Only Human Communication

How’s this for a perfect example of a brand connecting with and celebrating a bigger story.

Down under, we celebrate Australia Day on January 26 with a national holiday. This year,  I was eating breakfast and doing a bit of lazy jar reading (as you do!) when I noticed this message on the Vegemite label. (For the uninitiated,  Vegemite is an iconic Australian breakfast spread)

Didn’t have a clue what they meant but duly, turned the jar and saw this…

I hadn’t even noticed the change in label when I’d picked that jar off the shelf. (It normally looks like this..)

And baboom, I got it. Big smile, big connections: both for my history  with this brand as an Aussie and for the sheer, wonderful chutzpah of a lowly breakfast spread hitching a ride on the good feelings and memories that come with a national  holiday.

Love that. And love the witty tagline Australia: Proudly made from Vegemite since 1923)

I posted these pics with my Aussie Day greetings to all my pals and connections: effortless marketing I say!

Happy breakfast all!

By the way, don’t forget that I am launching my new story consultancy The Story Doctor on March 1 and I’ll be blogging from there! New twitter handle is @StoryDr and web address www.storydoctor.com.au. Join me!

Not long ago, Clive Jones (our graphic designer here at OH) wanted to re-design our business cards. I resisted the move at first but he convinced me that it placed the real story of Only Human, front and centre. (And confirmed our ‘artistic’ aesthetic.) Since the change I’ve had to ask myself (more than once), ‘Damn, why are designers right so often?’ And also, ‘Why don’t I listen to him more!!??’

I’m a (very) recent convert to the tweethood (@onlyhumanblog) and as always when I adopt a new technology, I have lots of questions about how to customise it… to make it work best for me. And Only Human. And also humans in general…with their complex needs, interests and identities. (If humans were simply brands: with a core focus and offering, I would have less questions!)

Last time I was in Singapore I was 19 and on my way to Europe from Australia for the first time. It was a student travel flight, chock full of flares, platform shoes and 1970′s hairstyles. I remember the hairdresser from Sydney University Hair salon was on the plane too: and in the final hours before landing, the guys lined up to get their long hair pinned up and under: so it didn’t go past the collar…

In a past life, I was a fiction and comedy writer. I wrote regular columns in the Australian press and when my kids were small, I did a great line in ‘motherhood stories’. I would dredge up the pitiful stories of life between the drips and spills as a ‘working mother’: the tragio-comic reality of having a Simone de Beauvoir aesthetic and a two-kids-under-two reality…

A few weeks ago, we launched Come Together, a new book of stories and DVD from young mothers in a NSW coastal town. (Read about the project here)

At the launch, I could only take about 90 seconds of video footage  (mainly because I was squished in the corner of the tiny pre-school room and yes, I only had my pocket camera with me)  but despite all that, I couldn’t NOT cut it into something to send to the girls. Take a look: it’s the best evidence of how story works to benefit not just the commissioning organisations(and they are very happy too!) but also the participants.

It makes an old story gatherer proud!