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The Weekly B.S.

Friday, January 25, 2008

The Weekly B.S. is a conversation of thought-provoking reports addressing brands and B.S., otherwise known as brand strategy.

The key to any effective branding effort is to change and take ownership of the conversation. You are invited to this conversation of brands and the stories they tell.

The Weekly B.S. is hosted by Whisper, an international brand consultancy. Contact us to learn more of how to own the conversation® among audiences you seek to attract and influence.

This week’s B.S.:

From Women’s Wear Daily - New York City
Beauty in the Blogosphere
A new breed of beauty writers is building the sort of influence that’s gaining the attention of major brands: bloggers.

From The Wall Street Journal - Paris
PPR Moves More Upscale
As retail and luxury conglomerate PPR SA prepares to ditch two of its more mass-market businesses, it is positioning its Gucci Group luxury-goods business as the antidote to the consumer-spending downturn. “There’s a big difference if you’re in the business of selling dreams or selling functionality,” says Gucci Group CEO Robert Polet.

From Media Post - New York, USA
Chrysler Puts Brand Thoughts In Engineers’ Minds
Chrysler is shuffling its product development teams so that the engineers dreaming up the vehicles are thinking brand as much as vehicle platform.

From China Daily - Beijing
‘Real deal’: Beijing fakes market gets own brand
The Silk Street Market here, which has long offered copies of international designer and branded goods, has unveiled its own brand - SILKSTREET - and warned that anyone who tries to counterfeit that brand will be held liable.

From The New Yorker - USA
The Tata Invasion
When…news broke that this same Tata Motors, an Indian auto company, was close to buying Jaguar and Land Rover, the first reaction of many was “Who?” There’s no denying the audacity of Tata’s bid—the company has never sold a car in the U.S.—but there’s also no denying Tata’s distinguished pedigree: the parent company of Tata Motors (called the Tata Group) started in the nineteenth century, and, in the years since, its divisions have created India’s first steel mill, provided electricity to Mumbai, started the country’s first airline, and built its first locally made trains and automobiles. Today, Tata is a huge conglomerate—ninety-eight companies producing everything from tea to steel and solar power—with annual revenues of around thirty billion dollars and a chairman whom Fortune recently named one of the twenty-five most powerful people in business.

From AdAge.com (subscription) - USA
Nothing Is Insignificant When It Comes to Brand Fulfillment
As if being a successful CEO wasn’t tough enough, now you may have to learn a new skill: the art of apologizing. The number of public C-level apologies is growing daily as Mattel’s Robert Eckert, Ameritrade’s Joe Moglia, Apple’s Steve Jobs and JetBlue’s David Neeleman join a very long list. What’s happening? Our world of instantaneous and ubiquitous communication has given customers more power to hold CEOs and companies accountable than ever before.

From Economic Times - Gurgaon, Haryana, India
Incredible, India! Departed brand campaign
The disconnect between promise and actual delivery has been the death of many brand campaigns, long before they attain maturity.

From Fourth World Eye - Olympia, Washington, USA
In Their Best Interests
From the International Journal of Communication, Melissa Aronczyk of NYU offers an account of the strategies involved in the production of culture through the particular phenomenon of nation branding. Download the original report at this link.

From Exame - São Paulo, Brazil
The Hard Work of Building a Global Brand
Brazilian companies are working to take their place among the most valuable brands in the world. Thus far, no company has emerged to become one of the 100 most valuable brands on the planet.

From The Hindu - Chennai, India
Build a Mall as a brand
How does a mall become a brand? By giving customers a unique experience. Identify your mall brand’s value proposition before talking to the architect, interior designer and the landscaper.

From Conde Nast Portfolio - New York, USA
The Brand Report Card
To strengthen your brand, use a brand report card—a tool showing how your brand stacks up on the 10 traits shared by the world’s strongest brands. Download a summary from the original Harvard Business Review article at this link.

