You’re getting this missive because you’re a friend of ours. Maybe we’ve worked together. Maybe we’re hoping for the chance to work with you. Maybe we’ve just shared a coffee or a glass of something over the past few years, and we’d like to do it again. In any case, in writing this, we thought of you.
Cider is fast approaching its fifth birthday – a proud and humbling moment for us. This impending milestone is forcing all sorts of self-reflection, as well as the urge to show up in new and interesting ways in our industry and in the world.
And so we’re going to start publishing The Pour on a regular basis. At a to-be-determined cadence, we’ll share observations on brands, the business of brand-building, design, culture, and any other things that strike our fancy.
Bottoms up, friends. We hope you enjoy. We’d welcome any feedback via e-mail and we'll see you back here soon.
Cheers,
Laura
Financial analysts in the UK and US have confirmed that “strength of brand / marketing” is the leading element they consider in evaluating publicly traded companies – even more so than leadership quality or technological innovation.
We found this to be a refreshingly self-aware finding by a cohort of people who can (we’ve found) be a bit blind to the concept of intangible (and therefore hard-to-measure) value. Most people try to logic their way through a justification of why they’ve felt favorably about an organization, rather than acknowledging the fluffy reality of it. Which is that…well…it made them feel good, feel seen, feel special, and allowed them to justify their more rational response to it.
A promising report, and one we hope bears out in the private markets as well as the public ones.
Hallowed British retailer Liberty has made a foray into the beauty business, launching a collection of own-brand fragrances this month. They partnered with Pentagram to create the LBTY brand, and we’ve been drooling over the results for the past week and a half. At once classic and cutting edge, the typographic approach nods to the current category zeitgeist while bringing in the evocative heritage of the famous haberdashers in those sumptuous prints.
Bravo to all involved. (All images c/o Pentagram.)
Do you know someone who might enjoy reading The Pour? Please pass it along.
