Brand Memory, Addendum
Brand marketing lesson: it’s just as quick and easy to disappoint your fans as it is to satisfy them.
In this case, it’s as quick and easy as an errant article appearing at the top of a news feed.
My previous post discussing RHUM‘s great personal touch is now overshadowed by the first sentence I read upon loading their site today.
Screenshot of RHUM homepage, 14 Feb 2009 (click to enlarge)
See it?
Headline: “Girls I’ve Had Sex With“.
Great! If I were visiting with Penthouse Confessions in mind, or Tucker Max, or the zillion other smut repositories online.
Awful! If I were visiting the site for some well-written critique on Australian youth culture. You know, music, the arts, film.
That’s why I visited the site. For good, relevant content. Not for the infantile scrawl of some punk who wants to share his sexcapades under a pseudonym.
RHUM is an Australian web publication targeting creative youths. Their mission statement:
RHUM – Rabbit Hole Urban Media – is a non for profit arts-media organisation. RHUM works together with musicians, writers, visual artists and all sorts of other like-minded creatives as well as events, gigs and festivals Australia wide; connecting the peeps with all that is worth a read, ramble and a bit of showing off too.
RHUM, ball = dropped.
Sure, there’s a place for that kind of content within the guidelines stated above (“..a bit of showing off too”).
But – front page?
First item?
Is this the kind of image you want to portray?