BRANDING

Navy Swan, Meet Rainbow Swan: Swarovski Rebrands

On Wednesday, crystal behemoth Swarovski debuted a total brand refresh via a campaign teaser film. It’s the 125-year-old company’s first rebrand in 32 years, so you could say it’s a big deal.

• The new identity will roll out in full across Swarovski stores, digital, and packaging this year.
• Agency General Idea (which has spearheaded similar identity campaigns for luxury retailers like Louis Vuitton, Coach, and more) brought the rebrand to life. 

What’s the occasion? Two words: Giovanna Engelbert. Engelbert was named the brand’s first-ever internal creative director in May 2020.

• “It’s also born out of Giovanna as a designer, her vision, and her world. It’s a creative director-led brand now, and we worked in partnership with her,” Ian Schatzberg, General Idea founder, told Marketing Brew. 

You’re probably wondering how rebranding what Schatzberg called “one of the top 100 most recognized logos” in the world went down. Well, you’re in luck, because we asked him.

On tradition

“If you look at other luxury brands which have taken a much more modernist approach—going to much cleaner sans serifs—we deliberately did not go that direction,” Schatzberg said. “The rebrand was really about going back to [Swarovski’s] history.”

On living in a material digital world

Schatzberg said transforming the logo for the digital age was twofold.

• “One is around the role of motion. How does a logo animate? How does it come to life?”

And the other, he said, is that logos are now vessels for “lots of different branding moments.” 

“When we look at the actual octagon [framing] the swan, you will see the octagon reveal itself in many different facets of the business, almost as a framing mechanism for other sorts of content, but that often doesn't include the logo in it, because we [don’t] want to think about the logo as…a fixed form.”

On the new rainbow packaging colors

“When you shine a light through a crystal, you get a rainbow. When you go back and examine all the branding pieces, they are inspired by the fundamental material of crystal.” 

Bottom line: Rather than sizing up the competition or trends, Schatzberg said the Swarovski team asked “What is the heritage of this business and where creatively can it go?”

TRAVEL

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted...

If you haven't noticed, people are traveling less. A lot less. And yet Airbnb’s running its first global television campaign in five years.

Rewind: Early in the pandemic, travel ad spend (predictably) evaporated. With vaccinated vacations now in sight, those figures are creeping back up. Airbnb’s had a better year than most, but it’s relied much more on organic traffic than paid advertising throughout the pandemic. 

Hosts with the most

Leading up to its inaugural public earnings call yesterday afternoon, Airbnb launched a sappy new campaign, “Made Possible by Hosts."

• Costing more than $5.7 million in the campaign’s first week, according to iSpot, the commercials are running across YouTube, social media, digital display banners, and TV.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said marketing is going to play a major role as the company aims to “educate” travelers on the importance of hosts, and recruit more hosts to the platform.  But he also noted that Airbnb will never again spend as high a percentage of its revenue on marketing as it did in 2019. 

So what? It might not spend like it used to, but Airbnb’s back. The rest of the travel industry will follow. 

SPONSORED BY SAILTHRU

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If you’re looking to up the revenue and engagement from your email marketing program, this is the place to start. You’ll learn:

• Priority tactics to test and deploy
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Start reading Sailthru's guide right here.

AGENCIES

What’s Next, Abercrombie?

American Eagle Outfitters—the holy grail of high school denim shopping—swapped media agencies this week, trading 360i for VaynerMedia. The news comes less than a week after VaynerMedia CEO Gary Vaynerchuk’s failure to fulfill a major diversity and inclusion promise entered the zeitgeist. 

• 360i has been American Eagle’s agency of record since 2019.
• As of January, the retailer expected its Q4 revenue to “decrease in the low single digits” due to the pandemic’s foot traffic shrink ray. 
• But the brand saw double digit growth in online sales across both its Aerie and American Eagle brands, per MediaPost. 

TL;DR: American Eagle is swan diving into digital due to pandemic revenue losses, which could be why they’re starting fresh with a new agency for new needs. 

Lingering questions: How do brands that enter the VaynerMedia embrace feel about working with an agency that 1) has a polarizing founder and 2) a very strong brand in its own right? Hit reply if you have any insight into that calculus.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Twitter announced plans for its new Super Follow feature, which is basically Patreon for Twitter users.  
• Macy’s is pumped about its new media network, which has generated more than $35 million since last August.
• TikTok will pay $92 million to settle its US privacy lawsuit.
• AT&T is parting with DirecTV as private equity firm TPG picks it up for a depreciated $16 billion.

SPONSORED BY POSTCLICK

Let’s get personal. Ad personalization is known as marketers’ secret sauce for growth. In Postclick’s latest report, 194 marketing leaders share their insights on the State of Ad Personalization. How does it impact your bottom line? What do top performers do differently? What data moves the needle? Find out here. 

FRENCH PRESS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren't those.

Zooms: If you’ve run a virtual event recently—or if that’s part of your pandemic-era strategy going forward—read about these 11 ways to repurpose webinar content. 

PPC: Follow these six steps for more targeted and effective PPC campaigns. 

Facebook: And follow these five steps, which should feel breezy after those six steps above, to creating a quick Facebook ad landing page.

A globally recognized marketing icon: Bozoma Saint John, CMO of Netflix, will be the keynote speaker at Activate Live on April 7. In an exclusive fireside chat, she’ll share insights on how to create a quality, authentic customer experience. Reserve your seat here.*

*This is sponsored advertising content

METRICS & MEDIA

Stat: 54% of US adults said they preferred Burger King’s rebranded packaging, while just 46% chose McDonald’s, according to an Ad Age-Harris Poll survey.

Quote: “The unfortunate irony is that when we see a product, brand or agency team that is 75 to 100% white, we don't blink an eye. But, to see a 100% POC team, or more specifically, [a team that is 100%] Black people, it's almost nonexistent. I hope to see that shift in the next five years and see this moment as the beginning.”—creative strategist Jazerai Allen-Lord.

Read: The Washington Post looked at the $50+ million Covid-19 vaccine PSA effort being led by the Ad Council, “one of the largest public education efforts in US history.”

ICYMI

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Nickelodeon says bring your kids to upfronts
• Spotify unveiled a new marketplace for audio ads
• The best fonts and colors for Earth Day 2021