Tag Archives: brand building

13 October, 2013 · 10:06 pm

Real-Time Marketing Takes Real Character

Open 24 HoursReal-time Marketing is a catch phrase of the moment. There are arguments as to what it means and how far it will go, but no one can argue with these basic premises:

  • Response times are shrinking for marketers who want to play in the currents of popular culture. The velocity of change in everything from bestseller lists to tourist destinations has accelerated the cycle from up-and-comer to has-been. Marketers have to act more quickly, frequently, and astutely to earn cultural relevance.
  • People expect brands to respond to them in multiple forums of their choosing. Today’s marketers can look with jealously at the ancient world where customer interactions were handled primarily in-store or through 800 numbers. People now assume that companies will respond to them wherever they happen to be – In-store, Facebook, Twitter, website, etc
  • People tap into a wider spectrum of company behaviors in forming their brand perceptions. While advertising still commands considerable power, people are increasingly influenced by a broader range of company activities. Apple suppliers’ working conditions, Chick-A-Fils political views, and Zappo’s sales agents have exhibited powerful affects on their brands.

These trends affect the most primary foundations of successful brand building. More specifically, they shed a new perspective on the concept of brand storytelling.  Any student of marketing knows that great brands are built on great stories. Stories are the means by which we understand, remember, and connect with things that are important to us. When we recall great people or great events, we do so with stories. It’s why American Idol and its variants don’t use their airtime to merely judge the talent. What draws viewers in are the stories they construct about what got them there (the obstacles they overcame, the people who inspired them, the dreams they’re chasing) and the stories that unfold as they progress through the natural drama provided by the multiple rounds of competition.

Traditional advertising rightly celebrates well-crafted stories. From Mean Joe Green and the kid with a Coke to Nike’s Jogger.  successful brands have harnessed stories to conjure the highest level of connection with their audience. Yet these tight, well-contained, highly produced stories don’t mesh easily with the trends we just described. How do you craft stories in the world of tweets, snapchats and user-generated content?

The answer is that today’s brand stories must rely more on characters than on plot. Stories that rely on plots don’t have the malleability to meet the emerging forms of marketing.  One can think of a movie like The Sixth Sense, composed with precision to deliver a steady dose of suspense that ends in a wonderful collision of surprise and inevitability. Compare that to a James Bond movie. Outside of a few twists, we already know how it is going to turn out in the end. Yet we embrace the ride in order to revel in experiencing the character we love. That is the advantage of character-based stories. They lend themselves to endless sequels.  No one is pressing for Sixth Sense II but the James Bond franchise keeps churning on.  Characters allow the stories to pour out in endless variation. They inspire Fan Fiction and fierce loyalties.  The common quality in people’s passionate embrace of Star Trek, Sex in the City, House of Cards, and similar properties is not in the plots, but in the characters.

This is not the “brand character” often listed on a standard marketing brief. Those usually list a short collection of well-worn adjectives. Character needs to be richer than that. We feel genuine attachment for entirely opposite types:  because they are the same as us, because they are different from us, because of their glamour, because of their humanity, because of their goodness, because of their badness.  We are drawn less by type than by depth. A real character is the fuller expression of the drives, instincts and world view that shape how you act in the world.  We want to be in the company of that kind of character, to interact with it, even to add to it. With this character firmly in place, a brand can more easily weave stories across channels, and let people tell stories on its behalf. This is the character that brands require to prosper in today’s real-time marketing environment.

(This topic was inspired by a discussion with Mark Figliulo on the nature of character in stories).

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28 December, 2010 · 3:13 pm

The Missing Measure of Business Strength

There are three areas that determine the strength of a business. Yet widely accepted measures have only been developed for two of them.

