Hylton tipped me off to Bob Cauthorn's post: Newspapers, meet precipice: It's the product, stupid. Here's the nub for Brandshift readers:
Business thinking tends to run in generational cycles. For the last 15 years or so, the fashion in business thinking has focused on the ascendency of The Brand. Instead of being product oriented, modern companies tend to be brand driven. There are precious few companies left that fuse the two orientations -- think Apple, which defines itself entirely by its products and thus gets a brilliant brand in the process.In sprit, I am with Bob. Sadly, just as there will always be successful conmen, there will always be some brands that succeed with rubbish and noble products that fall through want of smart marketing. And, of course, there will always be arguments about what category any brand belongs to. BUT I do think the net is making it harder for the fanciful image making and narcisstic marketing to work.Brand logic is the bulwark of defending the status quo. Product logic is where the revolution comes.
When it comes to a war between products and brands, products almost always win in the end.
Great read from GAIN with Ivy Ross over at Matell on brands and innovation. Tackles the issue of how you take a large, existing organization and encourage innovation:
GAIN: And the normal company structure didn’t allow for this type of exploration?
ROSS: I have 450 people who work for me. Everyone is busy all the time—practically 24/7—just growing our existing brands. No one has time to become truly immersed in the possibilities. Through this project we are trying to create a way of working together that is more of a living system. Take a cow, for example. If you want to get milk out of a cow, you have to give it time to graze. These days, no one has time to graze. No one has time to explore. It’s not just about giving people the best equipment and software to work with, it’s about feeding their soul, their mind and creating an environment that each of them can grow in.
Thank to Suw Charman for spotting an excellent article by Simon Caulkin in the Guardian: The language of management is devoid of meaning Here's sample, referring to Gate Gourmet, the airline catering firm with a less than wonderful reputation in industrial relations.
Gourmet, as in Gate, is a good example. I mean, I've had airline food that didn't actually taste awful. I've even had airline food that was OK. But gourmet? Come on(Tlön being a parallel world in the literature of Jorge Luis Borges).Trivial, perhaps. But it matters because the name is an affront to common sense and makes you query the company's good faith, grasp of reality, or both. The uncertainty deepens as you read the company's website's references to 'passion', 'world class' and (full house!) 'our most valuable resources - employees'. When you get to 'We communicate in an open way and promote inspiring teamwork; we treat our colleagues, customers and suppliers with respect and dignity; we pay market competitive salaries and offer adequate social security,' you know you're no longer in the universe inhabited by most people: you are deep in Tlön.
If you have time, please read the whole thing, it's wonderful.
Boing Boing reports that Virgin Enterprises is suing a small business owner for using the name Virgin Threads. This strikes me as grandiose and obnoxious.
I've long advocated the need for the PR industry to embrace commoditized media measurement in order to direct more dollars to measuring what matters. Seems the Advertising industry is heading in this direction.
A joint-task force composed of members of the Association of National Advertisers, American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Advertising Research Foundation yesterday unveiled an initiative that would shake up the classic equation of advertising math that determines consumer exposure to an ad. It would replace the concept of frequency -- the number of exposures to an ad -- with “engagement,” a metric that could better reflect the growing number of media choices facing consumers, from cell phones and the Internet to video games and podcasts. [AdAge]
This will only become more important as communicators discover the need to measure the degree to which customers are participating in their communities and brands. The best campiagns will measure what changed: did we move markets, change minds and increase sales? This isn't just about driving communications accountability, its also about driving marketing accountability.
Like David Burn at AdPulp, I agree with Michelle Miller's line on Costco:
According to an article in yesterday's New York Times, Costco puts Wal-Mart to shame in the arena of low pricing. They steadfastly hold to the rule that nothing shall be marked up more than 15% (compared with competitor's markup of 25% and more). They pay their employees an average of $17 per hour... 42% higher than Sam's Club... and have one of the best health plans in the industry.(Michelle also hits the spot in her thoughts on Delta's Memo to employees.)Costco's stock has risen more than 10% in the last year. Employee turnover rate is nearly non-existent. Sales revenue for June of 2005 is up 9% from the same period last year.
