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We like this, from Mary Schmidt:
Too often people get snookered into buying a “branding” service that is nothing more than advertising. And, the two things aren’t the same. Advertising can reinforce your brand, but it can’t create it and it most definitely isn’t the brand itself. Examples of hugely successful companies that established a brand without any advertising – Starbucks, Google, Amazon.
Branding is smarter than advertising.
The same may be said about public relations. And we say it all the time.
This example of a CEO explaining his organization’s brand, in this example from the Daily Times of Pakistan:
Pakistan’s premier investment group BMA has announced the launch of its new corporate brand identity, replacing its existing brand of the past 15 years for the Group’s businesses, including BMA Capital, BMA Asset Management and BMA Trade.
“The BMA’s name is derived from `Bismillah’,” said Farrukh H. Khan, Chief Executive of the BMA Capital, at the unveiling of the new logo. “The ‘bey’ in ‘Bismillah’ is the centre of BMA’s new logo. It represents BMA’s core value of integrity, in the best interest of all our stakeholders. The new brand identity is a perfect combination of bringing together the BMA’s heritage of the past 15 years with the exceptional growth in BMA’s businesses moving forward. The new logo retains the red colour symbolizing continuity and passion with the previous logo and incorporates silver, which is traditionally associated with currency and coinage. The final result is both modern and unique.”
You know where we stand about such brand explanations. So tell us what you think.
An example of what happens when those entrusted with a brand fail in understanding the value of their asset.
For Appalachian State University, located in Northwest North Carolina, this film elevated awareness of the institution in ways clearly unintended. [Film courtesy of ifilm.com]
The backstory behind Hot Hot Hot in this report.
For any brand fighting for attention in a message overloaded society, how does a brand cut through the white noise to become memorable? One answer is to select an evocative name, drawing upon imagery within the human subconscious mapping back to your organization and industry. Here’s a demonstration of how one Dubai-based company does it.
While last week walking through the Dubai International Airport to catch a hotel shuttle, it was hard not to miss the multitude of brand messages flashed to arriving travelers. Within the space of 15 minutes, we counted some 550 messages appearing on ceiling banners, all manner of point-of-sale signage, wall mounted billboards, restaurant/store signage, and floor appliqués. Most any flat surface in the airport carries a message from a variety of brands fighting for the attention of passersby.
While most of the brands represented were local or regionally based, many European and American-based brands were also fighting for traveler bandwidth.
Tulip Business Developers was the only brand cutting through the message clutter by creating a memorable first impression.
Tulip is a real estate developer; with an example of their latest commercial project reported at this Middle East business news site.
The reason Tulip stands out is their evocative brand name, which taps into multiple layers of subconscious imagery within the human mind. It is a brand name that speaks in human terms, the opposite of competitors such as this one.
Any brand has all of five seconds to make a good first impression. To achieve success requires an effective tip of the spear, an entry point to audiences you seek to influence, often beginning with a compelling brand name.
The name Tulip accomplishes this objective, and effectively maps to images of out-of-the-ground growth, from raw dirt to developed commercial office tower, in a universally understood manner. Tulip achieves top-of-mind recall through their name, an effective tool by which to change and take ownership of the conversation within their market.
By owning the conversation Tulip can become the intuitive, reflexive and first answer for those seeking business development services in Dubai, and elsewhere. Achieve this and create a sustainable competitive advantage.
Isn’t that the point of effective brand strategy?
In the financial services industry, the rebrand of Íslandsbanki to Glitner is informative due to the brand focus of Glitner’s CEO. From the organization’s press release:
Íslandsbanki has changed its brand name to Glitnir, at the same time adopting a new logo and appearance…
[Glitner] has evolved from an Icelandic bank into an international financial company operating in five countries. The Bank defines Iceland and Norway as its domestic market; …it [also] has operations in London, Luxembourg and Copenhagen, and later this year…will be opening offices in Halifax in Canada and Shanghai in China.
Bjarni Ármannsson, CEO, says… “We now work in the international financial market, and this means certain changes had to be made,” he says “Brands must reflect the environment in which they operate, and in our case we need a name that can be used all over the world. …Glitnir…has positive connotations for Icelanders, contains a historical reference, is both Icelandic and Nordic, is easy to pronounce in all the main languages involved and also contains no unusual letters or accents.” [Emphasis ours.]
