Hey there faithful readers (i.e. mom and dad). I’m off to Italy for an ideation week on behalf of a paying client. Wish me luck. It’s being held at a New Age resort in Italy. In thinking about it, I don’t think Italians do new age so well…nope can’t think of a thing. Pretty sure the last invention they came out with was the pizza bagel. I think we created the Hot Pocket.
poster by Matt Willey and available at Magma UK
Jessica Hagy over at indexed has an acute sense of observation and a beautiful way of depicting the world. She also has a new book out which stirs up almost as much envy in me as I had for the guy who bartered his way from a red paperclip to a house in Kipling, Saskatchewan. Those Canadians are cute as puppies but boy, they will fall for anything.
By the way I have a whole box full of paperclips if anyone has an apt. building they would like to trade. Going once, going twice…
I discovered an interesting little widget on my travels around the blogosphere yesterday: The Blog Readability Test. Type in your blog’s url and presto! It gives you a nifty little digi-sticker with your blog’s reading level on it. But it gets better– it works on regular websites too! Since I’m a nerd I looked up presidential candidates’ websites straight away. This is what I found…
DEMOCRATS:
BarakObama.com – College, Post Grad
JohnEdwards.com – Genius
HillaryClinton.com – Jr. High School*
REPUBLICANS:
JohnMcCain.com – High School
MittRomney.com – Elementary School
MikeHuckabee.com – Genius**
JoinRudy2008.com – High School
RonPaul2008.com – High School
When reading these results, keep in mind that half of America is below average at everything, always.
*which may explain the crying. Junior High can be a nightmare.
**if you hate evolution
from brandingbranding.com
“Currently, most practices are either strong on the strategic (business) side of branding or the creative (design) side. Too much strategy makes for an ugly brand and too much creative turns brand development into a ‘look and feel’ exercise.”
Amen. Can’t we just be friends, design and brand folks? Even better—friends with benefits, chief among them better work for our clients? I’m in, who’s with me besides Flipper here?
…and I mean that in the best possible way. He has a reputation as a rebel in the book cover design industry, and in doing so has been shaking up what we expect, ruffling some feathers and achieving fame in the process. (If only the rest of us could do it with such style…) Last week he was a guest on my colleague Debbie Millman’s radio show Design Matters and this week I’m pointing you over to DoorSixteen for a thoughtful write-up from a book designer about Chip’s attitude and practices as well as pictures of his well-appointed home.
Nokia is firing a shot at Apple, finally. While Nokia has been making great phones for awhile, it hasn’t seemed to be able to articulate a new future or to help customers envision how its products will change behavior. I think this spot from Lowe may finally be that future.
This American Life with Ira Glass did a radio show on maps awhile back as well as a related show on getting lost, both of which served to underline just how many different types of maps there are in the world. They run the gamut from the weather map in the local paper to maps of deep sea fish hatcheries and to maps of lampposts in a given neighborhood.
Maps aren’t all uniformly beautiful, but some are absolutely stunning and remind us consultant types that PowerPoint is woefully ill-equipped to convey beauty.
Hat tip to Violet Tiger who has more incredible maps over on her site.
“In US: Major online video sites have doubled their audience since the US writer’s strike started in November. YouTube’s audience was up 18% in the two months post-strike and Crackle doubled its audience from 1.2 million users to 2.4 million users.”
Growth in online video during the writers strike must add some salt to the wound for network executives who are facing angry media planners and an overabundance of reality television. I also think it’s great how writers are discovering other outlets for their content, including the much hyped funnyordie which is the entire reason for this post. Click the video below or don’t complain when everyone is talking about it later and say I never tell you anything.
…or at least that’s the only sense I can make of this spot. Ronald is looking lean, although it could be the crack that he appears to be on.
Hat tip to ChimpMonitoringMedia
I love me some Feist but this video makes it look like everyone got stuck in an American Apparel store only to be directed by Richard Simmons in a remake of West Side Story. Or maybe I just need another cup of coffee.
Sometimes I have a problem shutting my mind down. After years of talking with folks on behalf of brands and working across industries, my mind just sort of starts making connections and it won’t stop. And what’s worse is that I declared this year the Year of Action, which means that I should act on things that I think.
Recently I’ve been on a kick of buying Internet domains that I think would be good for bands. Am I in a band, you ask? No, I can’t play anything, although I did make a concerted effort to become the best washboard player in San Francisco a couple of years back. Then I found another washboard player in San Francisco and I realized that dream was dashed.
The domain names aren’t actually for future platinum-selling garage bands, but what they’re for… well, I haven’t figured that part out yet. Anyhow, if you or anyone you know is looking for a rocktastic band name I have a few in my collection. If not, I’ll have to take up the harmonica someday and give it another run.
Read the rest of this entry »
If I had a nickel for everything I missed out on due to safety reasons I’d be at least a hundredaire. I couldn’t run with scissors, play William Tell in the backyard with a BB gun, fence with my defenseless and uncoordinated little sister.