The overall health of a business depends on three factors:

  1. The quality of its products and services
  2. The cost/price structure
  3. The strength of customer relationships

The third area is often overlooked, but shouldn’t be. Peter Drucker distilled the issue into a fundamental truth when he said that “the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.” It’s the strength of the customer relationship that makes people automatically ascribe higher levels of design and performance to Apple products.  It’s the lack of a customer relationship that feeds the high churn rates in wireless carriers. This is what CEO’s mean when they use the word “brand,” as opposed to what CMO’s often mean when they use the word brand. The CEO describes it in terms of a competitive advantage, and the CMO too often in terms of imagery and recall.

As vital as this relationship is to both the short and long-term health of the business, the measurements around it are not well-developed. There are rigorous measures and standards around quality, as evidenced by approaches like Six Sigma and third-party evaluators like J.D. Power. There are even more rigorous measures in place over the financial health of the firm, enough to employ an army of accountants at any large firm.  But measures of the customer relationship are underdeveloped. The net promoter score attempts to measure the customer relationship by likelihood to recommend to  friend. It is the closest thing we have to a standard measure of customer relationships.  As such, it has been a useful tool for many companies looking to develop a stronger customer-centered culture. Still, its critics are as numerous as its supporters because it lacks the objectivity that is standard in measurements of quality and financial performance. For example, people may be less likely to recommend something they perceive as a vice, even if they are very satisfied (e.g. high fat ice cream). Many companies have their own loyalty measures that are more sophisticated than the net promoter score. But the fact that they are proprietary means that it’s difficult to compare their measures to other competitive companies.

The day will come when savvy investors will analyze customer relationships as closely as they analyze EBITDA. That will be a good day for enlightened marketers because it will establish the best of them as mission-critical drivers of business growth.

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4 November, 2010 · 6:02 pm

Planning is Everything. Plans are Nothing.

The title above is from a quote usually ascribed to Dwight Eisenhower.  Though he was referring to battle plans, it is an apt lesson for business plans as well. His point was that the battle never goes as planned. Weather conditions, enemy reactions and human mistakes conspire to ensure that every military action usually goes off plan before the first shot is fired.  But if the planning process is done with the proper rigor, leaders can react more effectively to unexpected developments. They can assess how changes impact their overall strategy, and better judge the consequences of their subsequent decisions.

I recalled this quote after seeing an interesting discussion on LinkedIn debating the value of business plans for new companies.  Some potential entrepreneurs were dismissing the value of business plans for start-ups because they rarely had any relevance to the business once they hit the  realities of actually going to market. General Eisenhower reminds us how this argument misses the point. The value of a business or marketing plan is not in the plan itself, but in forcing you to think in a rigorous way about how best to deploy your resources. Who is your target? What’s your value to them? Who’s your competition? What kind of human and financial resources will you need to make a go of it? Of course, unless you are the first true psychic, most of what you come up with will be wrong.  The details of the plan may be mere historical artifacts within months of launch. But if you planned well, you are better able to identify and react to what you were wrong about.

The same lesson was delivered in another context by an accomplished climber I once heard speak. He described the meticulous planning process that his team followed before a major climb. They literally mapped out every step. He went on to say that they almost never followed the predetermined path once the actual climbing began, but it was the planning that allowed them to make intelligent choices under stress about what they could afford to change.

Whether you are crafting a business plan for a new company or a marketing plan for an established brand, there are three important lessons in this.  One is that a plan is worth what you put into it.  If you just go through the motions in order to be able to point to an official-looking plan, it will be of no value. Second, you shouldn’t dismiss the planning process just because the plans themselves are rarely executed.  A well-constructed plan will make you a smarter leader and manager for the unexpected turns that inevitably come your way. The final related lesson is that you should not treat the plan as anything but your best current guess. If the plan isn’t working, don’t be afraid to change it. Too many marketing managers disregard new information and new opportunities because it’s “not in the plan.” A plan is not a substitute for thinking. Plans should be treated more like boyfriends than husbands. You should always be open to a better one.