From HBS Working Knowledge - Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
If Marketing Experts Ran Elections
Politicians need to view citizens not as occasional voters, donors, and taxpayers but as their customers.

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How To Own The Conversation Through Branding

A demonstration of how to own the conversation® within a business category, by exuding an engaging brand personality in alignment with a well thought out brand strategy:


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Havaianas: A Demonstration of Successful Rebranding

Guest blogged by Monica Sabino of Brandgame.

When traveling abroad and sharing with others you are Brazilian, there is immediate association with samba, soccer and the iconic soccer star, Pelé. In the last few years, one more word was added to this list – Havaianas (pronounced ah-vai-YAH-nas).

HavaianasLogoIt is particularly interesting that this brand has been added to the collection of positive words that describe Brazil, because when I was a child, in São Paulo, one of the worst things that could happen to you in terms of popularity was to be seen in Havaianas. Wearing Havaianas was a sign your family was a victim of the recession or the mass layoffs happening in the industry at that time – you were officially typecast as “poor.” Only financially challenged children would use these 5-dollar flip-flops launched in 1962, that yes, were extremely comfortable, but also completely un-cool.

In 1994, however, Havaianas started a journey towards granting every Brazilian consumer permission to wear them — “affordable” could be turned into “democratic and informal.” Havaianas offered a very clean design, a simplicity that was almost sexy. Why not put it on the feet of all Brazilians, those walking on the street but dreaming of the beach? Creating an instant vacation.

HavaianasDesignWhat seemed at first aspirational became the Havaianas brand strategy. A brand for all. Comfortable meeting cool. An instant benefit by haloing the wearer as upscale and chic. And, according to the company’s U.S. site, the name Havaianas itself, Portuguese for Hawaiians, was a tribute to America’s glamorous holiday destination.

Product was redesigned. The original two-colored version received a line extension called Havaianas Top, with a single color distributed in new channels, to reach new audiences. Product display was changed; the bowls where the brand had been found in the past in retail locations were substituted by nice displays where each of the different colors could be seen.

In the years that followed the brand moved relentlessly towards the new strategy, at every contact point and with consistent execution. Colors, design, distribution, communication, everything was about fun, relaxation, and simplicity.

Different celebrities were photographed in their Havaianas, caught in relaxed moments. And although, according to the company, advertising spends remained the same, this shift in brand strategy brought the brand to unprecedented levels of success and to substantial imports as the brand carries all colorful qualities of Brazil.

What was unimaginable 13 years ago has become reality; the low-end commodity footwear has become a must-have fashion accessory. Havaianas now offers product for daily wear, and chic designs that are worn for an evening out.

Today wearing Havaianas is actually desirable. What was once a cheap flip-flop product have instead became shoes for those moments when you don’t need and don’t want to worry.

The commodity has been transformed to a brand.

As a Brazilian, it is nice to be associated with beautiful beaches, samba, good soccer… and a brand such as Havaianas!

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Popcorn’s Brand Imitation

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” or so said 19th century English writer Charles Caleb Colton.

The latest example:

Faith\'sPopcornShhhh. Longtime futurist and author Faith Popcorn warns that optimism is passé and brands that trumpet their benefits are hopelessly out of tune with consumers who are sick and tired of marketing’s noise. …Popcorn explains why she advises marketers…to build their strategies around whispers and honesty rather than hype and shouts.

We like what Faith has to say because, well, we first said it some years ago:

Advertising is a shout. Branding is a whisper.

She offers more in this Q&A with AdWeek:

Adweek: Please explain what you mean by branding in whispers?
Popcorn: It is not boasting how great your products are, but showing how your brand can help people.

Hmmm. Faith again demonstrates her ability to look into the future by restating and offering as new this authority published in 2004:

Branding is demonstrating, advertising is explaining. What you fail to demonstrate, you are left to explain.

More imitation may be read at this link.

I guess we are, ah, flattered.