Damien O’Sullivan’s ceramic eye-patch follows on the current trend of making everyday objects beautiful. This one is beautiful enough to make me want to take up something dangerous.
Hat tip to Design Sponge.
Smashing Magazine has published another list of cool spaces to work in. Between this and Metropolis’s list of great agency workspaces I’m starting to feel downright traditional. On the upside, at least I don’t spend my days in a prairie-dogging cube farm.
Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler.
I came across the trailer for macheads the movie and to be honest with you, I think it’s a little disturbing. After a few minutes I was waiting for someone to be saved at the alter by Steve himself or to cast out their Windows demons and start speaking in codes.
Coors Light advertising is not funny. In concept, it is hilarious. In practice, it makes me want to grab a cold Coors Light because I think if I keep drinking the ads might get funnier. Does that mean they are working?
This consumer generated spoof is a little funnier, and I haven’t even been drinking.
Hat tip to Church of the Customer Blog
Debbie Millman points us to this beautiful animated piece created by Sesame Street and Phillip Glass in 1979. It makes me smile on a cold San Francisco day and makes me wonder why so much marketing has to be so ugly.
I was more excited about this when I thought that LoJack was actively extending its brand and entering into new categories, but alas, they aren’t. It’s still a nice rename for CompuTrace and a great idea to license the LoJack name into an adjacent and relevant category.
Renaming companies is difficult work. Not the creative part, though that too can be difficult, but rather understanding the current equities or lack thereof and attempting to estimate how much value a new name would add to the business over time. In this case I think it was worth it.
Can I also request LoJack for wallets, keys and girlfriends?
Forbes’s take on it here.
Much has been said and written about transparent marketing. In a world where you can no longer hide behind your website because there are a million blogs telling customers the truth, what do you do? Most people suggest that you be honest. That you refocus on customer service and satisfaction. That you remember that “a happy customer tells a few people about their experience but an unhappy one tells anyone they can find.” That you put all the information out there for your customers. And these are all wise suggestions, but what’s missing is a celebration of “positive secrets.”
We all want to know the secret, don’t we? How many of us can remain indifferent after a friend says that they have a secret but they can’t tell? It drives you crazy. You want to know. It’s okay– it’s human nature.
In a world where every piece of information is available, secrets are important to keeping customers engaged and involved with the brand. What is the brand story that you can roll out to customers? How will you tell it? Can you work to create a more interesting backstory? Are there parts of your product experience that can be discovered?
In-N-Out has done an incredible job of this on the West Coast through everything from the John 3:14 printed on the bottom inside of their cups to the secret menu and language only available online. While the plan probably needs an upgrade at this point, there’s something to be said for a company that can keep its secrets.
Curious is a fun word to say. Try it out loud right now: CUR-EE-US. It sounds like curios which you might put in a curio cabinet but what’s curious about that is why anyone would ever do such a thing.
Tangents like the above are why I’m not invited to speak at many conferences. Seth Godin is invited. Seth speaks at lots of conferences and I think some of them are on the topic of speaking which makes it even more impressive.Here he speaks on curiosity in a short film by film-maker Nic Askew.
(sorry folks, I can’t embed flash but the video above is worth the click)
The Navigatrix and I picked up this piece of collateral in Portland, OR while on safari. Perhaps coffee just tastes better in rainy climates, but I really like what the folks up at Stumptown Coffee Roasters are doing.
They offer great environmental design while also pursuing a strategy of coffee as wine where they describe the tasting experiences of each brew along with where it was grown and whether it is fair trade, direct trade, co-op or organic, all before hand drawing every cup.
Too many experience brands seem to submit to the idea of matching luggage. They believe that the environments have to look the same, that the products have to be the same and that everything right down to the “have a nice day” has to be the same. If things vary then they will either lose control of their brands or the customer will suddenly get confused, lose their capacity and stumble into walls. “But…I thought I was in Starbucks and now I’m so confused…”
Perhaps this is why I love new chains like Rudy’s barbershop that have popped up on the West Coast, (soon on it’s way to you New Yorkers) where each shop has it’s own identity, personality and flair. There are of course consistencies, but the most important one is that you are going to have a great experience. You will discover something new and that before you are out of the chair you will enter into their brand culture.
What happens when that cool new thing that you got suddenly becomes the cool new thing that everyone has? Trend Setters (god I hate that term) either move on to the next new thing or redouble their efforts to bring personal ownership to their products. Creating an accessory culture around new products may prove to be a way to keep these early users engaged.
Steve Portigal has an interesting post on Crocs culture and the emergence of charms in Japan and the UK (see picture above). Apple has also inspired a ton of secondary markets for its products from the useful iPod Skins to the scary-but-true Taser/iPod holster that was displayed at CES.
