Brand Matters

Arguments Argued

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 13:40:00 GMT

"Leave no stone unturned." "We can’t miss an opportunity." "Let's include that as well." This classic dialogue is something we all suffer from in the noble quest to tell our story to everybody, all at once. And we all know what happens when we “succeed” in this quest. Our marketing materials become a wall of words, cluttered, disjointed, uninspiring, and destined to be ignored. A punchless fruit punch of claims and features.

All you mixologists out there know that not every ingredient in a fruit punch should shout. A yummy punch expresses one dominant flavor as other flavors accent and support its yumminess. The analogy may seem a stretch, but your communications work the same way.

What is your dominant argument? What’s one, single flavor that needs to be expressed before every other ingredient. The biggest deal of your big deal arguments. List them out, and prioritize. Once you have your top argument, the other ones can be used to color in the details in a thoughtful way. The dominant argument will give you more clarity and focus, and your communications more punch.

If you can, make them cry.

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:37:00 GMT

“A man and shelters his son from the horrors of a WWII Nazi concentration camp, convincing the boy that it’s all a game.” That is a brief but accurate summarization for the film Life is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni.

Now, go see the film.

Therein lies the difference between strategy and execution. Mr. Begnini spelled out his strategy—in technical terms—for the movie well before he actually wrote it. But he realized that people don’t pay to go read a plot summary, they pay to experience it. And an amazing film was born.

I laughed and—not afraid to admit it—cried because Mr. Benigni and his talented crew managed to me feel something. The film was in Italian and subtitled in English, but it didn’t matter because he connected with me on a human level. Marketing works the exact same way. Good marketing means stirring something up within the reader. Connecting to them on a human level.

We should all strive for this in every communication. The closer you are to making them feel, not think, the closer you’ll be to making your point.

Monster Ads

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:25:00 GMT

Imagine creating a message so compelling that your audience can’t help but take action. That’s money in the bank—the ultimate win. Unfortunately, one message, by itself, rarely does the trick. It takes a number of pokes and prods to actually get people fired up enough to pick up the phone, or click.

Sure, it has happened before. It’s super bowl weekend and we will likely witness some high-stakes gamblers going all-in with their advertising budgets, praying for a flood. Will it work? I believe Go Daddy gambled successfully. Apple in 1984 certainly established themselves. But if betting $2.5MM on a one hit wonder is just irresponsible.

You might not have millions, but are you counting on that monster ad to do it all? I implore you to curb your enthusiasm. Action usually happens over time, with repeat viewings. And that means your work needs to inch the customer forward, one message at a time.

Nobody Wants To Hear From You

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 18:37:00 GMT

It’s healthy for us marketers to come from this perspective. Because it’s closer to reality. Your target customers didn’t buy the magazine to read your ad. They don’t watch TV to see your commercial.

Everybody has been trained to tune out. And technology helps us along—you’ve seen the “skip this ad” buttons online and, of course, there’s TIVO.   We just want the good stuff. The juicy, delicious content—not the marketing medicine.

By lunchtime, each one of us has been exposed to some 1,500 advertising messages. By day’s end, that number will hit 3,000. How many of those messages will you remember? One? Maybe?  And to compound that, there simply isn’t enough time or brainpower to soak everything in.   

As a marketer, it’s important to recognize we have become selective listeners—out of survival. Luckily it isn’t too difficult to be selective.   A lot of marketers are content on producing marketing wallpaper and white noise that’s easy to tune out. Uninspiring, flat, boring, ugly, tired, cluttered, waste-of-money garbage.   

We challenge you to be unforgiving in your pursuit of creating juicy, delicious content and communications.   You have something of value for your customers. Something that can possibly change how they work and live. You should be heard!  

And if you are buying precious space in a magazine, or online, or a footprint at a trade show, or you’re putting together your website, or brochures, or whatever—you want to optimize that space with copy and design that will blow people away.   

Set the bar higher on your communications. If your work doesn’t inspire you, how can you expect it to inspire somebody else?

The Engine of Social Media: Narcissism

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 04:20:00 GMT

I dare say that social media wouldn't work as a marketing tool if normal people weren't just a little bit narcissistic. (Yes, that includes you too.) That harmless dose of narcissism from which we all suffer is called "false uniqueness" in social psychology. It's the human tendency to believe that we are each more special than everyone else. We're all better drivers than anyone else. We have better taste in clothes or music or our politics are more informed and enlightened. We're all far above average at one or more things (I'm sorry to say that's not true). We all have the worst luck, and it's that bad luck that makes unfortunate things happen to us (rather than our ineptitude or laziness), because we are certainly more deserving of good things than most people too.

