If it’s not broke….

The world has seen its fair share of blue squares in logos. However, with Gap’s permeation and frequency, it has become a strong owner of the imagery. Gap stores are everywhere and so are the blue squares.

Web 2.Blow

The whole “web 2.0″ craze that hit website design and, unfortunately, brand design and identity was just horrible. All of a sudden there gradients, gel-like effects and everything became blase by design. It still affects a lot of new web start up companies because there were some brands that just happened to do it right. Gap is not web 2.0, it’s not the future. It’s slowly becoming a cheap rip-off of J. Crew.

Go to Hell-vetica

What a wonderful and horrible typeface all at the same time. Using Helvetica for an identity is about as creative and new as a talentless rapper interrupting award ceremony speeches. Seriously, we all love Helvetica for many reasons, but stay away from it. You’ll never own the look it gives your brand. You will not look unique. You will do the complete opposite of what branding and brand identity design is supposed to do for you.

Overall, the new logo has aligned perfectly with what Gap seems to promise: Far from unique, relatively safe statement. Nothing new here. Nothing to talk about except the same anger you get when they start selling their $75 sweater for $10 at the end of the season.

Back to the drawing board Gap.

The knee-jerk reaction is to pull in your own budgets, but you’ll hear one marketing pundit after another state how this is the worst thing to do. (We obviously agree.) So, rather than beat a dead horse, I want to address another trend I have picked up on recently: Advertising charged with desparation and exploitation of negative situations.

It started this past Christmas season when I noticed a local ad that stated, “Dear Santa, please send us more customers.” You can imagine the creative angle. You can also potentially see how this may be considered fun, or playful. I think desperate.

More recently I have taken notice to advertising for a local bank that says, in one form another, “Come back to [us].” Again, the message is clear. We are losing business and we need more.

Those two are examples of ads of desparation. Today I had to experience an ad of exploitation: The Bailout.

I have seen it locally and tried to ignore it, but now Dominoes is leveraging The Bailout (purposely capitalized) as a ploy for a new promotion. This goes beyond the desperate and into the exploitative. Quite frankly it’s a bit on the vile side. It’s bad enough our media has constant coverage and instilling fear into every person, but now we have hokey advertising that thinks they can make light of a tragic situation.

The current political situation is not the first time an advertiser has taken advantage of a negative situation. It’s a natural thought to try to lighten the situation and use it as an advertising angle.

Instead of exploiting an event or coming off blatantly desperate, try focusing on your own positives and true offerings. Now is the time to step up your game. Run a little leaner. Go the extra mile. Give your customers something to talk about. This is less expensive than advertising and less detrimental than exploitative and desperate advertising.

Dig in!