What does Wall Street have to say about this? If you can get their thumbs out of their mouths long enough to tell you, they wail that Joe is too generous. He just isn't shaving enough off the top for them to get their greedy little hands on. An analyst from Deutsche Bank whines, "it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder." "They could probably get more money for a lot of items they sell," complains another analyst at ThinkEquity...
My God. A business that puts its employees and customers before the Almighty Profit does exist. Isn't it amazing that a simple thing like that would create cult-like customer loyalty and $40 billion in revenue... with almost no advertising?
Jeff Risley's firm is sposoring a survey on cause-related marketing. They're talking to marketing people and not-for-profits. Jeff's looking for suggestions for questions.
Very good article by Jay Rosen, about media coverage of the appointment of a new Supreme Court Justice in the US. He suggests that two sides are preparing to do battle in a way that seems to be about activists battering away at each other without noticing that they're not likely to achieve much. Here's a snippet:
Reaching for her cliché gun, Robin Toner can say "nothing less than a national political campaign had begun," but she has no idea how it's supposed to work, either. Everyone parades around as if this mobilization of opposing armies makes perfect political sense, when in fact "all the time and money spent on campaigns may have little influence on the outcome."I don't want to dwell on US politics in this blog, but I think what Rosen sees here is a kind of folly that marketing folks often get trapped by: obsessing with positioning and defining themselves against their perceived competitors, rather than focussing on expressing their own views or (heaven help us) thinking whether any of these campaigns really touch the customer.Why does this go on? One reason is that activist groups, by opposing each other, use each other for mutual self-definition. They too don't know how their e-mail blasts and TV ads are supposed to work. Like spammers, they just send the stuff out. What they know is that the other side will be sending e-mail blasts and running TV ads. Spam must meet spam.
(Cross posted from my own blog)
I just had an interesting interview with Liam Mulhall, co-founder of Blowfly Beer in Sydney. He talks about how he launched his brewing business using open source principles he'd learned working at the Red Hat Linux consultancy. I've blogged fuller details and a link to the podcast here.
Johnnie's terrific post on Skype below inspired an entry over at my blog which a few of you suggested I post here... So, here you go.
Skype is a brilliant example of the power of nurturing communities with a high-quality product, continued innovation and ease of connection. While recognizing that in this instance it's also the essence of the product, that's a sub-text.
Compare Skype to Vonage for a second and you will see what I mean. I "joined" Vonage about four months ago. They treat me just like SBC or Verizon. Every add-on costs more. I get a bill and little else other than the product. The quality is pretty suspect. And while cheaper than Verizon, it ain't cheaper than Skype.
Then there is my Skype account. I get more and more value from neat add-ons developed by Skype and its community. The price and quality are much better than anything Vonage offers. And the community just gets better as a result of this innovation. Then vSkype comes along and adds to my Skype experience with video calling. Bam! The community activates and becomes more valuable - to Skype and to each other. vSkype's CEO says in an email that in the first 36 hours they had 50,000 downloads while some 8 hours later they zipped past 100,000. That's momentum.
Skype Journal has a terrific interview with Stuart Jacobson. In the Participatory Era Skype is establishing an incredible lead over Vonage - in participatory terms,
Skype is an engaged brand. It is engaged with its community. It has engaged with its users. So many brands forget this. They sell, you buy and that's it. Nada.
I attended an interesting session at the Reboot 7 conference in Copenhagen at the weekend. Malthe Sigurdsson, from Skype, did a talk about how they built the brand, which he blogged here, with a pdf of his slides here and an MP3 audio recording here.
I was struck by the principles Malthe articulated: do simple things really well; release all the time (ie keep updating the application in small bites); evolve; open up; and viral features. A good illustration of the idea of simplicity is their preference for plain language - so talk about sharing and calls, not peer-to-peer and VOIP or telephony. Bearing in mind Skype has about 45 million registered withouth advertising, I think it's a pretty interesting case study.
One of the things that he said that caught my attention was what he said about fear. They do fear their competitors (eg the big telecoms)... and that makes them stay busy innovating. I like the notion of acknowledging fear and using it, instead of blocking it.
It seems to me that Skype is a brand with a lot of vitality - and this presentation makes good sense of how it operates.
C/Net reports on Sun's launch of Open Solaris in which blogs feature prominently.