As further stated in the release: “The new name comes from Norse mythology: Glitnir was the home of Forseti, son of the divine pair Baldur and Nanna. Those who came there received a pardon of their misdeeds and all quarrels were settled.”
Forseti is further described in other sources:
Forseti was considered the wisest and most eloquent of gods of [Norse mythology]. …Forseti presided over disputes resolved by mediation. He sat in his hall, dispensing justice to those who sought it, and was said to be able to always provide a solution that all parties considered fair. Like his father Balder, he was a gentle god and favored peace so all judged by him could live in safety as long as they upheld his sentence. Forseti was so respected that only the most solemn oaths were uttered in his name.
The new brand draws upon a deep well of existing imagery, meaningful to the markets in which it operates. This new name further draws upon a compelling story that evokes fairness, justice, and safety - benefits any bank would wish to be associated - and accomplishes this in an unexpected way. The name moves easily across borders in markets served by Glitner.
Glitner’s CEO is spot on; brands must reflect the environment in which they operate, and thereby become relevant and authentic to audiences they seek to influence.
Makes us want to consider changing banking relationships.
Many otherwise well-conceived brands are diluted or lost through misguided efforts to be “more creative” or to “enhance” the promise of the brand, and thus stray from leadership’s point-on-the-horizon vision. Likewise, simplicity is often discounted, even though the simple and the obvious are the most effective concepts to communicate because they make the most sense to any audience.
This parody illustrates what happens when the power of simplicity is ignored in a misguided effort to enhance a brand.
A new telecomm company unvieled its new brand, in this report from ITP Weekly:
Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company/EITC, a telecommunications company based in the United Arab Emirates, unveiled its brand identity: “du”.
Designed to embody EITC’s commitment to entrenching excellent service standards as well as the values and diversity of the UAE, “du” has no direct meaning in Arabic or English [emphasis ours]…
“We are committed to make ‘du’ live up to its name by providing truly integrated [mobile] communications solutions that include voice, data, and video content…,” [said EITC chairman Ahmad Bin Byat].
Trade Arabia also weighs in on du:
[T]he “du” brand…embodies the basic values of the company in building close relationships with consumers that are friendly and honest and guarantee them an excellent service experience. At the same time it expresses the confident abilities of the company and its great future ambitions,” [CEO Osman Sultan] said…
Explaining the strategy behind the new brand, Sultan said: “We made sure to develop a single brand under which we could provide all of the company’s products and services because we believed launching secondary brands would confuse consumers.
To be effective, a brand name as part of the brand tip-of-the-spear must tap into the deep well of imagery existing within the mind of the consumer. Without it, a brand will fail to self-propel through the market. In such instances, large advertising and promotion expenditures will be needed to drive awareness and conversion.
While du offers no direct meaning in the primary languages of the UAE, there is much to like in the elegant simplicity of the name and du website. The name du plays off the location of the company in Dubai. du is also unique from brand names typically used in the region, as illustrated by the name of du’s competitor, Etisalat. What we may be witnessing is du changing and taking ownership of the telecom industry conversation in the UAE.
Let’s see if they du.
Any effective brand has a fully activated tip of the spear; a well-developed means of securing an entry point into the human mind. Only by gaining entry into the mind of an individual is it possible to develop awareness of a brand, and only then is the brand presented the opportunity to convert a prospect into a customer.
Understand the components of the tip of the spear, and understand the powerful point at which real communication begins. A brand name, often tagline, key messaging and visual identity, combine to form the tip of any brand, with the brand name the most powerful of these components. Without the spear tip, no brand secures the opportunity to create for its owner the sustainable competitive advantage every business craves.
