November 8, 2006

Branded Utility: Interview With Johnny Vulkan of Anomaly

by Piers Fawkes in Pro-Service Anti-Product, Design, Advertising & Branding

Alongside Benjamin Palmer of the Barbarian Group, Johnny Vulkan of New York agency Anomaly has been developing his thoughts too on the concept of Branded Utility. As part of our search to understand this emerging theory, we asked him for his angle.

Johnny, how would you define Branded Utility?

Brands being genuinely useful to their customers, employees, suppliers and the people they touch.

We spoke yesterday to Benjamin and he told us a story that when you met in a bar a while back, you realized that you were both thinking about the concept of Branded Utility that you both seemed to have coined the phrase too! Where did your inspiration come from?

I think that’s probably why we like working with Benjamin and the guys at Barbarian - I think we share many of the same philosophies and the area of Branded Utility is just the latest. For me the idea, if not the language, had been bubbling away for a few years.

For a while I’ve felt uneasy about certain brands’ desires to interrupt people’s lives with irrelevant messages. Technology means that messaging should now become more targeted so that this level of interruption should decrease but many companies have chosen to take the worst habits of advertising and take them online. They’ve chosen to get in the way.

At the same time many new companies have built great brands not by interrupting people and telling them how they should feel or think, but rather by spending time and effort to be useful in people’s lives. Starbuck’s provide a place for me to get online and hear new music, Yahoo gives me answers and to Benjamin’s example, Michelin tell me where to find a great meal.

Ultimately my inspiration comes from good companies doing good things and earning a good brand because of it. Flickr, Method Home, Interface Flor, Innocent Drinks etc.

branded utility

Can you give us any examples of how brands could take advantage of this strategy?

Be good. Produce good products, that provide
customers with real value and deliver them in useful, thoughtful and
interesting ways. In the long run its will be far easier than producing
mediocre products and services and then putting pressure on
communications to deceive the people you want to become your customers.
Advertising shouldn’t be used as a band-aid for a poorly thought
through product.

What would be the key benefits for a brand that undertook such a strategy?

Profitability - which is what we are employed by the
majority of our clients to deliver. Importantly it will deliver that
over profitability in a long term and sustainable way as the strategy
and the action that comes from will earn loyalty, respect and a genuine
like for the brand and the company behind it.

You are a partner at what is considered a progressive agency.
What is the agency’s future role in the development of Branded Utility?

It’s present in some form in every answer we give
and it has become very natural for us. One of the things that I love
about what we are building at Anomaly is that we have removed any
secondary agendas. There isn’t a "what do we, the agency want",
component to the answers. The answers start with what would be good for
people, then what can this brand/product/company do to be a part of
that and then how we can help that brand, product, company deliver
that. It has led us to get involved in highly technical R&D
conversations with our clients and to be present at the birth of new
products and IP whether it be in food science or the latest web
applications. We go far deeper into our client’s organizations then we
ever used to and it’s not only highly stimulating work it also leads to
fundamentally better solutions.

Many of the examples of manifestations of Branded Utility seem to
be online but with so many agencies late to digital media, do you think
they can keep up?

I think they can. I firmly believe that it’s never
to late for anyone to do anything. My mum learned to swim in her
fifties, learned to drive in her sixties and just got her doctorate at
aged 70. She joined flickr last month. It’s about a willingness and
desire to keep learning. The more established agencies just need to
find that desire and get stuck in.

On a personal note, what inspires you about Branded Utility?

It’s inextricably linked to being and doing better.
We are lucky to live in a time where ideas can be translated quickly
across the planet and that can used to do good. There are thousands of
great companies with great products and services out there - not only
do I believe we can help them, I also hope and believe we can become
one of them.

Anomaly

Technorati Tags: branded utility

25 Responses to “Branded Utility: Interview With Johnny Vulkan of Anomaly”

PSFK
Posted from: 10.0.20.1
November 8th, 2006 at 10:17 am

Branded Utility: Interview With Benjamin Palmer of Barbarian Group
Eric
Posted from: 64.198.103.66
November 9th, 2006 at 12:08 pm

I love the entire concept of branded utility. It’s something so simple and sensible yet it’s taken until now for companies to grasp on it — and it’s a small amount of brands harnessing it at that.