This is the first time we've seen social networking technology integrated so fully into a launch. It's appropriate that an open source product would so actively use open source marketing to engage with its community.
I'm sure the skeptics will dismiss this as yet another PR stunt but it simply isn't (although I won't deny the PR benefit).
Sun deserves credit for the geek-centric approach, said RedMonk analyst Stephen O'Grady. "The best aspect of it for me is seeing a rather large software organization actually recognize the audience they want to be speaking to--in this case the developers." - Shankland, C/Net
This is a really smart and deep use of a complete spectrum of participatory communications technology to enhance and streamline communications with a fast growing community - it goes well beyond the standard corporate blog which for the most part is still about transmitting information and soliciting a response. I like how they are providing tags as well. Then there are the photos on Flickr. And, Johnny L - Sun's head of software launched his blog. It's a regular blogfest!
They've lit up the Open Solaris community inside Sun to light up the community outside Sun. You need to be a tripped-out geek to get some of this but the mobilization of the Sun team to provide different views on the product is great.
Conversations are a feature of the launch. Having spent 18 years in tech I can't tell you how different this is - most launches follow a standard pattern of big transmission followed by an expectation that what was transmitted will be written about then read.
The launch is about inviting participation. Shankland points to a great example of this as Sun flags 300 bugs in the product and invites the community to get involved with fixing them. Here is Liane Praza's first bug-fix.
Stephen has a terrific Q&A over at the Tecosystems blog, an excerpt from which looks at Sun's blog-fest:
Q: What did you find most interesting about the launch itself?
A: The way that it targeted the most important constituency of all; developers. Back in April, I posted the following note:
Spoke to a vendor marketing representative yesterday who I won't name (though they should feel free to identify themselves if they wish) that actually initiated a dialogue around del.icio.us, Flickr and tagging in general. First time that I can recall that's happened. Very refreshing, and a good sign for the product line in question.
Well, that person was Claire Giordano, and the product line was OpenSolaris. Her hand is directly visible on the OpenSolaris.org page itself with links to developer-friendly services like del.icio.us and Flickr, and also in the lack of a big bang style launch, press release, etc. The focus has instead been on conversational and participatory launch mechanisms like the aforementioned services and an explosion of related blog entries. OpenSolaris, as with any other product, will ultimately sink or swim on its own merits. But if those merits will jointly determined by Sun and the community around OpenSolaris, it's obvious that engaging developers using the means and mechanisms that they prefer is imperative. Given that context, I'd say that today's launch was an excellent start.
Couldn't agree more. Gold stars to Sun. Great reporting by Shankland. Great analysis by Stephen.
First it was Carley's comments at a graduation - now it's Pepsi with CEO Indra Nooyi making inflamatory remarks regarding America's role in the world today:
After talking of her childhood back in India, Ms. Nooyi began to compare the world and its five major continents (excl. Antarctica and Australia) to the human hand. First was Africa - the pinky finger - small and somewhat insignificant but when hurt, the entire hand hurt with it. Next was Asia - the thumb - strong and powerful, yearning to become a bigger player on the world stage. Third was Europe - the index finger - pointing the way. Fourth was South America - the ring finger - the finger which symbolizes love and sensualness. Finally, the US (not Canada mind you) - yes, you guessed it - the middle finger. She then launched into a diatribe about how the US is seen as the middle finger to the rest of the world. The rest of the world sees us as an overbearing, insensitive and disrespectful nation that gives the middle finger to the rest of the world. According to Ms. Nooyi, we cause the other finger nations to cower under our presence.
Pepsi has posted a comment and a copy of her remarks. The blogosphere is wound-up on this one. Frankly, it isn't a great speech, it's geographically incorrect, the metaphor doesn't work and is offensive, and the comments are definitely controversial...
It breaks most of the rules of effective public speaking, some of which are - ensure your content, tone and comments are in line with your brand - both personal and company; ensure the topic illuminates the brand and doesn't detract from it; focus on subject matter that is relevant to your message; use clean and clear metaphors that aren't so multilayered that they cloud the content and your message... the list is a long one. What did Pepsi hope to gain from speaking on this topic?
More here...
Aside from all that, there is another lesson here for all communicators in that the blogosphere is an incredibly powerful medium for distributing executive's remarks, and stimulating debate on them - so much more than conventional media.
