Welcome to the Whisper Destination Brands Film Festival.

A destination is a place to which one is going or is directed. The leaders of destinations, whether tourism agencies, and convention and visitor bureaus, economic development or other government agencies often engage in marketing efforts in hopes of attracting tourists and business developers to their particular place.

We examine those efforts here.

The idea of the Festival is to help destinations — cities, provinces, emirates, states, nations, places — understand what works and what does not in efforts to create an engaging and unforgettable brand of a place.

This month we showcase the provincial government’s brand efforts for Newfoundland and Labrador.

The provincial government’s Premier introduced the new campaign with these comments:

“When people see this brand, we want them to instantly see Newfoundland and Labrador, and to associate that with our best qualities. We want them to think about a people and place that is resourceful, innovative and energized.”

A launch video was also part of the introduction:

Since then, the following video spots have been produced by Newfoundland Labrador Tourism. Later this month we will offer our analysis of this showcased campaign. Until then, take a look and share your opinions of why the Newfoundland and Labrador brand strategy works to attract tourism, or why it does not.

In no particular order, the first spot:

The second:

Third:

Fourth:

Fifth:

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 tourism and business development audiences you seek to attract and influence.

[More posts about Destination Branding | More posts about Newfoundland Labrador Brand Image | More posts about The Whisper Destination Brands Film Festival | More posts about City Branding | More posts about Nation Branding | More posts about State Branding | More posts about Province Branding | More posts about Locale Branding | More posts about Place Branding | More posts about Location Branding | More posts about Territory Branding | More posts about Country Branding | More posts about Tourism Branding | More posts about Business Investment Branding | More posts about Economic Development Branding | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Brand Narrative | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More blogs about Destination Branding]

Slate, the daily online magazine, deconstructs what one researcher identifies as the 12 kinds of television ad formats, in this report:

In 1978, Donald Gunn was a creative director for the advertising agency Leo Burnett. Though his position implied expertise, Gunn felt he was often just throwing darts—relying on inspiration and luck (instead of proven formulas) to make great ads. So, he decided to inject some analytical rigor into the process: He took a yearlong sabbatical, studied the best TV ads he could find, and looked for elemental patterns.

…Gunn determined that nearly all good ads fall into one of 12 categories—or “master formats,” in his words.

Click on this slideshow for a discussion of the 12 formats, or watch this video.

[More posts about Advertising Campaigns | More blogs about Advertising Campaigns]

A new example of Bran Identity is offered in this 30 second spot for Kellogg’s All-Bran cereal:

As this report indicates, the All-Bran demographic is 45 and older grown-ups. Kellogg’s believes everything works out in the end by using a potty humor personality with this crowd:

“Talking about regularity is a really tough thing to do,” admitted senior brand manager Matt Lindsay, who helped create the ad. “We liked the idea of leveraging visual metaphors to make it a more approachable subject.”
…

“Inherently, given the subject matter, it’s going to be a bit polarizing,” Lindsay says. “You are going to get individuals who don’t want to think about the functional effects of regularity. But we bring it to life in a little more subtle way. A lot of our consumers don’t even notice the visual metaphors right away.”

With a tagline of Do It. Feel It. the spot is short on subtlety. Whether it translates into sales in the grocery aisle is the true measure of success. But, as the the ad admits the obvious in a new and entertaining way, and the All-Bran brand promise has always been all about eradicating crap, we think it will.

[More posts about Advertising Campaign | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Brand Promise | More posts about Brand Personality | More posts about Breakfast Cereal Branding | More posts about Packaged Food Branding | More posts about Kellogg’s | More blogs about Advertising Campaign]

Standard Bank of South Africa announced the launch of their new vision and what they refer to as a brand strategy. However, based on news reports, Standard Bank instead created for itself an advertising campaign. The implications to their brand reputation and bottom line are significant.

Designed to “bond with its essence” and truly define what the Bank stands for, the group’s new strategy replaces the hugely successful “Simpler, better, faster.” payoff line with the slightly more verbose “Inspired, Motivated, Involved.”

According to…Standard Bank’s group marketing director: “Simpler. Better. Faster. served us extremely well for many years and is a strong slogan, but it must be remembered that in an environment where customers’ needs are continuously changing, Standard Bank as an organisation needs to consistently evolve.”

Standard’s marketing director continues in this press release:

Our new pay-off line - Inspired. Motivated. Involved. - encapsulates the essence of what we are and what we would like to be for our customers, our people and our stakeholders. We are striving to make a real difference.”

