Branding Strategy Insider

Marketing To Women

2008-12-23T00:02:00-05:00

Venus and Mars are not in this galaxy. Rather, what we’ve got here are a lot of amazingly economically powerful women looking for products and services that meet their criteria. In fact, studies show that women buy or influence the purchase of 80% of all consumer goods in the U.S. Women today are, and likely have been for many years, buying riding lawnmowers, consumer electronics and boats, for example. They make 80% of the home buying decisions in the $180 – $500K price range according to a recent David Power Homes study, and they are likely to play a significant role in a lot of other big ticket purchases (like autos), in addition to the usual purchases of apparel, groceries and so on. Just because women aren’t directly involved in a particular consumer transaction doesn’t mean they aren’t strongly behind the buying decision.

So get out of the orbit where women are confusing and men just don’t understand. The women you’d like to reach are your wives, daughters, mothers and friends; and the common man actually can learn to serve them better.

Two For One
Here’s the deal: Focusing on male consumers, as has been the traditional approach, will deliver a customer experience that is not likely to be up to par with women. So — your effort- to-sale ratio is just a direct one-to-one.

That’s fine, and it has been pretty successful for you so far, but consider the results when you focus on women’s ways of buying:

Serving women well can really become a two (or more) for one venture! All the effort you put into learning about your customers will be more likely to give you a lot more bang for your buck. When you see your brand through a woman’s lens, and make changes to serve them better, you will be more likely to create a great experience for all customers. Plus, women are more likely to share their experiences with others via word-of-mouth or word-of-mouse, so assuming their experience with you is positive, focusing on them will build the collateral buzz among their neighbors and friends too. (Three-for-one? Ten-for-one?)

What I called this two-for-one marketing approach in Don’t Think Pink was “transparent marketing”. Done well, marketing approaches geared toward the way a woman makes purchasing decisions, will not be “pink” or obvious in a way that leaves men squirming. Rather, male consumers will find themselves returning to a brand that tends to a woman’s often higher buying standards, perhaps without being able to pinpoint why. A few examples of non-pink buying rules of thumb:

-Describe features and benefits to apply To lifestyle relevance, as well as the usual “memory, speed and power”, etc. (Car companies and computer brands are doing this more now, for example.)

-Leave more “white space” on websites and in retail stores. Go ahead and supply every product, model, color choice and type of background information known to man, but give people space to think, pick and choose what they need to see, for when they need to see it in their buying process.

- Make returns easy. Nordstrom built its reputation on this, and men didn’t go “oh yuck, Nordstrom is a woman’s store.” No — men got right on that bandwagon and love the store, too.

- Train sales staff to allow for longer purchasing processes and supply additional information, happily. “Hard sell” is an approach that has long since lost its effect, for both men and women. People know they absolutely do not have to make a decision immediately — they can always easily compare prices and features elsewhere on the Internet if they can’t get everything they need from your site or store.

More from me on marketing to women in future posts on Branding Strategy Insider.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

The Art of the Brand Story

2008-12-22T00:01:00-05:00

Stories have been around for millennia; probably as long as humans have existed on earth. Some may claim that stories help make the world go around.

Well, stories are no less powerful today than in the past. And with the help of new technologies, stories are hitting the world of brand building in a big way. Viral videos enable rapid transmission of stories that captivate an audience. Ever heard of the ‘Back Dorm Boys’, ‘JuHua Jie Jie’, or ‘Tian Xian Mei Mei’ for example? Each of the four teenagers represented by these names has been viewed by more than one billion consumers. And this exposure was achieved without spending one single dollar. In fact, these self-made web stars, whose escapades they filmed themselves on webcam and published on the net, were not even aware of their fame until Pepsi, Motorola and Sony Ericsson approached each of them with offers of enough money to retire.

These kids communicated their own stories in a way that was irresistible to viewers. Wanting to share the entertainment, the viral links were spread by viewers responding to the characteristic that is shared by the best of those viral videos - an intriguing story.

Now brands have begun to take a page from the story telling tradition themselves, tying their approach into a phenomenon I discuss in my book, BRAND sense: ‘HSP’, the Holistic Selling Proposition, describes a technique which conveys information within a whole context, a technique that enables the world of religion to captivate audiences.

For example, we see brands going to the movies, in a big way. When Burger King wanted to harness the attention of its customers, the second largest burger giant created its own branded TV channel: Diddy TV. Diddy TV is a casually-styled online TV channel which uses Diddy’s star power to direct to attention to, in his words, another ‘king’ – Burger King, that is. Burger King has become a media entity as well as a food outlet chain. And Burger King is not alone. Amazon has been running ‘Fishbowl’ with great success. The branded TV channel has generated such popularity that authors are lined up years in advance to secure a spot on the online screen. In short, brands are becoming, more and more, their own channels for their own promotion.

And this is just the beginning. It’s a trend which lightheartedly mixes editorial content with commercial messages, blurring the once essential editorial boundaries and producing a mismatch of information and entertainment. And a characteristic of it is that brands convey their brand values through story lines, and the medium of video brings the brand to life. Take Dove’s excellent attempt to distance the brand from the perceived superficiality of the cosmetics world. By developing its own ‘Dove Movie’. Visit the website named Campaign for Real Beauty and watch this short video. In just a moment see ‘the girl next door’ transformed, by makeup artists, hairstylists and couturiers into a swan. The implied story recalls ‘The Ugly Duckling’, and the underlying message is that the world of beauty is built on fakery. This is an interesting proposition coming from a member of that industry. The appeal to the familiar tale serves to captivate the onlooker and, in so doing, manages to sell more than Dove soap. It’s communicating a shared human moral and selling Dove’s part in it to the inevitably sympathetic viewer. The video technology brings the tale of Dove values to life, and, like all good stories, the tale spreads quickly, supported by ordinary consumers sending on the viral link.

The days of the simple brand website which served the brand with one-dimensional ‘about’, ‘products’ and ‘contact’ links, are well and truly over. These days consumers expect to be entertained and educated at the same time. Self-promoting online brochures won’t do it. What brands need is fresh content, preferably every day - an enormous pressure for every brand builder.

It’s not enough to be a promoter of products. You have to be a gifted teller of intriguing tales as well. And that’s the moral of the best brand stories.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Naming Redundancy and Beyond

2008-12-21T00:10:00-05:00

Maxi-this. Turbo-that. We’ve grown accustomed to seeing the heavy-duty, 5-star and premium versions of – well, just about everything.

But when a deodorant with the double-whammy moniker UltraMax appeared on the shelf, it became clear that naming had reached another level. To quote Buzz Lightyear in “Toy Story,” names were reaching for infinity – and beyond.

Marketers frequently create “hierarchy” names by adding a simple modifier to the basic product name. Two typical examples: Edge Advanced Shave Gel and Extra Strength Tylenol.

