The BV Blog

Leave your branding up to the marketplace? Not a good idea. This reminder is from the folks at MarketingProfs’ Get to the Point Small Business newsletter:

“You’ve heard the branding gurus’ mantra,” says Jane Schulte, author of Work Smart, Not Hard! “Brand or be branded. Well, it’s true. If you don’t go about the process of creating a personality for your company, one will be created for you.” She outlines this process for ensuring your brand doesn’t happen by accident:

• Start with two lists. One should contain words that describe your company’s current personality; the second should describe the company you want to be. They might be similar lists; in this case, they’ll help you to focus on consistency as you grow. If they differ, you can make a conscious, concerted effort to move toward the brand you envision.
• Determine what your company looks like. From Web site design and taglines to colors and logos, make choices that work together to build your brand.
• Reinforce the brand throughout your organization. “It cannot be an act,” she says. “You have to make sure, just like your mission statement, that you can easily carry [it] off in everything you do, from marketing [to] advertising, client service and employee relations.” And give your team the resources they need to make this happen—otherwise, they’ll devise ad hoc solutions that might send the wrong message about your brand.

The Po!nt: “Any time someone comes into contact with your company, whether … through written materials or personal communication,” reports author Jane Schulte, “its intended personality [should come] through every single time.”

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That’s the question Martin Lindstrom poses in a recent post for AdAge.com. He also lists “nine components that powerfully engaging brands share with religion.” How many of these components have you - or could you - incroporate into your brand-building efforts?

A CLEAR VISION

This is the cornerstone of religion. It can inspire great action and firm conviction. To see how this translates into branding, take L’Oréal’s mission: “We sell hope.” Then there’s Apple’s 1982 brand vision: “Man is the creator of change in this world. As such he should be above systems and structures, and not subordinate to them.” These companies’ visions drive them and guide them.

A SENSE OF BELONGING

What do Tupperware, Harley-Davidson, Lego and Apple have in common? They’re all based on communities. Considering Lego’s considerable brand equity, you might expect that the company’s marketing budget would count in the billions. Not so. In fact, it is so modest that if I recorded it here, you’d probably think it was a typo. Lego doesn’t do the talking. It lets Lego maniacs do it instead.

AN ENEMY

Imagine Pepsi without Coke. Impossible, right? A competitor is a valuable foil that unites a company from within and pushes the brand’s boundaries. The enemy shapes the brand.

SENSORY APPEAL

If you were to close your eyes and walk into a place of worship, the sounds and smells would still tell you where you were: ringing bells, incense, the rumble of a massive organ. Most brands are lacking here. Visit any supermarket or retail chain, and you’ll struggle to experience any sensory stimulus, other than visual, that tells you, uniquely, where you are.

STORYTELLING

The world’s holy texts are built on oral traditions. Storytelling has driven faith and religious practice, keeping them alive for millennia. Just as every hymn and window in a church is linked to an all-embracing story, brands have the potential to build holistic identities.

GRANDEUR

It’s all about thinking big - really big. Cathedrals are massive in scale. This attribute is particularly relevant for brands and perhaps more accessible than other religion-related characteristics. Think about the Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York, the latest Prada store in Tokyo or Burj Al Arab, the world’s first seven-star hotel.

EVANGELISM

This phenomenon has lived for centuries and now takes place via chat rooms and viral videos. Word-of-mouth is powerful, trusted and cheap. Brands must make use of the inclination of consumers to be persuaded by friends. Brazilian cosmetics brand Natura deploys a direct-sales force of more than 718,000 to win converts. Just by knocking on doors, it has established a vibrant network of brand supporters.

SYMBOLS

Imagine a smashed stained-glass window, a page loosed from a Bible, a snippet of choral singing. Would you recognize where they came from? Most likely. Few brands, however, reflect this consistency. Not many can be recognized without their logos. Examine an iPod, and you’ll have problems finding the Apple logo. Yet its design is so in tune with the brand’s identity and so unambiguously original that you know an iPod when you see and feel it.

RITUALS

Rituals build brands. The act of placing a wedge of lime in the neck of a Corona bottle helps sell those beers. And where did it come from? As one story goes, it was invented by two bartenders in California to see how fast a ritual could spread.

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In the marketing industry, we’re frequently presented with the task of achieving more bang for less buck, especially in slow economy.

And whether we’re actually in a recession or not, in our current economic state, it’s only natural that business owners are concerned about their bottom lines.

But a slow economy is no reason to slash your marketing budget. It’s time to attack.

In a post at the Stopwatch Marketing blog John Rosen lays out a plan for burying your competition, a helpful do’s and don’ts list ripe with successful and not-so-successful examples from previous economic slowdowns, and sage advice to live by.

