, it appointed Inbox Digital to create a viral game aimed at raising awareness of its website. The game, which involved racing a mountain bike while collecting Fat Face logos, gave users the chance to win a mountain bike.

Blue Barracuda produced another viral game for the brand in 2007, promoting Fat Face's winter collection. It challenged players to shoot targets with a squirrel.” (http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/905757/Fat-Face-calls-agency-pitch-first-UK-ad-push/)

As a brand with limited communication outlets, Fat Face stands out to me as a seamless brand. The atmosphere in store is consistent to their brand values with a beachy outdoor look.

 Their catalogue, website, bags and in – store posters all have a young, rebellious, outdoorsy theme. This is pioneered by their slogan ‘Life is out there...’; a classic example of a slogan that is so simple, articulating a fact that we seem to forget frequently in our fast paced lifestyles.

Yes, I suppose as a brand it can be viewed as cheesy and try hard, but people revel in familiarity and a feel – good, adventurous theme running across all touch points isn't such a bad thing. It seems to be working well in this case anyway.

We're all going mobile!

SMART phones are becoming increasingly popular, especially amongst a young demographic. Mobile technology has accelerated beyond belief in the last decade - gone are the days when you impatiently wait for your £70 grey screened, no camera Nokia for your birthday; relying on as few top ups as possible.

Amongst teenagers and young adults, Blackberrys, iPhones and Androids and monthly contracts are expected. I only recently purchased my Blackberry and was very hesitant to do so as I quite liked the old values a dated mobile has. You can’t be constantly contactable and instantly updated with everything and everyone. After admitting defeat and signing my life away, I have to admit; once understood, they do make life a lot easier.  

It is because of my recent acceptance of them that I have no doubt in my mind that by 2020 the world will more or less be rid of the 1 and 2 G mobiles.

As a result, mobile marketing has HUGE potential.

“The mobile ad network now receives more than 2 billion ad requests per day. This represents an increase of more than four times in the last 12 months.”  (http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/8937.html)

Referring to Volvo’s cross platform campaign involving an interactive video mobile ad; Jason Spero (director of mobile at google- owned AdMob says “ It also inspires us to keep innovating; no matter how far mobile advertising has come, we’ve still only scratched the surface”.

I initially perceived mobile advertising and marketing to be fairly intrusive; as a mobile is a very personal communication tool that generally speaking, we want complete control over. However, through this new age of digitalisation people are seeking out more ways to use their ‘new and exciting’ phones and as a result marketers would be mad not to exploit this.

Openness of the online world

1,966,514,816 people in the world have access to the internet, (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm)  it is, therefore easy to get your word out there.  With it being so unrestricted and unselective it passes power and voice over to people who may never have achieved it before. An example of this would be Perez Hilton; what started as an obsession with celebrities turned into a blog followed by millions. Having left school with few prospects he is now a worldly recognised figure with a fortune and an abundance of celebrity friends...not bad for just writing a blog slating celebrities. Check his blog out here: http://perezhilton.com/

Gone are the days when you need to go to huge effort to find anything out. As soon as an argument is sparked, the answer can be ‘googled’ at the speed of light. An example of openness online would be Wikipedia, the authority of an encyclopaedia is dropped and anyone can contribute or research using it. There are positives to this, in that there is a huge array of niche information, the negatives being the lack of credibility with much of it. HoHowever, I believe as a generation that has grown up understanding this phenomenon we are able to take it all with a pinch of salt and be careful not to believe everything we read.

 This openness has brought across a confusion regarding the user and producer online, resulting in a web abled ‘produser’, sites that back up this idea are amazon, ebay and youtube. All which have a blur between the two, you can be both or neither....and you don’t have to rely on what the producer is telling you – thanks to consumer reviews.

A main current issue of this week has been the Egyptian protests resulting in Mubarak stepping down. These were largely made effective due to social networking events; mainly facebook. This goes to show how much power the internet can really have, thanks to interactivity a country has been given new hope. This event also highlighted how much power crowds can have- another issue covered in our lectures. The world as we know it is going through many changes due to the ease of bringing together a crowd who want to stand up for something they believe in.

Our virtual lives...

It has become normality to transfer everything from our actual lives to our 'online lives'. 

As soon as there’s a party; it's a 'facebook event', a relationship is started; it's made 'facebook official', you're at the beach ; you update your 'facebook location', you go and visit a friend so naturally tag them in your status, something funny happens; a picture is taken and ‘instantly uploaded’.

Sometimes, I have to step back from everything and consider how crazy it is that I know what someone I met travelling years ago is doing today. Not just what they're up to, but their relationship, job and holidays and plans.

I've forgotten what it feels like for someone to ask me how an old school friend is and not know the answer. As inevitably at some point I will have seen a status or wall post somewhere enabling me to subconsciously gather what’s going on in their lives.  

But it’s not the technology that I struggle to get to grips with; the internet has been around for 20 years now so this is all fairly inevitable. It’s the normality of constantly being ‘in the know’ regarding other peoples’ lives that baffles me.

“People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook” (Facebook, 2011) This statistic will inevitably spark the response ‘how wasteful’....but most of us are guilty of doing just this.

The spread of smart phones has had a huge impact on this lifestyle; enabling one to constantly connect, like, accept, confirm and request anytime, anywhere.

Of course this ‘connectedness’ is largely a positive aspect to our lives, making communication and socialisation much easier than in the past. However, I can’t help but think when will it stop!?  How can our lives be any more on show and interactive than they are at the moment?