The Subtlest Brand Video that Made a Splash

Meet Daniel Swan, almost a nameless filmmaker, now sort of known... through creating a brand video for an almost nameless brand, Cottweiler.

 *** Photos of Cottweiler looks from Cottweiler Instagram *** 

Before I launch into my blurb, I must have you go through a taste of Daniel Swan.

BYOB BERLIN from daniel swan on Vimeo.

AVA CATHERSIDE SS14 from daniel swan on Vimeo.

Okay... Are y'all back to reality? That was a trip, eh!? Nice. Now calm your nerves and recollect your synapses. In similar fashion to the very last video, Swan created TIME SHARES for Cottweiler's SS15. Now online as a Dazed Digital Exclusive, it was originally featured in an exhibition at the Institution of Contemporary Arts in London. The greatest part of the video is its almost non-existent storyboard yet each of the twenty-one ingredients of Cottweiler's SS15 collection is showcased in the video's simulated environment. Did you catch that? SIMULATED. Dazed states that "Time Shares reflects one boy's journey, developing his perception of futurism into a place where organic matter can directly affect him," and this is a short and powerful sentence that the viewers can also emphasize with.

** Unfortunately... Time Shares cannot be embedded into this blog post due to it being an exclusive thing to Dazed Digital. Hence, I recommend you to CLICK THIS LINK AND WATCH EXHIBIT A BEFORE READING ONWARDS TO FURTHER BRANDING-RELATED REMARKS.

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So... how does all this art-talk relate to digital marketing? 

Well, this is an explicative example of our modern time's ability to create a full circle of imagery and associations through multiple channels of absolutely no relations--in this case, the channels are video, clothing, print publication, and physical location--to ultimately influence consumers. We get here by taking a deeper journey than just enjoying the aesthetic elements; we are done licking off the icing now, so let's take a bite into the red velvet cupcake.

First, we analyze the channels that I have mentioned above.
VIDEO: Experimental British filmmaker, Daniel Swan.
CLOTHING: The British menswear brand, Cottweiler, which designs anti-British and totally colourless collections.
PRINT PUBLICATION: The British magazine Dazed's counterpart, Dazed Digital's exclusive premiere of Swan's SS15 Cottweiler film.
PHYSICAL LOCATION: ICA, the radical yet most ideal British venue to showcase this avant-garde combination of fashion, music, and film.

The common theme? "British Power."

Second, we look into the associations of each portal/outlet used.
DANIEL SWAN: Super underground, slow, secretive, unknown, mysterious, talented, musical, experimentalist...
COTTWEILER: Simple, minimal, beyond hip, blasé, indifferent, casual, coveted but not gonna share it...
DAZED DIGITAL: Fast, alternative, informational, sick, no fucks given, offbeat, the well-curated "weird part of YouTube"...
ICA: Radical, London, art, culture, life, breaking boundaries, independent, attitude...

The common theme? "I'm beating you at everything that you are trying to do but I'm never going to let you know that I am because I'm too cool for that." Is that too wordy? How about... "Seek us and be rewarded." That's maybe too abstract. Hmmm. I'll give another go at creating a theme... "Underrated Brilliance"...?

Have you caught on to it yet? The internet and the ease of content sharing enforces that every single consumer touchpoint in relation to the brand is a critical factor. That the channel, the how's of getting there, and the knowledge of where your target market exists online plus how they behave is the key. Maybe being sensitive, intuitive, and quite distinctive artists themselves, Cottweiler achieved such a successful and fully-embraced branded campaign.

The response is measured in all micro-micro details (eg. personalization) while the execution has to be on a grand scale: In the film itself, everything screamed Cottweiler while the brand itself stayed hidden to the public view. By having an installation at the ICA, the film gained credentials in the highly selective culture world, gaining the opportunity to be featured in Dazed Digital. They then chose quality over quantity (engagement vs. reach) by having Time Shares be EXCLUSIVE content, thus gaining impressed viewership (me!).

Previously a devout follower of Dazed, I'm now following Swan & Cottweiler's pages on like every channel. #ShamelesslyAdmitting. Maybe the style is more about what I like... But in the end, they have my faith, following, and blog post, hehe. #PowerOfContent

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Fucking Awesome, the brand.

Here is the origin of using the word, "fucking," the right way for a brand.

vs. 

Korean street brand Leata's "FUCKING SUMMER" hit it big in 2013... I never understood the appeal...

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Fucking Awesome is so unknown (ish) yet so famous for being unknown (ish) that they have FAKE MERCHANDISE selling on the internet. How did they do it?