My personal favorite are the iColour modifiers which allow you to take that boring old glowing Apple logo and modify it to your own liking, gaining the ire of your IT dept. at the same time.
Like this guy here, trying to art direct a cow during a shoot for Dairy Today magazine. I know what you’re thinking– Dairy Today? I don’t care, it’s a beautiful redesign even if I am lactose intolerant.
Exploratory research can be difficult. Through the pursuit of the strategic goals of a project, we sometimes put on blinders and run around the research track seeing only what is directly in front of us. We ask only about things that we „think‰ will be useful, and in doing so omit things that truly are useful. Seeing both the forest and the trees is one of the great balancing acts of this type of research, to horribly mix metaphors. We all want progression and to feel like we’re moving closer to the answers but we also realize that if we only ask what is logical or probe on things that are immediately available, we’re likely asking the same questions as the team working for the competitor.
These tips compiled by Sam Karp are a great reminder to what to do and how to do it.
An excerpt:
Available for enjoyment here:
Available for purchase here.
Only works on logos fellas, not recommended as a personal enhancement device.
Agency Tart points us over to the Design Police for this handy downloadable sticker set to entertain you during the day and on drunken nights. I think outdoor is the best medium for these so bundle up East Coasters.
Early in my career, I remember seeing a posting on Craigslist for a marketing position at Wham-O. After I changed my pants, I applied and they had the good sense not to hire me.
Wham-O is a cultural brand with an amazing track record of creating fads that impact the social landscape. Last week it lost its founder Richard Knerr at age 82. That makes me sad.
Found this video this morning courtesy of MSNBC. It raised for me an interesting strategic question: what happens to Obama’s message when everyone jumps on “change” as a political theme? Can Obama still own Change like Tide owns Clean, or does it become table stakes for political discourse?
The job board Monster has launched another campaign by BBDO designed to encourage us all to jump ship and go find another job. I’m impressed (read: disappointed) that they spend so much money on production and Super Bowl ad buys but they still don’t have a very clear proposition. I’m not sure how they’re different from HotJobs or Career Builder and I bet they are all losing business to LinkedIn and Facebook as we speak. I have little doubt that the next big wave of employment sites will be built on social networking.
Part of the problem is that Monster only sort of cares about the end user. They need the users, but they actually make money by convincing companies to post jobs. Putting the paying customers first creates a rather crap user experience for anyone who wants to actually use the site. For instance, I just typed in “strategy” as the job field and San Francisco as the city. I was inundated with 100 postings by Deloitte, and that’s just in San Francisco! Anyone who knows me knows that I wouldn’t be a good fit at Deloitte, but then again, Monster didn’t ask me anything about myself. Where is the next generation of sites that will challenge the business model and create a real advantage?
That said, this ad discovered over at brandflakesforbreakfast is still pretty.
I’m not even sure what to say about this. Is it an impressive (and
creative) brand extension by MLB or is it disgusting? I can imagine the
eulogies now…
I’ll go ahead and say it– I love Ketel One advertising. Not all people do.
The Washington Post asks, “the most urgent question raised by this campaign: What can be done to make it stop?” Others use it as an opportunity to vent childhood resentments and showcase the general lack of love in their lives (yes, I’m talking about you CopyRanter). But I think they’re all missing the point.
First of all, sales of Ketel One are up, which is the true test. Secondly, its drinkers tend to be extremely loyal relative to other vodka drinkers (Grey Goose aside). And I think that is really what this campaign is all about: creating brand loyalty.
The Ketel One and M&C Saatchi advertising teams have created work that is subtle, sophisticated and applauds its audience for its good taste. In an age where so much advertising screams its way across every possible medium to get attention, it’s refreshing to see a brand that spends its ad dollars not on shameless promotions but on reaffirming its audience each and every chance it gets.
TV writers, I miss you and I want you back. I’m not just talking about just the good writers either, if you work for CSI you can come back too. I’m tired of watching A Daily Show, Fraiser reruns and the Nature Channel, and I’m tired of being pissed off that LOST is going to stop halfway through the season with the longest To Be Continued ever. The least you can do is come over and write my blog for me. We can promote your cause, let you show your skills and show everyone what they’re missing. Think about it, let me know.
Wow. I’ve seen a lot of advertising and I’ve seen a lot of rebranding. Sometimes tepid, sometimes extreme, but I’m really impressed by the new work that Goodby Silverstein is putting out for Cheetos. Reflecting a strategic shift to move the brand from a kids dominated audience to a more adult one, this work is inspired, quirky and entertaining, drawing its audience into the Orange Underground where random acts of Cheetosness are inspired and encouraged. Not only is it well produced and on message, it’s a nice way to engage an audience and stimulate consumer generated content in a creative way.
We were recently doing a competitive audit for a client and came across Carpe Diem waters. The packaging isn’t much to look at (frankly, most of the category isn’t) but it does communicate freshness and enhanced benefits better than most brands in the water-Plus category.