In the new era of shamelessness, too much is not enough. Ultra not adequate? More than the max? Double up your modifiers and you get UltraMax – a name registered for deodorants as well as bleaches, lamps and hand tools.

Oh, there’s more. Magnum XL condoms for the well-endowed. Xtra Supreme, a brand of animal feed. Excelle Elite, bakeware and roasting pans from Wilton Industries. And a pet food with a triple promise – it’s select, super and premium: Nature’s Select Super Premium.

The traditional term for this kind of thing – the use of more words than is needed – would be pleonasm, from Latin and Greek words meaning “excess or redundancy.” Of course, for some marketers, that’s precisely the point – play it again, Sam, and again.

Fraser Sutherland, my resident language maven (and the co-author of The Making of a Name), points out that plenty of pleonasms are embedded in English: “free gift,” “plans for the future,” and even Shakespeare’s “most unkindest cut of all.”

So before long, dear namers, we might expect to see such double-whammies as Preferred Plus, Mega More and Total Turbo. One gander at this guide to common hierarchy terms, and you can gauge the possibilities. Just pick two, and mash ‘em together.

3-Star, 4-Star, 5-Star, Aces, Advance, Advantage, Best, Better, Beyond, BlueChip, Bonus, Champ, Choice, Deluxe, Edge, Elite, Excel, Extra, Extra Performance, Extra Strength, Foremost, Gold, Grand, Grande, Great, HeavyDuty, Intense, Max, Maxed, Maxi, Maximum, Mega, More, Most, Out of Sight, Platinum, Plus, Preferred, Premier, Premium, Pro, Royal, Select, Special, Strong, Stronger, Super, Supra, Supreme, Tops, Total, Turbo, Ultimate, Ultra, World-Class, Xtra

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Do Smaller Brands Have Better Marketers?

2008-12-20T00:01:00-05:00

Management conferences are a wonderful place to learn and network. Rarely does a month go by without a major marketing conference taking place. Each time the organisers exclusively invite powerbrands with multi-million-dollar turnovers. It's a design I find a little troubling.

Organisers appear to be under the impression that the size of a company and the ubiquity of its brand are indicators of brand expertise. No such correlation exists.

It's the dirty secret of branding and one that only becomes apparent after a few years of marketing consulting. Anticipation and enthusiasm overwhelm you the first time you work in the marketing department of a company that owns one or more brands with a powerbrand pedigree. You gaze in awe at the logo as you enter the building. You make a point of telling friends in the pub at the weekend who you are working for.

It's only after a few days of the engagement that the shocking truth dawns on you: despite the big brand and the big budget, these people have absolutely no idea what they are doing with respect to marketing.

This is not to say that every famous brand is being run by marketing morons. Many powerbrands are hotbeds of leading-edge marketing thinking and practice. But equally as many are being run in inept or inefficient ways by unqualified marketers imported from senior positions in sales or engineering. You are as likely to find best marketing practice in a business-to-business software company with 50 employees as you are in any one of the organisations listed in Interbrand's annual survey of the world's most powerful brands.

Why the inconsistency? First, most powerbrands were built many decades ago. Despite the invisible halo that follows a marketer from Coca-Cola around the room, the chances of this individual being a skilled marketer are the same as any random marketing employee. Coke is a magical brand, but the marketing strategies that got it there took place more than half a century ago.

The marketing budgets of powerbrands can also hide some truly awful strategic thinking. DaimlerChrysler marketers of Mercedes wrote off £302m in 2001 to compensate suppliers after they failed to position the Smart car correctly in the market. For many small companies a failure to understand their customer and position their brand correctly will result in them going out of business. For most powerbrands it is a rapidly overlooked additional dash of red ink on page 62 of the annual report.

Let us praise marketing maestros, but let us praise them for their marketing rather than the brands they represent. Let us also reserve some praise for the unknown soldiers of marketing who execute best practice strategies for small, unheard-of brands. We may not have heard of their companies yet, but we salute them none the less.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Religion's Marketing Problem

2008-12-19T00:01:00-05:00

We have a big problem.

The Christmas season's "Peace on earth, good will to man" is not playing well this year. Ironically, the problem that this religious holiday is up against is, of all things, religion. If you doubt this, I point you to a cover story of The Economist entitled "The New Wars Of Religion."

In this article, Philip Jenkins, one of America's top religious scholars, claims that when historians look back on this century, they will probably see religion as "the prime animating and destructive force in human affairs, guiding attitudes to political liberty, concepts of nationhood, conflicts and wars." If the first eight years of this century are an indicator, Jenkins is on to something.

What's at the heart of all this is a marketing problem. In the history of mankind, nothing has been sold as aggressively and successfully as religion. But unlike the traditional world of marketing, the "my religion is better than your religion" arguments have taken on an intensity that has often become fatal. And when you consider the weaponry that's available out there, it is all very frightening.

So what's to be done? How can we begin to "unmarket" religion and get back to some "good will"? In my estimation we have to shift the discussion away from negative "better" to a more positive "good will" argument.

You start with undermining the logic of "better." Consider "the room full of religions" scenario. Let's say you put into a room learned representatives of each of the big four religions (Christianity, Islam, Hindu and Buddhists) along with Judaism and someone from the atheist nonreligious school.

When asked by a moderator, "What will happen, with certainty, to each of you when you die?" each participant will come up with six different predictions backed up by the religious book they use to support their predictions. Logic would clearly point to the fact that only one can be right. Five out of six, with some certainty, are wrong. And, since no one can predict the future, there is no way to dispute this statistic. And, what's worse, all can be wrong if God has no favorites.

That established, instead of arguing intensely about the unknown "Hereafter," perhaps more effort should be focused on the "here and now." All the big names in religion and philosophy have talked about this approach. Christ said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Muhammad said, "Whoever does not love their neighbor does not know God." And Confucius said, "The man of perfect virtue, wishing to establish himself, seeks to establish others." It's obvious this advice has been ignored over the centuries as each religion argued about their primacy.

If all religions spent more time on this advice, we would be getting back to that "peace on earth, good will to man" concept. Arguing and strife will get us nowhere but into big trouble. We should all challenge this logic of one religion being better than all others and focus our efforts on getting along with each other, whatever religion we pursue. For all we know, that just might be what God would like to see us all do.

Finally, you might ask, how would you launch a program like this? Religious leaders? Not likely, as many see their role as propagating and defending their version of religion as the right one. Political leaders? Maybe, but most wouldn't want to upset their hardcore religious followers with talk like this.

The only hope I see are the silent majority of people that simply want to see more peace on earth and can live with less religion if necessary. The problem is, how do you organize them? That’s even a bigger problem to solve.