Unless this spear tip quickly and precisely connects with imagery, thoughts, and feelings present within the subconscious mind of your market, there is little chance of engaging the market in real conversation about who you are and what you do. The reason is that you have all of five seconds to make an impression, to create a mental stop prompting the listener/viewer to pay attention by paying with their time, as your message competes in a contemporary culture suffering from message overload. For example, a recent study estimates the average London commuter is exposed to 3,500 advertising messages every day:
In one 45-minute journey, the average London commuter is exposed to more than 130 adverts, featuring more than 80 different products. Only half of that information makes any impact, while unprompted we can remember none of the blur of adverts…
When prompted, it emerged that just over half of the adverts…actually made an impression, typically those for products [an individual] was interested in and to which [he] was exposed for more than 10 seconds, as against fewer than five seconds for others.
As an example of how this works in the real world, its why we created our tip-of-the-spear around the brand name Whisper.
The Nepal Tourism Board hired an advertising agency to develop its new brand strategy. And it shows. What has been developed for Nepal is an advertising campaign evoking a Jacqueline Susann novel and movie, rather than narrowing down on one key point of differentiation and the emotional payoff, both critical components to development of a world class brand.
The NTB…launched the ‘New Tourism Brand’ with the slogan ‘Naturally Nepal, Once Is Not Enough’ incorporating the entire spectrum of tourism products/services, which provides leeway to Nepal to promote and market its tourism products in a complete package.
When a branding project devolves to an exercise to communicate the entire spectrum of products/services, the client is left with advertising rather than an effective brand. Nepal must now explain rather than demonstrate why it matters in the hearts and minds of the tourism industry.
Read more about it in the Nepal News.
Those clever brand stewards of Paxson Communications Company [AMEX: PAX] are at it again. A rebrand and name change is being used to shift the focus from the poor financial performance of the company.
First Paxson changed their U.S. television cable network name to i.
i.
Now, Paxson is changing the name of their company to Ion Media Networks.
Paxson’s CEO offers this explanation:
“This new corporate identity mirrors our renewed commitment to find the best utilization and value proposition for our nationwide TV distribution and digital network platforms,” said CEO Brandon Burgess. “The ION MEDIA NETWORKS name highlights three aspects of our vision: our team’s positive energy for building superior value with our assets; our commitment to bringing quality media content to our communities; and our ability to enable multiple networks across our digital broadcast spectrum.”
Uh huh.
The company’s shareholders will be asked to approve the name change at their annual meeting in June 2006.
However, before the shareholders of Paxson/i/ion get worked into a lather to approve this measure in their proxies, they may want to know of other companies with the name ION:
Ion Networks
Ion Industrial
Ion Limited
Ion Exchange
Apricot Ion
Ion
Ion Channel
Ion Film Fest
Gujarat Ion Exchange And Chemicals
They may also want to know the word ion has 243 live trademark registrations or pending applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Finally, they may also recall a loss of $188 million on sales of $276.6 million in 2004, and a loss of $72.1 million on sales of $59.4 million during Paxson/i/ion’s last reported quarter; an unfortunate demonstration flying in the face of the CEO’s brand promise of “positive energy for building superior value with our assets.”
But then, when 79.7% of all shares are owned by insiders, the best strategy is not to be among those holding part of the public float.
Federated Department Stores in the U.S. is converting it’s May department stores, including brands such as Hecht’s, Kaufmann’s and Robinsons-May, to Macy’s.
While developing a single national brand creates obvious operating and marketing efficiencies, the Cincinnati Enquirer asks the relevant question:
[W]ill it matter that a department store brand given a national patina by a century-old parade through New York City is coming to hundreds of malls in most major American cities? Will the Macy’s appeal alone be enough to bring new shoppers to the mall?
Beyond the parade, what’s the differentiator and the emotional attraction to the brand?
A Federated spokesman says the answer will come by “reinventing the department store.” More:
“We have made stores less cluttered. We’ve reduced the size and tone of in-store signs so they’re not screaming at you. We are bringing customers more places to sit and be refreshed - sitting areas in restaurants and coffee shops.”
In short, the new department store that Federated envisions is likely to look a lot like the department store of old: a destination place to shop where customer service reigns and quality merchandise is sold at slightly more than discount prices, an approach Federated calls “affordable luxury.”
The success of Federated’s May to Macy’s conversion seemingly hangs on whether the American consumer cares about the traditional department store model, a strategy driven not by what is relevant to the consumer, but rather Federated’s real estate portfolio.
