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Friday, February 29, 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. 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 The Wall Street Journal - New York
Victoria’s Secret Is ‘Too Sexy,’ Says Brand’s Chief Executive
The chief executive of the Victoria’s Secret lingerie chain — known for its provocative, televised fashion shows and eye-popping stores — admitted something shocking Thursday morning: The brand has become “too sexy.” “We have so much gotten off our heritage,” said Sharen Turney, chief executive of Victoria’s Secret.
From Forbes - New York
Branding a New LG
The rebranding is a straight shot at LG’s chief weakness: Despite its heft–$44 billion in sales and more than 82,000 employees worldwide, which makes it nearly as big as Microsoft–LG doesn’t enjoy instant brand recognition. Some consumers assume LG is a subsidiary of other electronics makers.
From The Wall Street Journal - New York
Abercrombie Bets on Lingerie
Abercrombie & Fitch Co. wants to take upscale undergarments to a whole new level. The clothing retailer, which targets teens and young adults, has chosen intimate apparel as its latest foray, and the venue is elaborately designed and conceptualized outlets called Gilly Hicks. The brand’s been in development for two and a half years.
From The Australian - Adelaide, Australia
It’s all in the brand power
The noble sentiments of traditional university mottos are giving way to silly advertising slogans.
From Wired - San Francisco / New York
Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
Until recently, practically everything “free” was really just the result of what economists would call a cross-subsidy: You’d get one thing free if you bought another, or you’d get a product free only if you paid for a service. Over the past decade, however, a different sort of free has emerged. The new model is based not on cross-subsidies — the shifting of costs from one product to another — but on the fact that the cost of products themselves is falling fast.
From Business Week - New York
Consumer Vigilantes
In the annals of customer service, 2007 will go down as the year fed-up consumers finally dropped the hammer. They’re filling up the Web with blogs and videos. Behind the guerrilla tactics is a growing disconnect between the experience companies promise and customers’ perceptions of what they actually get.
From Exame - São Paulo, Brazil
Image is Everything
In addition to creating a strong brand abroad, a country must manage it in a professional way, as if it were a product.
From The Wall Street Journal - Putignano, Italy
How Small Italian Firms Married Style to Globalism
For more than half a century, wedding-dress maker Giovanna Sbiroli SRL built its brand and customer base by serving the Italian market. Today, Giovanna Sbrioli exports to 18 countries, and foreign sales account for 30% of its business. Giovanna Sbrioli’s evolution is part of a broader transformation of the Italian economy.
From The Foreign Policy Centre - London
Brand China
China’s national image, and the misalignment between China’s image of itself and how it is viewed by the rest of the world, may be its greatest strategic threat. Download the full report here.
From Forbes - New York
Dell Tries To Restore Its Brand Position
Ten years ago, Dell was simple. The Round Rock, Texas, company sold computers. Dell built these computers around microprocessors from Intel and software from Microsoft. And if you wanted one, you called Dell directly or went to the company’s Web site. No retailers and no candy-colored computers were involved. Oh, and the computer company made big piles of money.
From Business Week - New York
Trader Joe’s Recipe for Success
“When you think Trader Joe’s you think of innovative products. That’s what drives their model—return patronage and quality products at a fair price.” The strategy was born of desperation.
From Malaysia Star, Malaysia
Challenges of marketing in Asia
Consumers don’t typically show brand loyalty and are often more motivated by price than perceptions of product quality or prestige.
[More posts about The Weekly B.S. | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More blogs about Brand Strategy]
With brand defined here, let’s revisit the cut to the chase definition of branding.
Rather than the often bewildering definitions and schematics offered by design shops, ad agencies and PR firms, the answer is much simpler, and essential to grasp. For any organization, product or place, branding is all about:
Defining why you are, so that you become the only logical choice for what you offer.
It is an organizing principle to demonstrate why you matter in a competitive marketplace.
Talk with us when ready to learn more.
[More posts about Branding Definition | More posts about Brand Definition | More posts about Laws Of Branding | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More blogs about Branding Definitions]
The CEO of BMW Korea has this to say about branding within the automotive industry:
“The gap in automobile technology will be getting more closer in the future. The real opportunity for everyone is to figure out how to map out a distinct business approach in brand…”
Reminds once again of the CEO role as brand builder, and how closely tied branding is to business strategy.
Read more about this story here.
