No stranger to a cease and desist.
For any business, the words cease and desist word send shudders through to their core. And I am sure that it’s not particularly pleasant for the sender either. But, IP and trademark are business USPs and important to be protected.
But until now I have never seen one that made me smile- promise I’m not some kind of monster. This is a cease and desist letter that came from Netflix about its 'Stranger Things' brand.
Image credit: Netflix
I talk a lot about ‘whole brand experience’ this is the idea that wherever and however you come into contact with the brand it feels like the brand. This covers everything customer-facing (marketing, packaging, customer services) but also with any outside suppliers, buyers, investors, and also internally through your sales, HR and legal. The content will be modified but the value exchange and the brand essence will remain the same.
This strategy provides a compound effect. Despite marketers feeling like we harp on about the same thing over and over again, for customers, it takes on average 11 times of them seeing your message to understand. Using every opportunity helps distil your message and your brand ethos will increase the likelihood of building that connection (mental availability- awareness and memorability) in the sharing your message on your behalf.
In Netflix’s case, bringing the DNA of the brand into the communications turned the cease and desist letter from a sternly worded corporate threat from a big corporation, through to a letter that was considered fair and the hero of the story- through to the 'hero' of the story as considered with the number of people actively up-ranking it on Reddit.
A simple test to ask yourself when you are thinking about your whole brand is if you were to see a pierce of your collateral and cover your eyes, would people know it was from your brand?
If you need help designing your whole brand experience, get in touch. We are a creative marketing studio that helps purpose-driven challenger brands stand out and scale. We take the tried and tested methods for building memorable brands and then rip up the rule book to stand out in the sea of sameness and win the hearts and minds of their customers.