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Branding Posts
Be wary of creating a caring face
December 14th, 2009
Next month, Bulgari’s 11-city touring jewellery exhibition, Between Eternity and History, will end with a start-studded auction at Christie’s in New York with the aim of raising $10m for Save the Children’s Rewrite the Future campaign. So writes the Financial Times in their Asian international edition (http://www.ft.com/home/asia).
The great and the good will be there – Ben Stiller, Sting, Willem Defoe and Julianne Moore, with the New York event culminating in an event that has taken in cities such as Rome, London and Beijing.
Charity has become a tried and tested way to ease consumer malaise at spending on conspicuous luxury, whilst reinforcing brand credentials as being caring and responsible.
But is the consumer becoming more cynical?
Look at Montblanc. Last month the company caused international controversy with the launch of a $23,000 18-carat pen to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the of birth of Mahatma Ghandi. Montblanc was (rightly in my opinion) accused of exploiting Ghandi – liberator, champion of egalitarianism and simple living – in order to enter the Indian luxury market. Despite Ghandi’s grandson endorsing the promotion and Montblanc donating $148,000 too build a shelter for rescued children, the anger was widespread.
And did nothing to enhance the brand worldwide.
Is this the new ‘caring face’ of luxury?
This is sector I know well but frankly I am a cynic on this line of marketing. Last month Gucci paired with Mary J Blige to launch a Center for Women, Jimmy Choo created Project PEP, selling a range of handbags to support Elton John’s Aids Foundation, and Naomi Campbell paired with Louis Vuitton to launch a handbag in support of the White Ribbon Alliance.
Mmmmm. I remain a cynic.
Wake up and smell the coffee
July 5th, 2009
When you first came across your favourite coffee shop, you loved it. It made you feel cosy and warm. You loved the smells and the atmosphere.
Those beautiful creamy cappuccinos; those smooth lattes; those pick-me-up espresso shots.
You grew used to hugging the cup – the feel of the cardboard insulator, snuggling into leather sofas in the shop as you drank it.
And then the coffee company got greedy.
They decided to push revenue by by putting a branded coffee machine in your office.
And you went to the machine. And put a paper cup under it. And pressed the dispense button.
But there were no cardboard insulators. And so when you picked up the cup it burned you.
And the milk in the fridge wasn’t quite fresh. So the drink didn’t taste as good as it had done before.
And then you realised that the stuff in the cup was in fact just coffee. No different from the granules in your kitchen.
And the brand experience you used to love began to fade.
Brand experience is about EVERYTHING you do.
www.leaptomorrow.com
Air travel hell
July 1st, 2009
Let’s face it, travelling by air used to be glamarous. The first time I flew on a plane when I was 8, my parents made me put on my shorts, jacket and tie. There was an real excitement about going to the airport and experiencing the thrill of flying.
Now it’s absolute hell.
And Heathrow, my local airport, leads the way. Certainly terminals 1-4 do anyway.
In the post 9/11 landscape the airport authorities seem to think we will put up with anything. The airlines have a tendency to put the blame for all airport problems on airport management, hoping that passengers will absolve the airline responsibility for delays, broken gates and incompetent baggage handling.
But that’s not the way the consumer thinks.
There’s always a market researcher lurking around the next corner asking for our opinions – hoping they will be favourable responses.
They should add the following questions:
- ‘Do you find the airport that we are so proud of ‘pleasant’ … or an overcrowded filthy hellhole’?
- ‘Was the queue at security ‘long’ or ‘very long’?
- ‘Did you tolerate a customer service from airline/airport employees that you would normally find unacceptable?’
And the same questions for business travellers:
- ‘Was the ‘fast track’ lane faster than the regular lane? Or was it in fact slower?
- ‘Is the frequent flyer programme operating on a different planet’?
- ‘Was the business/frequent flyer lounge jammed full or simply ‘over capacity’?
The airline brand experience begins THE MOMENT YOU LEAVE HOME. Everthing you experience – positive and negative, will affect the brand.
Virgin Atlantic are masters of getting it right – at least in Upper Class, where you are picked up by a chauffeur from home, whisked to the airport, move seamlessly through check in and arrive 10 minutes later in a luxurious lounge and handed a glass of champagne.
It’s a pity for Virgin that the rest of us at the back of the plane have to endure the stress of just getting checked in and to the other side of security, where we are penned into a ‘holding bay’ with 1000’s of others that is termed ‘airside’.
Imaginative marketing from the 1890’s
June 17th, 2009
I just found the following story and wanted to share it with you. It is quite funny in a macabre way and very poignant.
It shows just how innovative the Victorians and their contemporaries were in tackling marketing challenges.
Back in the early days of electricity, electrical companies were very imaginative marketers.
In the 1890’s Edison was marketing ‘direct current’ (DC) and Westinghouse was marketing ‘alternate current’ (AC).
Their battle was the first format war – the precursor of VHS vs Betamax or HDDVD vs BlueRay.
Edison know that consumers were frightened of electricity and played on this insight to differentiate his brand.
To prove that the competitive AC was dangerous, Edison gave a series of demonstrations of its lethal power.
He publicly electrocuted dogs and cats.
And then he filmed the AC electrocution of Topsy, a Coney Island elephant (which is apparently available for us all to see on YouTube).
Meanwhile, his employee Harold Brown invented an even more compelling demonstration of the lethal power of AC for the State of New York. He invented the electric chair.
The utility companies of today are far less imaginative marketers.
Dual fuel packages and discounts for automated payments don’t exactly capture the public imagination.
How to differentiate your brand
June 12th, 2009
In a previous Blog I covered all aspects of Brand Cloning and how easy it is to become a copy of all the other brands out there. Here I will look at those brands that have successfully differentiated themselves and what can be learned from them.