[More posts about Automotive Branding | More posts about Brand Differentiation | More posts about Brand As Asset | More blogs about Automotive Branding]
In a classic example of the corporate executive suite affliction known as omphaloskepsis, Grant Thornton International announces a new logo and labels it a “brand.”
According to the firm’s press release:
The logo consists of three elements: the symbol, the color and the Grant Thornton “wordmark.” The inspiration for the symbol is the Mobius strip, discovered by mathematicians in the 19th Century. Its evolution into the Grant Thornton symbol captures the qualities of a continuous band that looks three dimensional, permanent, yet constantly flexible. It reflects everything coming together into one cohesive whole. To help differentiate the Grant Thornton brand, purple has been adopted for the symbol, a color predominately associated worldwide with leadership, dignity and governance.
Similar to language used by another consulting firm, the Grant Thornton release offers insider-speak.
Insider-speak is the language of relevance only to those inside a company. It’s the language of cheerleading for those who are paid to be convinced. But it offers no relevance and fails to engage the external audience an organization such as Grant Thornton seeks to influence and develop as clients.
To effectively deliver shareholder value, a CEO must instead define why their organization and services matter in a competitive marketplace.
This is branding.
Grant Thornton’s CEO would have you believe his new logo stands for this:
“The new brand actively represents a leading global organization that gives clients access to the knowledge and experience of more than 2,400 partners from member firms worldwide.”
An explanation only fellow navel gazers could love.
[More posts about Branding | More posts about Professional Services Branding | More posts about Brand Identity | More posts about Consulting Firm Branding | More posts about Grant Thornton Brand Reputation | More blogs about Professional Services Branding]
Friday, February 22, 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. 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 Media Post - New York, USA
Looking For Insight? Tiptoe Into Customer Call Centers
In the latest grab for consumer insights, more marketers are tapping into an often-ignored in-house resource: The customer call center. True, many of the consumers are cranky and calling only because they’re already disenchanted with a product or service. But call centers can deliver boatloads of data, often in a much faster time frame than other forms of research.
From the New York Times - Toyota City, Japan
At Toyota, a Global Giant Reaches for Agility
“It’s extremely important to have the same common Toyota Way infiltrated to employees in all corners of the world,” said Katsuaki Watanabe, the company’s president. “But on the other hand, in each corner of the world, in each region, there are inherent characteristics that need to be respected.” Mr. Watanabe said that Toyota had learned, especially through experience in the United States, that it could not simply impose Japanese practices on workers in other countries.
From CMSWire - San Francisco, USA
Brand Strategy: Distinct or Extinct
Before you can even consider placing a word on your website, you need to establish a brand strategy.
From VietNamNet Bridge - Hanoi, Vietnam
Businesses lack branding strategies
Vietnamese enterprises lack a comprehensive awareness of how to build and manage their brands. In Vietnam…many enterprises view marketing as a cost, not an investment, so they advertise without a strategy or goal in mind, he said, making the marketing ineffective and a waste of time and money.
From NewKerala.com - India
Commodity branding far predates modern capitalism
It has been long believed that the concept of commodity branding was born in the West with the Industrial Revolution. But a new study has challenged the notion, by revealing that the idea of brands far predates modern capitalism, and in fact modern Western society.
From BusinessWeek - USA
Budweiser, Miller…and Tsingtao?
Now that Chinese companies are starting to expand overseas, they are finding their lack of brand-building experience is a huge liability. For example, “Tsingtao is an exporter. It’s not a brand-builder.” “If you don’t give a brand, U.S. consumers give you a brand called ‘Made in China,’ and the majority of ‘Made in China’ products are low quality.”
From Moscow News - Russia
The Perils of Brand Management
With vaults of money at stake, and inspired by the old maxim that if you aren’t growing, you’re shrinking, it is no surprise that sports leagues are doing what any good soft drink manufacturer would try to do and grow their brands overseas.
From the New York Times - USA
No Polo Pony, but Penney’s New Label Is Pure Ralph Lauren Americana
What do you get when the J. C. Penney Company and the Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation team up to sell an extensive new line of clothing and home furnishings? A branding mash-up that some might call Polo Penney.
From HBS Working Knowledge - Boston, USA
Does Democracy Need a Marketing Manager?
Federal government and local governments can market themselves more effectively to constituents. First of all, they have to view their organization from a customer viewpoint and ask: Who are our customer groups? How are we going to add value to those customers?