The surprise came when we turned the packaging around and recognized the Santa Monica address as that of Red Bull. The fact that it comes from the adrenaline pumping, fly-off-a-pier-in-homemade-plane place makes it a bit more impressive in my mind.
Most companies work hard to not take any risks and to leverage the heck out of their equity until it is diluted to, well, something not unlike water. I’m impressed with the creativity and the soft brand that they have created here and how it creates a nice contrast within their portfolio. If anyone has more information on Carpe Diem or how it came about, write in and let me know.from the Carpe Diem site:
Carpe Diem is both – philosophy and brand.
December retail figures are out and it is a reminder of the dismal state of retail brands. Gap, Inc. -6%, Kohl’s -11.4% Macy’s -8%, Target – 5%, etc. There are a few bright spots but even then, they aren’t very bright, perhaps it is the florescent lights.
Adage online points to how taglines aren’t working as hard as they should be and clearly differentiating the stores. And they have a point, but the point that I take away is that Adage has never been to a retail store! The fact that taglines are interchangable is not nearly as important as the fact that the stores themselves are interchangeable. They are all the same. Sure some have slightly different merchandise, Target did a nice job with their design positioning but they also just lost superstar designer Issac Mizrahi to Liz Claiborne.
America seems to be going soft all of a sudden. We started with the
carefully crafted YouTube clip in late 2007 of FanBoy sobbing over
Brittney and her heartbreaking situation. That was a nice way to end
2007; it’s always better to cry at the end of things to help you move
on. I thought that was it, a little isolated tear-shedding and we could
move on.
Not a chance. 2008 kicked off with Hillary Clinton getting misty-eyed upon the electronic screen, a not-so-subtle display of humanity that some
credit for helping her win in NH. And then, even more shockingly,
Terrell Owens of the Dallas Cowboys gets choked up during an interview
as he defends Tony Romo against the inevitable onslaught of the media.
T.O., really? Mr. Brash, Mr. Bling, Mr. Historically, I’d be more likely
to blame my quarterback, my coach, my jockstrap manufacturer… suddenly
having an emotional breakdown in his quarterback’s defense?
A new report out of the Stanford Graduate School of Business reports a direct correlation between price and pleasure. I would link this back to an earlier post I wrote about Magical Value in showing not only the correlation between price, but between a users satisfaction and what they believe the marketplace value is. If they believe that the product that they are purchasing and consuming is of greater of higher value and greater quality, consumers want to believe that they are evolved enough to appreciate that additional quality.
They did their study based on wine. In telling people that the bottle was more expensive, users reported experiencing additional pleasure. Now, overall that makes a lot of sense, but I think that the only criticism that I might have of their study is that it seems like they only measured the first bottle of wine. Because frankly, after a couple bottles, two-buck-chuck tastes pretty darn good.
Engadet and others reported today that China Mobile backed out of negotiations to carry the iPhone.
But I would point back to the initial statement ” [the] iPhone model was not suitable for China” as the true reason the negotiations broke down.
I was in China in mid-2007 doing research on the mobile phone category and specifically looking at convergence devices. While the market there is filled with convergence devices, more respondents were carrying around multiple gadgets that they saw as best in class vs. relying on one device. Music players that were the size of a matchbox w/ readable song names (take that shuffle), Video players that were almost viewable by someone under 30 and nifty little phones.
The quote I most remember came in response to a prototype I was showing, “it’s too big to be my music player and too small to be a good video player.” I imagine that this consumer sentiment is what caused tepid negotiations between China Mobile and Apple. Except add in, it’s too big to be a phone.
In addition, consider that according to Business Week, “cell-phone replacement cycles in China that run 6 to 12 months faster than those of Europe or North America” which would presumably make long-term contracts less appealing. And, that Apple as a brand doesn’t possess nearly the cache in China that it does in the United States or even Europe. Again from Business Week, “the Mac platform only has 0.2% of total PC unit shipments, according to IDC,… Mac sales never took off there, in part due to perceptions that they’re too costly compared to Windows machine.”
At the end of the day, Apple needs China more than China Mobile needs Apple.
In an environment where every other brand claims to care about a social ill, it can be difficult to cut through the clutter. Which brands follow through on their promise? How much of their budget is spent on marketing about the problem vs. actually helping to come up with a solution?
The Medinge Group has come up with a partial list of organizations that contribute to the greater good and offer some good thoughts on the future of humanity-centric brands:“Ian Ryder, a founding member and director of the Medinge Group, commented, “Each year since we began these awards, the whole world has become increasingly concerned about planetary sustainability. World leaders are meeting in Bali as we issue this year’s winners list. Some of our featured brands have been concerned for years about issues like these. They have actually demonstrated their commitment and not just talked about it. The standard just keeps getting better.”