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28 June, 2010 · 11:26 am

Getting It: Charmin vs. Cottonelle

One of the biggest mistakes that marketers make when attempting to use social media is focusing on the channel first. Many of them have been trained that success comes from tapping into what’s hot whether that be celebrities, television shows,  or urban slang.  So they go into social media by trying to figure out  the hot place to be.  First they went rushing into Second Life, then MySpace, then Facebook, and now iPhone apps.

That mentality misses the point of social media: it is not to intercept people on their way to what interests them,  it is to engage people so you are what interests them.  The first task is not to assess the popularity of something unrelated to who you are, it’s about finding something rooted in who you are as a brand that other people find interesting. And that’s where the real challenge lies.  Before you pick any social media channel, you need to figure out what makes you interesting to somebody. Sure, it’s easy to figure out why people would want to talk to you if you’re Nike, BMW, or Maxim. Who doesn’t want to talk about sports, cars or sex?

It’s a little harder when you’re a less naturally conversational product.  Even if it’s something people use a lot of, it doesn’t mean they want to have a conversation about it.  If you make socks, table salt or toilet paper, is there anything that could make a normal person seek you out?

It turns out there is, if you are smart about it. For proof, consider what Procter & Gamble has done with their Charmin toilet paper. By owning public restrooms, they found a reason for people to talk about them and with them.  In 2002, the brand team started Potty Palooza, a portable set-up of high-end public toilets that traveled around the country to concerts, festivals, and other events.  It became an attraction in its own right, and the subject of considerable buzz. They built on that momentum with the installation of luxurious public restrooms in key venues like Times Square. Most recently  they extended their idea into the sponsorship of a mobile app, SitorSquat, that maps out public washrooms around the world.  These efforts have helped strengthen Charmin’s place as the most popular toilet paper brand, and even to have its premium line cited as a leading economic indicator. They found a way to make  people want to talk about a toilet paper brand. They started by finding something inherently interesting about the brand, and then played it out in various channels where it fit.

They did not pick a channel and then shoehorn something into it. For an example of that, you can look at Cottonelle’s Facebook page. Here’s the mission of their page in their own words:

“The Cottonelle® Brand Facebook page is intended to provide a place for fans to discuss Cottonelle® products and promotions.”

There’s  no reason to go there unless you have some pre-existing connection to the brand. I can’t say what motivated this effort, but it seems like someone simply decided Cottenelle needed to be on Facebook.  They do a nice enough job trying to keep some kind of conversation going, but you can feel the strain like small talk between people who arrived too early for an office party.  It’s hard to have a meaningful conversation without something interesting to talk about.

(credit to Bill Hague of Magid Research for related insights)

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14 June, 2010 · 9:55 am

Getting It: Chevrolet and Volkswagen

The contrast in behavior between two car companies over the past several  months could hardly be more illuminating.  As reported by DetroitNews.com, the marketing heads of GM directed their internal staff to stop referring to cars using the Chevy nickname and instead use the more proper Chevrolet label.   It smacks of  a guy I knew named “Ox” who tried to convert everyone to calling him Alex after he graduated college and got his first job in banking.  He thought it was more fitting to help him climb the corporate ladder.  It distanced him from his old friends and made him less interesting to his new ones. After all, who would you rather have watching over your money, Alex or the Ox?  GM’s attempt to backtrack a couple days later was only slightly less baffling.  They explained that because they sell more cars internationally now than domestically, they thought it better for consumers outside the U.S. to learn their proper name first before learning the nickname.  That defies the way nicknames really work with both people and products,  if Paul David Hewson (Bono)  and Coca-Cola (Coke) are any indication.

Compare that approach to Volkswagen.  They’ve embraced the Punch Dub game that kids started around spotting a Volkswagen.  When I saw their ads shortly after my kids starting punching each other in the arm every time they saw a VW drive by, it was both endearing and smart.  It made those familiar with the game feel like insiders, and those unfamiliar with it curious. Every marketer strives to integrate their brands into the popular culture, and they handled the opportunity deftly.