Really enjoyed what Vulcan had to say in the interview. Did he start out as a copywriter or art director?
PSFK
Posted from: 10.0.20.7
November 9th, 2006 at 2:47 pm

Branded Utility: Interview With Jack Cheng
Jörg
Posted from: 85.177.239.68
November 12th, 2006 at 9:02 am

The discussion about Brand Utility reminds me of an article I just co-wrote with Prof. Wippermann about brands being friends. The article is in German only and will be published in a book about “Innovation driven Marketing” by the marketing department of the university of St. Gallen early next year.

I write down the main take-outs. Brands being friends means:
Background: brands need new ways to get customer´s attention and trust.
- be open. brands should meet their clients on eye-level, become their friends and involve them - be real. friends don´t need to play games anymore. brands should focus more on being positivly experienced in everyday life
- be faithful: good friends look after one another. Brands need to take responsibility for their friends.
- share: friends are being picked. The same counts for brands. Brands need to choose their friends more carefully

At the moment we bring this idea to a new level: “Caring Capitalism”. This will be the topic for the forthcoming 12th German Trendday in May 2007.
Matthew
Posted from: 193.201.135.244
November 14th, 2006 at 6:00 pm

Johnny Vulkan started out as neither an art director nor a copywriter, but as an account man. And, interestingly, he’s been talking about how advertising agencies should only work with brands that benefit society, and that they believe in, for at least 10 years. Ever since he was an account man at TBWA London…
cubemate
Posted from: 10.0.20.12
December 18th, 2006 at 8:23 pm

Five Branded Utilities (from back when we didn’t know what to call them)

I thought it would be interesting to think up some instances of branded utility from before we knew what to call them. (My good friend, Johnny, has been developing the idea for years.) The Guinness Book of World Records. Originally
cubemate
Posted from: 10.0.20.10
December 19th, 2006 at 10:59 am

Five Branded Utilities (from back when we didn’t know what to call them)

I thought it would be interesting to think up some instances of branded utility from before we knew what to call them. (My good friend, Johnny, has been developing the idea for years.) The Guinness Book of World Records. Originally
Adventures in digital marketing
Posted from: 10.0.20.3
January 3rd, 2007 at 6:23 am

Branded utilities

An interesting post over on PSFK about branded utilities which kind of ties into the way the digital marketing world is looking more and more towards widgets that are actually useful rather than carpet bombing. Quote: For a while I’ve
Adam Crowe - links for 2007-08-12
Posted from: 212.227.127.29
August 11th, 2007 at 7:43 pm

[…] PSFK - Branded Utility: Interview With Johnny Vulkan of Anomaly “There isn’t a ‘what do we the agency want’ component to the answers. The answers start with what would be good for people then what can this brand/product/company do to be a part of that and then how we can help that brand product company deliver that” (tags: anomaly agency totaldesign branding advertising marketing planning trends brandedutility design servicedesign productdesign innovation businessmodel) […]
links for 2007-08-13 « Zero influence
Posted from: 72.233.2.81
August 12th, 2007 at 7:28 pm

[…] Branded Utility: Interview With Johnny Vulkan of Anomaly on PSFK Importantly it will deliver that over profitability in a long term and sustainable way as the strategy and the action that comes from will earn loyalty, respect and a genuine like for the brand and the company behind it. (tags: advertising agency blog branding brands business channel branded_utility brandedutility trends interview anomaly marketing) Posted by zeroinfluencer Filed in del.icio.us links […]
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Posted from: 72.233.2.65
August 13th, 2007 at 9:54 pm

[…] Q2: we firmly believed there had to be a better way … a way to communicate with consumers and add to their lives at the same […]
BNET Intercom » How to Make Your Brand Teen-Friendly on BNET
Posted from: 216.239.127.234
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:56 pm

[…] you’re pretty much just crashing the party. Here’s a good definition for branded utility: Brands being genuinely useful to their customers, employees, suppliers and the people they touch. If you advertise your product on a social networking site, you need to ask yourself this question: […]
Print 2.Oh! « AdStructure
Posted from: 72.232.151.21
August 30th, 2007 at 6:21 pm