Let’s start with some basics. Most brands are in the service business whether they want to be or not. Starbucks is as much a service brand as it is a retail brand; Nordstrom, Apple, Toyota, Target, Best Buy– all are service brands. Simply opening up your doors and selling well-made products isn’t enough– customer service and support make a big impact on a customer’s likelihood to purchase your products again and whether or not they’ll become an advocate for your brand.
Service is an unavoidable differentiator regardless of the business that you are in. I’ve been preaching this mantra to my clients for years. Usually it comes out sounding something like, “You can’t treat your customers like crap and expect them to keep coming back. That’s an abuser-victim relationship, not a customer-provider relationship.”
Unfortunately, I think that some brands are missing the point. They’ve put all of their focus and resources into customer service because they misread somewhere that it is the only thing that matters. I’ve seen it with hotels and this morning I saw it with my rental car company of choice. Service is a key differentiator, but not the only one.
Enterprise Rent-a-Car, I appreciate the fact that your lines are reasonably short and that your waiting room is bright and comfortable (…for a rental car office). I appreciate that you engage me in pleasant banter as we walk out to the car and check for damage. And let’s face it, you went above and beyond by calling me later that day to check in and make sure that I was having a good experience with my rental car. Great customer service…or was it?
The key to great customer service is that it builds on the existing product to create a positive experience and a lasting impression. It rarely makes up for sub-par products and services. For instance, when I rent a car I expect a few basic things:
1) That the car will be ready when promised.
2) That it will be the same car that I was promised with any services that were requested (GPS, Satellite Radio).
3) That it will be clean.
4) That it will have a full tank of gas.
5) That you will get me on my way as quickly as possible.
In fact, I think the above should serve as a customer Bill of Rights. And this is my point: these are the basics that you have to get RIGHT. Once you master these basics, please go on and tackle incredible customer service. Go above and beyond, blow me away.
Let’s be clear, Fox News is not running focus groups. Fox News is making reality television and passing it off as focus groups. I was watching FN during the NH primary and I was shocked at Frank Lutz, they way he conducted the bits of the group that they showed and the bias he showed in talking about it afterward.
If it was actually a focus group they would have made the group smaller in order to drill down into the issues and respondents preferences and triggers. As it was, it looked an awful lot like a made-for-TV panel with trite, surface level questions and a large studio video camera trained to capture respondents carefully crafted answers.
Moreover, as this video shows, they didn’t do a very good job at screening the folks from central casting.
From the New York Times:
“That’s why we’re fighting to find the right content providers.”
In practice the value of these services may be in their marketing rather than in use but I’m just glad that television makers are going to start having a real point of difference beyond who’s got the bigger DPI. It reminded me too much of high school.
The good folks over at wired magazine just released their best vintage technology advertisements. I was particularly struck by this one for XBox 360 which was apparently only released online. It is a surprise that a commercial showing people running around pretending to shoot people in a train station might not have been the best idea at the end of the day.
But my question is, did that commercial eventually become this Nike commercial?
John Kerry came out and endorsed Obama today, effectively Swift Boating his campaign by reminding everyone just how bad of a campaigner Kerry was.
But as a marketer I was more struck by this (copyrighted) picture that accompanied him on several sites.
John Kerry is still wearing his Live Strong bracelet and frankly, I don’t know how I feel about it. This is what happens when causes create products that become trendy.
Most folks I know removed their bracelets long ago as the trend died and hygiene reasserted itself into their minds. That and the fact that yellow really doesn’t go with most outfits. But I’m reminded by the picture that some people are keeping on. My question is: what does it signify now?
In the early naughties (00’s), Old Spice reinvented itself better than pretty much any brand I’ve seen before or since. It entered into new categories like deodorants and body wash, updated its identity and communication, and intelligently left its original cologne basically alone so as not to confuse my father. It was able to do what few established brands do successfully: win over a new, younger, sexier audience without alienating its older, more traditional core. It adopted a more masculine version of the metrosexual and made a statement that caring about the way that you look and smell might be a good thing.
This new work from Wieden and Kennedy shows that Old Spice is adjusting that positioning yet again. And AGAIN, doing it in an impressive way. They’re moving away from the Details-reading metrosexual (readership is declining anyway) toward a more rugged Men’s Journal-flipping version of itself. Not too surprising when you know that this is the agency behind the inspired Miller High Life work, but timely nonetheless given cultural shifts toward a more masculine ideal.
Converse doesn’t actually get an award for unmarketing here, mostly because they spend so much of their time marketing stuff. But this ad is so beautiful and is able to get its point across without yelling at me, telling me I need to do more, making me feel bad about the little that I do, or trying to pin me down to a brand message that…well I just let it in.
Specifically designed to hit the market segment of people who love the great taste of SPAM but care about their health. I bet the five people who fit that description will flock to this “crazy tasty” treat.