This low level narcissism isn't such a bad thing. It helps us live with ourselves despite our flaws. And our personal belief that we are special means that we fight to get our own needs met, sometimes at the expense of others. That's survival.

To maintain our own high flying perceptions of ourselves, we constantly work on maintaining others' perceptions of us through countless micro-behaviors every single day. We are all image managers to varying degrees of skill and success. Brands fit into our image management because they help us present a nonverbal story about ourselves to everyone around us. People don't buy Burberry because they adore plaid. They buy Burberry so you know they can.

Social media is the ultimate environment for personal story telling and image managing. And that's why brands have a place in the social media space. Strong brands thrive in social media because people want to closely associate themselves with certain products to help complete their story in the online space. Becoming a fan of REI is a nonverbal declaration that you're a person who likes outdoor adventure. You want people to know that dimension of yourself because it's interesting and maybe it's a little bit counter to the person most people believe you to be. That REI fan page serves as one piece of your bigger story.

So what does this mean for brands in the social media space? It means that the most successful social media strategies will be founded on an understanding of the personal story the brand helps people tell. Before you think of tactics, like Facebook pages and Twitter feeds, develop a strategy that taps into people's passions as they relate to your brand. Every tactic should stir those passions and help complete the personal story your audience is trying to tell. And then your customers will tell your brand story for you, gladly, willingly, and passionately.

The Power of Ballsy Promises

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 20:46:00 GMT

Your brand is nothing more than a passing thought, a subconscious twitch in the minds of your consumer. Mere fragments of your messages actually get through all the chatter and clatter. It’s best to realize that you just aren’t a priority. The customer is fine without you.

Not exactly inspiring thoughts for us marketers, but I suppose that’s why we’re here. Our biggest challenge is and always will be, how do we become a priority?

Here is one way to help you climb that ladder of importance.

Make a big, bold, ballsy promise.

What difference are you making in the lives of your customer? What is that audacious promise that you’re dying to tell them about because their lives will be forever changed.

You need to be excited about it, so they can be excited about it. As marketers, we are contagions of emotional energy. We have to feel it before the customer can feel it. If you aren’t feeling it, you aren’t there yet.

The consequence is this: If you’re not promising anything, you don’t know what you’re marketing. Or, if you’re promising something that’s tired and vague, you’re marketing what everybody else is marketing. Yawn.

But, if you’re promising something specific that nobody can touch, you’re onto something. Now, you need to get as granular as you possibly can with that promise.

For example, lots of companies claim they have the best customer service. But people expect good customer service already. So that promise is limp and lifeless. Let’s make a brave promise that means something new and exciting that people want to hear about.

If you truly have better customer service, then tell us about it. Does that mean you’ll hand deliver and assemble every item right in their living room? Does it mean you’ll wash and detail their car with every oil change? Does it mean you’ll guarantee a once-in-a-lifetime experience they will be talking about for months?

Tell an amazing story about your ballsy promise and see what happens.

Black Swan's "Nina" Prevails Over Her Own Brand

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 20:45:00 GMT

Natalie Portman’s character, Nina, in Black Swan was pegged as a precise, beautiful, technically-perfect dancer: a metaphor for a the graceful lines and effortless movement of a white swan. But the production also calls for the lead dancer to transform into the white swan’s alter-ego, the black swan.

The darker, pleasure-seeking, unrestrained black swan is something the director of the dance company didn’t think she could handle. He thought of her as too rigid and frigid to take on the characteristics of a black swan. Nina was branded as one-dimensional.

“If I were only casting for the white swan, I would pick you. But I am not just casting for the white swan.” His perceptions of Nina were firmly lodged. He was not convinced.

Nina’s job was to convince the director that she had what it took to transform. This is a brand-level struggle.

Nina’s personal brand was at odds with what the target (the director) demanded. Not many companies can overcome this kind of struggle. How do you re-wire somebody’s perceptions about your company in order to cause them to act?

You prove it. Just as Nina did in her final act. Transform first and then the world will believe. Talk less. Act more. Your customer wants proof.

Nobody Said Branding Was Easy

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 20:43:00 GMT

I read something recently that went a little like this: The only people required to read about your brand are your life partners, and half of them duck out on us. The rest of your audience is voluntary.

It would be generous to categorize our readers and viewers as unenthusiastic—hostile is probably more accurate. As content creators, it is our responsibility to create work that engages and interests our audience. It's just not an option for us to be banal. Too often we are creating work that the marketing team adores and the target ignores.

How do we make the engagement worth our target's time? How do we get them and keep them interested?