Meanwhile, have a happy and healthy holiday season and spread some good will whenever you can. It's desperately needed.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Scent Marketing Success: Step 7 of 10

2008-12-18T00:02:00-05:00

Our series on scent marketing continues with number 7 - Understanding your cost and the Return on Investment

It is important that you understand and define your needs before you even try to run the numbers on your scent marketing efforts.

•    Do you need a signature scent (development cost: $25K - $125K)?
•    How large is the environment you need to deliver the scent in? A point of Sale application requires a different (cheaper, $5 - $50 one time cost per unit) solution than large space scenting via the HVAC system ($100 - $250 per unit per month)
•    How many units would you need to sufficiently deliver scent in one outlet? It is highly recommended that you figure this out before you sign a contract with any equipment manufacturer. The impact on your monthly expense can be dramatic. Multiply that by the number of outlets and you have your monthly “hardware” expense.
•    Probe your supplier for installation requirements and service/support levels. How easy is it to replace the containers for the consumables? Can it be done by store personnel?
•    What is your cost of consumables? Are they included in the monthly rental fee you pay to the equipment manufacturer or do you have scent delivered from a third party?

Answering these questions will help you set up your scent marketing budget. For a large brand the cost will be fairly insignificant, the challenge here will be to create and justify a new budget category. For a smaller enterprise, or if you are trying to promote sales of minor-ticket items, the cost factor may be prohibitive unless you make an effort to find an appropriately low-cost technology solution.

Numbers on the Return of Investment are kept very close by the existing scent marketers and are not publicly available. The Scent Marketing Institute has a database of current initiatives that can be exploited when making the case for a brand extension via scent.

Courtesy of Harald Vogt, Scent Marketing Institute

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Building Your Brand in Difficult Economic Times

2008-12-17T00:01:00-05:00

Often, brand marketing budgets are the first to be cut in difficult economic times. This means you must increase the efficiency of your spend or suffer reduced brand awareness, preference and loyalty building. Assuming that your spend was already efficient, this means you will likely sacrifice brand equity building until the difficult economic times have passed.

There is something else that you can do in these times. You can create new brand proof points at each point of customer contact. The way to get there is through touchpoint management design. The Blake Project offer’s a one-day workshop in which the participants generate hundreds of ideas for bringing the brand to life at each point of customer contact. The workshop is highly facilitated with numerous ideation techniques interspersed with many creativity exercises. We follow it up with a culling process that identifies those ideas that are very powerful in reinforcing the brand’s promise but also quick, easy and inexpensive to implement. That is, the final output is a handful of ideas (or more) that deliver a high return on investment (ROI).

While marketing communications, if effective, promise relevant differentiated benefits on behalf of the brand, the output of the customer touchpoint design workshop helps your brand actually deliver on its promise at each point of customer contact. This is important not only in difficult economic times, but all of the time.

This one-day workshop is very reasonably priced. To learn more about customer touchpoint design, please contact us. We would be happy to explain it in greater detail, including sharing what other brands have realized from this.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

The Yuletide Story of Coke, Santa Claus and Perception

2008-12-16T00:01:00-05:00

Sometime in the fourth century AD, in the Mediterranean port town of Myra, the church bells tolled. Bishop Nicholas was dead. Nicholas had hailed from a rich family, but after joining the church, he used much of his riches to help the poor in his community. And now that community mourned him.

For many centuries, Christian missionaries told the tale of the generous bishop and soon the story came to represent different things in different cultures.

In Germany, St Nicholas and his assistant Ruprecht dispensed presents to children. In Italy, La Belfana, a good witch, who dressed always in black, performed a similar function. In Holland, Sinter-klass gave presents to children who were kind enough to leave hay for his donkey. In Britain, it was Father Christmas. In France, Pere Noel. In the US, Santa Claus.

The individual was always a generous, yuletide figure, but was variously portrayed as being a tall, short, fat, grey-haired, white-haired, dark-featured, man/troll/dwarf/elf.

In Atlanta, in 1924, the Coca-Cola sales and marketing team had a problem.

Sales of Coke had been rocketing over the past 20 years, but these figures exhibited a dramatically uneven pattern. Each summer, US consumers set off for the beach, or to watch a baseball game with a bottle of Coke in hand. But during the winter, sales of Coke were sluggish. The team was desperate to increase the brand's sales and prevent it becoming seen as a seasonal product. Somehow they needed to make Coke a winter drink.

Cut to 1931 and New Jersey. Haddon Sundblom, a successful illustrator, and his next-door neighbour Lou Prentice, a retired salesman, were deep in conversation. Suddenly the phone rang; it was Coca-Cola. It wanted Sundblom to create a new Santa Claus campaign. For the past seven years, a variety of campaigns had attempted to link Santa and Coke, but each time the creative and ensuing seasonal sales had been disappointing. The voice on the other end of the phone was insistent: could Sundblom create something that would work?

Sundblom replaced the receiver and, deep in thought, looked up at his friend. Prentice returned the look with a jovial expression on his face.

Sundblom looked again at his plump, white-haired, elderly neighbour and an idea began to form.

Using his best friend as a model and with the corporate identity of Coke in mind, Sundblom set out to create a new vision of Santa Claus. This interpretation of the yuletide figure, with his cola-coloured belt and Coke-consistent red and white outfit, was in stark contrast to many of the historical descriptions of Santa. But the image worked and for the next 35 years the 'Sundblom Santa' was the subject of an annual advertising campaign showing Coke and Christmas in perfect harmony.

Gradually, Coke became accepted as a staple of Christmas. Winter sales matched those in the summer, and Santa Claus was forever defined in the image of Coca-Cola (and a retired salesman called Lou).

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Branding Strategy Insider.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Naming Psychology

2008-12-15T00:01:00-05:00

Names burrow deep into the human mind. Names are bundles of denotation and connotation. And much more than that, suggests Carol Moog, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and the president of Creative Focus, a consulting firm to advertisers and ad agencies on the communication value and meaning of their messages.

We asked Carol Moog about the meaning of names.

Q: How much of a name’s reception depends on non-verbal factors?

A name without an emotional, non-verbal association is virtually useless – it will not be retained in the mind of the target audience.

There is a symbiotic relationship between a name and its non-verbal correlative. What is evoked emotionally, visually, symbolically, by a particular name? It is on the basis of this cognitive/emotional connection that the most powerful mnemonic device for remembering a person’s name is the deliberate creation of mental pictures relating to it.

The Sears battery brand name DieHard, for instance, is slang for someone who will never give up. A symbiotic relationship is immediately generated, linking the name, its “being” a stubborn, tenacious, “alive” person, and the product.

Q: What happens if a name has no emotional attachment?

A brand name is dead in the water without that emotional connective tissue. If it’s just a word floating out there with nothing attached to it, it will not be remembered. It will not stand for or embody anything.