On a slightly more serious note, Hormel what are you thinking? The SPAM brand is not a bastion of health benefits and my guess is that SPAM Lite still isn’t very good for you. Instead of going along with the trend take a note from Hungry Man and forget about the health claims and embrace the essence of your brand. There must be some brand extensions that make more sense there like pre-packaged dinners?
Presentations can be boring, tedious, gouge-your-eye-out-with-a-spoon, mind-numbing affairs. Sometimes it’s the result of an inexperienced presenter, sometimes too much reliance on the PowerPoint deck, sometimes the easy mistake of the presenter visualizing himself naked instead of his audience. In my field, one of the bigger mistakes I see is a researcher relying too much on facts.
Now, before I lose Sterling Brands all of our clients, I’ll say that facts can be important. It is important to know what people believe, how they feel about their life and your brand. But that’s just it: it’s important to know how they feel. And in order to communicate clearly how someone feels you have to bring that information to life in ways that depart from the page. Do that and you create the scenarios in which a client cares about that person’s feelings.
Ira Glass takes on the point in this video on the power of storytelling and anecdotes.
The New York Times ran a piece in its Sunday Magazine about the sale of a copy of the Magna Carta just before Christmas to the Carlyle group. As it pointed out, it’s fascinating to see anyone paying $21.3 million for a piece of information in a day and age where it could be more easily and legibly accessed through our computers. The price is clearly not about information but rather about a piece of history. A piece of history that becomes more valuable through the fact that we all believe it to be valuable.
This same illusive influence affects brands and products on a daily basis. A brand’s value rises and falls with consumer sentiment. If Sienna Miller wears your jeans and is photographed in InStyle, your brand’s valuation goes up. Your product becomes inherently more stylish, popular and coveted by InStyle’s readers. They may not realize or care that she was paid to wear them; nor does it probably matter much to the score of retailers that are suddenly calling because they want to carry your product. It doesn’t even always matter that the product look good on your consumer, if bebe and Juicy sales are any indication. Your brand suddenly has caché and consumers can have a piece of it stamped on their butts for everyone to see.
Arguments can be made here for any number of heroic brands. What of ipod? Rolex? Burberry? It’s true that owners of all of these brands have a ready, rational response for their purchase which somewhere along the way includes the word quality, but it doesn’t mean that any of them can define quality. And it also doesn’t account for the incredible business that exists down the street selling fake Rolex watches and Burberry purses. It comes down to a collective perception of value rather than the real (in this case, monetary) value.
Organic baby clothing taps into the idea that a good parent wouldn’t clothe their child with pesticides. Victoria’s Secret taps into our imaginary fantasy life. Does Victoria’s Secret have any more real value than Gap Body? It does, because Gap Body makes clothing and Victoria’s Secret makes fantasy. When these stories become circulated we start to see a collective story emerge that consumers tap into and use as repositories for their own hopes, dreams, ambitions and securities creating magical value.
In an age where the unique selling proposition is more elusive, investing and creating magical value can help provide differentiation in a cluttered marketplace.
Congrats to BMW and the MINI design, engineering and marketing teams. The MINI is a ludicrous success and has one of the best brand cultures around. People rave about them, customize them, buy branded clothing and meet up for rallies around the nation.
Now that that’s out of the way… what the hell were you thinking coming out with the Clubman?! Don’t get me wrong– I get what you’re trying to do here. You did some research and looked at the market. People loved the MINI but it just wasn’t practical for the family man/woman. Where were they supposed to put the kids and the dog and the coolers and the beach chairs and all those other things breeders accumulate? Simple problem, simple response: build a bigger MINI and market it with the catchy slogan “All business in the front, party in the back.” I’m sure it’ll be a winner, and do at least as well as the mullet. But let’s look at wisdom of a classic MINI ad, “bigger isn’t always better.”
Thinking outside the Clubman box for a moment. You have a brand that runs on irreverence, spunk, small, humor, attitude, wit, performance and cute. You’ve invested most of your communication dollars in telling everyone that small still matters, demonizing the waste of America and its size complex. You’ve built your entire brand on small… and now you want to extend it to not-so-small, almost-small, probably-ugly? Oh, and there’s that other little thing that also happens to be small… you own BMW motorcycles!!!
Am I really suggesting MINI Scooters…you bet your logo I am.
MINI Scooters. “MINI, now MINIer.”
Cadbury Schweppes appears to have spent buckets of money to create this television spot for Orangina in France. Now, I often feel that America’s views on sex in the media should be loosened up a little bit and that our graphic depictions of violence could be toned down. That said, this isn’t how I remember Bambi.
Sometimes marketers get confused about what their brand is vs. what their audience would like it to be. While the latter philosophy is logical to the point of wanting to please customers, it can be problematic since customers rarely give two bits about the state of your marketshare, your margins, what your brand is capable of, or the general health of your business.
