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In the face of numerous hits to it’s brand image, the state of Kansas announced a new commercial will air in New York City’s Times Square. Click through to this link to see the new spot.
And Kansas economic development officials tout how this commercial will stand out to millions in Times Square. Who are they kidding?
A spokesman for the Kansas Department of Commerce offers this:
“This commercial shows Kansas as having the best of both worlds,” said…the Department’s director of marketing and communications. “Our state blends a sophisticated lifestyle and progressive approach to growth with a natural landscape that’s as beautiful as any on Earth. Kansas boasts a great combination of modernity and tranquility, and that’s what makes it so special.”
Words of far more importance to a Kansan than to any prospective out-of-state tourist. But substitute Iowa, or Oklahoma, or Montana for the word Kansas in this quote, and begin to see how hollow such a claim becomes. A far too common and expensive mistake, as Rabbie Burns pointed out three centuries ago.
We previously offered an opinion on the Kansas effort and found it lacking, as Kansas developed an advertising campaign when it needs a brand strategy. The branding v. advertising difference should be a primary focus of any state seeking to grow its tourism market.
We will say it again: Advertising is explaining. Branding is demonstrating.
This difference is considerable in weighing the effectiveness of the Kansas effort, or that of ANY destination brand.
One commonly used advertising technique is to rely upon an adulatory claim, such as We Are Better, We Offer More, We Are Bigger, We Cost Less. Anyone can make an adulatory claim. And, anyone can top the last one. Which make such advertising claims useless for effective branding.
The more a brand relies upon an adulatory message, the higher the advertising expense.
Of far more consequence to Kansas, an advertising message will never separate Kansas from other tourist options. It is that separation, that key point of difference from ALL other places that the audience must hear to take action.
Branding uncovers and demonstrates that difference.
Kansas misses a golden opportunity to uncover their one unique, authentic, engaging difference, setting the state apart from ANY tourism destination. Had they done that, the Kansas message would become irresistible, rather than setting themselves up for the large year-over-year advertising spends of a Fortune 500 with little hope of success.
Instead Kansas developed a banal advertising slogan and pawns it off as a brand, similar to the advertising slogans of Wisconsin - Like No Place On Earth, Maryland - More Than You Can Imagine, Colorado - Enter A Higher State, and Utah - Life Elevated, rather than an authentic claim never before heard, such as What Happens Here Stays Here for Las Vegas, or It’s Like A Whole Other Country for Texas.
What is it about Kansas that separates the Kansas experience from other tourism alternatives? How does Kansas fulfill a passion not satisfied elsewhere? Why should we care about Kansas? The new Times Square commercial fails to provide compelling answers, relying instead upon imagery that could as easily evoke Nebraska, Minnesota, Wyoming, or Ukraine. But these are the questions a good brand strategy should instantly answer, within seconds.
But then, that’s the difference between advertising and branding.
[More posts about Destination Branding | More posts about Place Branding | More posts about Brand Differentiation | More posts about Kansas Slogan | More posts about Kansas | More posts about Ukraine | More posts about Times Square | More posts about Kansas Tourism | More posts about Kansas Advertising | More posts about Adulatory Claims | More posts about Government Strategies | More blogs about Destination Branding]
Here’s a story about successful branding from South Africa’s Fin24:
Savanna, the ‘dry but you can drink it’ South African cider advertised with a uniquely quirky humour…
Launched exactly a decade ago, and currently the fastest-growing FAB (flavoured alcoholic beverage) on the SA market with a volume growth of 60% for the 12 months to March 2006, Savanna is now also capturing the imagination of Britons…
“People regard Savanna as a drink they can stay with for the entire duration of an occasion, a pattern evident in most markets where it sells.”
…[B]rand loyalty is strengthened by Savanna’s consistent delivery of high quality taste and its humorous positioning in advertising and on the website.
Savanna successfully tells its story in a compelling way, understanding that everything matters as a point of human contact, from product to website.
Savanna does not rely upon a trite slogan as part of their brand tip of the spear. Dry, but you can drink it successfully demonstrates a compelling competitive difference with a benefit relevant to the consumer.
Okay, so we like this brand. Maybe the makers of Savanna Cider will send us a case.
[ More posts about Brand Personality | More posts about Brand Positioning | More posts about Savanna Cider | More posts about South Africa | More posts about Distell Group | More posts about Brand Benefits | More posts about Brand Differentiation | More blogs about Brand Personality ]
From American Heritage magazine, one of the better historical narratives of how the American carbonated beverage industry came to sell nothing for something. It’s the story of the making of the market for diet sodas.
There is this about how Pepsi backed into an umbrella brand strategy for it’s first diet drink, Patio.
[A] few years after the introduction of both Tab and Patio, Donald Kendall…became CEO of Pepsi-Cola, and made a decision that would change the diet-soda industry. Eschewing the common wisdom that diet sodas should be distanced from their more heavily caloried counterparts, Kendall rebranded Patio Diet Cola as Diet Pepsi in 1963, making his the first big soda company to give its diet line the same name as its flagship product.