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A Branding By Blog Demonstration: Blawg Review

An excellent example of how to develop a brand entirely by blogging, in this from Mediation Channel, also cross-posted at Infamy or Praise:

Blawg Review, the carnival of legal blogging co-founded by its anonymous editor, highlights the best legal blogging each week…

Over nearly three years, Blawg Review has grown to become a widely-respected brand in the legal end of the blogosphere. Presented each week by a different host, Blawg Review shows readers the many faces of the law, both in the U.S. and across the globe. In the best tradition of law and justice, as an institution it is open for all to participate, bringing well-deserved attention, appreciation, and traffic to the many lawyers, legal academics, law students, legal professionals, and others who blog about legal topics and issues.

Blawg Review has prospered where other carnivals have failed; it has grown in reputation where others have dissolved into infighting. Blawg Review stands tall as a positive and enduring example of what can be accomplished by and among bloggers.

Blawg Review demonstrates how an effective brand strategy makes the site the only logical choice for what it offers.

Go to Blawg Review and take a look for yourself.

As my law professors used to say, it’s a good case study.

The American Bar Association Journal agrees.

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The Weekly B.S.

Friday, January 18, 2008

The Weekly B.S. is a digest of thought-provoking reports addressing brands and B.S., otherwise known as brand strategy.

ModelFiguresThe key to any effective branding effort is to change and take ownership of the conversation. You are invited to this conversation of brands and the stories they tell.

This week’s B.S.:

From Marketing Web - South Africa
Are you a type A or type B marketer?
The first action of a Type B CMO is to architect a competitively-advantaged business model. This takes a unique person who can involve the product leaders, the operations leaders and the chief financial officer in developing a sound corporate strategy. Where can the company win? How can it attract and retain customers better than competitors? What products and services are needed to deliver this strategy? What pricing strategy is optimal? What operational model is needed to support this strategy and to make money? These are critical issues that the Type A CMO doesn’t address and are the issues central to business performance.

From Business Standard - Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
FMCG firms take to brand valuations
Experts say brand valuation is more than a mere marketing tool: it has become a key management application. For multinational companies such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, brand valuation is central to the strategy, which determines their marketing spend for each brand and gives them a competitive advantage. It is also a significant contributor to enterprise value.

From the International Herald Tribune - Dublin
Entrepreneurship Takes Off in Ireland
Ireland is now alive with enthusiasm for entrepreneurs, who seemingly rank just below rock stars in popularity.

From the New York Times - USA
U.S. Cities Put on the Charm for Foreign Tourists
The United States, unlike many other large industrialized countries, does not have a central tourism promotion agency to spread the word about its beaches, museums, mountains and shopping malls. In the meantime, individual cities and states are stepping up their own global promotional efforts.

From Marketing Week - London, UK
China’s global brand hurdle
There will be a lot more than gold medals at stake when Beijing hosts the Olympic Games later this year. For 16 days in August, the eyes of the world will be focused on the Far East, presenting Chinese brands with the ultimate shop window in which to kick-start the process of becoming global players.

From Seattle Post Intelligencer - Seattle, Washington, USA
Entrepreneur’s Journey: Positioning Paradox
In every aspect of branding, you say the most by saying the least.

From The Wall Street Journal - USA
Why Sears Must Engineer Its Own Makeover
Sears Holdings Corp., the storied retailer that helped civilize the American frontier with its catalog sales and later defined the modern department store, is searching for a new compass.

From The Tennesean - Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Churches search for best brand
Once reserved for consumer products like Coca Cola or Doritos, branding has become increasingly important in the God business. Churches, old and new, are using branding to define their theology, attract newcomers, and get their message out.

From the New York Times - USA
Anxiety for Luxury Brands as Tiffany Reports Slowdown
The upscale jeweler Tiffany & Company said Friday that the number of purchases at its American stores dropped during the holiday shopping season, a sign that a pullback in consumer spending that started at the low end of American retailing is percolating up to high-end merchants. The slowdown was unexpected, and it sent jitters through the world of luxury-goods makers, who had seemed invulnerable over the last five years, even as energy prices surged and the housing market began to sputter.