Brands are being shaped at wire-speed in the blogosphere. Having a blog might not just be a proactive communications tactic but also vital for reactive communications. Rather than the staid press release or statement, imagine a Pepsi blog right now with dialgoue taking place and Indra engaging with the enraged community of Pepsi drinkers. She might even rally a few supporters along the way.
Transparency and open dialogue would have enabled a much better response to an unfortunate metaphor.
Yesterday, I had a brand experience that rocked my world. First, I was driving to meet a friend in the morning. I called the company that he worked for to ask directions (Hertz was sold out of Neverlost). I was bummed after I called three times and no one could tell me how to get to the office from the Pacific Coast Highway. I had to stop at a retailer to ask and found that the office was only a couple of miles away.
That afternoon I drove up to do some work with Patagonia. I called in to ask directions and Patagonia's "Gatekeeper", Chipper "Bro" Bell, answered the phone while sitting at Mission Control. You see, instead of having an entry level receptionist answering the phone and interacting with customers, Patagonia has Chipper.
When I asked Chipper how to get there, Chipper started off by saying, "You've got it bro, " and then gave me detailed, simple instructions on how to get there. When I told Chipper thanks, he said "Believe it!" It was magical.
Soon after we talked, I realized I was going to be early so I called back looking for a friend to borrow a surfboard and get some exercise before my meeting. I called Chipper back and he paged my friend. Unfortunately, my buddy was in a meeting. When Chipper asked what I needed, I told him I wanted to borrow a surfboard. Chipper said, "No worries, come see me and I'll have a board ready for ya, bro!"
When I arrived, there was Chipper, stoked to see me with a board ready to ride.
I returned from a nice surf session and I sat out front watching Chipper spin his magic. He was treating everyone in a very human way, no matter what they needed, trying to solve everyone's problems. What really blew me away is that Chipper keeps this stoke that exudes the Patagonia brand 1800 times a day!
What would happen if your company had a brand gatekeeper instead of a receptionist? Would your customers be more stoked?
To learn more about Chipper, check out the fun article about him on the Patagonia web site.
More and more product launches, communities and brands are incorporating blogs as a way of engaging with their constituents. Today's new entrant is Star Wars who have buried blogs in their community site. To find them you are going to need to force on your side but they are there! Here you go...
Blogs are much more than traditional brand extensions. They are brand activators, providing a platform on which the community can come together to share, interact and broaden their experience. You've got to pay to play, but hey, every community membership has its price.
Jeff Jarvis pointed me to Tim Porter's report on the conference of the American Society of Newspaper Editors:
One of the most telling moments of the hour occurred just as the meeting opened when Nachison and Peskin put a slide up of Craig Newmark and asked how many people in the room of several hundred recognized him or his name. Only a smattering of hands rose. A few more hands went up at the mention of Craigslist and its free classifieds.Jarvis also spotlights this comment by Andrew NachisonNachison reminded the editors that the competition of Craigslist didn't grow out of a business model, but arose more spontaneously from Newmark's desire to create a community of trust - the same trust newspapers are struggling to regain.
The bigger point was trust - and that there's someone "out there" who has built a business at the expense of newspapers not by trying to compete *against* anyone, but by trying to help others.There's serious food for thought here for a lot of brands beyond newspapers.The business followed Craig's authentic devotion to helping people find each other in a trusted environment.
I've just posted over at 173 Drury Lane about a fascinating article by Judi Bevan in The [UK] Sunday Times of April 3: How Davis lost the Sainsbury throne. It recounts how Sir Peter Davis was fired as Chairman of the supermarket chain Sainsbury's, as well as touching on the issues Justin King, the new CEO, has had to deal with. Apart from being a highly engaging, if gossipy, tale, it's a good example of how human relationships and their weaknesses are at the core of any business, for good or ill. And further evidence that your brand in the public eye will be shaped by a lot more than just your polished, official communications.
Microsoft Canada announced the creation of the Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS), which is helping international law enforcement stop those who prey on children online.
"Our vision is to support more effective child-exploitation policing by enabling collaboration and information sharing across police services," says David Hemler, president of Microsoft Canada. "The tracking system will serve as a repository of information and will also be used as an investigative tool."