Says [the marketing director]: “We have carried out extensive research to develop a greater understanding of attitudes, beliefs and expectations of Standard Bank and the way in which these could best be met. Based on this research, it became apparent that a revised brand promise and pay-off line needed to be developed to align with the group vision and values. The intrinsic value of the brand has also been maximised by aligning a core set of brand characteristics and principles to assist in providing a consistent brand experience.”

These are rationalizations that sound good inside a corporate boardroom, but which are of little relevance to the audience Standard Bank seeks to influence. And, rationalizations like these institutionalize the need for large advertising spends to have any hope of creating consumer awareness of the message.

As poor as the Simpler, Better, Faster tagline was, it at least offered a benefit, a promise to consumers. In contrast, Inspired, Motivated, Involved is all about a Me, Me, Me exercise in self-adulation; evidence that Standard Bank skipped the hard part of branding.

This company would have been better served listening to the brand wisdom of Coco Chanel, by pointing to an authentic, compelling difference in answer to the question implicitly asked by most any banking consumer: Why should I care about you?

In contrast to Standard Bank’s campaign, this example of another South African company with a clear idea of what branding is all about.

[More posts about Advertising Campaigns | More posts about Brand Promise | More posts about Standard Bank | More posts about Bank Branding | More posts about Standard Bank Brand Image | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Standard Bank Advertising | More posts about Savanna Dry | More blogs about Bank Branding]

As readers of this column know, we comment regularly on the good and bad we see of branding efforts around the world. One column from two years ago weighed in on efforts to rebrand the state of Kentucky. The original commentary appears at this link. We were unimpressed with what was at the time announced as the new Kentucky “brand.” We remain so.

Last month we received a response to our column, in a comment posted on this site, from the firm responsible for the Kentucky campaign, in it’s entirety as follows:

“50% recognition of the brand in target states — more than own state brands. 16% increase in Tourism since the brand was launched. 5500 new jobs plus $1B UPS expansion. $500,000 in branded merchandise sold in year one — up from 0 in previous years. Landed the 2008 Ryder Cup and the 2010 World Equestrian Games. Unbridled Success.”

The author of this comment identified himself as Tom Howell. Mr. Howell is the COO of new!west, the public relations and advertising agency responsible for Kentucky’s attempted rebrand through use of the slogan, Unbridled Spirit.

new!west proudly touts the benefits of their Unbridled Spirit campaign at this link to their website where, as in Mr. Howell’s comment, the agency fails to source the credit behind their claims.

According to Mr. Howell, new!west now also seeks credit for Kentucky’s success in attracting business investment by UPS, and in attracting a major sporting event such as the Ryder Cup.

However, not everyone is as delighted as Mr. Howell, as described in news at this link from the Kentucky Post. And, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal, while new!west was paid $2.85 million for it’s “branding” services, the agency distributed another $18 million to media outlets for advertising. The Kentucky Attorney General’s office now believes new!west overbilled the state by some $1.4 million.

Beyond all of this however, the new!west campaign for Kentucky is little more than an advertising slogan. Unbridled Spirit is a cheerleading campaign on behalf of Kentucky, which is fine if the state has the advertising budget of a Fortune 500.

If Unbridled Spirit were a brand, it would tell a story about Kentucky not heard elsewhere; one no other state could authentically claim. A brand would create real long-term competitive advantage for Kentucky over states with which it competes for tourism and business investment. A brand would self-propel, rather than institutionalizing the prop-up expense of year-over-year advertising and PR spends. And finally, a brand would not need an advertising agency as an expensive groupie.

As explained on the Kentucky Tourism website, the Unbridled Spirit slogan describes:

Kentucky is the place where spirits are free to soar and big dreams can be fulfilled.

Unfortunately, as new!west did not rebrand Kentucky, but rather developed an ongoing advertising campaign, another state announced a nearly identical positioning also dressed up as a “new brand:”

In Kansas, our wide-open spaces give people the freedom to dream and make big things happen.

As shared before on this site:

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.

Were the good people of Kentucky snookered? Decide for yourself.

[More posts about Brand Differentiation | More posts about Brand Positioning | More posts about Destination Branding | More posts about State Branding | More posts about Kentucky Brand Image | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Kentucky Advertising | More posts about Kentucky | More blogs about Destination Branding]

The word earlier this year had the Utah Office of Tourism working on a new brand. Utah announces the result in this press release:

Utah’s new “Life Elevated” brand was officially launched in Salt Lake City…culminating a seven-and-a-half month effort…

“The new slogan captures the essence of Utah because it embodies the heart and soul of our state,” says Utah Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. “Our quality of life and growing business environment are second to none.”