While slowdowns can be scary and painful, they also have salutary effects. They force companies to refocus efforts on strategies that genuinely build businesses and powerful brands. For those who accept this challenge and make the right choices, slowdowns can be a period of growth and success.

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I love subs. Those five-dollar footlong subs. But the last time I went to the nearby five-dollar-footlong-sub store (the one named for an underground train), they were all out of tuna fish. The last TWO times I stopped in they were out of green peppers. And during my last THREE visits there were no onions in the joint.

Frustrating? You bet! Especially when you’re a tuna / green pepper / onions sorta’ fella like yours truly. But what really toasted my bread was that, each time, the “sandwich artists” who broke the bad news to me could not have demonstrated less concern over my customer experience. In fact, they were borderline rude about it.

Now, I understand that on the list of the world’s real problems, my onion-free subs barely crack the top five. Okay, maybe the top four. But if you own a sub shop — or any other business, for that matter — it should be mighty important to you that your employees not only empathize with your customers when things go wrong, but that they’re empowered to take a step toward making things right, even if that step is merely offering a sincere apology.

This latest brush with employee apathy - and the resulting damage to the sub chain’s brand equity - reminded me of a recent blog post from Drew McLellan. The subject was “Where should business owners invest their money in 2009?”

Drew writes:

As business owners and leaders look back on ‘08 and either shudder at the memory or exhale a sigh of relief that they survived it, it’s easy to assume that the plan going forward should be to lower prices or cut the marketing budget.

The reality is, both of those are the wrong answer. Cutting prices and slashing your marketing budget will only put you deeper in the hole as the economy rights itself. So what should you do with your money for ‘09?

Spend it on your employees. Make sure they understand your brand, your brand promise and how you want them to treat your customers. Don’t hold an annual meeting where you devote 5 minutes and a PowerPoint slide to your brand.

I’m talking make an investment. A real investment.

Talk about how you want your brand to come alive every week. In managers’ meetings, on all staff retreats, in your HR reviews. Make it a part of your interview process, your exit interviews and everything in between. How much time do you spend on how each and every employee delivers on the brand promise in your new employee orientation?

At Disney, no matter what position you are hired for, from street sweeper to a manager of a division, the first thing you’d do is attend a 3-day orientation that talks about absolutely nothing except the Disney brand and how you, the new recruit, are expected to carry on that tradition.

Think about it. Who interacts with your customers? When your customer has a concern or a complaint, who deals with them?

Especially in an economic time when every client matters and you can’t afford to lose any ground, isn’t this the year you should earmark some of your marketing dollars for the very people who deliver your brand every day?”

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In a recent article and marketing tip we cautioned against greenwashing, the practice of overstating a product’s or company’s positive impact on the environment. Here’s more on the subject from a piece in the New York Times:

“With everyone from oil companies to dishwasher makers to banks trotting out their environmental credentials, complaints about greenwashing, or misleading consumers about a product’s environmental benefits, have risen.

The Advertising Standards Authority, an industry-financed group that monitors ad content in Britain, said it had received 561 complaints from consumers about green claims in 410 ads in 2007, up from 117 complaints about 83 ads the year before.

As regulators work out their response, bloggers and other Internet critics have already started to expose what they see as greenwash advertising.

According to Mike Lawrence, executive vice president for corporate responsibility at Cone, a brand strategy agency in Boston, the problem occurs when marketers make exaggerated claims about a product’s attributes, which may be fine when selling toothpaste or vacations. Most people probably know that the toothpaste will not actually make their teeth sparkle or help them get a date.

But when a company says its product will improve the environment, consumers can sense if the claim is puffed up, Mr. Lawrence said. “This can really backfire with environmental advertising,” he said.

To address this problem, agencies are advising marketers to avoid vague and unsubstantiated claims — the kind that bloggers and other critics are quick to pounce on. Instead, they suggest pointing to a specific step the advertiser has taken or asking consumers to take a small but concrete action.

For example, Procter & Gamble, which makes laundry detergent, has been running a campaign in Britain that urges consumers to conserve energy by washing clothing at 86 degrees Fahrenheit rather than at higher temperatures.”

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After 105 years, Miller Brewing Company is breathing new life into their original bubbly pilsner. The Milwaukee brewer recently launched Miller High Life Extras, a points-based loyalty program that rewards those who are “livin’ the high life.”

It’s simple. Just buy a specially marked 12 or 30-pack of Miller High Life, or Miller High Life Light, if you’re watching your figure. Each bottle or can is worth 10 points, which then can be redeemed with the click of a button at MillerHighLife.com. Proving once again that loyalty and enjoyment go hand-in-hand.