From the Los Angeles Times - USA
Climbing a ladder made of lipstick
In a land of opportunity, cosmetic direct sales looks like a shortcut to the middle class, a corporate ladder whose first rung doesn’t require a high school diploma or even English skills. As Latina saleswomen rise through the ranks, they are changing the face of Mary Kay, long associated with blond Texas founder Mary Kay Ash. “Sometimes a woman can have an empty stomach, but she has to have lipstick.”

From The Wall Street Journal - USA
The New Focus Groups: Online Networks
When Del Monte Foods was considering a new breakfast treat for dogs, it sent out a note to an online community of dog owners asking them what they most wanted to feed their pets in the morning. The consensus answer was something with a bacon-and-egg taste… The online community, called “I Love My Dog,” isn’t some random chat room or yet another Web site for dog enthusiasts — the group was created by Del Monte.

From Exame - São Paulo, Brazil
Price low and what else?
Aggressive discounters are forced to change - and offer more benefits to customers.

Whisper is an international brand consultancy based in the United States, Europe and Asia. Contact us to learn more of how to own the conversation® among audiences you seek to attract and influence.

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Brand Hyperbole

FashionIslandSignageIn the latest example of brand hyperbole, a Dubai company announces the “world’s first fashion island.”

Only one problem. There already is a Fashion Island.

Dubai’s version will include:

[A] fashion resort, themed residential villas, haute couture boutiques and luxury hospitality facilities in a drive to establish Dubai as a global fashion hub. World renowned fashion designers from each continent will be instrumental in designing each element of the development.

Read more at this link.

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The Weekly B.S.

Friday, January 11, 2008

The Weekly B.S. is a digest of thought-provoking reports addressing brands and B.S., otherwise known as brand strategy.

PNoest_ConversationThe key to any effective branding effort is to change and take ownership of the conversation. You are invited to this conversation of brands and the stories they tell.

This week’s B.S.:

From The Wall Street Journal - Tokyo
Matsushita to Become Panasonic in Branding Push
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. said it will change its name to Panasonic, its best-known brand, highlighting the growing importance of branding and marketing in the technology industry.

From The Vancouver Sun - Canada
Marketing whiz’s wine labels stick with the consumer
Hadley-Beauregard’s creations are just as memorable but typically add a story to a brand while ditching the staid and pretentious conventions of traditional packaging.

From The Wall Street Journal - Olathe, Kansas, USA
McDonald’s Takes On A Weakened Starbucks
Starting this year, the company’s nearly 14,000 U.S. locations will install coffee bars with “baristas” serving cappuccinos, lattes, mochas and the Frappe, similar to Starbucks’ ice-blended Frappuccino.

From DailyIndia.com - Jacksonville, Florida, USA
How symbolic value can be instilled in products
Brands help us to express who we think we are and who we want to be. The idea that goods and services hold symbolic as well as functional value has been poorly understood in the context of business management.

From the New York Times - USA
Put Buyers First? What a Concept
Amazon has really had only one stated goal since it began: to be the most customer-centric company in the world. Maybe, taking care of customers is something worth doing when you are trying to create a lasting company. Maybe, in fact, it’s the best way to build a real business — even if it comes at the expense of short-term results.

From the Los Angeles Times - USA
Don’t like car names? 2BAD
Alphanumerics can enhance a brand’s status and make cars more marketable internationally, automakers claim. With many of the most marketable names already trademarked, companies say letters and numbers are easier to secure from a legal standpoint.

From the New York Times - USA
Can Burt’s Bees Turn Clorox Green?
Clorox Company plans to turn Burt’s Bees into a mainstream American brand sold in big-box stores like Wal-Mart. Along the way, Clorox executives say, they plan to learn from unusual business practices at Burt’s Bees — many centered on environmental sustainability. Clorox, the company promises, is going green.

