You were born to stand out
Why are you trying to fit in?
EVER BEEN STUCK in a traffic jam and noticed how all cars look pretty much the same?
White lights at the front. Red lights at the rear. Two bumpers. A wheel at each corner. And invariably painted silver, blue, black, red and grey (the UK’s most popular car colours).
There’s a reason for this. Aside from the odd testosterone crazed millionaire screaming along the outside lane in a blood red Ferrari, most people want their cars to blend in, not stand out.
Curiously, driving schools seem to be no exception to this rule. Same bland family Euro box. Same off the shelf clip-on roof sign. Similar name (usually a pun on L plates, passing the test, or the name of the city where the company is based). For all you know, each one offering an identical service to the other.
So we were delighted when Edinburgh driving instructor, Scott Innes, left BSM to become their competitor and called in 60 Watt to help with his marketing.
“I’d like a snappy name, logo design, business card and website, please.”
“Certainly,” we replied. “How far can we go with this?”
“All the way. How crazy can you get with a driving school?”
We’re not sure he realized quite what he was getting into, but when we came back with our solution several weeks later, he took it very well, considering.
The name: Lemon Squeezy, embodying our client’s pioneering easy to learn driving system.
The slogan: Makes driving easy.
The advertising vehicle (if you’ll excuse the pun): a car that looks not unlike a giant lemon.
The website home page: the same car balanced precariously on a giant yellow citrus fruit.
And business cards with backs that look distinctly, well, lemony.
Scott’s reaction. “I like it. But…er…can I think about it over the weekend?”
Scott was back in the office again on Monday morning. He’d shown the concepts to his wife, who loved it and his mum, who thought rather less of it.
In fact, Scott confessed, she hated it.
“Nobody would be seen dead learning to drive in that thing,” she had opined, somewhat vociferously.
Tough call. Offend the mother or upset the wife.
No contest.
And that is how one very ordinary Renault Clio happened to be turned into the largest lemon sober people have ever seen.
No costly advertising campaigns. No door to door leaflet drops. No launch hullaballoo of any description. Just a striking business exemplar (car to you) that encourages heads to turn and fingers to point wherever it goes. Along with a suitably branded website and Twitter page.
And the result? This being a small business, we eschewed expensive measurement metrics, instead asking the chief cook and bottle washer himself to assess the success of our endeavours.
“I’m chockablock” he enthused. “Have been ever since the first time I got into the car.”
“I mean, lemon.”
If you want your business to stand out, why not see what 60 Watt can do for you?
If, on the other hand, you’re perfectly happy to blend in with the crowd, try Acme Advertising. You’ll find them buried somewhere in that telephone directory you no longer look at.