“Our new tagline not only captures the essence and diversity of Utah, but it can also be used to promote business, arts and culture,” says Leigh von der Esch, managing director of the Utah Office of Tourism…

“The new brand voice of Utah is a reflection of all the people, past and present, who have come here to seek a richer, fuller life; to seek freedom and peace; to seek quiet and solitude; and to let the majesty and grandeur of the place shape their own independent aspirations,” states the branding platform. “You come to Utah to see; you leave with new eyes. You see vistas like nowhere else on the planet. You see desert scapes that are haunting. You walk in footsteps of ancient civilizations and follow paths cut by weather and the forces of nature. The result: your emotions are stirred, your senses are lifted. You soar. Your spirits rise. Your life is changed. You are elevated.”

One reaction is offered in this commentary from the Ogden Standard-Examiner:

Here’s the deal: If you have to explain a slogan, you’ve screwed up and have to go back to the drawing board. Just watch how much defensive explaining there is going to be for “Life elevated.”

We agree.

Advertising is explaining. Branding is demonstrating.

This difference is considerable in weighing the effectiveness of the Utah campaign.

One commonly used advertising technique is to rely upon an adulatory claim, such as We Are Better, We Offer More, 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 Utah, an advertising message will never separate Utah 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.

Utah misses a golden opportunity to uncover their one unique, authentic, engaging difference, setting the state apart from ANY tourism destination. Had they done that, Utah’s 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 Utah has developed a banal advertising claim, similar to those of Wisconsin - Like No Place On Earth, Maryland - More Than You Can Imagine, and Colorado - Enter A Higher State, 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 Utah that separates the Utah experience from other tourism alternatives? How does Utah fulfill a passion not satisfied elsewhere? Why should we care about Utah? The new campaign fails to provide compelling answers. 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 Utah | More posts about Utah Tagline | More posts about Utah Slogan | More posts about Brand Differentiation | More posts about Advertising Campaigns | More posts about Destination Branding | More blogs about Destination Branding ]

Visa USA announced a new rebrand. The question is, Why?

Jettisoning a brand positioning that for 20 years included the tagline Everywhere You Want To Be, Visa launched a new campaign attempting to stake out the central to life position, Life Takes Visa, to differentiate Visa from, for example, Mastercard’s evocative and effective Priceless.

In this release Visa USA explains:

Employing the theme of empowerment, the new campaign reflects Visa’s evolution from a top credit card company to the leader in electronic payments, combining worldwide acceptance with a full suite of products that empower cardholders to do what they need to do, want to do and never thought possible.

Brand strategy’s raison d’etre is to provide competitive separation through an easily understood point of difference. If compelling and authentic, a brand creates for itself the opportunity to be remembered by the very audiences it seeks to influence.

What Visa USA offers as a new brand is instead a new, and costly, advertising strategy. It fails as brand strategy on two levels. Life Takes Visa is inauthentic, as life clearly does not require Visa as it does practice, talent, confidence, luck, ambition, or guts, irrespective how often Visa may shout otherwise. And, Life Takes Visa does not separate Visa from one obvious competitor, American Express. The American Express brand position? My Life, My Card.

An advertising campaign to bring confidence back to Germany has flopped, and become the topic of the moment on the Internet.

German advertising agency, Jung von Matt, developed the Du bist Deutschland campaign introduced in September 2005.

According to the online version of Der Spiegel:

The idea seemed like a good one: an ad campaign to buck up the German spirit and remind the depressive citizens of Europe’s largest (but struggling) economy that things really aren’t all that bad. Ad agencies, newspapers and a number of celebrities donated some €30 million-worth of advertising space to the nonprofit Du Bist Deutschland campaign launched last September. Ads appeared on billboards and television, in German magazines and movie theaters, and they featured pictures of the German great and good. Beethoven and Einstein made appearances as did the boxer Max Schmeling and figure skater Katarina Witt — not to mention a luminous photo of a delicate human fetus developing in the womb.

“Du bist Deutschland” was the motto on every picture. “You are Germany.” You are talented, beautiful, intelligent, strong.

The aim of the campaign? “To fight grumpiness,” wrote Jean-Remy von Matt in an internal e-mail to his employees last October. Von Matt, 53, is the Belgian head of Jung von Matt, the prominent German ad firm that spearheaded the campaign. The e-mail was written after the “Du Bist Deutschland” campaign debuted to nationwide disdain.