First put on the market in 1903, Miller High Life, also known as “The Champagne of Beers,” is Miller Brewing’s oldest and perhaps most dormant brand in the family. But over the last few years, High Life has more than doubled their advertising budget and enlisted the help of a quirky, down-to-earth delivery truck driver. And it’s produced results: shipments increased to just over 5 million barrels by the end of 2007.

With the huge push behind Miller High Life Extras, one can’t help but remember the enormous (and still ongoing) success of the 1996 launch of PepsiCo’s “Pepsi Points” promotion strategy.

While the Miller Merchandise doesn’t include multimedia prizes like MP3s, the rewards range from High Life screen savers (60 points) to branded fire pits (31,000 points). In between there’s a wardrobe to be earned, like deliveryman shirts and baseball caps. Unlike previous efforts in the beer industry, this promotion is running for a full-year. Maybe even longer.

Miller has done a phenomenal job in utilizing multiple facets of the marketing mix to revitalize an aging brand. The TV spots combined with the new loyalty program are hitting on two important consumer behavior points. Whereas advertising typically provides consumers a reason to buy, sales promotions offer consumers an incentive to buy. And a tangible giveaway, like a Miller High Life-branded fire pit, is a pretty good incentive. Consumers who may not have ever yearned to “live the high life” may want to at least try the brand now. And those who have a fiery brand loyalty to the bargain brew will be compelled to buy more, and buy often.

Miller High Life–aged 105 years and positioned as common sense in a bottle. But will consumers buy into it?

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I saw a commercial the other morning that really made me laugh. It’s a Titan Tire commercial, which if you you would like to have a hearty chuckle, you can view here. Just click on the “kimono” link.

It was funny to me because of the recent state America’s relationship to all things foreign. Funnier still was seeing rugged cowboy types accessorizing a lasso with a beret and pairing a pitchfork with a silky kimono.

I thought it expertly and humorously isolated what’s different about American manufactured products.

But it wasn’t particularly funny to an editor at Indiana State University’s student newspaper, The Statesman. Her reaction to the commerical was markedly different than mine. Read her editorial here.

This editorial offended a member of the the Terre Haute community, so much so that he responded with a letter to the editor defending the family that was attacked in the Opinions column and highlighting the lack of journalistic integrity on the part of the editor.

My point is two-fold. Firstly, what’s funny to some people may not be funny to other people; so un-funny that, as in this case, it is received as offensive and malignant. The lesson? Be cautious in your advertising, but don’t be afraid to push the envelope. If you’re too cautious, people may not have a negative reaction to your efforts, but they may not react at all.

Secondly, I came across this information only because I was searching the Internet high and low for a way to share this commercial with you. In the course of my search, I came across the editorial. Then I came across the response to it. Only then did I locate the commercial. The lesson? You can find almost anything on the Internet. Be smart about what you put out there, and about how you handle criticisms about what you put out there.

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Is it just me or does the audio from a typical TV commercial pod sound more like what’s on my iPod? Armed recently with an old school pad of paper and pen, I was able to jot down - from memory - 10 current TV spots that rely heavily on a famous tune, but hardly at all on the spoken word.

I’ll need another 10 or 12 years before I can separate the sound of Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” from my mind’s eye image of a Cadillac kicking up desert dust. But that’s the point. You may not ordinarily think of Cadillac on any given day, but now, if you hear “Rock and Roll” on the local classic rock station during the drive home, I’ll bet you a cheese danish that an image of an Escalade pops into your head. That connection can be so strong that Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” isn’t just “Rock and Roll” anymore–it’s “that Cadillac song.”

More proof. What products do you think of when you think of these songs? “Like A Rock” by Bob Seger; “I’m Free” by the Rolling Stones; “Don’t You Want Me” by Human League. All of these tunes have a positive connection with Chevy Trucks, Chase Visa, and those chunky Chips Ahoy, respectively. Some companies have even elected to use lesser-known music to form an almost mutually exclusive relationship between the piece and the product. Most folks wouldn’t know Aaron Copeland’s “Rodeo: Hoe-Down” by name, but when it’s set to the sweeping images of families enjoying hunks of meat and paired with the tagline “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner!” it becomes instantly recognizable.

Tapping into the powerful alignment of music and a famous spokesperson, American Express rolled several slices of sounds into one commerical. During the famous “Ellen’s Dance” spot, dog-dealer Ellen DeGeneres dances her way through the day to such tunes as “Car Wash,” “Respect,” and “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now).” Clever, American Express, clever - conveying energy by capitalizing on just seconds of famous songs.

Aligning your business with music, whether through advertisements or in your environment, affects how your customers and prospects perceive your company. Do it right, and you can achieve top-of-mind awareness every time “your” song hits the airwaves.

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