Using CETS, police agencies can manage and analyze huge volumes of information in powerful new ways, such as cross-referencing obscure data relationships and using social-network analysis to identify communities of offenders.
"CETS has helped police catch up with cyber-criminals on the Internet," Sergeant Paul Gillespie says. "The product has exceeded my wildest dreams. I have also been impressed by Microsoft Canada and their passion to do the right thing. I am overwhelmed with their sense of responsibility."
I continue to be pleasantly surprised with the work Microsoft is doing to become a "kinder, gentler" brand. So far they've spent almost $4 million on CETS (pocket change, I know) and plans to spend more as it rolls out globally. I hear many execs asking, "what's the ROI on social engagement? Connecting with customers? Being ecologically aware?" etc etc. Here's the ROI: people will like you. I know, that's rather simplistic and touchy-feely. But how do you put a dollar value on being liked and appreciated? What are the odds of people doing business with a company they genuinely like, versus with the many closed-off companies that are just focused on making a buck? Unfortunately there's no scientific model to prove this. We'll just have to wait for more companies to start demonstrating that the theory works.
Regina Miller points (with appropriate disdain) to this event: Chaos in the Public Square offered by Harvard Business School Publishing Conferences. (And I thought it was only advertising agencies that had ridiculously long names; but if I were at HBS I'd be happy to be two additional words away from a direct association with what follows).
The blurb is a great example of really dreary communication. First off what's with this new phrase "corporate speech"? Is that what used to be called PR in less complicated times? I wonder if they really mean "corporate drone", as eloquently fingered by Cathy Moore in her blog. This promo page seems like a pretty good example of it, with such gems as
In this forum we will tackle the contentious issues – not to advocate one side or the other but to define the parameters of the new reality
In short, the rules of corporate speech have changed -- and continue to change – making life turbulent in the executive suite.Hmm, interesting theme here of "chaos in the public square" and "turbulence" in the exective suite. Sounds like some folks are terrified by what strikes me as an exciting time for engaged, informed public debate.How do you craft a strategic approach for navigating the new terrain?
I was also intrigued at how they define their target audience:
Director and above management who are directly responsible for the public persona of the companywhich strikes me as laughably sycophantic. Basil Fawlty was more direct; he ran an ad that just said "no riff raff". Why don't they just come clean and say "This is an important conference that only important people will understand".
Seriously, if the organisers haven't woken up to the fact that EVERY EMPLOYEE is responsible for the public persona of a company then they need to go to a conference themselves. And not this one.
John pointed me to a great new blog, HR's Brand New Experience. Regina wites about how good brand architecture involves organizational development, and how HR is (or should be) an essential part of the strategy alignment and execution process. Here's a snip:
Most of the agencies I have dealt with have not been able to provide the appropriate resourcing and/or expertise to be able to take their brand/rebranding efforts to this level.
Is the physical design and environment taken into consideration? Is the pay system involved if people’s behavior needs to change? Is the performance management system changed so that people are informed of new expectations of behaviors? and then given feedback on same? and then paid accordingly? Are work processes redesigned so that people can deliver “a brand experience” to customers? Are managers trained to help people deliver brand experiences? to recruit the right people who can deliver it? Does the HR department live the brand in it’s delivery of services to internal customers?
Creating and implementing a brand architecture is hard and a lot of work. Trying to change consumer behaviors based on a your brand is even harder. Adding the necessary components internally to change employee behavior is equally hard and daunting. But one can’t happen without the other.
We've written a few times about brand pull through - where one brand (iPod) pulls another through in its wake (iMac). Accoring to Good Morning Silicon Valley the brand pull-through at Apple is exceeding forecasts:
iPod, therefore iMac: And here I thought iPod's halo effect was just spillover from Apple CEO Steve Jobs' reality distortion field. Turns out I was wrong. According to a new survey by Morgan Stanley, Apple's iPod is funneling customers to the company's PC business. The research outfit surveyed 400 iPod users and found that 19 percent expect to convert from PC to Macintosh. That's twice what Morgan Stanley expected. "We believe the Mac conversion rate within Apple's iPod customer base is roughly double what the market expects today," Morgan Stanley analyst Rebecca Runkle told clients "... The street still underestimates the power of Apple's iPod." Indeed, Runkle noted that forward intentions indicate the Mac conversion rate could track closer to the 25 percent range going forward. If Apple plays its cards right, it could soon control 5 percent of the desktop computer market.