From Advertising Age - New York, USA
To Build Truly Global Brands, You’ve Got to Break the Rules
How to build a global brand? …[M]anagers never seem to listen. Instead, most of them go back to pursuing the same tactics, tired strategies and familiar “best” practices as their competition. I call this approach to business “small think.” Building global brands requires that you think big. And that means you have to break the rules, challenge convention and kill some sacred cows.
[More posts about The Weekly B.S. | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More blogs about Brand Strategy]
According to a published report, an American city — Raleigh, North Carolina — will rely upon opinion research to develop a brand campaign.
This “branding” effort is doomed before it begins.
Raleigh’s leaders have been sold a “branding process” that will lead to a less than satisfactory outcome.
Due to a flawed reliance in the process upon opinion research, Raleigh will be unable to successfully define Why Raleigh exists, so that the city becomes the only logical choice for What they offer.
Rather than survey opinions or focus group studies that encourage a group-think, Raleigh should instead explore the attitudes and actual behaviors of those it seeks to influence.
The Raleigh story:
“The Greater Raleigh Convention & Visitors Bureau has launched a new Web site that gives residents the ability to sound off on the city as part of a new branding campaign.
ShareYourRaleigh.com asks visitors to take a survey about the area…
The site is part of CVB’s branding campaign, which it’s conducting with research company Longwoods International and branding agency Cundari, both based out of Toronto. The firms…ran a similar Web project for Washington, D.C., earlier this year…
Data from the site, as well as information culled from various focus groups, will be put together…after which Cundari and Longwoods will offer a series of suggestions for Raleigh’s brand.
A CVB task force will select one of the options…”
The Raleigh branding process is described here:
“Objective
The objective of this project is to build a distinctive and long-lasting brand foundation to consistently guide marketing and promotional efforts for Greater Raleigh. …[W]e expect to drive awareness, interest and investment in the county from this country and around the world.
Process
• An online survey is being conducted with 300 consumers in our regional advertising market…
• We are conducting interviews with approximately 10 key Greater Raleigh stakeholders representing government, hospitality, business, cultural and media entities.
• We are conducting approximately seven focus groups/workshops with arts, hospitality and community residents and leaders.
• We developed this website in order to engage our local residents in the process on a wider scale through an online survey.”
The new “brand” will be introduced in June of 2008.
For destination brands everywhere, never before has so much attention been focused on the importance of understanding audiences a city or nation seeks to attract. The quest for truly distinctive brand innovation raises the same nagging question: What do these audiences really want?
Organizational leaders know the answer to this question is their Holy Grail. But with regularity, these same leaders suffer an uncomfortable disconnect between market research and actual market performance. It comes down to one troubling behavior — People tend to say one thing during research and then do something entirely different in real life.
This disconnect is largely due to the reliance on traditional opinion research tools such as focus groups, online surveys and telephone interviews. These methods have always had a particular drawback. They do not effectively address contradictions in people’s responses.
These contradictions—when they reveal a clear separation, a gap, between opinion and action—are the most interesting data. They point to paradoxes that are fundamental to each individual’s reality—a consequence of how every human being lives partly in a world of conscious rational thought, and partly in a world of subconscious emotional response to the experience of life.
Without a clear identification of these contradictions, and understanding how they lead to a purchase decision, everything that follows in an attempt to attract desired audiences for a city or place—whether through advertising, public relations, new media, trade shows or design—is largely a waste.
Moving away from opinion research and permitting the examination of contradictions surfaced by reliable research methodologies is necessary to transform a city into a unique and unforgettable place.
These contradictions work to surface good old-fashioned meaning, story, history, cultural poetry, imagery, and shared knowledge when considering the brand narrative for a city, state or nation.
A deep understanding of these contradictions, these response gaps, leads to the decisive moment when we see the most transformative of events—the birth of a brand.
In four months will the world see the birth of a new, authentic and engaging brand for the City of Raleigh?
Unfortunately, no.
One need only look to the experience of the City of Baltimore to see where the Raleigh effort will end.
Much like Baltimore, and cities such as San Diego and Atlanta, Raleigh will miss a golden opportunity to competitively separate themselves from ANY other city.
Tune in this June to watch.