Q: How important is the visual frame in which the name is perceived?

You cannot separate the visual frame from the name. The mind sees both simultaneously. You cannot separate a word from its non-verbal reference.

Q: Let’s say a product is called Tripod. Is an image of a tripod on which the name is perched stronger than the name itself?

It’s not stronger; it’s part of the same thing. If you understand what the word tripod stands for, you cannot say the word without visualizing its form.

Q: But the consumer may not understand what the word means.

Then the marketer has to create enough specific imagery and enough associative texture and enough visceral experience so that the word will elicit an emotional response. That response and that imagery should link directly and relevantly to the product.

If people don’t know what something is, they will bring in pre-existing meanings and associations. That’s why when you’re creating a new word, it is absolutely crucial that the meanings and associations to that word are studied in order to have as much control as possible over the messages sent. What gets conjured by the word could well be contradictory to the intended message and alienating to the designated target market.

Unless they are completely random fabrications, just letters tossed together, words will always carry emotional associations based on experiences and imagery that are pre-existing. You have to know what those possible associations are before you make a decision on whether you want to use a certain word.

Q: What are some examples of pre-existing meanings and associations?

We are biologically set to respond to the human face. From the earliest phases of development, a smiling face elicits a positive emotional reaction. Bared teeth in a grimacing expression provoke fear and withdrawal. Missing components of faces that break up the visual wholeness trigger anxiety. It is crucial to carefully study non-verbal details in messages to determine if they are completely congruent with accompanying words if a name is to be grasped and accepted.

Even without visual, non-verbal components of names, the words themselves should create an immediate, clear, associatively consistent image in the target’s mind, uncluttered by contradictory interpretations. The name should literally be a stand-in for the product/company itself. “Talon” works for zippers, with the pre-existing “hooked, sharp, gripping” meanings conjured by the name. For exactly the same reason, it would be a terrible way to brand a nighttime moisturizing cream.

You need to know what meanings and associations are intrinsic to verbal and non-verbal language in the name game and either make full, deliberate use of these or discard the name altogether. Do not make the mistake of figuring that a contradictory or negatively charged association would only affect a small minority of your audience. If you pick it up or if your research is sharp enough to point it out, ditch it.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

BrandQuote - December 14

2008-12-14T00:01:00-05:00

"The more things you try to become, the more you lose focus, the more difficult it is to differentiate your product. Mark Twain said it best, 'I cannot give you a formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.'"

- Jack Trout/Mark Twain

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Direct Mail: Marketing's Negative Tidal Wave

2008-12-13T00:01:00-05:00

Direct marketing has become a profligate disaster of epic proportions.

The relatively low cost of direct mail ensures that a campaign can prove profitable even if less than 2% of those targeted actually respond. But while direct agencies celebrate the profits from these tiny minorities they rarely pause to consider the implications of the enormous majority who do not respond. Most consumers have only negative perceptions of direct marketing. Indeed eight out of ten people now believe that unsolicited letters have no relevance to them whatsoever. The traditional mantra of direct agencies the world over: 'People will always open a letter addressed to them' has become a fallacy.

The current sad state of affairs contrasts with the bright vision offered to marketers back in the 70s from visionaries like Lester Wunderman. Direct marketers were set to revolutionise the world by targeting tightly defined customer segments who were identified as having particular needs and preferences.

A relationship would be built between marketer and consumer over time and the potential to understand customers, provide information, and build brands was enormous.

Direct campaigns rarely achieve these laudable goals. Instead, the true potential of direct marketing has been drowned out by a plethora of non-targeted, non-valued, non-helpful junk designed to instigate a single transaction. Brand managers must now offset the power of direct marketing against the stigma that this unpopular media confers on their brand should they use it.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) currently self regulates all direct mail. Its mission statement speaks of "maximising value for our members, while maintaining and enhancing business and consumers' trust and confidence in the direct marketing industry". With 21 billion items in circulation yearly in the UK alone, it would seem that representing both the hunter and the hunted has proven to be impossible.

Under pressure from the government, the DMA has agreed to better promote the opt-out service it offers to households that wish to take themselves off mailing lists. The service had previously lacked sufficient support from the industry. One possible reason for this rare case of reticence from direct marketers can be found in the US. In 2003 the US government launched a service to enable households to opt out of telemarketing calls.

So far 40+ million numbers have been registered. Another big number. And what of direct marketing’s negative impact on the environment? That’s another blog post.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Know When To Euthanize Your Brand

2008-12-12T00:01:00-05:00

James Robertson launched his family jam business in 1864, after his wife, Marion, began making marmalade at their local shop in Paisley, England. Jams and mincemeat followed, and Robertson's became the leading brand of British preserves for most of the 20th century. Premier Foods acquired the Robertson's brand last year when it swallowed up RHM. This week Premier announced its new strategy for its prized jam acquisition in 2009 - kill it. Quick.

By the end of next year, Robertson's will have disappeared forever from British tables. Cue an avalanche of media stories about the fall of another great British institution, letters to the Daily Mail about the end of society as we know it, and a long line of generic brand consultants, shaking their heads and offering insight on where it all went wrong and how the brand could – and should – have been saved.

Don Williams, chief executive of brand ID consultants Pi Global, was especially emotional, telling The Grocer, 'The decline of Robertson's has been a particularly sad affair. This once-great, iconic British brand has, in my view, been systematically dismantled.'

You need a new dance, Don - the music has changed. Ten years ago, the Robertson's story might have been one of strategic error, but the world of branding is changing faster than many industry experts can keep up with.

Consider the dire straits companies such as Premier Foods find themselves in. The once-mighty food group may be only months away from a financial melt-down. How would you feel if you owed 10 times more than you were worth and the bank was ringing you to come in for a chat? That's the dilemma for Premier, which has a market capitalisation of £150m and debts of more than £1.6bn. Its priority is to reduce its debt and streamline its business before its bankers shut it down. Killing brands, particularly when your portfolio includes similar, stronger offerings, such as Hartley's Jam, makes more sense than trying to maintain double the marketing and production costs.

Also, consider the market. Yes, Robertson's is the number-three brand in a category led by Hartley's. If this were 1995, we would run both brands and have a fantastic business. But it's 2008 and the maxim of 'don't be caught in the middle' applies to jam, as much as other recession-ravaged categories.

On top are the super-premium jams such as Bonne Maman and Tiptree, both of which have enjoyed double-digit annual growth for years. Below are the private-label jams that have grown from nothing to now account for a third of the total value of the category. Consumers are either clinging to life's little luxuries and trading up, or saving a few valuable pence and trading down. Either way, they are deserting the middle ground. Time to kill the weaker brand, and focus Premier's limited resources on the stronger leader brand.

