Bad taste flows downhill. Karma and HBO Max. Why you need a CD.

Bad taste flows downhill.

Yesterday, standing in line at the grocery store, the middle aged customer in front of me was in a wheelchair. From all the piercings and rocker tattoos he had obviously lived an interesting life but now he was in a pretty bad way with oxygen and an assistant helping him out...he was plainly in some discomfort. As his assistant was loading his groceries onto the cashiers counter, I couldn't help but look over the wheelchair. Nothing special about it really, it’s just my eyes were drawn to the brand name logo across its back and sides. Karma.

He was either making an interesting self statement owning his present predicament or this was the best example of one of the worst branding decisions a company has ever made. Ever. I had to ask. The chair came that way. It’s actually called the Karma wheelchair.

No matter what language you speak, I’m confident the idea of Karma is the same everywhere. So, how the hell does anyone think that would be a good name to slap onto a device given to people who are going through a traumatic physical and psychological experience? This brand name must have had to have gone through the hands of several departments, executives, graphic designers, committees, assembly…and yet no one said “Wait a minute”…and why is that? Because bad taste flows downhill.

I’ve been known to really rip on bad creative, bad logos, bad taglines, bad scripts…but this was terrible creative taken to a whole new level.  Your brand, your positioning, your identity isn’t a logo or a catchphrase. It’s not your mission statement or your five pillars of strength or any of the other baggage some crappy branding company has saddled you with. It’s a little bit of that but it’s so much more…it’s what the world feels you are reflected on what they’ve gotten from you…your personality, your values, your core. First impressions are important. Karma Wheelchairs just rips through all of that and comes off as a terrible name in medical products no matter how hard they’ve worked on their core values. All that’s being projected is a negative, a bad brand that has no soul. But it certainly gets a response.

On the other side, there’s far blander brands that get very negative feedback for far less.

Last month, HBO Max finally showed the world the Max rebrand they’ve been working on for a year and…for one brief moment the creative world united as one to say it’s shit. And I agree with them but for different reasons. True, it looks exactly the same as every other streaming service out there save Netflix. True, they’ve dumped their entire family tree connection of their HBO heritage including the nice purple. True, their logo colour choice and execution seems downright lazy. But there’s even more elemental, basic reasons why it’s straight up wrong to put out as your brand face. In the old days of logo design, one of the first review questions was ‘does it work when it’s small, in black and white, as a bug?’. Those days the reasoning was for print media, especially for tv listings where your logo will be right next to all your competitors. These days, the same questions apply as to what it looks like because it’s going to become an app button to be used on viewers devices. That they’ve chosen it to look exactly the same as every other streaming services’ app icon is a very silly fundamental mistake. As David Ogilvy said, “Nobody has every built a brand by imitating someone else's”. After a chance to stand out and stake a visual claim to their own identity, to show their soul…they’ve chosen to blend with the crowd. Trust me, app screen confusion is on the way.  In the end, the blandness of their effort reflects on who and what they are in the customers eyes. And it’s not a good start.

 And how did this happen? Same as Karma, bad taste flows down hill.

 Even in creative industries like television, there’s really only a small percentage of people involved who are actual creatives, that make all the elements that go together for your enjoyment…but everyone else on every level believes themselves to be creative. Finance, HR, Management, all of them. And the higher their rank in the company, the more they believe their ideas are superior and should be heard. While everyone can be, to some extent creative, the real difference is the experience the creatives have in knowing what will work and what won’t, what’s timely and fresh, what helps move the brand forward…and what it will seem like from their target audience’s point of view. When someone says that creativity is subjective, it’s because they’ve just proposed a bad idea.

Bad taste, bad ideas, or even just bad direction can come from anywhere. It's when they come from above that extra problems start. Sometimes here in Asia, if it comes from a position of authority there’s very few who will push back. If a bad idea has been passed down from the board, or the Ceo, or the head of marketing or some outside agency and all are shrugging their shoulders and doing the best they can polishing a turd, there’s no better indication you’re missing a big block in your foundation. What’s missing is a good, strong Creative Director. Someone who champions the brand every day and has the authority to protect it when need be. Someone who believes themselves to ‘be’ the brand. Who knows the product inside out, knows innately what, where and why it is. They are the ones figuring out how the company can achieve their goals, not to mention what those goals should be. S/he’s leads your in house creative team and should be involved in everything reaching outside the building…or at least should be. Working with where ever the directive has come from, working with the marketing department when they’re spending out of house with an ad agency, working with other teams and departments who’ll eventually be involved in the direction and getting their two cents. And if anything’s happening that isn’t right for the brand, they should be the ones throwing tantrums and fixing it. Their main role is to oversee all the production of anything to do with the expression of our brand and image. The promotions, the image, different logo expressions, the campaigns, the commercials, advertising, digital content….anything that speaks directly or indirectly to our audience. They are also generally the kind of people you don’t really want the customers to see. They and their team are usually over-dedicated, working silly hours where personal hygiene soon becomes a concern for those who have to interact with them on a daily basis. 

At the very least all companies, even those without an internal creative team, need someone like this as a reality check before the company invests in anything promoting their product and brand…hopefully stopping bad taste before it leaves the building.

Whether you make wheelchairs or you're a content juggernaut, your in house creative team needs a strong Creative Director. Someone who not only lives and breathes and dies for that brand, but can see it from all sides…especially from the customers view. And that’s the most important viewpoint of all.