May 29, 2015 | Branding, Marketing, Small business
Build to last
“Brand” is a widely misused and misunderstood term, often referring to a whole range of devices, symbols and expressions that are no more than single elements of the whole.
Building a brand in the digital age of speed, idea cloning and ubiquitous communication is a real challenge, but those who get it right, win big time.
Just look at Apple. When Steve Jobs came back, it was just about broke, now it is one of the largest, and most successful corporations the world has ever seen.
Do you need any more evidence that branding in the digital age works?
While Apple is not the corner store, the foundations of Apple can be applied to every brand, and every business, from the corner store right up to Apple, whose retailing operations in the Apple stores are setting new benchmarks for retail performance.
1. Start inside. No brand can exist in isolation of the internal values and culture of the business they represent. No amount of smart advertising and slick promotion can substitute for great customer experience and value generation, which starts inside.
2. Seduce, don’t sell. Today’s consumers are smart, advertising sensitive and cynical, they need to be seduced by the superior value your brand represents, the experience it delivers. Purchase decisions are not always rational, and when a successful brand is involved in the choice, the equation usually does not have much weight on the price component of the value equation.
3. Lead, don’t follow. Brands have the capacity to lead consumers towards a place they have not been before, or not considered, as they create new value propositions. They look for trends that have the potential to crash into each other at some point, and change behaviour, and then see them before anyone else. Then they build an offer at the point of intersection, often creating the disruption themselves. The great ice hockey player Wayne Gretsky said he did not skate to the puck, he skated to where the puck would be. Successful brands do the same thing, lead, they certainly do not follow or react fads and short term “opportunities”.
4. Sweat the small stuff. Every potential touch point a customer may have at some point with a brand is an opportunity to enhance the brand, or add to the depreciation. Jobs’ fanatical dedication to making even the things no consumer was ever likely to see perfect is legend, but provided a platform for consumers belief that Apple was simply “better”
5. Commitment and focus. Brands that succeed do so because over a considerable period that stay focused on their core “Why” as Simon Sinek would put it. They do not succumb to corporate politics, marketing “short-termism”, and distractions from the market, they hunker down for the long term and deliver what the brand stands for at every opportunity.
6. Broad appeal. Really successful brands have a set of values that cross normal product category lines, and they are able to deliver in differing categories. They are able to accommodate shifts in consumer behaviour because they are not defined by their product attributes, but by their values and relationships with customers.
7. Relish and learn from competition. Marketplaces are demanding places, and only the best survive and prosper. Watching the steps and missteps of competitors makes brands stronger, and when a strong brand has strong competition, they both get better. That is the nature of competition.
8. Design is crucial. A well designed and executed product, and peripheral material like adverting, packaging, and look and feel of the product itself can deliver a unique message to consumers about the values that their purchase choice is delivering to them. Unmistakable, and remarkable are terms that every brand owner should chase for their offering.
9. Defy conventional wisdom. Unless a brand is distinctive, memorable and creates value, it will go unnoticed, and the best way to be noticed is to defy conventional wisdom. Do not do what everyone else is doing, find a way to add value by being different.
10. Communicate facts that resonate. Today’s smart consumers are less likely to be seduced by flimsy claims their parents accepted, they want solid information, facts that are relevant to them on which to make what they see as rational purchase decisions. They recognise preferences are no longer formed by fancy and extensive advertising, but by the realities that their target customers believe.
11. Design for people. Successful brands are never for everyone, their do not squander scarce resources trying to be so. In contrast, the design the brand experience is designed for the specific people who are most likely to be their loyal and lifelong customers.
A brand is more than a collection of attributes and deliverables, it is a long term strategic platform for growth and profitability. Why would you not invest in that?
May 15, 2015 | Branding, Customers, Innovation, Marketing
innovation comes from dot joining
Before 3M came out with the now ubiquitous little yellow pad of semi stuck sheets, nobody realised they needed them.
There was no clamour for sticky note papers to use as messages, place-holders, and the thousand other uses we have found for them, no market research pointed at the opportunity.
Someone connected the unconnected dots.