From NBC News -
The power of candidate branding
Barack Obama and John McCain have political brands that some would kill for right now. For Obama, the brand is a unifying change agent; For McCain, it’s a straight shooting, gritty, experienced hand. And their brands have only become stronger thanks to their respective opponents — Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney — who have attempted “new and improved” re-branding campaigns throughout the last six months to seemingly no avail.

From Slate.com - Washington, D.C., USA
Advertising Deconstructed. Look Who’s Laughing
The AIG campaign is just one of many current advertising efforts to incorporate video found on YouTube—or at least video that looks like it was found on YouTube.

Whisper is an international brand consultancy based in the United States, Europe and Asia. Contact us to learn more of how to own the conversation® among audiences you seek to attract and influence.

Conversation, the painting shown above, is the work of Dutch artist Piet Noest. Since 1981 a resident of Australia, his work is available through Galeria Aniela.

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Best Blog Post of the Year, Anywhere

The Best Post of the Year, Anywhere is found in our Carnival of Trust post and included in this review by Political Calculations, a respected blog and host of On the Moneyed Midways, a feature described as the blogosphere’s “only weekly review of the best posts…[in the] best business and money-related blog carnivals.”

OscarIn October, Whisper hosted the Carnival of Trust, a monthly feature originated by Charles Green at Trusted Advisor.

Three months later, what some might consider the equivalent in the blogosphere to an Oscar is awarded.

Well, will leave that conclusion to you.

However, in the spirit of many Oscar acceptance speeches, we must share this award with the Editor of Blawg Review, who introduced us to Charles Green and the opportunity to host the Carnival of Trust and, of course, Katie Delahaye Paine, who wrote the “best post of the year, anyhwere.”

Here, from our original post, an excerpt which led to this recognition:

Greater Transparency Is the Key to Building Greater Trust

Katie Delahaye Paine, at KD Paine’s Measurement Standard, says trust and transparency go hand in hand, and points to new research by Dr. Brad Rawlins that shows that doing things right isn’t nearly as important as doing the right thing, and that being transparent is a driving factor in the fostering of trust:

“The overall results of the study demonstrate that transparency and trust are highly correlated, and, “one could conclude that as organizations become more transparent they will also become more trusted.” Although the study was limited to employees, the results are strong enough to imply that the correlation between trust and transparency will hold for other stakeholder groups as well.”

As we often share with our clients, the difference in doing things right vs. doing the right things is, in a nutshell, the difference in tactics vs. strategy. It is also the difference in efficiency vs. effectiveness. Understand this difference, and appreciate that brand strategy IS business strategy, and a topic for another day.

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A Logo Is Not A Brand, But Interesting Nonetheless

Ferrari Horse LogoFrom the UK, The Independent today offers a history of select logos that have become ubiquitous in global contemporary culture.

Included are the stories behind the icons that go to work daily for Ferrari, Nike, Lacoste, McDonald’s, Apple and Chanel.

Good weekend read.

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The Weekly B.S.

Friday, January 4, 2008

The Weekly B.S. is a digest of thought-provoking reports addressing brands and B.S., otherwise known as brand strategy.

PNoest_ConversationThe key to any effective branding effort is to change and take ownership of the conversation. You are invited to this conversation of brands and the stories they tell.

This week’s B.S.:

From the International Herald Tribune - London, UK
Tata Motors of India is leader to buy Jaguar and Land Rover
The Tata Group is an unusual corporate enterprise. Started in 1874 by Jamsetji Tata, the group has often seemed to value employees over profits and has prided itself on fair business practices, not cutthroat maneuvering.

From the Los Angeles Times - USA
It’s proved to be quite a trek
William Shatner and Priceline.com have both benefited from his stint as company spokesman. The 10-year relationship between Shatner and Priceline has buoyed the fortunes of both, and reminded advertisers that celebrities, however faded their popularity, can do wonders for a brand.

