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Paxson Communications, announces the change of its television network brand from Pax TV to i, a stark example of brand strategy speaking to those in the boardroom, rather than engaging the mass audience upon whom the network depends for business success. As reported in the Orlando Business Journal:
The television broadcaster…says the new “i” brand reflects its new network programming strategy — to provide an independent broadcast platform for producers and syndicators who want to reach a national audience.
Dean Goodman, Paxson president and chief operating officer, says Paxson’s primary network will operate as independent television by offering a mix of original series, movies, specials, sports and news that appeals to a variety of interests…
Paxson reaches 84 percent of U.S. television households via nationwide broadcast television, cable and satellite distribution systems.
The…company…lost $95.9 million in the first quarter of 2005… Paxson states…it expects “2005 to be a challenging year for us.”
Challenging indeed. Even Carlos Santana could not transform this rebrand into a hit.
After the bursting Internet bubble wiped the slate clean of so many companies with “i” or “e” prefixes, and after Apple pretty much owns the “i-” world with its iPod and iMac, you’d THINK companies would know enough to run screaming from the room from this tired convention. But noooooooo, not Paxson. They will be saddled with a “brand” that will have no identity (”i”), will get lost in the sea of other generic iCompanies (”i,i”), and will probably not be findable on Google or anywhere else (”i,i,i”).
i-diotic.
A brand is your promise. How you keep it means everything.
Brand strategy is the intelligence of being effective in the crafting of a compelling, engaging, and unforgettable brand promise.
Effective branding measures up to each of the following:
- Achieve separation from competitors
- Demonstrate to the world you are different
- Reinforce your uniqueness
- Create positive and lasting engagement with your audience
- Be unforgettable
- Propel itself through the world on its own, becoming a no-cost, self-sustaining public relations vehicle
- Provide a deep well of associated imagery, and
- Rise above the goods and services you provide.
When a brand achieves each of these measures, an organization demonstrates their understanding of the power of branding.
According to this press release, American cable television’s USA Network is one of these:
For the first time in its twenty-five year history, USA Network is launching a comprehensive branding initiative extending across all media, including on-air, off-air and online platforms, [as] announced today by Bonnie Hammer, president of USA Network… The campaign…features a new logo and the tagline “Characters Welcome,” a statement that will reflect and inform every aspect of USA, from marketing and promotion to program development.
“When we started developing a brand strategy we knew we wanted it to be enhancing rather than limiting,” said Hammer. “We didn’t want to tack on a meaningless tagline or claim an arbitrary niche or demo. I believe we’ve succeeded in developing a campaign that’s organic to USA, something that captures and communicates what the network is about, what lives and breathes on its air.”
“In talking to our viewers and realizing what they loved best about USA, we realized that there was real connective tissue around the concept of strong, relatable characters,” added Chris McCumber, senior vice president, marketing and brand strategy. “‘Characters Welcome’ delivers a clear message that establishes an immediate emotional connection with our audience.”
“The beauty of our new brand is that it truly embraces everything we do,” said Hammer. “Whether it’s an obsessive compulsive detective like Monk, the tormented returnees of the 4400 or a real-life action hero from the WWE, it’s the compelling, sometimes complicated, often funny characters that make USA Network what it is.”
…USA’s website will offer an…extension of its brand message, called “Show Us Your Character.” “We will literally lay out a welcome mat for our audience,” said McCumber…
We agree. USA Network has developed a brand promise that will work at every audience touchpoint, pointing to a unique difference contextualized with emotional immediacy. This promise also offers a clear management focus to the network’s leadership team, guiding content development and audience interaction on every delivery platform.
The new USA Network brand image measures up, achieving audience engagement — a recurring encounter to drive and sustain business growth. They accomplish this in large part by focusing on their audience, rather than themselves.
Most young American males wanted one. At a time when U.S. carmakers were churning out chrome-laden 4-wheel starships of the road, the nimble MG convertible was an elegant sight.
Though new production models have not been available in the United States since 1980, the MG brand remains an icon in America and elsewhere. Yet, as reported by The Telegraph, the lack of an effective brand strategy will prevent MG from reaching the United States and elsewhere anytime soon:
A former director of MG Rover has slammed bosses of the failed carmaker as muddled, inert and naive and criticised them for missing chances to stave off a collapse that cost 6,000 jobs.
