Form and color are attributes of every brand. People remember shapes and colors. If you own shape it is good, but if you own color – it is great!

For example, Cadbury owns purple color, Sainsbury’s owns shape, and so on.

Lecture finished one hour earlier, and it is not good…

Today we studied the history of Benetton. This company became famous for its unconventional and a bit rebellious advertising style; all these ads were made by Olivero Toscani, who was working for Benetton from 1982 till 2000.

By the way, Benetton was called Maglierie Benetton, then it became just Benetton and, finally, they’ve turned their slogan to their brand: United Colors of Benetton.

Every brand needs at least one thing from this list:

• Brand Story (e.g. Mont Blanc, Meisterstuck)
• Discovery / Entrerpreneural spirit / Belief (e.g. Innocent)
• Engagement (e.g. The Economist)
• Non-conventional (e.g. The Lung Association, VW Beetle – Lemon Ad)
• Product quality (e.g. Holland & Holland, Waitrose)
• Feedback to parent brand (e.g. Duracell energy drink, Virgin)

What seem to be truthful about coffee? Coffee is…

1. Energising / Relaxing
2. Warming-up
3. Aromatic / smells like shit
4. Tasty / tastes like shit
5. Healthy / unhealthy
6. Fresh-roasted / not-fresh-roasted
7. Fresh-ground / not-fresh-ground
8. Addicitve / non-addictive
9. Luxurious / general
10. is about Hedonism
11. Charitable (rain-forest alliance, fair-trade)
12. Non-charitable
13. is about Creative people
14. is about Clever people
15. is about Business people

… and this seem to be untruthful about coffee. Coffee can’t be:

1. Self-grown
2. Siberian
3. Colourful
4. for everyone
5. online

What is the difference between truth and truthfulness  The fact that something is truthful is not enough for it to be truth.

Many truthful things are shown in Hollywood movies. The scene of hacking somebody’s bank account, for instance. Attributes, details, images on computer’s monitor and everything else looks completely truthful for people who doesn’t know how it is done in real life.

Or, for example, jumping from helicopter. Everything looks truthful, but doctors would not believe in it.

So, the exact parameters of what is truthful and what is not are in that particular individual’s head.

The main thing for advert-creators is that you should show only truthful stuff, because nobody will believe in something that is untruthful. That’s true.

Really enjoyed the Leo Tolstoy’s 10-point manifesto, which he wrote at the age of 18.

1. Get up early (five o’clock).
2. Go to bed early (nine to ten o’clock).
3. Eat little and avoid sweets.
4. Try to do everything by yourself.
5. Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for one section of your life, a goal for a shorter period and a goal for the year; a goal for every month, a goal for every week, a goal for every day, a goal for every hour and for every minute, and sacrifice the lesser goal to the greater.
6. Keep away from women.
7. Kill desire by work.
8. Be good, but try to let no one know it.
9. Always live less expensively than you might.
10. Change nothing in your style of living even if you become ten times richer.

Also, discussed difference between Blur and Oasis – first is more pop than rock, and they are from London, second – are rock and from Manchester.

Grant’s first lecture for our sub-group. Several thoughts from it:

• Brands only exist in the minds of those who believe.
• Tell me, and I’ll forget; Show me, and I may remember; Involve me and I’ll understand – Chinese proverb
• Apple doesn’t sell computers, – they sell belief.
• Unique selling proposition is now Unique emotional proposition
• If you are not busy born, – you are busy dying
• Those who stand for nothing, fall anyway
• I have a dream – Dr. Martin Luther King

Questions to ask yourself (and your agency):

• Who are we?
• What are we?
• Why are we?
• Where are we?
• Our reason to be here?

Many companies before Apple asked themselves only two types of questions:

• What consumers buy?
• How do they buy it?

Apple were the first, who asked: Why do they buy? … and this was breakthrough!