This is all food for thought, and perhaps a new metric for brand marketers - the extent to which one brand is driving loyalty and recommendation effects in another category. It also proves - again - the power of brand synergy, or, how different products benefit from a common brand experience and halo. We celebrate the difference and buy the similarity.
Could otherwise be titled, "Clueless in Government", but...
Washington Post reports that the issue of transparency and news dissemination is getting a little murky in DC:
The Bush administration, rejecting an opinion from the Government Accountability Office, said last week that it is legal for federal agencies to feed TV stations prepackaged news stories that do not disclose the government's role in producing them.
That message, in memos sent Friday to federal agency heads and general counsels, contradicts a Feb. 17 memo from Comptroller General David M. Walker. Walker wrote that such stories -- designed to resemble independently reported broadcast news stories so that TV stations can run them without editing -- violate provisions in annual appropriations laws that ban covert propaganda.
We appear to have a right to do propaganda, but what about covert propaganda?
The legal counsel's office "does not agree with GAO that the covert propaganda prohibition applies simply because an agency's role in producing and disseminating information is undisclosed or 'covert,' regardless of whether the content of the message is 'propaganda,' " Bradbury wrote. "Our view is that the prohibition does not apply where there is no advocacy of a particular viewpoint, and therefore it does not apply to the legitimate provision of information concerning the programs administered by an agency."
GIVE ME A BREAK! They really believe these VNRs - with PR people pretending to work as baggage screeners - and packed full of propaganda - represent pure reporting - by that I mean, the don't advocate a particular viewpoint. Well, in that case, lets get rid of the media all together.
I need to go cool-down somewhere... the parting quote from the story says it all...
"Whether in the form of a payment to an actual journalist, or through the creation of a fake one, it is wrong to deceive the public with the creation of phony news stories," the lawmakers wrote
Jake points to Forbes' list of the top corporate hate sites. They are
KB Homes
KBhomesucks.com
PayPal (part of eBay)
Paypalsucks.com
Allstate Insurance
Allstateinsurancesucks.com
Microsoft
MS-Eradication.org
American Express
Amexsux.com
Wal-Mart
WalMart-Blows.com
Verizon
Verizonpathetic.com
UAL (parent of United Airlines)
Untied.com
United Parcel Service
UnitedPackageSmashers.com
Friday's ruling in favor of Apple has deep implications for brand communicators. Now I'm no lawyer and experience tells me that different corporate legal counsel will come at this one from different directions. So, take this as you will.
AP: Judge: Apple can press Bloggers on sources. A California judge on Friday ruled that three independent online reporters may have to divulge confidential sources in a lawsuit brought by Apple Computer Inc., ruling that there are no legal protections for those who publish a company's trade secrets.
The Judge seems to have not bought into Apple's argument that Bloggers are not Journalists, preferring to sidestep the issue all together. As I've stated on my blog, I don't believe bloggers are journalists unless they are blogging to what they regard to be a media blog. But that doesn't mean we're not entitled to report and to all the protections of the Fifth Amendment. And, the blogosphere shouldn't be confined by traditional notions of publishing. Suddenly, anyone who has information in the public interest must check with a company to see if it is a trade secret? To which the response is naturally, yes.
There are so many worrying things about this ruling. The least of which is a Judge ruling on the nature of content. "Even if the movants are journalists, this is not the equivalent of a free pass." Kleinberg firmly defined the trade secret information as stolen property. Assuming that all information belongs to someone else, where does this one stop?
Anyway, enough of the rights rant. So what are the implications for brand communicators?
These are just five of the implications of this absurd but critical case for brand communicators. I'd love to build a list of other implications and then publish them as a whole. Drop your thoughts into the comments section... I'll leave you with Charles Cooper's comments from his C/Net column:
The real subtext is this: Apple is directed by a collection of control freaks who would have found themselves quite at home in the Nixon White House. The big difference being that reporters had the constitutional freedom to report on the Nixon White House.