Marketers must wake up and smell the napalm. The world of brand strategy has changed completely in the past six months, but many of you are still living in 2007, when we launched brands, marketing budgets were full and companies had seemingly unlimited sums of money. All that is gone, and not coming back any time soon.

Anyone who even suggests launching a new brand, especially in retail, in 2009 should be taken out into the car park and 'retrenched'. Killing is the new creating. The only way to build value in the year ahead is to destroy weak brands. Marketers must now put down their paintbrushes and learn to love the knife. Throw away the little Buddha statue on your office PC, and put up a poster of the great god Shiva!

30 seconds on...jam, gravy and the great god Shiva

    * 'Jam' is an Arabic word meaning 'close packed' or 'all together'. Jam has held a central place in British cooking since the earliest records. In 15th-century cookery journals such as A Book of Cookrye - a sort of Jamie Oliver of its time - the medieval prose refers at one point to a 'drie marmalade of peaches'.

    * As well as owning both the Robertson's and Hartley's brands, Premier Foods also manufactures Rose's Marmalades and jam under the Weight Watchers label. The company is also a major producer of private-label jams in the UK.

    * Next up on the Premier chopping block could be OXO, sales of which have declined significantly. The addition of market leader Bisto, which has six times the sales of OXO, to Premier's portfolio could spell the end of the road for the iconic brand.

    * The god Shiva is known as the 'destroyer of the world'. In Hindu religion, he is seen as a force for death, but also for shedding old habits and clearing the way for a rebirth.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Why Women Are The Superior Marketing Sex

2008-12-11T00:01:00-05:00

When I teach the brand management elective to MBA students, we explore case studies of companies getting it right and wrong. One of the most common observations that keeps coming up has nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with gender. In a remarkable number of case studies, female marketers seem to outperform their male counterparts. It has become almost a running joke in some of my classes: senior male marketer produces an average or horrible marketing result; female marketer repeatedly seems to deliver a superior approach.

It might be something you have noticed, too. Chances are that the most senior and best-paid member of your marketing team is a man, but it's equally likely that the best marketer in your team is actually a woman. If I list the top 10 marketers that I have been lucky enough to work with in the past 10 years of my consulting career, women outnumber men, even though the vast majority of my clients were male.

Why are women apparently the superior marketing sex? It's easy to use the offensive stereotypical explanations: women like softer subjects such as marketing and are good at design and packaging. Fortunately, recent advances in our knowledge of the differences between male and female brain functions now provide a far more robust explanation for their superiority in this arena. To put it bluntly, women have a massive genetic advantage when it comes to marketing: their brains are better designed for it.

Women's brains are built for empathy
Imagine walking into a laboratory - in front of you are two human brains, one male, one female. It would not be hard to identify which is which. The male brain on the table is about 10% larger than the female brain and has 5% more brain cells. That sounds like good news for men, but in terms of pound-for-pound processing, the female brain more than makes up for its disparity in size in other ways.

For starters, women's brains are the default for all of us. For the first eight weeks of our existence in the womb, we all have a female brain. Then genes and sex hormones take over. In the case of boys, a huge surge in foetal testosterone results in the destruction of cells in the communication centres of the brain and the growth of cells in the sex and aggression centres. Meanwhile, the female foetus, devoid of the surge in male hormones, continues to grow unaltered.

The results are drastically different brains. In particular, women's emerge as superior organs for communication and emotional understanding. From an early age, girls display much greater sensitivity to the suffering of others than boys, and in adult life have a far greater ability to under-stand the thoughts and feelings of others.

Girls as young as 12 months old respond more empathically to the distress of other people. When they are asked to judge when someone might have said something potentially hurtful, girls score higher than boys from the age of seven years old. Women are also more sensitive to and better at decoding non-verbal communication, picking up the most subtle nuances from tone of voice or facial expression, and judging character.

In contrast, men struggle much more with the challenge of understanding others. One recent study from Cambridge University has shown a link between the amount of testosterone a boy receives in the womb and his inability to establish eye-contact with others as a small boy. The inference is that men, having had their brains bathed in testosterone for seven months, are much less able to establish an understanding of, and connection with, others.

There is, perhaps, no more important skill for a marketer than empathy. While the media and outsiders tend to perceive marketing as a matter of spin and persuasion, the reality has always been different. It is fundamentally a challenge of understanding. Yes, later on we create advertising and packaging and other rhetorical tools, but the primary issue for all marketers is to understand their consumer and bring that understanding into the organisation. Without this basic empathy for the target market, our marketing efforts are probably going to be in vain.

It's clear, therefore, why women have such a biological advantage when it comes to marketing. Their brains are simply better at understanding others. Male marketers are more likely to make the crucial error of assuming that their own thoughts and reactions can be extrapolated to those of the market. Female marketers, in contrast, are more likely to truly get inside the head of the market and base their strategies on the real needs of consumers.

Women's brains produce better market research
If we were to cut a brain in half, we would discover a large mass of fibres connecting the right and left hemispheres. This connective pathway is known as the corpus callosum. It is made up of more than 200m of nerve fibres and acts as a super-highway between the two sides of the brain. These hemispheres offer very different types of processing. The right side of the brain is associated with more holistic and intuitive thinking, while the left is typically concerned with more logical and analytical functions.

In marketing, and especially in market research, there is a clear need for both types of thinking to be successful. Marketers must be able to use both qualitative and quantitative research in combination to generate insight from the market.

If a marketer uses only qualitative research, for example commissioning a series of focus groups, the results are fuzzy and unrepresentative, and should never be used as the exclusive basis for any marketing strategy. At the same time, other marketers are equally compromised by relying on only quantitative data - a major internet panel survey, for example - to understand the market. The problem with quantitative research is that it may measure precisely the response of the market, but only to the options presented by the researcher. The analysis might provide strong statistical data that variable A is more attractive than variable B, but what if variable C, which was not included in the questionnaire, was the most important one?

The secret of great market research has always been to start with qualitative research and then use the inductive insight that is generated in a more deductive, quantitative piece of subsequent research. It is a simple lesson, but one that evades many senior marketers who appear content to use either one type or the other.

Here, again, the female brain is in a superior position. Most studies of the brain have concluded that women have a larger corpus callosum than men, and therefore show a more bilateral representation of function, which decreases specialisation but better integrates the two halves. Put more simply, women are able to combine and integrate their thinking between the intuitive challenge of great qualitative research (understanding what is important to the consumer) and the analytical challenge of quantitative work (measuring how important the variables are). In contrast, male marketers are more likely to use one approach or the other and thus fail to generate superior marketing insight.

