Community Profiles

Individual Profile:

Clive Whitcher

United States

(Planning Director)

Comments:

• Mysterious secret formula

  Coca-Cola

  26 April 2001

  How has this drink become a Lovemark? A big part of the reason has got to be the mysterious secret formula created in 1886. Coke tried to change it - once - but America brought them to their senses. New Coke indeed!

• The get-away of Hollywood's elite

  La Quinta

  08 May 2001

  A legendary hotel/resort near Palm Springs. Built in the Spanish style, a style evocative of hedonism, it was the get-away of Hollywood’s elite. It’s still very high-end, lots of golf and pampering, but it’s lost its Q-rating. The opportunity is to re-vitalize the image and extend it to other properties owned by the KSL chain. After all, Four Seasons is probably a Lovemark, César Ritz definitely was.

• Can do no wrong

  Squaresoft

  27 May 2001

  To the Final Fantasy fanatics, Squaresoft is loved. It can do no wrong - at game fairs fans line up 2-400 deep and wait for over an hour at the Squaresoft booth for just 7 minutes of play on the demo version of a new game.

• Membership to a special club - with a sense of fun

  Trader Joe's

  27 May 2001

  It’s a ‘yuppie’ grocery store with eclectic upmarket products set in a funky warehouse-style setting with discount prices. It’s the kind of store you’re introduced to by friends and co-workers when you move into the neighborhood as if you were being offered membership to a special club with privileged knowledge. People who move to the East Coast were known to have Trader Joe withdrawal symptoms and were instrumental in persuading the company to expand from its California base to now 14 States. One of the senses that TJ’s engages very well is people’s sense of fun. There’s witty copy on the in-store displays, the labels and especially the newsletter punningly called ‘the Fearless Flyer’. This punning extends to labeling where the foreign foods go under such names as Trader Giotto for the Italian ones and Trader José for the Mexican. But it’s not just fun, they educate too, reflecting the consumer need for myth, history and cocktail party conversation. Witness this description of humble ketchup: Trader Joe’s Ketchup 28 oz plastic bottle $1:19 There’s no shortage of controversy about the spelling of one of America’s popular condiments, ketchup/catsup. We’ve fallen on the side of ketchup which most closely resembles its origin, the Chinese term ke-tsiap. The Dutch, who were heavy importers of the sauce from Asia, spelled it ketjap, indicating a pronunciation very close to our ketchup.

• Celebrity is flawed

  Oprah

  27 May 2001

  A local Lovemark that’s becoming international. People love her. They respect her despite her obscene wealth and size-challenged figure. Therein lies the attraction – celebrity is flawed, like Achilles. But unlike a Greek hero, Oprah’s down to earth - she’s of the people. Oprah represents being on your side, a people-person, a concerned person, someone who put your interests first. She’s the do-gooder who listens. Her franchise includes books, charities, production of movies and TV with a kids-and-moms bias, the magazine, the oxygen website.

• Too nice to say no to!

  Krispy Kreme

  27 November 2001

  Doughnut chain from North Carolina. A legend in its own territory and now it’s expanding across the country. It’s every kid’s treat and every adult’s too as they remember their childhood. It’s not just taste and touch, but smell and sight and sound too because they make the doughnuts on a conveyor belt in each shop and there’s a raised walkway alongside the conveyor behind a glass partition so you can see the whole process. They went public - moved from the Nasdaq to the NYSE, announced a stock split and were at an all time high. They get great PR. Everyone who’s had one has a Krispy Kreme story and fond memories. They transcend all the ‘just say no’ talk by nutritionists and dieticians – they’re too nice to say no to! They’ll be either the McDonalds or the Starbucks of doughnuts eventually.

• Independence, self-reliance, pride

  Victorinox Swiss Army Knife

  27 November 2001

  Which would you rather leave home without – Amex card or Swiss Army knife. Everyone has a story. As a kid, it’s a one-upmanship game of who’s got the one with the most gadgets. You pray your aunt or your parents will get you one with the right attachments. It’s extendable – why stop at watches. It’s not to do with de-stoning horses’ hooves, or even practicality, it’s about independence, self-reliance and self-pride. It’s the political history of Switzerland, it’s all about – ‘just how does a little country with a small population and a little army prevent itself from being overrun by its big neighbors for so long and so successfully?’

• A sense of belonging

  MTV

  27 June 2003

  “I want my MTV”. They ‘MTV-ise’ old TV formats and make them hip for a new audience. Multi-country, multi-cultural. It’s more than music – in fact less than half of U.S. programming is music (VH1 took that role over!) It’s a sense of belonging and having fun for a whole generation.