The contrast comes down to a simple definition of a brand. While marketers work hard to foster brands, a true brand is ultimately owned by the consumers. It is people’s perceptions and feelings that define a brand. VW took what people were doing around the brand and embraced it, GM pushed it away. Maybe GM took their part in popular culture for granted because Chevy has been around so long.  It might have been easier for VW to see the relatively new phenomenon as a gift in a way that GM could not. Still, the fundamental mistake was in a mindset that misunderstood the fundamental nature of brands.

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13 April, 2010 · 11:03 am

The Brand – Marketing Paradox

Over the past few years, there has been two converse trends that speak to an interesting shift in the marketing landscape. On the one hand, the benefits of a strong brand have become more discussed and desired than ever before. CEOs, politicians, athletes, and entertainers are obsessed with developing and shaping their respective brand.  Numerous self-help columns promise to help people develop their individual brands. Never before has branding been perceived as such a critical success factor by so many people in so many fields.

So these should be heady days for established branding experts. Marketers from brand managers to agency directors should be enjoying unprecedented status and influence. Yet the opposite situation seems to be the case. White papers for CMOs circulate around the struggle to get a seat at the decision-making table.  Agencies are increasingly treated as commodities, set out for bid in much the same way as office supply contracts.  Major consumer marketing companies have bypassed the professionals to embrace “user-generated content” and crowdsourcing to fuel their marketing campaigns.

One explanation for these contrasting trends is that branding has become too important to be left to the marketers. Supporters of this view argue that the limited toolset and mindset of traditional marketers has made them ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of the modern marketplace.  There is some isolated truth in this, but anyone who has dealt with a large sample of CMOs can attest that as whole they are as engaged, intelligent, and creative as anyone you could hope to meet.

The more credible explanation is that branding has become bigger than marketing.  The digital era has brought an unprecendented amount of information and transparency to products and the companies who make them. As a result, people are forming brand impressions from a far greater number of inputs than ever before.  A frustrating customer service experience becomes a viral video hit, a golf outing with clients sparks national outrage,  financing from an overseas bank results in a store boycott. So brand impressions are being formed less by the things marketers control and more by the corporate culture and its day-to-day operations. 

Branding used to cover a company like frosting on a cake. It was something you added at the end to make it look good. Now the branding is baked in. For branding experts to contribute, they have to make a positive impact on what goes into the cake, not on what comes out of the oven.

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30 March, 2010 · 10:19 am

Ten Things Your Agency Prefers You Don’t Know: #9

There is no reason for an agency of record.

With the possible exception of a media agency, the agency of record status is of no benefit to marketers. A little historical context is useful to understand the situation. Back when ad agencies did everything for their clients, including buying their media space, the agency of record designation had a legal and business purpose. It meant that a newspaper, magazine, or TV station knew that an agency was authorized to make purchases on behalf of its client. It was in keeping with the technical definition of agent in commercial law: someone authorized to negotiate and enter contracts with a third-party on behalf of the principal. An agent provided clients the convenience of not having to deal directly with hundreds of media contracts associated with a large marketing campaign. For large marketers making frequent purchases of many types of media, this role still makes sense for their chosen media agency.

But after media agencies spun off into standalone entities, the other types of agencies worked to hold on to this title. There were now creative agencies of record, promotional agencies of record, or interactive agencies of record. These designation exist to this day, but solely for the benefit of the agencies. They are the basis for long-term contracts and associated retainers that make holding companies more attractive to their investors.  In short, they provide the assurance of a more reliable revenue stream, and create a barrier to entry to competing agencies. It is a sort of corporate engagement ring jammed onto the finger of a client to ward away other suitors.