Women's brains work better for brands
One of the biggest challenges in branding is ensuring that you understand the unique issues associated with each brand. Every one is different from the next. That is why a brand is the opposite of generic. In brand management, you cannot take strategies and approaches that have worked for one brand, apply them to another and expect to be successful. Each brand has a distinct equity, different market segments and contrasting reasons for purchase. One of the biggest mistakes a marketer can make is to apply general rules to specific brands.

Once again this is a challenge to which women are far more likely to rise than men. One of the most pronounced differ-ences between men and women is in the way that each sex processes information. The differences are clear from childhood. If you ask girls and boys to draw a picture, the girls' drawings will be much more detailed and focused on specific elements of their subject, part by part. Boys, in contrast, tend to use more sweeping lines and less detail.

The differences stem from the male and female brain. Women are much more likely to delve into the intricacies and specific details of a problem. Men, in contrast, are more likely to rely on global rules and generalised principles.

These differences would present themselves clearly with two marketers, one male, one female, put in charge of a big brand. The male brand manager is likely to review his experiences and successes to understand his new brand and apply existing rules and strategies that he has found to work elsewhere. In contrast, the woman is better able to compartmentalise her experiences and understand the current brand and its unique elements and intrinsic features.

Women's brains are better at brand positioning
Another key distinction between the male and female brain can be found in the way we approach problems. Women's perceptual skills are oriented to quick, intuitive thinking. Men, in contrast, construct rules-based analyses of the natural world, inanimate objects and events. According to Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen, men 'systemise'. That is why boys are more interested in cars, trucks, planes, building blocks and mechanical toys - systems. They love putting things together and prefer toys that have clear functions.

In adulthood, this presents another problem for male marketers and another big advantage for female marketers. Perhaps the toughest challenge in branding is articulating a clear positioning statement for the brand. I have seen a plethora of brand positioning attempts, most of them amazingly bad.

One of the main reasons for the lack of traction for a brand positioning is thatit is simply too long and complex. The bog-standard approach to positioning is a series of complicated levels contained with a circle or triangle. The problem with this is that it simply does not work. While the marketer feels good about their super-complex approach with brand essence, brand personality and so on, the result is far too complex and dilute to affect staff or drive any meaningful marketing strategy. In my experience, anything more than three words to define the essence of a brand renders the result pointless.

Women's brains are more attuned to the competition
Another important challenge that faces marketers is competition. We must identify the main competitors in the market and devise strategies against them. Again, the recent discoveries about differences between the male and female brains suggest that women may also be in a superior position to perform this marketing task. Ironically, the reason for their superiority in this area stems from two things that men are better at: focus and aggression.

The most noticeable difference between the male and female brain is the amount of grey matter. Recent studies suggest that females have about 20% more grey matter as a proportion of their brains than males do. Grey matter, made up of the bodies of nerve cells and their connecting dendrites, is where the brain's heavy lifting is done. The female brain is more densely packed with neurons and dendrites, providing processing power and more thought-linking capability.

Male brains, in contrast, are filled with more white matter made of the long arms of neurons encased in a protective film of fat, which helps distribute processing throughout the brain. It gives males superiority at spatial reasoning. White matter also carries fibres that inhibit 'information spread' in the cortex. This allows a single-mindedness that spatial problems require, especially difficult ones. The tougher the challenge, the more the male brain can exclude other things and focus.

Another difference between men and women is the degree of aggression they exhibit. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania claim they have evidence that shows there is a physiological reason why men are more aggressive than women. Their research indicates that the part of the brain that modulates aggression, the frontal area around the eyes, is smaller in men than it is in women. Both genders have the same ability to produce emotions, but men struggle to keep them in check as much as women can.

Combining these two differences, evolution provides us with the perfect hunter: a man who can stoke up aggression easily and focus that aggression on a particular target to the exclusion of all else. But in marketing, this is exactly the kind of response to competition that can leadto disaster. Too often, marketers fail to see the true competitive set because they fixate on a single rival that they deem to

be their main threat. Mobile brand Nokia's current woes, for example, partly stem from its inability to see Google and Apple's encroachment, because the Finnish company was too focused on its existing, classic competitor, Ericsson.

Women don't talk as much about themselves
Another advantage of women over men is that they are considerably less ego-centric and talk less about themselves in public settings. The classic male leader is exemplified by Jack Welch or Steve Jobs - men who like to get into the centre of the stage and speak for the brand.

In reality, the chief executive is rarely the best person to represent the brand in front of the media or consumers. Female marketers are more likely to avoid the centre stage and allow the right spokes-person to represent the brand to consumers.

Take Rose-Marie Bravo, the fantastically successful chief executive of Burberry. In 10 years at the helm of the British luxury brand, Bravo gave virtually no interviews. Instead, she hired a young British designer, Christopher Bailey, as creative director, and let him represent the brand to the media. This is an approach that most male marketers struggle with. They seek the limelight and view press and PR releases as a natural place for them to step forward.

Marketers are the last people on earth that the media want to write about and are deeply unpopular with consumers, too. Founders of a brand or the people who actually make the products are usually much better received by the media and generate better PR. Female marketers are more likely to grasp this fact, whereas male marketers will reach for their jacket and tie as soon as the words 'press launch' are mentioned.

Women's brains age better
Women have one final cognitive advantage - they have faster blood flow to the brain and this offsets the cognitive effects of ageing. Men lose more brain tissue with age, especially in the left frontal cortex, the part of the brain that thinks about consequences and provides self-control.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine have observed tissue loss in the brains of men in their mid-40s, while women of the same age remained untouched by the ravages of age. This means that as a male marketer passes 45, his ability to control emotions and impulses gradually declines.

The implications for marketers and managers are obvious. Most people reach their most senior and influential position within an organisation in their late 40s and early 50s.

The average chief executive, for example, is 55 and male. Irrespective of their former glories, these men are now likely to be experiencing significant reductions in their ability to control their impulses, just when they need that skill the most. Women, in contrast, who already had a gender advantage in being able to control anger better than men, will only increase this advantage as they age.

There are, of course, a couple of important caveats that come with any argument that women are the superior gender when it comes to marketing. First, it is, clearly, not fair to claim that all women are better than all men at marketing. Obviously we are dealing in the imprecise world of averages, and there are some very good male marketers out there.

The chances are, however, that many of these superior male marketers will possess a brain that has more female traits than the average male brain. It is also important to remember that we are discussing marketing skills exclusively. Just as I hope to have made a persuasive argument that women's brains make them better marketers, it would be just as easy to suggest than men's brains, with their respective differences, would make them better finance people or logistics analysts. It's a matter of fit.

Nonetheless, I remain convinced that when it comes to marketing, women add considerably more skill, potential and overall value to an organisation. Of course, many of my arguments are relative. Women are superior when it comes to marketing because their brains are better suited than their male peers.

So perhaps a fitting place to end this blog post is to ask a philosophical question: am I really arguing that women are better at marketing, or is it more a case of men being worse at it?