[…] they should read more closely the branded utility and marketing as a service theories. What do you […]
Commercially Building on Public Conversations « Zero influence
Posted from: 72.232.131.32
September 4th, 2007 at 6:33 pm

[…] Brand Interfacing of Social Media (BISMs). This is not about portals, maybe it’s closer to branded utility, but what it really could mean is funding of social services that civic administrators cant […]
The new “Brand Reality” - Branded Utility «
Posted from: 66.135.48.186
September 5th, 2007 at 4:00 pm

[…] The new “Brand Reality” - Branded Utility 5 09 2007 A new buzzword has appeared over the last year that seems to encapsulate what Marketing 2.0 (or 3.0 or whatever you want to call it) seems to promise: useful brands backing useful products and services. This seems to be the primary difference between new school and old school marketing – the shift towards marketing as being a useful, interactive engagement in which the brand experience is cornerstone to the brand. Coined by Johnny Vulcan, partner at progressive NYC agency Anomaly, branded utility refers to, “Brands being genuinely useful to their customers, employees, suppliers and the people they touch.” (via PSFK). […]
Online Video … its the Content (well, I won’t call you stupid…) « The Q2 Report
Posted from: 66.135.48.142
September 10th, 2007 at 10:15 pm

[…] of consumers … (or should I say people). Why not create a “win win” scenario, or Branded Utility if you […]
Quiver & Quill » Conversational Marketing Conference
Posted from: 69.89.31.90
September 16th, 2007 at 9:30 pm

[…] Check out an old interview with Johnny Vulkan for more on this concept. He really gets it! […]
Wes Anderson and the online “Prequel” « Francis Anderson
Posted from: 72.233.2.46
September 25th, 2007 at 9:35 am

[…] I need to find out more about the strategy behind this, but at first pass it plays superbly into “Branded Utility” (something I personally am passionate about), as people are being marketed to in a way that […]
Digital Paranoia « AdStructure
Posted from: 72.233.2.49
September 28th, 2007 at 7:39 pm

[…] (TV, Internet) as a mean of entertaining not as a mean of communication (which is why I think that Branded Utility and Marketing as a Service are so brilliant […]
Beginner’s resources for interactive media « Curiouser and Curiouser
Posted from: 72.233.2.65
October 19th, 2007 at 10:14 pm

[…] Web 2.0 Conversational Marketing Social Media Social Media Marketing/Optimization Guerilla Marketing Blogs Video blogs (sometimes vlogs) Widgets The Long Tail (Chris Anderson) Search Engine Marketing/Optimization Branded Utility […]
taylordavis.com » Blog Archive » links for 2007-11-18
Posted from: 74.53.3.196
November 17th, 2007 at 10:25 pm

[…] Branded Utility: Interview With Johnny Vulkan of Anomaly on PSFK (tags: advertising) […]
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Posted from: 66.135.48.187
December 29th, 2007 at 3:58 am

[…] is putting into practice the idea of branded utility where companies use technology to find ways to add meaningful value to consumers lives. […]
Designing Problems are for the Lazy « Zero influence
Posted from: 72.232.131.30
January 1st, 2008 at 9:51 pm

[…] think I’m trying to nudge over Johnny’s Branded Utility concept, as Russell notes, It’s just Utility, and that’s agreeable a bit dull. Schutz […]
Writing about doing « gcbb
Posted from: 72.232.153.33
April 25th, 2008 at 6:23 am

[…] when letting a commercial actor loose in the public domain (as part of a discussion on “branded utility” as coined by Johnny Vulkan of ad agency Anomaly), but, for arguments sake, I support any […]
links for 2008-04-30 « Indie Breakfast Club
Posted from: 72.232.151.179
April 30th, 2008 at 3:44 pm

[…] Branded Utility: Interview With Johnny Vulkan of Anomaly on PSFK “Technology means that messaging should now become more targeted so that this level of interruption should decrease but many companies have chosen to take the worst habits of advertising and take them online. They’ve chosen to get in the way.” (tags: brands marketing technology) […]