Posted on 29 October 2021 by Jeff Fuge | Reading time 4 mins
As anyone who celebrates 5 November knows, fireworks can be an impressive and varied (but often brief) spectacle, while bonfires provide a longer-lasting (but less dramatic) attraction. Brands can be very similar.
Brands that rely on fireworks are attention grabbers. They look – and sound – loud and spectacular. They’re hard to miss. And they’re constantly changing.
Brands that rely on bonfires are slow burners. They offer comfort, community and continuity. They change subtly and slowly.
Brand fireworks: a promise of bigger, better, brighter than ever!
A brand’s fireworks can take many forms.
There are the businesses whose ad campaigns or promotional materials are constantly changing in style, concept and strapline for no other purpose than to be different to the last.
Or there are the companies forever releasing new versions of an established product where little is fundamentally different to the last.
Razors, diswasher tablets, cosmetics or trainers are great examples:
“The Maxx is our best ever!”
“The MaxxPlus is our best ever!”
“The MaxxPlusUltra is our best ever!”
“The MaxxPlusUltra2 is our best ever!”
“The MaxxPlusUltra2Xtra is our best ever!”
Of course, consumers end up paying for the firework display. MaxxPlusUltra2Xtra does essentially the same thing as the good-old Maxx, but at a higher cost.
In 2005, Gillette was the subject of an injunction in the Connecticut District Court. The court determined that Gillette’s promotional fireworks were promising more than their products (each more expensive than the last, and each claiming to be the best ever) delivered.
Gillette’s claims were found to be both “unsubstantiated and inaccurate” and that the product demonstrations in Gillette’s advertising were “greatly exaggerated” and “literally false”.
Once you’ve lit the touchpaper…
The problem here is that if you’ve grabbed attention by setting off some cakes, candles, spiders or shells, you’ve set an expectation that is harder and harder to maintain.
Novelty, gimmicks, louder, brighter, bigger and more are your friends.
Consistency is your enemy.
Maintaining a fireworks-based brand is therefore expensive, time consuming and creatively draining.
Plus, you’ve got to keep going… and going… and going! Because once the fireworks stop, the crowd wanders off elsewhere.
Brand bonfires: a source of comfort and community
Getting a brand’s bonfire started takes longer than setting off a few fireworks.
You’ve got to build it right, by basing it on a core product, purpose or promise that will stand the test of time. But once lit, brand bonfires take less time, effort and money than brand fireworks to keep them going.
Take KitKat as an example. Aside from questions over it shrinking (something levelled at many chocolate bars) and a change to the material used in its packaging, it has remained much same since the middle of the last century.
And – importantly – so has the brand’s proposition, ‘Have a break, have a Kit Kat’, which has been in place since 1957.
Another example is Guinness. While the brand’s strapline has changed over time (from ‘Guinness for strength’’, through the magnificent ’Good things come to those who wait’, to today’s ‘Made of more’) those changes tend to take place at a glacial pace.
And behind the great ads, the product itself remains iconic and constant. (Ever seen Guinness crowing about their stout’s new improved recipe? No? Thought not!)
People attracted to a brand’s bonfire become gently mesmerised by the flickering flames. They stay for as long as the fire burns brightly, and offers the comfort and feeling of belonging that they seek.
(Where a bonfire brand exists, you’re likely to find a strong and loyal tribe.)
So, bonfires win, yeah?!
It’s not quite that simple. As in real life, even if you’ve got a brilliant bonfire burning, a few fireworks will add some extra fizz and wow. But they should be the extra thing, not the thing your brand relies on.
Guinness again provides a good example. Alongside the bonfire of their core draught stout, they set off fireworks in the form of novel products such as Hophouse 13 lager and Guinness 0.0.
So, build your bonfire in the right way to ensure the right people see it, relate to it, choose to gather round, and know that it will be there every time they return.
But don’t forget the fireworks!
Everyone wants warmth, but we all want a bit of entertainment too.