Apple has been an infuriating company for me to cover over the last two decades or so. I adore its technology but can't stomach its overreaching sense of entitlement. Other tech companies deal with leaks all the time. Nobody's happy when their discussions wind up as fodder for the rumor mill. But that's part of the give-and-take that's defined the technology business for decades.
John Winsor opens the first chapter of Beyond the Brand with this quote from Stephen Jay Gould:
"The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best -- and therefore never scrutinize or question."
Here are some stories that come to my mind:
And the list goes on. What are the common assumptions floating around your company or department? Hint: they will be the ideas that cause the most internal resistance. Who will be brave enough to ask... What if we're wrong?
At the very least, open up enough to test some alternatives on a small scale. You just might surprise yourself.
We're now getting KFC's operatic ads in the UK. I thoroughly enjoyed what Mosher's Unimaginatively Titled Blog had to say. Here's some of it:
Let me first say that I am a great fan of KFC and have been known in recent history to quite literally "live off" the stuff for stupidly long periods of time. Recently, however, I have been forced to make the harsh decision to boycott the restaurants. I have even gone as far as to blog my decision, much to the disbelief of most of my friends who know that I'll likely starve as a result.When your fans are saying this...I am one to stick to my principles, and I am also not one normally swayed by advertising. However, the recent "operatic" campaign is just so painfully awful that I have chosen never to set foot in a KFC again until they are removed from the television. The whale-mouthed screacher who takes a full 30 seconds of "woooaooaooaoohhh" to tell her colleague that he can't have her mini-fillet burger is a bigger deterrant for KFC than Supersize Me was for McDonald's...
Incidentally, I also think that another of the ads was rather ill-advised. Who on earth thought that having a bunch of "African Americans" singing about fried chicken was going to help shift burgers? What next? Watermelon desserts and a kids meal with a toy butler that says "Yus, Massah?".
Another expensive rebranding bites the dust...
From The Sunday Herald:
IT may go down as one of the biggest rebranding disasters in corporate history.£11m is a lot of money to waste on wishful thinking.
When, in September 2003, Luqman Arnold, then chief executive of Abbey National, declared the institution was “turning banking on its head” by shortening its name to Abbey and slapping a lower-case logo in pastel shades on its branches and product literature, there were a few raised eyebrows. In Scotland there was much gnashing of teeth as it emerged insurance brands Scottish Provident and Scottish Mutual were for the chop.The exercise – which brought an end to Abbey’s famous “couple under an umbrella” logo – was overseen by brand agency Wolf Ollins at a cost of some £11 million. It was led by former Abbey director Angus Porter, who when at Mars rebranded Opal Fruits as Starbursts, and recently left the bank with a near £1m pay-off.
In marketing terms, however, the rebrand was a clear disaster. Last year, pre-tax profits in Abbey’s core retail business shrank by 20% to £814m compared with 2003 and there was another big slump in market share. New mortgage lending is also down year on year from 9.9% to 3.1%, reducing its overall mortgage share from 10.7% to 8.6%.
Jonathan Korzen, Audible's PR guy, responded 121 hours into my experiment started below. He wrote me a nice note. I'll let you know how the interaction goes from here.
I’m bummed! A year and a half ago I signed up for the Premium Listener program at Audible.com. At the time, I was stoked to listen to a few books on my iPod. It seems however, between writing and traveling, I wasn’t downloading the two books a month that came with the subscription.
So, a year ago I tried to cancel my subscription. I went to the Audible website and did everything they asked me to only to find a $19.95 charge on my credit card the following month. I finally picked up the phone and called. After the usual 5 minute wait I talked to a fairly responsible sounding person who said they’d take care of it.
Five nights ago my wife, Bridget, leaned over and said “What’s this charge on our credit card for $19.95 from Audible?” It seems that the friendly customer service representative didn’t, in fact, do what he said he’d do! So much for building trust.
Being in Mexico writing, phone calls are a bit expensive so I went back online to Audible’s site and was promised a fast and courteous response in 48 hours.
So, here I am 5 days later, out 240 bucks and no one to listen to me.
Hello, I’m a Customer. Is anybody home? I used to think your service was pretty cool. Now I’m starting to get bad!
Forget about co-creating, how about doing what you promised or at least sending an auto-response to my email!