[More posts about Raleigh Tourism | More posts about Destination Branding | More posts about Place Branding | More posts about City Branding | More posts about Branding Raleigh | More posts about Raleigh Brand Image | More posts about Brand Research | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Tourism Branding | More blogs about Destination Branding]
Friday, February 15, 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. 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 the New York Times - USA
My Cortex Made Me Buy It
There is research suggesting that the bias toward higher-priced goods may have something to do with the way the brain links price with pleasure — and thus leads people to make assumptions about quality.
From The New Zealand Herald - Auckland, New Zealand
ZAP Alias to sell under revived brand
Electric car pioneer ZAP and China Youngman Automotive group has announced that they will be reviving a 100-year old electric car brand, Detroit Electric, as a joint venture.
From Agenda’s LiveFeed - San Francisco, USA
Apple’s 5 Star retail strategy
“We try to pattern the feeling to a five-star hotel. It’s not about selling. It’s about creating a place where you belong.”
From TrendWatching.com - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The Expectation Economy
Word of mouth now travels the world in a flash, making product launches instantly global, turning every new brand—big or small—into a potential ‘player’, and most importantly, rewarding exceptional performance with immediate interest and approval from consumers.
From Brand Architect - Cape Town, South Africa
More Advice for Agencies
Forrester says the current advertising agency model is broken and proposes a more digital-integrated future.
From the New York Times - USA
Target Tells a Blogger to Go Away
Target to the blogosphere: you’re irrelevant. That was the message the cheap-chic retailer seemed to convey in an abrupt e-mail message to ShapingYouth.org, a blog about the impact of marketing on children.
From BloggingStocks - USA
Urban Outfitters’ shoppers know what they like
Urban Outfitters, Inc. (Nasdaq: URBN) operates more than 120 specialty retail stores under the Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, and Free People brands, and also offers clothes via a wholesale division under the Free People label. Most analysts believe the company has achieved a retail gold star: a unique brand position in the age 18-24 customer category.
From the Detroit Free Press - USA
Ford to focus on winning trust
New campaign aims to change perceptions.
From the Boston Globe - USA
Brands on the run
Brands have become some of the most accessible shorthand in our culture.
From Globe and Mail - Toronto, Canada
Build your brand - but don’t forget to deliver an experience
Branding in today’s marketplace is about the total experience a customer has with your products or services. It is about enticing customers, gaining their trust, and making the experience so pleasant that they are proud of their choice and will tell others about it.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer - Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
The cradle of brands
Every marketer of every product aims at the same target: the eight critical seconds shoppers take to ponder whether to buy - or not.
[More posts about The Weekly B.S. | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More blogs about Brand Strategy]
If in New York City today, you might want to head over to Columbus Circle at 5:00 PM for your free gift:
Staying safe in New York City just got even sexier. The Health Department today unveiled a brand new look for the NYC Condom and launched a cutting-edge media campaign to encourage New Yorkers to “get some.” …street teams will meet commuters at busy crossroads around the city – including Union Square in Manhattan, the Atlantic Avenue station in Brooklyn, and 149th Street and Grand Concourse in the Bronx – to hand out the new NYC Condom for Valentine’s Day.
New York City’s branded condom just got a package redesign, and a series of new public service announcements.
Read more and get some here.
[More posts about Pop Culture | More posts about Public Service Brand Strategy | More posts about Government Brand Strategy | More posts about Valentine’s Day | More posts about Health Products Branding | More posts about Consumer Goods Branding | More posts about Brand Strategy | More blogs about Public Service Branding]
Brand strategy is business strategy, yet examples abound of Fortune 500 CEOs unable to grasp this simple truth.
If an interview in The Wall Street Journal is any indicator, the latest demonstration of this inability to grasp the obvious comes from the Chief Executive of Circuit City Stores Inc.
Too often the new CEO of an under-performing company focuses first on cost-cutting rather than revenue growth. The reason is that cost-cutting is easier than increasing sales. A cost-cutting plan may also be more quickly implemented, telegraphing “action” to a quarterly-focused Wall Street.
In contrast, developing a plan to build sales while increasing margin is more difficult, and more time consuming. It requires the CEO to ponder why their organization and products matter in a competitive marketplace.
To effectively drive sales, the CEO and his/her team must be able to define why they are, so that they become the only logical choice for what they offer. For many an otherwise certified smart CEO, it is a counterintuitive task at which many languish and even fail.