1. Jason Dill is one of the two founders and he loves pissing people off and doing lots of drugs while being super good at skating.
2. The brand's been around for so long that bursts of notoriety happened over spans of time so that Fucking Awesome was forgotten (ish) and then remembered again (ish). If this is hard to understand, then think direct opposite of what Kim & Kanye does--constant spamming.
3. The Jason Dill follower base connects to the skate world follower base connects to streetstyle brands connects to it's about time that Fucking Awesome hit the main limelight. But then again, FA isn't supposed to be a street style brand:

Wouldn't you define FA as streetwear, though? 
No, I think of it as an idea company. I only make something when I feel like it's right, or if I have the right materials. I don't use the internet. I find everything I put out by hand and sometimes I don't find enough material, or I make stuff and then I just don't like it. Also, Fucking Awesome isn't seasonal. It's just there when it's there and I don't make much of it. I constantly shoot myself in the foot from a business standpoint actually because I make it for sale but at the same time I don't want you to have it. It's a bit of a personality disorder company.  

Direct quote source: Vice interview 

4. Nobody at FA actually gives a fuck. The following are few examples...

• They printed t-shirts with dictators on em: 

• They exploited John Nozum by having their website just be... uhh him playing the piano. This was apparently super cool and okay to do so because when they found the video of Nozum playing the piano on YouTube, only 5 people had seen it. It's a nice idea until you realize that maybe Nozum is crazy (check out his website and see what kind of a strange world this guy lives in!!) and maybe FA just wanted to fuck around with crazy shit. 
• They didn't really have an online store that sold stuff until recently. They seriously only had Nozum playing that piano: 

5. Selfish people create self-serving products that the selfish society likes to engulf. This last point is thoroughly subjective. What I mean by selfish here is the "no-fuck-giving" attitude; FA doesn't give a shit what is being said about them or the "impact" of their designs and acts. What is really interesting is that the consumers like these FA products and they buy them enough for them to sell out! Note the "BACK ORDERED" status of the "Coke Dad" and "Chloe" decks. FA is the perfect getaway from the trendy and branded streetwear culture we have going on at the moment.

I sound like I hate them, but that is not so. I find their identity intriguing and easy to ill-talk on. If I didn't like this brand, I'd have more of a hateful tone... I mean how can you hate a brand that has done nothing in terms of promotions and marketing to become one of the most coveted branded items ever?! Dill, though he is still a little too throttle-y for my liking, seems to always supply the world with entertaining and visually satisfactory designs and products. FA has done good collaborations with larger skate brands (Vans, Etnies) and are true punks in the industry that they belong in. Their shirts are priced around 30 bucks US and sweaters around 60; they can't get any cheaper than that! Now go to other street brands sites and see what they charge for a goddamn tee, pfft, A LOT. And I'm sure you'd rather get your hands on these shirts that are only printed in small numbers and doesn't have the logo screaming everywhere. Plus, Chloe Sevigny's adolescent face is involved. So yeah, FA is fucking awesome. 

Can somebody tell me HOW this page garnered almost 900 likes without doing anything with it? 

Hi Chloooooeeeeee, rrrrruvvvvv yewwwwwwww

If you're keen on knowing more about the brand.. watch the following video interview! Dill will now start to uncontrollably stammer yet make complete sense of what Fucking Awesome is all about.

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See ya later!

@rachelchungg

Regarding REI KAWABUKO

REI KAWAKUBO is the Saint Teresa of fashion. I always imagined her locked in a self-imposed, deconstructed cell, like, massacring hemlines for her next season’s “no-dimensional” outfits that will be mocked, brilliantly reviewed, and worn by the brave.

I wear Comme des Garçons the same way Andy Warhol once wore $100,000 women’s necklaces underneath his Brooks Brothers turtlenecks — to be fashionable in secret. Only you know you spent money when you wear Rei’s creations. In fact, some of the more fashion-impaired public actually feels sorry for us! “That’s a shame about that coat,” an uninformed friend said to me once in a bar in Baltimore when I was wearing, well high fashion. “John Waters in his thrift-shop finest,” the press has written when, in fact, I was featuring a brand-new Comme des Garçons suit! Rei Kawakubo gives us undercover glamour. We know how great her clothes look, but others just think we’re poor.

Her look? Disaster at the dry cleaner. “I didn’t do it!” is the usual cry. Mine has learned to read the complicated and sometimes hilarious instruction labels with courage: “Do not dry clean; do not wash; garment may fray, fade, change shape.” These pants? One hundred percent polyester, wrinkled unable to be pressed. So comfortable, so unnatural, and so expensive. “Friction may cause the flocks to rub off or a slight fuzz may develop,” one label reads. Friction? What’s that mean? Walking?

Rei Kawakubo’s work is never funny, but her wit is so ferocious, so elegant, so scary, and sometimes even so ridiculous that her customers never have buyer’s remorse. How could they feel they had overspent when they look so courageous, so cult-like, superior, and even slightly insane every time they get dressed in one of her outfits? Rei’s look can never go out of style because she is either starting a new one or ruining a trend that’s not even popular yet but is about to be so. In her own words, Rei commented: “I think the world and its values are often lukewarm. I’d like to keep on trying to make it hotter.” Well, she certainly has. Beyond “hotter,” if you ask me, into spontaneous combustion! She makes pretty ugly, ugly handsome, and handsome disorienting. Rei Kawakubo is my leader. She is for many of us too.

John Waters, 2012 CFDA Awards speech