The story goes that there was a failed glue experiment in the 3M lab archives. One of the product lines of 3M is glue, sticky stuff used as a joining agent with uses from the home to building sites and industrial applications. Researcher Spencer Silver was seeking a super strong adhesive, the line of experiments was deemed a failure, it was not glue, it did not stick, although it seemed to be re-useable, the stickiness was not strong. It was however, long lived. One of 3M’s employees who was also the member of a local church congregation choir, frustrated that his placeholders kept dropping out of his hymn book made the connection, and a product was born.
Point is the research had been done, there was a solution in the archives in search of a problem.
The challenging task for innovators and marketers is to put ourselves in the position where we can connect the solution with the problem.
That does not happen in the office, it happens where there are conversations happening, often random conversations, between people with vaguely connected networks and ideas.
The science of networking indicates we get more from those we know vaguely than from our very close peers.
Why?
Because those close to us are typically the same as us, similar views, experiences and attitudes, exposed to the same sorts of stimuli, that is why they are close to us.
The revelations, the connection of the unconnected dots usually comes from left field those who we know, but not well, who circulate in different groups to us, have different knowledge, networks and interests to us.
Go talk to them, network, engage, step out of your comfort zone, and with time, curiosity, and yes, lady luck does play a role, you might find your Post-it-note. You will almost certainly not find it if the only place you look is inside your own patch.
May 13, 2015 | Branding, Marketing
Courtesy: Tom Fishburne
Putting together a good brief is a foundation of successful business, whether it be a brief to a creative agency, engineering team, or outsourced service of some type, and irrespective of the platform to be used, a great brief plays a key role in achieving your goals.
Following are some simple rules to follow. The weight you put on them may differ depending on circumstances, but the principals remain.
- Describe what you are setting out to do. Sell a service, create a product, evoke a feeling, whatever it is, if the reader does not know in detail what you are setting out to do, how can you expect them to deliver.
- What do you want the receiver to do with the information we are giving them. When developing a creative brief, it helps the creatives to know what your choices of media are, how you want your logo to be displayed, and any cultural imperatives. Do not expect them to be able to read your mind. An engineering brief will be different, but same idea, give as much specific information as possible.
- Who is the audience for the final product. The greater the level of detail, the better. “Women over 35” is better than “all women”, and “women between 35 and 50 with executive jobs in the private sector with two children” is better still. The greater the level of detail the better the potential outcomes from the briefed activity can be.
- What does the target audience feel about the existing products and categories they buy. Having an idea of the current state of mind of the target audience is pretty important if you are setting out to change their behaviour and as a result their long term attitudes and preferences.
- What do you want them to feel about this new offer. In other words, after they have seen our offer, how do we want them to feel, and as a result, act?
- What are the key differentiators of our offer? What makes this alternative better than the others?
- How will this differentiator make a difference to the lives of those who buy it? Even if it a box of soap powder, this rule holds. It is the answer to the consumers question “Why should I buy this?
- Finally, any specific things that must be there, or indeed, cannot be there.
Sorting all this stuff out for the brief also ensures that you have thought about all the alternatives and issues before you take up the resources of the “brifees” in considering the brief.
Better yet, having a great brief gives you a basis to make an objective decision about the best alternative offered, and whether or not it meets your commercial needs.
May 6, 2015 | Branding, Marketing, Small business
courtesy Hugh McLeod
20 years of working with small businesses and it seems the attitudes to marketing have not changed much.
Most recognise the change in the tools. They seek to engage with social media by being “on facebook” and “Liking” a few people, having a few Apps and sharing photos on their phones, and many have a website that is little more than an electronic brochure at best. The list goes on a bit, but the reasons for this lack of recognition of the importance of marketing have a very few, but very common roots.
Founder focus. Most founders come from a specific background, engineering, accounting, bricklaying, and they are good at it, focus on it, and seek to provide service by doing it better, more often, they often see just lots of one sort of tree, rather than a forest.
Where is the money? The limited funds small businesses have are generally allocated against the specifics they understand and need to build a businesses. T
o continue the analogy, an better computer system, bigger truck to carry the building materials around, things that relate to the core reason for being in business, not this fluffy ill defined marketing stuff. Besides,” I have a website, and it does nothing for me”.
Everyone’s a marketer. Probably the deepest, darkest hole. Everyone knows a kid who can set up their devices and do a website for them, or they edited the school magazine so know how to write and edit copy, the summer intern “knows” social media, and the flaky new age couple down the road know all about the new stuff ‘happening”. God save me from pretend marketers, but they are cheap, if not free, and usually make an unholy mess.