In the Wall Street Journal Q&A with Circuit City’s CEO, Philip J. Schoonover offers this:
WSJ: How is Circuit City’s multichannel approach — store, Internet and call centers — any different from the approach of its two bigger rivals, Best Buy and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.?
Mr. Schoonover: We have a culture that is beginning to cooperate and work together to provide a customer experience that is different and better. One example is our 24/24 promise. Order online, and we’ll have your purchase ready for you at a store in 24 minutes. If not, we’ll give you a $24 gift card. Our technology is unique and allows us to make that promise. Another is content. We have product reviews by leading consumer magazines. We have a whole explanation on what you need to make this new digital entertainment world work.
Mr. Schoonover claims Circuit City is different by being “unique” and, well, “different.” Instead, he would do well to look at the recent experience of another CEO who failed to understand the importance of articulating a simple brand promise demonstrating a memorable point of difference, and the predictable result.
The story of Paul Pressler’s reign at The Gap offers a cautionary tale of what happens when a CEO fails to think of brand strategy as business strategy. It is a lesson best illustrated by the backstory of Mr. Pressler’s failed development of a new Gap Inc. retail concept, Forth & Towne:
Gap designed Forth & Towne to offer baby boomers a miniature version of the department stores they grew up with, stocking four different labels under one roof…
Forth & Towne, or F.A.T, …never developed an engaging story to support the concept. And it never settled upon a single point of difference to set it apart from competitors. Forth & Towne tried to be too much for too many audiences.
How did this happen?
In a stunning display of corporate homogeneity, the suits at The Gap failed to articulate a simple guiding promise for the new brand, as demonstrated by how they settled upon a name for the new concept which offered no clue of a reason to care about it. The team at Gap Inc. thought they were playing it safe, when instead their decision had the effect of issuing an execution order for the new concept before it was launched.
Circuit City’s CEO makes the same mistake, as he fails to articulate what about Circuit City is truly different when compared to competitors such as Best Buy, Costco, and Wal-Mart. By speaking in platitudes, Mr. Schoonover fails to demonstrate why Circuit City exists, so that they become the only logical choice for what they offer.
This failure to focus on brand has been devastating.
Mr. Schoonover became CEO at Circuit City in March of 2006. Three months later Circuit City shares traded at a high of $30.49. Since then the stock has fallen to $4.95 per share at market close on February 12, 2008, a decline of 83% in some 20 months.
Yet a turnaround could be achieved with an effective rethink of the Circuit City brand.
But that takes guts, and appropriate leadership.
[More posts about Brand Relevance | More posts about Circuit City Brand Reputation | More posts about Brand Promise | More posts about Brand Differentiation | More posts about Consumer Electronics Branding | More posts about Retail Branding | More posts about Brand Strategy | More blogs about Retail Branding]
The return of Howard Schultz as CEO of Starbucks Corp. prompted an outpouring of opinion in traditional and new media of what ails the company. Many have speculated at what Mr. Schultz may do to reverse a recent trend of negative foot traffic in U.S. stores.
Among the better reads on the topic appeared in the ReportOnBusiness.com section of The Globe and Mail from Toronto.
Among the insights:
Douglas Holt, who holds the L’Oréal chair of marketing at the Said Business School at the University of Oxford, says the chain has forsaken its brand promise. “The brand promise has changed from being this artisanal coffee offering to this very standardized commodity,” says Prof. Holt, whose book, How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding, was published in 2004.
In the beginning, continues Prof. Holt, Starbucks wooed customers into its world “where you should treat coffee as one would wine. The consumer as connoisseur was very much a part of the promise, and now they’ve basically subverted that.”
The author also offered this discussion of the affiliation benefit associated with Starbucks:
Starbucks was a luxury brand that benefited greatly from the trickling down of aspirational desires to the non-elites. You may not be a rich man, but in a pinch you can buy a rich man’s coffee.
There’s nothing new in understanding that people buy goods as much for what they mean, or represent, as for what they do. Michael Solomon, professor of marketing at the Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, has written, literally, the book on consumer behaviour. “The strategic goal of many firms is not to build market share — it’s to build share of mind,” Prof. Solomon says. “Starbucks is a great example of this deep meaning stuff.”