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Advertising Age's Marketing 50 Awards 2008

2008-12-10T00:01:00-05:00

Earlier this month Advertising Age announced their selection for the Top 50 marketing ideas of 2008 and the marketers behind them. This February they will be honored in New York. Congratulations to this years nominees…

•    AmEx Members Project
   Belinda Lang, American Express Co.
•    Bakugan Battle Brawlers
   Ronnen Harary, Spin Master Ltd.
•    "The Biggest Loser" Product Line
   Mark Koops, Reveille
•    Blu-Ray
   Chris Fawcett, Sony Electronics Home Product Division
•    Bounty
     Brad Schwan, Procter & Gamble Co.
•    Campbell's low-sodium soups
   Lisa Walker, Campbell Soup Co.
•    Carol's Daughter
   Steve Stoute, Carol's Daughter
•    CTS
   John Howell, General 5Motors Corp.
•    Coors Banquet
   Andy England, MillerCoors
•    Dunkin' Donuts coffee
   Audra Schlegel, Procter & Gamble Co.

•    Fiber One
   David Clark, General Mills
•    Flip
   Simon Fleming-Wood, Pure Digital Technologies
•    Garmin
   Jon Cassat, Garmin International
•    Garnier Nutritioniste
     Carolyn Holba, Maybelline Garnier
•    "Grand Theft Auto IV"
     Alex Moulle-Berteaux, Rockstar Games
•    GreenWorks
   Jessica Buttimer, Clorox Co.
•    G2
   Carla Hassan, Gatorade
•    Häagen-Dazs
     Katty Pien, Haagen-Dazs
•    Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas
     Phil Shalala, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas
•    Hilton Hotels
   Adam Burke, Hilton Hotels Corp.
•    Honest Tea
     Jesse Merrill, Honest Tea
•    Hulu
     Jason Kilar, Hulu.com
•    iPhone 3G
     Phil Schiller, Apple
•    Jawbone
     Elizabeth Bastiaanse Hamren, Aliph
•    Jim Beam
   Rory Finlay, Beam Global Spirits & Wine
•    Kroger
   David Ciancio, Kroger Co.
•    LZR Racer
     Craig Brommers, Speedo USA
•    Mac & Cheese
     Mary Sagripanti, Kraft Foods
•    Malibu
   Mike Weidman, General Motors Corp.
•    NBA playoffs
   Carol Albert, National Basketball Association
•    New Prototype
     Steve Battista, Under Armour
•    Pur Flavor Options
     Bruce Lux, Procter & Gamble Co.
•    Rihanna Umbrellas from Totes
     Kristen Stary, Totes-Isotoner Corp.
•    Sabra
     Rodrigo Troni, Sabra Dipping Co.
•    Secret Clinical Strength
     Janine Miletic, Procter & Gamble Co.
•    Sobe LifeWater
     Jeff Dubiel, Sobe
•    Southwest Airlines
     Kevin Krone, Southwest Airlines
•    Special K
     Teresa Lindsey-Houston, Kellogg Co.
•    State Farm
     Mark Gibson, State Farm
•    Sweet Tea
     Neil Golden, McDonald's Corp.
•    Taco Bell Late Night
     David Ovens, Taco Bell
•    Tofurky
     Seth Tibbott, Turtle Island Foods
•    TouchSmart
     David Roman, HP Personal Systems Group
•    True Religion
     Chana Taft-Schuman, True Religion Brand Jeans
•    Uniqlo
     Jean-Emmanuel Shein, Uniqlo USA
•    Vitamin Water
     Rohan Oza, Glacéau
•    Whopper
     Russ Klein, Burger King Corp.
•    Wii Fit
     Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America
•    WIN detergent
     Jeff Crow, WIN Products
•    Zyrtec: Rohinish Hooda, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Healthcare

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Customer Relations: How Does Your Brand Rate?

2008-12-09T00:01:00-05:00

If you’re not sure what you should wish for your brand in 2009, I have a suggestion for you to consider.

The Internet and its viral power has turned everyone into a broadcaster. But how is this increasingly affecting brands?

The answer is simple: brands cannot afford to upset the consumer any longer. Chances are that you’re most likely upsetting your customers more than ever. If you don’t believe me, read on.

Ten years ago I wrote the world’s first book on how to build brands online. In the back of Brand Building on the Internet, I listed ten essential rules for brands to follow online. Rule number one was to reply to customers. Very simple, yes, and essential for anyone with a serious online presence. I decided to test the rule by sending out a simple consumer inquiry to the one-hundred largest brands in the world. Using the ‘contact us’ feature on the corporate website of each brand concerned, I asked each company a simple question about their brand. Questions you’d be able to answer in seconds. What do you think the response rate was?

First the good news. Thirty percent of the brands replied back within the first 24 hours. Great, thought I, merrily assuming a similar response rate on day two. The reality was, however, that I had to wait a very long time to get replies back from all the companies I’d written to. In fact, I’m still waiting. More than fifty percent of the companies never replied back at all. Now, I’m not talking about mom-and-pop brands, but brands which are valued in the billions; companies that also talk about customer satisfaction and in most cases even include their professed commitment to consumers in their vision statements.

Of course, this lack of care for the individuals that make your business a success and secure a living for all of your employees wouldn’t apply to you, would it. Or does it?

Ask five friends to send your company a simple customer inquiry. Be prepared for disappointment. Your brand, going on common performance, may fail the test. But you have to know. If you’re in doubt, you’d better act quickly because tomorrow’s brands simply can’t afford to fail on such simple customer-care test.

The good news is that, by entering this simple experiment, you can keep the bad news , if it turns out to be bad, in camera. But don’t forget. You won’t simply be testing the speed of replies, but the quality of replies.

Some years, ago a Jonah Peretti turned Nike and its marketing machine upside down by submitting a rather unusual naming request via its Nike ID feature. If you’re not familiar with Nike ID, check it out. It enables customers to submit a name request and have this printed on the shoes of their choice. Peretti requested that Nike print the name: ‘Sweatshop’ on one of his shoes. His request was rejected.

Ten years ago, this may not have been a big deal But in today’s world, Peretti’s one-man offensive and Nike’s so-called response would be damaging to the Nike marketing machine and the brand it’s responsible for. More than 80,000 sites cover Peretti’s story online retracing the rather naïve dialog that ensued between Nike’s legal team and the lone fighter, Peretti. The problem was not only Nike’s rejection, but also the way they rejected this pointed request. They threw their giant legal department into action and employed legal jargon as a weapon to silence Peretti. Of course, the weapon was ineffective and the opposite happened. The fact that you’re reading about him right now is evidence to this fact.