In an interview with the industry journal Beverage World in 1998, Kendall said his decision had more to do with economic pragmatism than vision: “The facts were, we didn’t have enough money to advertise two different products… The legal people, the research people, everybody thought this was a crazy idea. But we decided to go ahead and put it in a couple of markets. We put it in Detroit and Louisville, Kentucky, to test it. And I went out every weekend to Detroit and to Louisville to find out what was happening. You still had returnable bottles then, and when I saw those returnable bottles coming back by the load, I decided to run with it… That way we could advertise it under one umbrella. It was so successful that Coke had to change from Tab to Diet Coke.”
While fascinating, root beer remains our carbonated beverage of choice.
[ More posts about Carbonated Beverages | More posts about Brand Positioning | More posts about Pepsi | More posts about Coca Cola | More posts about Root Beer | More posts about Diet Cola | More posts about Umbrella Branding | More blogs about Umbrella Branding ]
Two marketing managers, one with Samsung and the other with Hewlett-Packard, offer these comments on the importance of building brand equity in the Middle East:
“It is the brand that is bought by the consumer and the product is made in a factory. While competitors can copy a product, a brand is unique.”
“Building brand equity is very important. Research shows that more and more customers are buying brands rather than a product, so effectively communicating brand values is essential.”
True in any market, anywhere on the globe.
Read the entire interview with these and other corporate marketing managers in Channel Middle East.
[ More posts about Brand Equity | More posts about Global Branding | More posts about Brand Relevance | More posts about Hewlett-Packard | More posts about Samsung | More posts about the Middle East | More blogs about Brand Equity ]
Baltimore’s new brand strategy continues to claim its victims…in this instance the good people of Baltimore.
From the press release of the agency responsible for Baltimore’s advertising slogan, Get In On It, passed off as a brand, here’s what one victim exhibiting the typical symptoms had to say about the new brand, err, slogan:
“In working with Landor, we were able to take stock of the equities the city of Baltimore has and their potential to play into external perceptions,” said [name withheld to protect the innocent], vice president of marketing for BACVA. “The ability to go back and test every piece of the brand platform with our key audience proved invaluable to us and I am confident that it will result in increased tourism for Baltimore in the near future.”
The colorful visual identity communicates a city on the water and uses icons to represent the fun, carefree and spontaneous nature of the city. The cap suggests baseball at Camden Yards; the guitar represents the nightlife and casual entertainment at Fells Point; the crab honors the well-known city mascot, while the dinosaur and shark speak of the Science Center and Aquarium, respectively.
Umm, yes, of course. To someone in Philadelphia, a cap logically suggests baseball at Camden Yards. To a St. Louis resident, a dinosaur and shark suggest Baltimore’s Science Center and Aquarium. And, yes, anyone 10 miles or more outside of Baltimore [such as in Memphis] understands a guitar evokes Fells Point. Huh?
Evidence of this $500,000 theft continues to mount.
But. what should Baltimore’s decision makers have expected, from a design agency unable to differentiate an advertising slogan from branding?
[ More posts about Baltimore | More posts about Baltimore Tagline | More posts about Baltimore Slogan | More posts about Brand Blunders | More posts about Destination Branding | More blogs about Destination Branding ]
In a story on the importance of building brand equity in the Middle East, a Hewlett-Packard marketing manager recently offered this insight on the secret of branding success:
HP aims to understand its target market. When formulating branding or marketing activity we want to understand problems customers may face and then show, through our corporate communications, how those problems can be solved with HP products. This is absolutely vital in any successful marketing activity.
So very true.
H-P’s manager identifies one of the basics of great branding; find the problem of your market. What is the pain point your customer must resolve? The distress they encounter in searching for a remedy? And what exactly is the solution you uniquely provide? 
Understand the answers, and begin to build the formidable competitive advantage available through branding.
Without an understanding of this pain point, your brand will flounder and perhaps fail. Examples? The MG, Song, Montgomery Ward, Polaroid.
Read the entire interview of H-P’s and other corporate marketing managers in Channel Middle East.
[ More posts about Brand Equity | More posts about Brand Promise | More posts about Brand Relevance | More posts about Hewlett-Packard | More posts about MG Rover | More posts about the Middle East | More blogs about Brand Relevance ]
This column in Business Week identifies the first skill a client should look for in a branding firm:
Defining “brand” should be job No. 1 for marketers who want to get their ideas straight. Otherwise, they’re just blowing hot air.
Seems obvious. However, the world is littered with firms offering what are labeled as branding services inept at branding themselves.
The American Marketing Association does not help. Their definition of brand?
A name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition. The legal term for brand is trademark. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller. If used for the firm as a whole, the preferred term is trade name.
We see the answer more simply:
Your brand is your promise. How you keep it means everything.
The ability to define brand is the “canary in the coal mine,” as shared by this writer:
If you’re working with agencies who aren’t clear-headed enough to distinguish between a brand and its derivatives, how will they have the clarity to advise you on building a market? Get rid of them and find a marketer who can think straight. We’ll all be better off.
[ More posts about Defining Brand | More posts about Laws of Branding | More posts about Branding Resources | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about the American Marketing Association | More blogs about the Laws of Branding ]
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Saturday, June 24th, 2006 - 5:25pm |
Brand Differentiation + Destination Branding + Government Strategy + Leisure & Travel + Nation/Place Branding |
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