In retail, we would call that a tough sell.
General Motors is a company in distress.
As confirmed in the Washington Post by Robert A. Lutz, GM’s Vice President for product development:
“I can’t believe that we were so stupid,” Lutz said of GM. “People talk about Toyota overtaking General Motors [in global sales], as if GM were one company. But the truth is that we had not been one company for decades. We were different companies, each doing its own thing with little regard for the other. How can you run a global company like that? You can’t. It was stupid. No wonder Toyota was cleaning our clock.”
The separate-but-equal approach to financing, developing, designing and manufacturing divisional cars and trucks yielded equally mediocre vehicles, higher production costs, lower vehicle quality and legions of dissatisfied customers, Lutz said. But GM waited much too long to fix what needed fixing, he said.
“The problem was right there before us all along. It was so easy to see, once we decided to look. It’s not rocket science,” said Lutz…
“We now have one, single global design and engineering budget. We’ve put an end to badge engineering,” said Lutz, referring to GM’s discredited practice of making cosmetic changes to, say, a Cadillac and calling it a “Pontiac.
Candor, rather than self-adulation. The first step in developing, or remaking, a brand of relevance.
The University of Baltimore believes it is rebranding itself, when they are instead engaged in an expensive advertising campaign.
The Baltimore Business Journal reports:
…UB is launching a $300,000 “re-branding” campaign on March 6…
[T]he university’s own research suggests the public does not have a sense of how UB is different from other institutions…
The…campaign centers on an episodic series of television ads featuring [a student] as she darts to and from school, her job as a waitress at an Italian restaurant, classes and the gym.
…UB is unveiling a new green and blue logo and a new tagline: “knowledge that works.”
That new slogan is designed to be a more active replacement to the current tagline of “the career-minded university.” University officials want to emphasize UB’s focus on career-oriented education, rather than a traditional broad liberal arts approach to learning.
“What we are saying and implying here is that the education you get here is effective,” said Jim Dale, former president of Doner Advertising, who served as a consultant on the re-branding campaign. “It’s not simply for its own sake.”
For an institution with research recognizing the key to effective branding is framing a clear point of competitive differentiation, this effort falls woefully short. It is difficult to watch $300,000 being wasted for what we are sure is a terrific institution with a compelling and memorable story to tell. But these ads don’t tell it.
This news from AME Info.
A rebrand effort ever more confusing the more often it is read, and a distraction from the worthwhile organization the brand represents.
When a country badly in need of effective branding starts off on the wrong foot, it’s difficult to watch the process unfold.
This report tells the story:
A consortium of economic development and branding experts are to spend the coming six months developing a detailed brand strategy and implementation plan for the roll-out of Botswana’s national brand.
A tough start. Groups such as these often lead to the banal rather than a breakthrough, through tradeoffs due to political and consensus considerations. Homogenized is often the result, with little or no chance of success. The report continues:
If developed and executed correctly, a national brand can provide a true basis of competitive advantage, change perceptions of internal and external audiences and therefore stimulate economic growth and diversification, and should therefore be seen as a core part of economic development.
Sounds good, but what of the process? The group will first develop a brand audit:
The national brand project will first assess the current economic realities, strategies and organisational capacities of Botswana together with understanding in detail the current perceptions within Botswana and internationally.
Sounds okay as an initial step. More on process:
The project team will then develop brand options and test these with key stakeholders and target audiences, resulting in a refined and fully-tested brand strategy. Finally, brand guidelines, an implementation plan and a brand monitoring framework will ensure that the project can move as smoothly and rapidly as possible towards implementation.
Not promising. A brand audit alone will not reveal the components so necessary for creation of a breakthrough brand. Rather than a brand, this process sounds as a rush toward an advertising or public relations campaign. With no mention of the need for competitive analysis or qualitative research, the process is fatally flawed.
Will this process answer the question, Why should the world care about the Republic of Botswana?
If not, the Botswana rebranding effort is doomed.
Unless Botswana uncovers the authentic key difference and emotional benefit engaging tourism and business investment audiences, this effort will waste a valuable opportunity, as with other place brands such as South Australia and Malta.
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