The “deep meaning stuff” defies rational economic models. “There’s nothing rational about paying $4 for a cup of coffee,” Prof. Solomon continues. “You’re not buying coffee at Starbucks, you’re buying experience at Starbucks … The experience of feeling you’re partaking in this community that has elevated coffee far beyond a drink. The coffee was emblematic of a lifestyle.”
Initially, going to Starbucks meant you were separating yourself from the mainstream. Starbucks delivered what Prof. Simon calls a “class bang.” Toting a Starbucks affirmed class.
Read more at this link.
[More posts about Brand Promise | More posts about Brand Benefits | More posts about Beverage Branding | More posts about Emotional Branding | More posts about Starbucks Brand Image | More posts about Starbucks Brand Promise | More blogs about Brand Promise]
Friday, February 8, 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 the New York Times - USA
Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?
On one thing, the experts seem to agree. The differences between hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com can be summed up this way: Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC.
From Fast Company - New York, USA
Is the Tipping Point Toast?
Duncan Watts has developed a new technique for propagating ads virally, which can double or even quadruple the reach of an ordinary online campaign by harnessing the pass-around power of everyday people–and ignoring Influentials altogether.
Fro the International Herald Tribune - Kansas City, Misouri, USA
Starbucks goal: Recapture its early buzz
Starbucks should get back to basics, emphasizing the role of its baristas and focusing on the quality of its coffee, emphasizing “the theater of the craft and bold celebration of the provenance of the bean.”
From Joy Online - Accra, Ghana
Ghana as a brand
As a country, we have to realise we are competing with about 193 other countries around the world for a share of the global cake. The competitive element here is very high and it will take more than “friendly dimensions” to become competitive on the global market and build a sustainable brand.
From The Wall Street Journal - New York, USA
Hey, No Whopper on the Menu?!
Depriving Whopper fans of their favorite burger turns out to be a surefire way to get them to buy more. The videotaped hoax was a twist on a market research technique called “deprivation research,” in which marketers measure how loyal consumers are to a brand or product by taking it away from them.
From Innovation Playground - Toronto, Canada
Lenovo and Apple - The Tales of Two Customer Experience Stories
Great customer experience companies earn trust and loyalty during “moments of truth” — those few interactions when customers invest a high amount of emotional energy in the outcome. Proper and effective handling of these moments requires an instinctive frontline response that puts the customer’s emotional needs ahead of the company’s agenda and systems/processes.
From The Wall Street Journal - New York, USA
Seemed Like a Good Idea Inc.
“Why Smart Companies Do Dumb Things” identifies eight errors that companies can fall into when trying to innovate. At the top of the list is “marketing misjudgment,” which is the author’s way of saying a company has strayed from its core competency (he cites Gillette’s foray into calculators and Bic’s into pantyhose). Other types of missteps include bad positioning in the marketplace, producing a dreadful product (the hideous Pontiac Aztek), underestimating the competition (as Total did when it tried to challenge the supremacy of Quaker Oats in the hot-cereal business), and rushing a new product to market.
From Forbes - New York, USA
Branding A New LG
Rebranding is a straight shot at LG’s chief weakness: Despite its heft–$44 billion in sales and more than 82,000 employees worldwide, which makes it nearly as big as Microsoft–LG doesn’t enjoy instant brand recognition. Some consumers assume LG is a subsidiary of other electronics makers, say analysts.
From Emory University Marketing Institute - Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Managing Brand Portfolios to Unlock Real Potential
General managers devote much attention to the technical and logistical aspects of their portfolio of products, and branding is often treated as a set of decisions to be taken after products have been developed. This approach undervalues the contribution of those decisions as a way of generating growth.
[More posts about The Weekly B.S. | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More blogs about Brand Strategy]
Anais Nin was a Cuban-French author who became famous for her published journals. Years before branding emerged as a business topic, Ms. Nin offered this insight:
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
In creating an engaging brand, the process of branding must reveal things as they are, rather than as how a brand’s owner sees them. For many organizations and their CEOs, this concept remains an often difficult, counterintuitive, and yet essential idea to grasp.
As demonstrated in the following links, the market is littered with examples of otherwise certified smart people who failed in this understanding.
Before the emergence of the contemporary discipline of branding, in addition to Ms. Nin there were some who intuitively understood this basic principle, each ahead of their time.
[More posts about Brand Understanding | More posts about Brand Research | More posts about Anais Nin | More posts about Laws of Branding | More posts about Brand Strategy | More blogs about Brand Research]
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