But there’s no reason for marketers to wear that ring.  These agencies don’t play the business role of agent. As with production for example, pre-production estimate approvals and other mechanisms effectively make marketers a first-party to any contracts or external agreements. In fact, an agency of record can be a detriment to marketers because it hampers their ability to seek out ideas from whoever they like.  Forrester just predicted the demise of the interactive agency of record, but why stop there? It’s true that marketers may prefer the convenience of working on an ongoing basis with a single organization that understands their business and their way of working.  There may also be some efficiencies in having multiple projects run through a single provider.  Some marketers may find their agencies so valuable that they want to ensure they have a long-term relationship. But that should be a matter of choice and not a contractual obligation. Most marketers have to earn their customers loyalty every day.  So should their agencies.

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2 December, 2009 · 10:36 am

Ten Things Your Agency Prefers You Don’t Know: #1

An agency can’t give you a brand that you don’t already have.

There may have been a time when a brand was mostly defined by its marketing communications. If so, that time is long past. Advances in media savvy, information transparency, and brand choice have forced brands to live in the real world.

Underlying the social media push is the larger issue of transparency.  Trends in culture and technology have made it impossible for companies to have an artificial brand image that exists separately from everything else they do. A brand today is more defined by the quality and design of its products, how it’s sold, how well it interacts with its customers, and the type of people who manage it. Marketing messages are just one aspect of that larger brand behavior. How a brand acts has more long-term impact than what it says. And a brand cannot act consistently in a way that is inconsistent with the actual culture of the organization.

The true brand is defined by all the real stuff behind it. When people talk about great brands, the usual suspects include companies like Nike, Apple, or Southwest Airlines. There have been some great advertising campaigns associated with each of them. But the best of them only crystallized what was already inherent in their brands. Do you think that Phil Knight, Steve Jobs or Herb Kelleher needed their agency to define what they were about?

The best agencies are like skilled jewelers who design a setting to show off a stone to its best effect. They can’t create the stone, but they can bring out the best features. A company that comes to an agency and expects them to create who they are lacks a basic understanding of where a brand comes from.  Great communications can bring that true brand to life in ways that clarify or enhance it, but unless you are willing to turn over the management of your company to the agency, they can’t create something that isn’t there already.

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1 October, 2009 · 5:02 pm

The New Brand Building Materials

toolsInterbrand’s annual survey of the top brands in the world always creates some interesting discussion around how best to define brands and their value.  By a proprietary (i.e., fuzzy) methodology, they attempt to put a financial value on the brand. Many of the most valuable brands near the top of the list are the ones you’ve come to expect: Coca-Cola, Microsoft, McDonald’s, Disney, etc.

But there is a different cut on the rankings that reveals a profound statement on the current state of brand building. There are only four brands ranked in the top half of the list in 2009 that were not on the list at all five years ago.  Based on this rise from nowhere to top 50 in the world, you might characterize these as the companies that did the most brand building  in the last five years. These four brands are:

  • Google (#7)
  • H&M (#21)
  • UPS (#31)
  • Zara (#50)

 As you look at these all-star performers, I’d ask marketers to consider one question: what do you remember about their advertising campaigns over the last five years?

You may remember more than a few things for UPS, and it is fair to say they have been active and heavy advertisers in the past few years.  But it is quite a different story for the others. Google sells ads instead of buying them. For Spain-based retailer Zara, it is a bit of a trick question because they pride themselves on their “zero advertising” business plan. They built their business on “fast fashion” by which they can design, manufacture, and ship to a new product to shelf in less than three weeks. H&M is also a fast fashion brand, that does some promotional product advertising, but attracts most of its ardent followers from a never-ending cascade of new fashions that promises a whole new store every month.

We hear lots of stories of smaller brands that have used innovative marketing approaches to build a successful niche or score a quick hit. These companies tell an even more powerful story of becoming among the most valuable brands in the world while using few of the techniques we’ve come to associate with megabrands.

So as some ponder the question about what kind of advertising they should be doing — broadcast, online, mobile? — they might also ponder the question if they should do any advertising at all.  To be realistic, advertising is and always will be a powerful tool. But it is no clearly no longer the default tool for becoming a major consumer brand.

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