From Presstime Magazine - Vienna, Virginia, USA
Cover Story: 8 Trends to Track in ’08
The newspaper at the end of your reader’s driveway is more than just a product. It’s part of a brand identity that more publishers are attempting to stretch beyond their mastheads to portfolios of related publications, Web sites and other multimedia platforms.

From Forbes.com - New York, USA
China At The Crossroads
China must consider taking what can be called the “branding highway.” This takes it to where it can start to build local and international brands that offer more than just low price. In other words, instead of making products for someone else, it makes them for itself.

From Reuters South Africa - Johannesburg, South Africa
“Stock” beats “sex” in Google China keyword searches
The names of three banks and the word “stocks” beat “sex” to become four of the most Googled words in China last year, according to a Google China list seen on Thursday.

From the New York Times - USA
Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike
It’s a pickle of a paradox: As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off. Why? Because the walls of the proverbial box in which we think are thickening along with our experience. Andrew S. Grove, the co-founder of Intel, put it well in 2005 when he told an interviewer from Fortune, “When everybody knows that something is so, it means that nobody knows nothin’.”

From Brandweek - New York, USA
Blogger Mark Stevens Asks Applebee’s: What Were You Thinking?
The hard truth is, too much of branding is focused on cool and too little on cold—Cold, hard cash, that is. The kind that is earned when a brand drives sales. That’s because all too often, the people in charge of brands are often far removed from the sales floor, the call center, the cash register. They create “art” in a vacuum and then turn to the next project in need of a stupid gimmick.

From the Los Angeles Times - USA
How cliche
Leaving no stone unturned, we issue a wake-up call on the use of trite phrases. It’s time for a change.

From the New York Times - USA
A Guide to Embracing Life as a Single (Without the Resignation, That Is)
“If you Google the term ‘single,’ all that comes up is dating, dating, dating,” said Sherri Langburt, a founder of SingleEdition.com. “But what we’re saying is there’s a whole other realm of things that go on for a single person that are not dating.”

Whisper is an international brand consultancy based in the United States, Europe and Asia. Contact us to learn more of how to own the conversation® among audiences you seek to attract and influence.

Conversation, the painting shown above, is the work of Dutch artist Piet Noest. Since 1981 a resident of Australia, his work is available through Galeria Aniela.

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A Demonstration of Effective Branding…from a Lawyer

We have been tipped to a demonstration of good branding by the respected Editor of Blawg Review.

The surprise is that good branding comes from a lawyer.

Professional service firms, law firms included, are infamous for poor branding efforts. It’s the age old problem of the left brain never connecting with the right brain.

That said, if branding is defining WHY you are, so that you become the only logical choice for WHAT you offer, then the following video prepared by the co-head of Akin Gump’s Supreme Court practice offers an exquisite demonstration of good branding:


Read more of why his is not only perhaps the best lawyer brand demonstration of the past year, but also among the best in any category.

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Spilling Our Coffee

Our coffee landed on a variety of surrounding flat surfaces this morning upon seeing this report:

“Over the years, ad makers have tried various methods to learn about consumers, from focus groups to online polls. But many on Madison Avenue are skeptical of these methods, believing consumers don’t always share their true feelings in those types of traditional settings. So a growing number of ad agencies are expected to try a different approach: having researchers spend long periods of time with consumers to find out more about how they live.

Some have already tried this.”

And this is news?

Indeed, some have tried this. And, a small number of specialized firms are expert at it.

However, as more and more business leaders are learning, ad agencies are ill-equipped to tap into the minds of audiences they seek to influence. The old way of opinion polling and focus groups parroted too often today by ad and PR agencies could not be more inadequate for the task than if one selected a toilet roll for use as a table napkin.

Read more about what caused us to go back to the coffee pot in today’s Wall Street Journal.

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Tru New Year

truTVlogoTo launch the New Year, watch as cable network Court TV flips the switch to truTV.

The new name is a creation from the laboratory of our sister brand naming group, Igor, who helped the owners of Court TV to get over the hump.

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