One of my favorite pastimes is noticing brands and imagining the boardroom scene that led up to it. In my mind it’s always a lot like the meetings in MadMen…the advertising guys and gals pitching ideas back and forth before presenting them to moody or otherwise delicate clients.
The branding of Koala Care–those shelves you find in bathrooms for changing babies–strikes me as half brilliant and half preposterous. The alliteration is fantastic, and it makes an adorable if not necessarily accurate logo:
Koalas do NOT wear diapers.
Koalas, in general, are pretty cute, and I bet that was a factor in determining what the name would be. Here two ad men discuss possible marketing ideas to pitch the client.
“OK, we’re talking about the shelf where mothers change their babies. It’s convenient and new. We want to distract from the bodily functions part of it, and focus more on the baby. People love their babies.”
“I’ve got one. Baby Stop! They stop there to take care of the baby.”
“Ok, well that does convey the general idea. But let’s look for something that exudes more ‘motherhood’.”
“OK. Hmmm… Well how about Baby Care? Baby Care Stop?”
“Hmmm…not cute enough. We need cute. Babies are cute. Even when they need to be changed. What are some cute things we could incorporate? Puppies? Everyone likes puppies.”
“Yeah but NO ONE wants to think of their kid as a puppy.”
“Good point. Ok. Other cute stuff?”
Adman #1 looks around the office and notices the stuffed koala he picked up at lunch for his wife’s birthday. “Well my wife’s favorite animal is the koala.”
“Koala Care!! It’s BRILLIANT!”
“Let’s have a drink to celebrate.”
I do think it’s wroth pointing out that they do not feature koalas prominently on their website, choosing instead to feature the more relevant human baby.
Also, baby koalas, known as joeys, stay in their mother’s pouch for six months after birth. They aren’t taken out for changing at all. So changing tables aren’t really relevant. I do wonder how that works for them, though.
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