Is Audible, and many other brands for that matter, too busy to listen to their customers? Are they really ready for the power shift that’s happening? Before companies, like Audible, can ever think about improving their products and services with the help of delighted customers they might want to think about creating satisfied customers first.
We’re living in lumpy times in the Brandsphere! Welcome to the Wild West.
My friend James Cherkoff has written a Change This Manifesto: What is open source marketing?. It's good stuff. Disclosure: I am horribly biased. (James and I are running a workshop together in March).
Jon Strande comments on Larry Lessig's experience of flying his millionth mile on United, and them not noticing.
Imagine had United taken the time to reward an obviously loyal customer even in the smallest way, say with a Thank you card on his seat when he boarded the plane.This coincides with the arrival of my pack from United, confirming that I have (after many years of being just a very ordinary passenger) recently gone back to Premier status.Imagine the post he would have written had they done something really nice for him...
Hmmm. A few years ago, I really got hooked into these frequent flier schemes, but now I am much less convinced. When they tell me I get 5" more economy legroom than the hoi-polloi, I don't so much celebrate as think, crumbs, if I don't keep this status I may switch to an airline that gives all its economy passengers a bit more legroom. This may be a carrot today, but there's a stick in the background for tomorrow.
Many of the other benefits are potentially more hamster wheel... get more miles by getting your mates to fly with us; earn more miles by spending more money at our hotel partners etc.
I wonder about the frictional cost of maintaining these elaborate schemes, an expense the budget operators cheerfully do without.
I see they've also included a book of vouchers to give to staff in recognition of good service. When they did this a few years back I quite liked it. It changed the game in Business Class from see who can look least excited about the service cos that will make you look more important to let's see who can enjoy this flight the most. Maybe it's just the passing years but now the little voucher scheme starts to feel like... more hamster wheel.
It's funny, I think of myself as unsentimental about brands but I feel sad that United are struggling. When they took over from PanAm on the transatlantic routes there was a palpable sense of pride about them. Ironically, they now feel a bit like PanAm did, sort of struggling to maintain a past grandeur.
I don't mean to seem ungrateful. After all, I only qualified for this treatment by flying on Singapore Airlines in the Star Alliance. So it's nice to get the recognition and the Alliance seems a smart idea.
I think that in larger organisations it's inevitable that things get bureaucratised and made into systems. The thing is, that can only get you so far in delivering a good experience. I also think that when times are hard, people tend to become more anxious and more wedded to systems. (And that's a pity, as probably innovation and risk taking are likely to be the best ways out of the hole). I sense there is a sort of denial going on at United. I think their people are trying hard but are demoralised; somehow the confident blurb (eg "the best frequent flyer programme" seems implausible to me). A bit like someone putting on a brave face... you don't really believe them and it creates distance - the opposite of what loyalty might be about.
I see Kathy Sierrra is posting some more smart thinking today about creating a spirit of caring. I wonder what sort of caring behaviours the high-ups at United are generating today?
Brand Trust manifests itself across many dimensions. Recommendation, loyalty and corporate social responsibility being just a few.
Edelman significantly thickened PRWeek with a chunk of it's 2005 Annual Trust Barometer. Some of the highlights included:-
Edelman deserves Kudos for a) doing marketing and thought-leadership, something that most PR agencies seem to be asleep at the wheel on; and b) for a really timely piece of research. One quote really captured my attention:
"Sacrifice control and perfection of a message for speed and free-flowing discussion. The paradox of transparency holds that companies benefit more when they disclose fully what they know - bad or good - as soon as they know it. This is truer than ever."
This is also the paradox-trap brand marketers are stuck in. All but a few are trained to the max in completeness. Completeness of thinking. Completeness of research. Completeness in creativity. Completeness in everything. The phenomenon of social networking technology and behavior plays to incompleteness. It's all about dialogue. Conversation. It's about discovering the brand rather than presenting it as final. The new priority for brand marketers will be maximizing time-to-conversation and incompleteness.
Andy Spade hits on this - kind-of - in the most recent issue of FastCompany. Amongst a few of his rules:
"BRAND CONSISTENCY IS OVERRATED. The brand doesn't have to look the same, but it has to feel the same. An element of newness and surprise if important for every brand.
BRANDS SHOULD HAVE SOME MYSTER