The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Yes, I know I’ve talked about this before.

A lot of times before.

The processes.
The considerations.
The complications.

… but mainly it’s been about how certain branding consultancies charge an absolute fortune to come up with some utter nonsensical bullshit that they back up with 1000’s of pages of self-serving pseudo-science bullshit and still end up creating something pants. Kind of like the explanation of the Pepsi rebrand from 15 years ago. Or most Linkedin ‘guru’ pontification.

But the other side of this is when people choose to put no effort in whatsoever.

Hiding their recommendation behind terms such as ‘colloquial context’ or ‘cultural vernacular’.

Don’t get me wrong, there are times where a stripped back approach can be powerful.

A way to connect to society by taking their cultural references and contexts head-on.

Hell, cynic used to embrace an approach that we literally called, ‘unplanned‘.

However, while this was about removing any element of pomposity, it still had to elevate how people saw or connected to what we did. Any fool can churn out lowest common denominator stuff … but it takes a certain amount of skill and flair to develop something that not only connects and engages the masses, but does it in a way where the value of the product/brand is increased and improved to all.

We used to call this ‘massperation’ … which still makes me feel sick even today, hahahaha.

I say all this to justify something I saw recently.

Or should I say something Otis saw recently.

You see down the road from us there’s a house being built.

It’s in full-on construction mode and as it is on the way to Otis’ school, he passes it every day.

Anyway, one day he came and told me he’d seen the building site loo and was shocked with its name.

It was this:

That’s right, it’s called the ‘Shitbox’.

To be honest, I’m not sure if Otis should have been more surprised at the name or the fact it proudly states it’s a ‘high viz’ toilet box.

HIGH FUCKING VIZ!

Is the toilet going to be walking along the street late at night? Do builders have such bad eyesight they can’t find a 6 foot high toilet without it being painted bright orange? Are construction workers such bad drivers they need to be warned of where the portaloos are so as not to hit them?

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?

Anyway, I digress.

The point is that while calling the portaloo a ‘shitbox’ may make sense … I can’t help but feel it is also playing into the builder cliche. Sure, cliches happen because they represent a common behavior or attitude that is played out over a sustained period of time … but often this is only a ‘perceived’ behavior or attitude [usually promoted by an individual or organisation who have found a way to monetise the acceptance of this view] that victimizes anyone who does not live upto the cliche.

I appreciate you may think I’ve gone full-on woke … but apart from the fact I don’t think considering others is a bad thing, I see this behaviour over and over again.

Hell, even Jaguar – with their ‘interesting’ rebrand did it by revealing their new concept cars in pink and blue.

PINK AND FUCKING BLUE.

They made such a big deal about how they ‘delete ordinary’, ‘break moulds’ and ‘copy nothing’ and then they actively, loudly and proudly reinforce the most basic of gender stereotypes. On the World fucking stage!

I totally appreciate you can go over-the-top with this stuff – especially given this whole post was inspired by a building site portaloo. I also get people may think I am suggesting we should name products/brands with words that offer no defining characteristic to avoid any potential stereotype. But neither of those are what I’m trying to say.

All I am attempting to point out is that words matter. And while I fully appreciate naming is a difficult task, I find it fascinating companies spend millions on ‘solutions’ that tend to fall into either pompous, basic or made-up.