Here are two quick tips:

Tip #1. Create original ideas that are executed beautifully. It's imperative we stretch beyond the obvious. What are you doing to add to bring new life into your customer's day? What are you doing to make your customer feel something, to stir them up in some way? This doesn't happen with cut and paste jobs. This is truly a function of original thinking and flawless execution. It's possible to have a great idea that misses because of poor execution. And you can produce something beautiful based on a bad idea which will also go nowhere. It's tough to get both to mesh up, but worth it to you and your customer.

Tip #2. If you don't have the confidence to execute tip #1, hire somebody who can. There are many technicians of this trade capable of coming up with breakthrough ideas who can produce them in a ways that demand attention. Look at their portfolio. If it wakes you up in some way, you're onto something. You have to literally feel it. If you don't, neither will your customer.

Luxury or must-have. Are brands necessary to build the bottom line?

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 04:40:00 GMT

Like it or not, if you have a business, you have a brand. Granted, it might not be much of a brand—unrecognized or (like your prom pictures) even a bit embarrassing—but it’s a brand all the same. And whether you’re an established blue chip company or the local mom and pop pizza shop, your brand affects your bottom line.

But just how important is your brand to your business? In tight economic times, is it a wise investment to bolster your brand or is it more akin to spending money on a high-end car stereo for a vehicle that doesn’t run well?

For the local mom and pop pizza shop, having a brand agency strategically craft a new brand from the ground up may seem like a luxury. But having a compelling, consistent, and clear brand is a necessity. A brand is more than just your logo coupled with a product or service—it’s how your company is perceived by the public. A solid brand creates a lasting relationship among customers, positive word of mouth, and a distinct separation from the competition. It turns the purchase of a company’s product or service into a positive, memorable experience. A negative brand is often the result of a bad experience. The blog I Hate Duane Reade: Service from Hell is a good example of what can happen when you let your brand fall to the wayside.

“But it’s just one person’s ranting,” you might say of the blog. True, but that one person’s rants have influenced the thousand plus readers who’ve visited the blog, and it wasn’t in a positive way.

Every interaction a person has with a company, its product or service builds a perception and influences a brand. If the word-of-mouth about a company is bad, or if the company is inconsistent with its messaging, advertising, even its customer service (note: Duane Reade), the brand suffers. And when the brand suffers, the bottom line suffers. Why risk a bad experience when you’re paying good money for a product or service? That’s why developing a solid brand is a necessity for a company to grow.

The good news is that creating a strong brand doesn’t have to be a costly investment.

A good brand

Can articulate its story in a sentence or two.
Is clearly understood by all the company’s employees.
Is consistently represented with specific language, behaviors and levels of customer service.
Aligns the messaging and visual design on all marketing materials.

Treating your brand like a luxury you can’t afford is a costly mistake, one that effects your bottom line.

Blognetism

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 20:40:00 GMT

I subscribe to a half dozen or so blogs that I really like. But after looking and reading hundreds of blogs, hundreds of authors who have tried their hand at creating a conversation with me, I still only read a handful—those that are worth my 6 minutes.

What makes these blogs so magnetic? I’m hypothesizing that your criteria are similar to mine, and if you’re thinking of starting a blog, then you’ll want these criteria to show up.

All good blogs contain:

• Valuable content

• Unique voice

• Crisp delivery

Valuable content can be viewed as subjective. What’s valuable to you may not be for me. I think Scott Adams blog is entertaining—which I find valuable. You may not agree. The point here is that you want to create value in your posts to your audience. That could be in the form of information or entertainment.

Unique voice is writing from who you are, speaking from your heart, expressing your perspective. Your authentic voice is going to be infinitely more interesting than something you’ve manufactured. People want you, not a textbook, or a retread of something else that exists.

Crisp delivery is about efficiency. Blog posts aren’t chapter books, they make a point and make it fast. You gotta capture my interest and hold it for the duration of the post. No dead air. Every bit of content, written or otherwise, has to say something of value clearly and succinctly. The first cliche, the first overused set up and I’m moving on. It’s too easy to click elsewhere.

Brand new or Bran new?

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:20:00 GMT

When speaking with a friend recently, our discussion turned to the term “brand new.” I wondered what its etymology was. “The term was originally ‘bran new,’ ” my friend said. “And that’s because, back in the day, bran—the pieces of grain husk separated from flour—was used to pack glasses, flatware, and fragile items that where shipped. So when you opened a package, there’d be bran on the new items. Hence,” he said, “bran new.”

Great explanation! But then questions started popping up. “So how did ‘bran new’ evolve into ‘brand new’?” I asked. “And does it have anything to do with cattle branding? Or brand in the sense of a company’s brand?”