Thinking that brands should mirror the lives or desires of their audience, marketers often enlist the use of focus groups, IDIs, ideations, expert panels, surveys and the like to try to figure out what the market wants. The basic problem with this is that customers inevitably want brands to be “faster, stronger, more reliable, cheaper, easier to use” etc., and they’re often short-sighted on how they want your brand to serve them. And why shouldn’t they be? Do they want your brand to enter into a new category? Maybe, but not if they have a brand there that they already trust. Do they want your brand to retool? Maybe, but not if they already like it. If used as input and inspiration, this type of research can be invaluable in opening up lines of thought and creating possibilities. But if used to find actual answers, you’ll likely end up with a very bland brand with all of the edges buffed off since the majority of the audience will find this acceptable. It’s the law of averages.
The real question should be: how can you use the market and insights to achieve your business and brand objectives? How can you create a Beacon brand that represents your audience’s unspoken aspirations and drives them to you? How can you use your competitive advantage to create a marketplace advantage?
The advantage of Beacon brands is that they take a stand. They connect deeply to your audience in a way that is differentiating and unique. By comparison, as the name implies, Mirror brands simply look to mirror the audience. They can succeed, but the task is much more difficult since Mirror brands only reflect what is on the surface and not the deeper, underlying values of an audience. They can also be more easily replicated by everyone else in the market.
Apple made waves a couple of months ago when it acquired and reshot a user generated campaign for the iPod Touch. The most remarkable thing about the spot was that Apple aired it. In the end it looked sort of like every other iPod commercial I’ve seen lately.
They never seem to get around to airing commercials like this one though. The spot features David Lynch of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks fame discussing the joys of a 2×3 inch screen. Mobile video purveyors please, please take note, I heard that a trillion years is a long time.
I accept a few basic truths about my TV watching habits. One of them is that I watch some shows that I probably shouldn’t. I’m not talking about HBO late night, but programs like 60 Minutes and Antique Roadshow. I watch them knowing that I’m not in their core demographic but it feels sort of like taking a long drive through America and sticking my head out the window. I just enjoy the scenery, the wind in my face and feeling closer to my roots. When I’m watching these shows or the occasional movie on the We network, you can advertise whatever you want to me. I won’t buy it but I’ll forgive you because I know that I’m only a voyeur and that I probably make up less than 5% of your audience.
But CNN, what you are doing to me is unforgivable. I know that cable news networks on the whole are a bit older. According to The State of the News Media 2004 , the median age for CNN viewers is 59.6. Yes, I’m under 60 but CNN, I still like you. You’ve added all the fancy graphics, you’ve put Wolf Blitzer in the Situation Room, you’ve expanded the role of Anderson Cooper and given him hokey cardboard charts as if he’s in YouTube spoof of an HP ad and yet…your commercials indicate that I appreciate poorly produced messages for life insurance featuring Alex Trebek and Wilfred Brimley. Or if I don’t, that I should probably consider buying some anyway because the NutriSystem ads suggest that all I do is sit on the couch and eat while watching infomercials. Which is convenient because they’ll deliver food right to my door.
So you see my issue. I can stop watching Anderson Cooper and leave the Situation Room, or I can leave your advertisements behind and get a Tivo. Or you could get a better team in ad sales. Which do you suggest?
smart stuff from Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine
Today’s NY Times writes about travel publishers still trying to figure out the web (they’ve been trying and failing to figure it out since the web’s start; I worked, frustratingly, with Fodor’s back in the ’90s as it tried to find a strategy). It says that among their tactics is licensing book content to airlines to display on their seat-back entertainment systems.
But that should be a two-way exchange. Airlines should capture the knowledge of their wise-about-traveling crowds. Imagine if, on return trips, the airlines asked us the hotels where we just stayed and ate and invited us to rate and review them. Imagine if they asked natives to share some inside tips on eating and shopping in their towns. They have a currency to pay for the information: They could reward us with frequent-flier bonus miles. Because they know who we are, they could even start to anonymously aggregate other data around this: ‘American Express Platinum customers recommend….’
The airlines would gather an incredible data base of live knowledge of real travelers with fresh knowledge. They’d outdo TripAdvisor over time. Or they could license their content to TripAdvisor or some of those travel publishers. The airlines could themselves become publishers by listening to and capturing and sharing the knowledge of their customers. But first, the an airline needs to think of itself as a platform for travel and of its customers as networks.
This should be a basic question of any company or industry in the internet era: ‘What do my customers know and how do I help them share that?’
A brief list:
1. Hire a fixer asap. You don’t know the country and you likely don’t know how and when you can travel to places safely.
2. Utilize your breast pocket for all important papers. It will look less like you are searching for your gun.
3. If you are going to need to bribe a militia member for passage, have small bills available. It is difficult to get change from militants.
4. Ask first. Ask before you look around, before you take a picture, before you take out a video camera, before you pee in their field.
5. As a general rule militia members don’t like their pictures taken nor do they want to be photographed at military checkpoints. Not 100% sure on this one but I got that sense.
