Depending on your penchant for romance and spectacle,\u00a0Friday’s “wedding of the century” may have moved you or bored you… to tears.<\/p>\n
But regardless of whether you were in the “set my alarm to 5am camp” or\u00a0the camp of “please, aren’t there other things in the world to focus on?”,\u00a0there’s one thing everyone can agree on…the whole event was a masterpiece of branding.
\n<\/p>\n
Here are my top 3 branding lessons from the Royal Wedding.<\/p>\n
SPOILER ALERT: none of these\u00a0are anything you don’t\u00a0 already know…but like most successful brand campaigns- it’s not always about break-through strategy. Sometimes its about executing a simple strategy really, really, really well.<\/p>\n
1. THNK\u00a0GLOBAL, ACT LOCAL<\/p>\n
The Royal Wedding appealed to many audiences, but the two I d like to mention are\u00a0Kate’s hometown of Bucklebury\u00a0(how\u00a0could\u00a0you make a\u00a0better name up?) and\u00a0\u00a0 the larger\u00a0global community of\u00a02-3\u00a0billion estimated to have watched the wedding live or on YouTube.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the case of Bucklebury (a small hamlet about an hour outside of London with 2,000 residents) she and Wills apparently invited several of the local shopkeepers to Westminster Abbey. And as for the larger universe of multiple countries with varying\u00a0standards of dress\u00a0and modesty – I think her elegant, but\u00a0non-revealing dress was a smart \u00a0respectful nod to other\u00a0cultures\u00a0\u00a0– many of which\u00a0 no doubt are important political friends\u00a0and allies of the UK.<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0\u00a0GIVE THEM THE MONEY SHOT<\/p>\n
A picture has always been worth a thousand words, but in today’s world where news is viral, visual and mostly delivered instantaneously on the web I think the royal couple were very savvy\u00a0\u00a0branders in thier\u00a0visual orchestration of the event.<\/p>\n
Two notable details\u00a0to support this point. The first is that Kate and her advisers realized that the most important shot of the\u00a0day was\u00a0\u00a0going\u00a0to\u00a0be the first reveal of the dress as she stepped out of the limousine to\u00a0walk into the church. The fact that she was\u00a0greeted\u00a0by her sister and maid of honor Pippa in a dress by the same designer which was complementary in both color and cut was\u00a0not\u00a0 just\u00a0interesting\u00a0fashion, it was a savvy orchestration of a key\u00a0image.<\/p>\n
This meant that Pippa\u00a0appeared to be a continuation of Kate and\u00a0 not a\u00a0distraction in the photos and\u00a0 this made the image even more powerful. Likewise, William had several uniforms he could have legitimately chosen. But the\u00a0bright red coat of the Irish\u00a0Guard was also\u00a0a dramatic,\u00a0effective\u00a0visual choice.<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE<\/p>\n
The ceremony could\u00a0have been positioned\u00a0as a passive spectator sport. \u00a0An event happening to two other incredibly fortunate, rich and good looking people, but not something that the average Joe could relate to. But here I think the Bishop of London did a very smart thing to engage his audience and make people relate to the “brand presentation” they were witnessing.<\/p>\n
Early on in the ceremony\u00a0 he said “all weddings are royal weddings with the groom and the bride being the king and queen of creation, bringing love into the world.” Suddenly anyone who had ever been married (or hoped someday to be) was made aware that this was a ceremony that included, and was relevant, to\u00a0all of us.<\/p>\n
Smart move.<\/p>\n
I think this generation of\u00a0brand savvy royals has definitely understood the power of the media, and made a great first foray into\u00a0building the potentially powerful\u00a0 brand of “Will and Kate”. \u00a0Or the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge as they have now been re-branded.<\/p>\n
That’s my point of view. What’s your twist?<\/p>\n
What branding lessons did you take from the Royal Wedding?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Depending on your penchant for romance and spectacle,\u00a0Friday’s “wedding of the century” may have moved you or bored you… to tears. But regardless of whether you were in the “set my alarm to 5am camp” or\u00a0the camp of “please, aren’t there other things in the world to focus on?”,\u00a0there’s one thing everyone can agree on…the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,30,36,64],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-brand-experience","7":"category-brand-strategy","8":"category-celebrity-branding","9":"category-insights"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16497,"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519\/revisions\/16497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}