Meaningful and genuine dialogue, i.e., just a friendly phone call from the company, could have turned this situation around. Yet most companies forget the power today’s consumer has through that most potent of all communication channels: word of mouth.

If you dare, send a nasty request or complaint to your own company. Ask one of those irritating questions, which speak of a true weakness in your product or service, just as ‘sweatshop’ pierced the heart of Nike’s reputation. First of all, you better hope that you receive a reply. And, assuming you do, hope that the reply is a thoughtful, respectful and salient one. Will you receive a call from a friendly and intelligent person, or an anonymous impersonal form email, or a defensive response from the legal department?

If, like me, you’re convinced that you and I and every other consumer are powerful marketing machines, you’d better move quickly. The good news is that I didn’t mention your company in this article. The bad news is that someone is likely to do so soon.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

ROI, Brand Value Calculators

2008-12-08T00:01:00-05:00

One of the five drivers of brand insistence is value. Value is a function of two things: (1) benefits delivered and (2) cost of receiving those benefits. For business-to-business brands, value often translates directly to ROI. It will benefit brands in many business-to-business categories to create a brand value (or ROI) calculator and post it on a website or otherwise make it available to customers and potential customers.

Brands that offer superior long-term ROI can use the calculator to demonstrate that while their products and services might be more expensive upfront, the long-term savings realized from using them more than compensate for their higher upfront price. Creating an ROI calculator enables all of the efficiencies and savings that they deliver to be captured and compared to those of their competitors in a very concrete way.

The calculator can be designed to highlight the advantages that your brand offers over its competitors. Additionally, it can attract potential customers to your brand’s website and reinforce the value-added services (in this case, the calculator itself) that they can come to expect from your brand.

The calculator captures the following types of variables and assumptions: purchase cost, maintenance costs, replacement parts costs, average downtime frequency and duration, out-of-service costs, ongoing energy usage and costs, non-compliance fines and surcharges, estimated (or guaranteed minimum) product life, performance efficiency, ability to charge a price premium for product usage, etc.

We would be happy to help you develop a brand value / ROI calculator for your brand.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Wall Street: Address for Marketing Problems

2008-12-07T00:02:00-05:00

In 2005 Krispy Kreme completed its meteoric rise with an ignominious crash. The reason? Reportedly because of "egregious" accounting to satisfy Wall Street's hunger for growth. Yet another example of what can happen to a brand that is being driven by the stock price instead of the marketplace.

Here's the now all too familiar problem. Wall Street often creates an environment that encourages bad, sometimes irrevocable, things to happen. In a way, it sets up a greenhouse for trouble, and like a greenhouse, it's all about encouraging things to "grow." The well-known economist Milton Friedman put it perfectly when he said, "We don't have a desperate need to grow. We have a desperate desire to grow." That desire for growth is at the heart of what can go wrong for many companies. Growth is the by-product of doing things right. But in itself, it is not a worthy goal. In fact, growth is the culprit behind impossible goals.

CEOs pursue growth to ensure their tenures and increase their take-home pay. Wall Street brokers pursue growth to ensure their reputations and increase their take-home pay.

But is it all necessary? Not really. When you consider that people do damaging things to force unnecessary growth, you can say that it's a crime against the brand. A true story illustrates how the desire for growth is at the root of evil doings.

I was brought in to evaluate the business plans for a large, multi-brand drug company. In turn, the brand managers stood up and presented their next-year's plans. In the course of a presentation, a young executive warned of aggressive new competition in his category that would definitely change the balance of power. But when it came to a sales projection, there was a predicted 15% increase. Instantly, I questioned how this could be with the new competition.

His answer was they were going to do some short-term maneuvering and line extension. Long-term, wouldn't this hurt the brand? Well, yes. Then why do it? Because his boss made him put in the increase, and I would have to talk with him.

One week later, the boss admitted the problem, but said his boss needed the increase because of, you guessed it, Wall Street.

Consider the saga of McDonald's. Not too many years ago their sales and earnings were flat. So then-CEO Jack Greenberg did what most red-blooded CEOs would do: He rolled out something called a New Tastes Menu--a collection of 44 items to be rotated by franchises. All this did was produce lines at every cash register. Fast food became slow food with the ensuing complaints.

All that was turned around with the late CEO Jim Cantalupo's back-to-basics drive. He got off the Wall Street growth bandwagon and drove home the need for quality, cleanliness and upgrading products and services. As he said, "We've taken our eyes off the fries." McDonald's newfound success wasn't so much about "I'm loving it." It was more about "I'm fixing it."

Did you ever wonder why very successful, privately held companies, such as Milliken or Gore-Tex, rarely show up in the press? It's because no one is staring at their numbers quarter after quarter. All they have to worry about is their business. And if they are happy with it, that's all that matters. It reminds me of yet another story:

The Tico Fisherman And The Wall Street Analyst

An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Costa Rican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the boat were several large yellow-fin tuna.

The American complimented the Costa Rican Tico on the quality of his fish, and asked how long it took to catch them.

"Only a little while," the Tico replied. The American then asked why he didn't stay out longer and catch more fish. The Tico said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.

The American then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The Tico fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife Maria, stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, senor."

The American scoffed, "I am a Wall Street executive and could help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat and a Web presence. A scalable, go-forward plan would provide capital for several new boats. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to San Jose, Costa Rica, then to Los Angeles and, eventually, New York City, where you would outsource tasks to third-party clients to help run your expanding enterprise in a vertical market."

The Tico fisherman asked, "But senor, how long will all this take?"

To which the American replied, "15 to 20 years."

"But what then, senor?"

The American laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right, you will announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You will make millions."

"Millions, senor? Then what?"

The American said, "Then you will retire, move to a small coastal fishing village where you can sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings, where you will sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

Sponsored By: Brand Aid

Test Your Brand

2008-12-06T00:01:00-05:00

We subject each of our client’s brands to a very simple test. (The test is simple but what it measures is seldom easy to achieve.) I call it the CUB test. “C” stands for compelling, “U” stands for unique and “B” stands for believable. That is, the most effective brands almost always promise compelling, unique and believable benefits to their target customers.

C = Compelling
U = Unique
B = Believable

You can test this by asking the following three questions about each current or potential brand promise:

COMPELLING: How important is [brand promise] when selecting a [category name] brand?
UNIQUE: (Ask this question for each competitive brand.) How well does this brand deliver on [brand promise]?
BELIEVABLE: (Ask this question for your brand.) How well does this brand deliver on [brand promise]?

A brand will not succeed if its promise is not important, compelling or purchase motivating. Nor will it succeed if the promise is not believable for your brand. And, the promise will not differentiate your brand if it is not unique to your brand.

When we are asked to help reposition a brand, we evaluate each potential brand promise against the CUB criteria. We almost always select the promise that has the highest CUB score.

Sponsored By: Brand Aid