6. If you have food allergies or are a vegetarian, have translations in the local language on a piece of paper. Pantomime is a universal language but sometimes not well understood.
7. Take some medications with you because when you’re doubled over with stomach cramps it can be hard to make it to a pharmacy.
8. Be careful of being taken for an NGO worker. If people see you as a greenback you’re less likely to get a balanced story of the bad and the good.
9. If you’re going to take pictures, bring a Polaroid camera. If nothing else, you can send the fixer off with it to distract the hordes of children who want their pictures taken.
10. Be Safe!
from the WSJ…
Despite Growth, Starbucks Can’t Dislodge Local Rivals
People shouldn’t worry about the new Starbucks steamrolling their favorite local coffeehouse out of existence, says Taylor Clark in Slate. In reality, the Seattle-based chain often boosts business at the mom-and-pop coffee shop next door.The boost to local cafes, which was first noticed as the chain started massing a presence in communities around the U.S., shows no sign of slowing even as the retailer rapidly expands. In what Mr. Clark calls the “Starbucks reverse jinx,” the chain’s arrival continues to stimulate demand for coffee and the cafe experience that spills over into independent shops. Some customers, having cultivated a taste for drinks like espresso and cappuccino at Starbucks, look for less-pricey versions at locally owned shops. From 2000 to 2005, a period when Starbucks tripled in size, the number of independent cafes in the U.S. grew from 9,800 to 14,000.One Los Angeles cafe owner tells him that, although he initially dreaded Starbucks’ arrival, his business soared once the chain opened a nearby shop. Starbucks essentially had marketed the idea of coffee-drinking to the entire community. – Wendy Pollack – WSJ
I remember participating in a pitch for Burger King early in my career. (At this point, “career” meant copies and coffee– it was a typical CC first job. BCC meant bring bagels or beer depending on the time of day.) This was pre-Crispin Burger King, and pre a couple of other agencies since they were going through about an agency a year at that point.
We spent a lot of time brainstorming about Flame Broiled, Have it Your Way and the delightful meat smell that arose from the franchises. Perhaps it was this utter lack of creative thinking and inability to think big enough or creatively enough about the problem at hand that stuck with me.
Subservient Chicken was a great little viral effort from the folks at Crispin and the web design agency whose name we will never know because Crispin took credit for that too. But I’m even more impressed by their new effort Whopper Freakout. It’s a twist on Goodby’s successful GotMilk strategy and takes deprivation to a new, excruciating level.
Amazingly, they convinced Burger King to take a franchise and do the unthinkable for a couple days: take the Whopper off the menu and videotape customer reactions. The initial disbelief, contempt and requests to see the manager are entertaining enough but the best part comes about halfway through when they begin replacing the Whopper with burgers from competitive chains. It’s amazing visual proof of the strength of the Burger King and Whopper brands to see customers reject competitive offerings that are, arguably, pretty similar products. A hamburger is a hamburger… unless it’s a Whopper.
They could have done a traditional deprivation exercise where they asked customers, “What would you do if the Whopper went away?” and returned with a report about how customers would find alternatives, would choose something different from the BK menu, wouldn’t go out as much. But instead they put consumers in the context of the unthinkable actually happening and put it online for everyone to see. The reactions are crisper, emotions more palpable and the insights are clearer. Congratulations to Burger King for taking a risk and congrats to Crispin for some great thinking and execution.
For the last couple of months I’ve been struggling with Hillary’s campaign for President. Once upon a time she was Clinton For President, now she’s Hillary. “Hillary visited with ‘Meet the Press,’” “Hillary stopped through Le Mars, IA today,” “Hillary’s showing too much cleavage.” I always thought it was an interesting strategic choice to have Hillary run against Obama, Edwards and crew. Sure, I’d heard about Oprah making campaign appearances, but never John or Barack.
This shouldn’t come off as totally shocking, she’s been Mrs. Clinton and Hillary Rodham and Hillary Rodham Clinton in the past. As with most things Clinton, the advent of Hillary wasn’t simply by chance. But what did surprise me is that the mainstream press went along with it.
As a strategist, I think it was an interesting choice for her campaign. Those who liked Bill would transfer some of that equity to Hillary and those who claim that Clintonism brought on the Bush presidency would have a bit of distance from the C word and be allowed to make up their own opinion about Hillary before confronting the imperial idea of a Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton lineage.
I was almost getting used to hearing about Hillary’s travails in mainstream media and then this happened: I woke up to see that Clinton is back in the NYT and here at FoxNews although her own website is keeping “Hillary for President” and “Caucus for Hillary.” I think she should embrace a strategic shift to the Clinton-side. Now that we are almost out of Iowa and NH where folksy, retail politics reigns supreme it is time to shift back to the strengths (and weaknesses) of the Clinton brand for the larger states. Ultimately she will win or lose on the whole of the Hillary Clinton brand, which she can’t hide from forever.
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