My friend didn’t know. So began my research.

The term “brand new” has nothing to do with cattle or company’s brand. A branded cow isn’t necessary a new cow. And owning a brand name car doesn’t mean you own a brand new car.

As for “bran new” vs. “brand new,” the Oxford English Dictionary lists “bran new” as an accepted alternate form of “brand new.” So my friend’s story seemed to hold weight.

But as for the etymology of the terms, the most common explanation was based on the original meaning of “brand.” It referenced the burning or fire of a furnace, forge or kiln. So a “brand new” item was something fresh from the fires of creation, whether it be pottery or a sword.

Personally, I like the bran story better. So whether it’s fresh from the flame or covered in grain, the history of the term makes for interesting cocktail conversation.

The Elusive Brand

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 04:32:00 GMT

Products are easy to identify. You touch them, buy, and use them. They’re everywhere, in your garage, shower, and kitchen cabinets.

Services are a bit different, a benefit provided by people like real estate brokers, travel agents, or doctors. Intangible, services aren’t something you pull off a shelf (though a carpenter building that shelf is providing a service). Still, services have tangible results.

But what about brands? What exactly are they, and how do they benefit companies?

For over a decade, brand has been the buzzword of the advertising and marketing industries. The term’s definition is vague to most people who hear it. It’s even vague to a lot of the people who bandy it about. That’s why it’s become a catch-all phrase for nearly anything and everything, which means companies are often spending fistfuls of money on initiatives that ineffectively build brands.

So what exactly is a brand? Simply put, brand is the perception that a person has of a company, service, product, organization or individual. It's the collection of feelings, knowledge, memories of experiences and even misconceptions that a person has for a particular entity. Apple’s brand is about imagination, design and innovation. It’s even been argued that without its brand, Apple is nothing.

When building Apple into a powerhouse in the late ’80s and early ’90s, former Apple CEO John Scully stated, “People talk about technology, but Apple was a marketing company. It was the marketing company of the decade.”

What was Apple marketing? Brand perception. Other companies offered similar, if not better, products. But Apple differentiated themselves—and their products—through branding.

It’s interesting to note that a company doesn’t own its brand, the people do. But as Apple has clearly shown, that doesn’t mean a company can’t influence its brand. Every point of interaction a person has with a company or product affects the brand. This includes:

Customer service experiences
Retail experiences
Website
Advertising
Direct mail
Signage
Logo
Expressed opinions from friends, colleagues, family and peers
Online reviews and conversations
Sponsorships and endorsements
Culture (employees have a perception of a company too, and that perception is communicated outside the corporate walls)
And more

These interaction points effect how a company influences and shapes its brand. They are the assets a company can control to develop a brand that engages people, compels them to buy, and inspires loyalty.

More on building a brand.

http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2010/09/what-is-a-brand.html
http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/branding/imageandbrandingcolumnistjohnwilliams/article77408.html
http://www.fastcompany.com/1691641/two-branding-gurus-tell-their-side-of-the-story-part-1

Next up.
Luxury or must-have. Are brands necessary to build the bottom line?

Trickle Up: A new website promoting a great cause.

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:13:00 GMT

We’re lucky to work with interesting clients who are passionate about their brands. Trickle Up is one such client. Committed to helping extremely impoverished women ignite their opportunities—opportunities that can pave a way out of poverty—Trickle Up turned to us to clarify their brand message and refresh their website.

One challenge they faced was in telling their unique story in a clear, engaging manner. Working closely with Trickle Up, we developed their story into a powerful narrative, highlighting how they empower women who work hard everyday to better their lives. Trickle Up stands out from other organization by providing women seed capital in the form of a Trickle Up Spark Grant. This grant helps the women launch a livelihood. The Spark Grant is distinct in that it isn’t a microloan or handout. It’s an investment. And in the world of microfinance, it’s a bold approach designed to meet the specific needs of the very poorest.

Having a clear understanding of Trickle Up’s story helped guide the web design and create continuity in all of their external communications. I invite you to check out Trickle Up’s new site and to join them in their efforts to improve the lives of extremely impoverished women the world over.

Word of Mouth Marketing: An Oxymoron?

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 20:37:00 GMT

This is a fascinating article on how you can be treading on dangerous territory with Word of Mouth Marketing.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MengBlend/~3/xYsKP_lBcz4/

Macaroni love

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 20:34:00 GMT

Here is a great example of taking extra stuff off the ad to make a clear, compelling suggestion to viewers. Its even logoless. The background color alone should give you enough to work from in the grocery aisle. Very very nicely done.