Johnny Cupcakes is a t-shirt/apparel brand that promotes itself as "The world's first t-shirt bakery". Their brand is their product, so they take good care of it and promote it with crazy schemes and wild publicity stunts, matching the attitude the brand. The iconic logo, a cupcake with crossbones, is the core of the brand. It works on so many levels because of the culture it grew in and the cheekiness of the logo and brand itself.
The cupcake-and-crossbones could not have come at a better time, as shows like Cupcake Wars and the huge upswing in popularity of cupcake bakeries have made cupcakes into a novelty themselves. This helps boost the brand itself that the founder had envisioned. He made the logo something that people would want to WEAR -- not just another corporate, meaningless mark.
The brand also extends to storefronts. As people are looking more for novelty and experiences when they shop, “I decided to spend all the money I had to create an experience,” [founder Johnny] Earle said. “If I spent it on inexpensive stuff, it would have looked like every other store.” (qtd. in Helm).
His stores are indeed unique, with t-shirts being packed in donut hole boxes and laid out in bakery cases for viewing. Mannequins are put in freezers, with earrings being presented in cupcake-tin-inspired packaging. Colors are named like flavors ("Break Dance Berry" is magenta, "Glam Grape" is purple, "Tubular Tangerine" is orange, etc.). The entire look and feel of everything -- from the floor to the ceiling, from the language to the guerilla advertising tactics -- is on-brand. It creates a climate of weird awesomeness where you feel you're getting a great product and having fun doing it.
The brand itself works because of the surrounding climate. It is a fun, upbeat brand with a different attitude. All of the designs, storefronts and websites are clean, cohesive, and match the brand's platform of being an accessibly-upscale, cheeky, weird, t-shirt bakery.
Sources
Helm, Burt. "Think Different: Lessons from Johnny Cupcakes". http://www.inc.com/think-different-lessons-from-johnny-cupcakes.html
Johnny Cupcakes. www.johnnycupcakes.com
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