With diffentiation you can be THE brand or THE OTHER brand. Think of Coke and Pepsi. Or Nike and Adidas.
Here are some snaphot ideas and thoughts on brands that have successfully differentiated;
- TALKING TO NON USERS: When Nintendo invented the Wii they did so by talking to people who didn’t normally use video game consoles, and asked them why they didn’t. Girls told them that unlike their brothers, they didn’t get off on killing things. So Nintendo gave them Wii Fit, Cooking Mama and Nintendogs.
- HAVING A VISION: Body Shop moved itself away from other ‘natural’ toiletry retailers when it announced it was against animal testing.
- CONSTANTLY DEVELOPING YOUR OFFER: A brand that continually reinvents itself keeps its differentiation up. The iPod developed the capability to carry more songs. Then Photos. Then Podcasts. then Videos. Then it introduced a touch interface, wifi, and then music and applications. So many digitally based brands miss this completely – most banks haven’t added any more facilities to their ATM’s since the 1980’s.
- GIVE YOUR BRAND A SENSE OF DYNAMISM; Coffee shop chain Tchibo keeps differentiation up by offering a rapidly changing set of offers for household appliances, foods and garden equipment. The rapidly changing offer keeps the brand fresh.
- USING THE POWER OF SCARCITY; If you find something you like at Zara, make sure you but it now. Because once an item sells out at Zara, they don’t re-stock it. Limited Editions work great too.
- RETHINK YOUR BUSINESS MODEL; In 2008 Prince realised that with CD sales in freefall, he was not going to make a lot from a new album release. So in the UK he gave away the album on the front of the Daily Mail newspaper. His subsequent concert tour was a sell out. Coldplay did a similar thing by making an album free for all via the internet.
- GO FOR THE JUGULAR; Dr Kawashinma’s Brain Training for the Nintendo DS has been a huge hit amongst fifty-something adults because it’s upfront as to how weak the mental faculties of this age group are. ‘You have the brain of an 80 year old’ screams Dr Kawashinma at his terrified users.
- DON’T WORRY ABOUT VALUE ALL THE TIME; A Red Bull can is much smaller than a standard drink can. That’s what makes people think it’s special. And it costs a lot more – smart marketing.
- Repeat – STOP WORRYING ABOUT VALUE; Balieys was only just the market leader in the cream liqueur market until Diageo started pushing the price up way above the competition. Girls then realised that if they ordered a Baileys they’d look expensive and if they asked for anything else they’d look like a cheap date. Today Baileys is in a class of its own.
AND FINALLY, don’t dismiss what may initially seem like an absurd idea;
- ‘How about putting little bits of metal in our Cinnamon Schnapps’? was a winning idea for Goldschlaeger.
- And could a pen with a squashy grip be positioned as having a stress relieving health benefit? The idea build Dr Grip into a pwerful brand in Japan in the past few years.
Don’t clone your brand
June 8th, 2009
In the end, a brand has only one choice to make. To be different.
Or to be the same as all the others.
Differentiation is vital. It’s the lifeblood of all marketing.
But few companies ever measure it on their brands. And as a result, many brands are becoming the same as their competitors: clones of each other.
Clone brands are often big, familiar household names. They struggle to attract customers. And keep those that they have.
Their margins are low and and they represent a kind living death in modern commerce.
Tom is a brand manager. His approach is highly professional. He’s benchmarking his brand against competitors, making it look as good as they do.
So ….. what’s the problem!?
‘Benchmarking’ and being ‘best in class’ sound important, but they all mean that Tom is COPYING his competitors.
And because his competitors are professionals too, they are copying Tom back. Everyone is copying each other.
And so brands become clones.
Digital makes things even worse.
In 2004 Tom tried e-commerce. In 2005 he developed a Flash-based website; In 2006 he developed an organic search strategy; In 2007 he explored paid search and in 2008 he dipped into social networking.
But so did every other brand manager in the world.
In 2007 every telecoms company in the world launched the same mobile, fixed line and broadband package. They had all become clones.
Airlines have cut costs so much in recent years that what’s left is purely generic. What’s the big difference between Ryanair and EasyJet? All banks now offer exactly the same cards and the same ATM functions. Most utility companies are just a logo on a bill.
So what are the effects of cloned brands?
1. Cloned brands struggle to attract customers – they have static or declining user bases.
2. Cloned brands have all failed in the past. In general, brands in the ‘Clone Zone’ were highly differentiated in the past and then lost it. Look at banks, utility companies and many airlines.
3. Cloning can happen fast – it can set in within 2 years of launch. Once a brand slips into the ‘Clone Zone’ it’s difficult to get out.
4. Whole industries can enter the ‘Clone Zone’. Look at the mobile phone sector , which was regarded as sexy and the coolest accessory for young people everywhere in the 90’s. 10 years later, these same providers struggle to differentiate from each other, each prominsing no more than ‘LOW, LOW, LOW’ prices.
5. Clone brands have the lowest margins as so often they chase price.
6. Clone brands struggle with me-too’s – these brands spend half their lives fighting off private label and other types of me-too product.
So – what’s the solution?
If you really want to be a strong and maybe global brand – think DIFFERENTIATION.
- Head and Shoulders doesn’t say it will clean your hair. It says it will clear your dandruff.
- Colgate didn’t grow by saying it would clean your teeth. It offered social confidence.
- Actimel doesn’t say it tastes delicious. It says it will improve up your digestive tract.
- McDonalds, the world’s most popular restaurant chain doesn’t even offer you a plate, knife or fork.
In a future blog in this series on BRANDING I’ll focus more on how to differentiate your brand and how other successful brands are steering well clear of becoming ‘Clones.