Peter Stevens, who was appointed MG Rover’s consultant director of design in 2000, reckons the board…was in “the same old muddle you’d get in a corner hardware shop”.
He says the Phoenix [Consortium] had no proper plan for positioning MG Rover in the market after scooping the firm for £10 in May 2000, and had no clear long-term strategy to secure its future in the motor industry.
In two ITV television interviews…he [says]: “I don’t think that [Phoenix] had a very clear plan as to how you come to admit that you’re not a huge volume car manufacturer … I never felt that we were doing that amount of soul-searching into really what the company should be.”
The broadside comes as MPs prepare to debate the collapse of Rover for the first time…
[Stevens] says Rover failed to capitalise on its success in developing a car that achieved a world speed record…and criticises the tens of millions of pounds poured into motor racing in an attempt to boost the brand.
If a management team fails to understand the cost effectiveness and market leverage of great brand strategy over advertising and promotion expenditures, market opportunity is lost. The Phoenix MG Rover management team learned this the hard way.
For whoever may now acquire the brand and assets, MG’s opportunity is to define itself in opposition to the competition. To accomplish this, MG must tag their key point of difference, the single and best distinction they may own to the exclusion of all competitors, and contextualize their key difference with emotional benefits — expressing how people feel when using the MG brand, and how they want others to see them through their MG affiliation. Performed effectively, the result is an engaging mental postcard; so compelling the image becomes top-of-mind when considering a purchase among competing options.
For a competitive example, look at the strategy behind the Mini Cooper brand.
In America, the Mini Cooper introduced an alternative culture called “motoring.” The Motoring brand position is expressed as “an enlightened form of driving”:
“It is about exploration, discovery and exhilaration… While driving…is about cars and people, Motoring is a unifying religion, a new more enlightened form of driving…[where] one’s outlook on life changes. And so the world becomes a better place.”
This explanation of difference and consumer benefits led to the creation of a call-to-action key message, the tagline “Let’s Motor.” The premise is that only in a Mini Cooper is it possible to Motor. Motoring is a market niche the Mini Cooper creates, and thereby effectively claims to the exclusion of other competitors.
In contrast, MG in 2002 introduced a brand position fronting the tagline “Life’s Too Short Not To”:
“MG is about living for the moment, embodying the spirit of “Life’s too short not to” and defying the laws of convention. The exhilaration, thrill and excitement of the driving experience shapes the hearts and minds of our drivers’ passions, whilst retaining the British heritage it is famous for.
The MG position is one that could apply to nearly all sports cars. And it does. This position is not one about demonstrating the MG experience as unforgettably different from any other automotive experience. As a test, substitute the name of most any car make in place of MG ( just as Rover dealerships do) and see if the position (absent the mention of British heritage) is just as effective/ineffective with, for example, a Corvette, a Volkswagen, or a Lexus.
MG executives further confused the matter by also sporadically describing their brand in the media as a “practical muscle car.” Assuming “practical muscle car” is a consumer-relevant and unique claim, MG did not evocatively contextualize the “practical muscle car” difference. Instead, MG’s management copied rather than moved in opposition to their rivals, with misdirected spends on motor racing.
To engage the consumer, MG must seize control of the market conversation. Beginning with the story of MG’s small beginnings in the 1920s, the brand must identify the compelling emotional immediacy to which the audience will be drawn rather than chased. This is true at any consumer touchpoint, whether product design, showroom salesmanship, or print advertisement.
The MG story can become instantly evocative, a story to untangle the muddle, one engaging the consumer to seek out the brand. But it will take a leadership team with expertise and foresight to uncover the answer.
How’s this for the power of demonstrating vs. explaining? It’s the pedal-powered merry-go-round at the Davis, California farmer’s market. Volunteers pedal and the ticket price is donated to the school system. Having experienced it this Saturday, we’ll never forget it, and neither will the kids. Amazing that the 15 year old peddling effortlessly spins ten kids at a time, hour after hour. Its mechanical simplicity is elegant and completely effective, as is its ability to communicate and persuade.
The eco-conscious city of Davis is demonstrating its conservation / innovation message and its brand without being preachy – without even uttering a single word. Without telling or explaining, they are taking ownership of the conservation they want to lead.
It’s all about demonstrating, which is our definition of branding — advertising is explaining, branding is demonstrating. And demonstrating is always more effective than explaining.