This will sell itself. The product is so good, all we have to do is make it available. How often have I heard that old furphy?
Better do something! And the last, often literally, reason marketing pops onto the radar is a recognition that if nothing changes, the “cleaners” will arrive. “We are suffering, better do something, maybe marketing is the answer”. Too little too late, and there is often insufficient money left to make a difference.
Sad but true for way too many.
What have I missed that you have seen?
The right way to go about all this is to recognise that everyone must be in marketing from day one, weather they like it or not, it is an investment in the business, no different to the truck, or computer system necessary to deliver the service you offer.
Apr 23, 2015 | Branding, Marketing, Small business, Uncategorized
Albert Einstein would have made a great marketer.
He made a number of statements that are highly applicable, but one that sticks in mind is:
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, no simpler”
Marketing is simple in concept, but becoming ever more complication in the execution.
The huge array of choices to be made at every stage is enough to scare many people away, so their marketing remains sub optimal.
There are only four components, all are critical, and all interact with each other creating the huge mass of choice confronting us, but in its simplest form, it really is pretty easy to understand.
- The message. What is said
- The medium. Where it appears
- The mechanism. How it gets there
- The sweet spot in the middle. The customer.
Albert also said “if I had an hour to solve a life and death problem, I would spend the first 50 minutes defining the problem. The rest is just maths”.
Marketing is just the same, define the outcome you are seeking, the problem you are solving, and the game is over, you can go to lunch in peace.
See, now you know.
Simple to say, hard to do.
Apr 16, 2015 | Branding, Marketing
“True Aussie” meat products have been around for 12 months or so in export markets, and we are told of its great success, Japan is particularly pointed out, where “That True Aussie beef logo can be found on more than half of retail packs in Japan now, and growing fast.” MLA Japan spokesman.
Yesterday, the National Farmers Federation came to the party with at least public support for the idea, supporting the suggestion that the “brand” was potentially far wider than just meat.
“True Aussie” is another in the long line of group marketing initiatives based on generic branding. They are attempts to leverage the assumed clean green credentials of Australian produce created by industry bodies funded by levy. Meat, horticulture, dairy and grains have all had a shot, domestically and internationally over the 35 years of my memory of these things.
Where I wonder are all those lavishly promised outcomes, those dollars flowing back to farmers because the international consumers demand Australian produce over produce from anywhere else in the world?
However, it is a very appealing idea, which I guess is why it keeps on being wheeled out again, and again, as the panacea.
“Focus the marketing funds against the common concerns of all consumers rather than spreading it around by operators acting individually, build the value positioning of Australian produce by providing the assurance of product provenance, and promising great value for money”.
Problem is that to date, in the real world, it has not worked. Perhaps things have changed sufficiently that this time, attempt number ?? how many?
Back in 2001, running a maverick operation called Agri Chain Solutions that had been reluctantly outsourced, at the direction of the then PM Howard, from the old department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (AFFA) I commissioned a piece of research aimed at uncovering the motivations driving the decision making of those who controlled the supply chains in markets targeted by produce exporters. The results were not a surprise to anyone who had really thought about the problems facing produce exporters, but were not popular amongst the industry bodies at the time.
In summary it confirmed that those who did not sell anything, ie industry bodies, had no power in the game beyond the power to give money for promises, and when the money ran out, nothing really had changed.
Supply chains, particularly those dealing with commodities, are driven by volume, availability and price, at least they are once you get past the regulatory barriers that populate and pollute the commercial environment. If you do not own anything, if you do not have the power to change anything except by committee consensus, have no power of coercion, and if you are not commercially agile, and able to differentiate, you get taken to the cleaners.
Every time.
There is an old saying, we’ve all heard it, ‘do what you have always done, and you will get what you have always got’
Well, we are doing it again.
The digital tools we have now have potentially changed the game by giving the real opportunity for supply chain transparency, potentially turning them into demand responsive chains, but that requires real skill and commercial discipline to pull off, which is still sadly absent.
I hope that this time something I have not seen has changed that will give us the promised outcomes, I genuinely hope I am wrong, but unfortunately I suspect history is going to be repeated, and in another decade, it will roll around again.