This carousel taps into the kid in all of us, like something the dad in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang would have built for his kids. Yet it is bringing together a host of antinomies that cut across the ideological spectrum, uniting them into a singular, persuasive whole. You Kant Hegel with results like that.
One American municipal leader precisely captures the challenge of those engaged in destination/place branding for cities, states and countries.
“We sell cheeseburgers, they sell screwdrivers,” says Mary Herndon, a spokesperson for the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission in comparing her organization to the city’s economic development focused Regional Chamber and Growth Association.
In a nutshell, Ms. Herndon frames the value of effective destination branding; that of creating growth in tourism and convention traffic, while at the same time attracting business investment. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch further reports, community leaders express disbelief that one brand addressing both objectives is possible:
Unless you are a meeting planner from out of town, you probably wouldn’t know that a new marketing campaign is out to sell the Arch City. “Hello, my name is St. Louis” reads the tagline, fitted onto one of those sticky labels you usually attach to your lapel.
The “Hello” campaign is being launched by the Convention and Visitors Commission, and is aimed strictly at meeting planners…. Meanwhile, the Regional Chamber and Growth Association recently received nine proposals to “brand” St. Louis as a good place for businesses to relocate to or to step up their business activities.
Last week, a task force of the convention commission put out a report, recommending, among other things, a “genuine destination brand” for St. Louis.
It is the first of what looks to be at least three new “branding” campaigns for St. Louis.
Could they all work together, and give one coordinated image to all those seeking to visit or do business here? No.
…[One senior executive of the Chamber says] a coordinated campaign is “a wonderful idea that makes a whole lot of sense. But when you get into the specifics, it is very hard to do.” He said of the nation’s 25 largest cities, not one has successfully built a branding campaign that served both business planners and leisure travelers.
When leaders placed in charge of brand decisions fail to understand advertising is not branding, and public relations is not branding, it is easy to develop such a conclusion. But the fault for this lies not with such leaders, but rather at the feet of advertising or public relations firms often hired to formulate and guide the development of a brand.
With apologies to Virginia O’Hanlon and Francis P. Church, Yes, Virginia, there is one brand solution for St. Louis.
Just as advertising is not branding, nor is public relations branding, decision makers leave themselves open to criticism for the inability to demonstrate financial returns six, twelve and eighteen months after a new brand launch if relying upon an advertising agency to create effective brand strategy. The results are predictable: as if jamming a cheeseburger down the fuel tank of an automobile.
To create or reformulate a destination/place brand calls for a process discipline of which few are aware. For example, it is impossible to invest dollars wisely in the development of a new brand unless everyone on the team understands the answer to two fundamental questions: “What is a brand?” and “What is brand success?” Without such an understanding, the attempt to brand will fail.
What should an effective branding process look like? Any worthwhile, let’s not throw-our-money-away brand development process should include, as basic examples, a competitive analysis and market intelligence. There’s much more, of course, but let’s talk about these two key process components. Fail to include these steps and others, and your new brand is DOA.
Without a competitive analysis in which the tone and strength of competitor positioning strategies, key messages and surrounding contextual support are weighed, decision-makers in St. Louis will have little idea of the brand positions their competitors own, and what brand position St. Louis may uniquely claim within the mind of the market.
To develop a breakthrough brand requires breakthrough market intelligence. Many forms of consumer research offer results crafted to tell decision makers what they already know, instead of providing the new insight so vital to framing a compelling brand.
Unless the research construct enables subjects to speak freely, St. Louis will not uncover the fundamentals so necessary to effective brand development such as [1] the pain experienced by the market; [2] the cure for the pain the market craves to find; [3] the unique difference St. Louis may rightfully claim to the exclusion of all competitors; [4] a relevant expression of how people will feel when investing in or visiting St. Louis; and [5] how these same people want others to see them as a result of this affiliation with St. Louis. The answers to each of these fundamentals are similar for both tourism and business development interests, as each interest feeds into the other (think cheeseburger with an order of screwdrivers on the side).
Yes, a single brand can be developed to sell both tourism and business. The reality is, of course, it must be that way. Any brand must stand for one key difference, not three. Otherwise, the audience city leaders seek to engage does not have the time to listen to St. Louis go on and on about themselves, much like an irritatingly gabby aunt.
The St. Louis Cardinals would not sign a table tennis prodigy as their next can’t-miss prospect. Something for those brand decision makers down the street from Busch Stadium to think about.
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