So what went wrong?

For starters, in addition to projecting nothingness the campaign’s logo too closely resembles that of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.

Of more importance, the campaign was doomed before it began, as it relied solely upon adulatory and inauthentic messaging, a toxic combination. Again, from Der Spiegel:

The ads have spawned so much criticism and satire that a Google search doesn’t even bring up the campaign’s Web site on its first page. People complain in English, German and Dutch — one rabbi in the United States criticizes the inclusion of Einstein. “Portraying Einstein as a paragon of German national culture should offend all people,” wrote Rabbi Brad Hirschfeld in the Jewish magazine Forward. “Were it not for the safe haven that Einstein found in the United States, he, like most of Europe’s Jews, would likely have been murdered in the German-led Holocaust.”

The ad agency also committed a classic error, creating an advertising campaign without a brand strategy. This from the Jung von Matt website, pointing to an advertising trainwreck waiting to happen:

Good advertising has an attractive exterior and is appealing. But at its core it is aggressive and consistently pursues a particular goal. Good advertising must be more than just nice and snappy. Good advertising is desire and deception.

Aggressive? Pursues? Deception?

Not only does this ad agency fail to understand the difference between branding vs. advertising, it also grossly distorts what good advertising should be. How often have we seen this; high-production-value creative peddled without a brand strategy? Then months later, the decision-makers behind the campaign wonder why the “sales” needle has not moved.

Branding engages your customer to lean forward and pursue you. Advertising pleads with and chases after consumers.

Branding is a seduction. Advertising is a television ad bleating “Du bist.”

Hanes, the venerable underwear retailer, has decided to revive their classic brand positioning from the 1990s and put it back to work. The question is why did they ever ditch this strategy? As reported in the New York Times:

FOR those who have been waiting for Hanes to revive “Just wait’ll we get our Hanes on you,” the wait is over - kinda sorta.

In a campaign…which is being billed as the largest in years for the Hanes apparel brand, the “Just wait’ll” theme, so successful in the 1990s, returns with a bit of tailoring as “Look who we’ve got our Hanes on now.”

Also being revived is the idea of using a roster of celebrities to sell Hanes underwear, sleepwear, socks and other clothing, rather than the single-star approach the brand has recently taken in featuring Michael Jordan. Mr. Jordan remains, joined initially by Damon Wayans, Matthew Perry and [actress] Marisa Tomei….

Brands “have to keep themselves fresh with consumers to be relevant,” said Sidney Falken….Hanes brand champion at Sara Lee Branded Apparel…a division of the Sara Lee Corporation.

Because “consumers know this brand really well,” Ms. Falken said, the idea of using celebrities they may not expect to see endorsing Hanes is meant to convey that the Hanes name can be found on apparel that is more stylish, colorful and comfortable than they may expect.

This updating of the brand would be compelling if the new messaging were left unchanged from the original Just wait’ll we get our Hanes on you.

Just wait’ll is a powerful position, a valuable piece of mental real estate, creating an evocative mental connection. One quality of the Just wait’ll positioning is how it leaves room for continual updating of the brand through the use of multiple contemporary endorsers.

In contrast, Look who we’ve got our Hanes on now is all about self-laudatory Hanes talking about themselves (”look at us”) rather than talking about the consumer. The original ’90s campaign talks about and to the consumer (”our product on you”), which made the positioning so effective.

Look who we’ve got our Hanes on now also assumes a top-of-mind audience recall of the successful ’90s campaign, an extra mental processing step forcing the consumer to devote more time and work even harder to connect up brand relevance today.

Simple is hard. In branding, often the best answers are those demonstrating a brand promise through compelling simplicity. Resisting the temptation to gussy up an already powerful brand position is often the hardest task of all.

The latest In Advertising newsletter from the New York Times (available by opt-in email) discusses the new brand positioning of Hormel Chili:

Hormel Foods, which has been making Hormel Chili since 1935, is running a television, radio, print and online campaign for the brand that is the biggest in several years. The multimillion-dollar campaign … presents Hormel Chili not as a main dish but as an accompaniment to other dishes like eggs, hamburgers, nachos, potatoes and salads, as well as a dip.

To underline the concept, the ads portray Hormel Chili in unconventional fashion as a condiment like ketchup, mustard, pepper or salt, which is reinforced by the campaign’s theme, “Goes on everything.”

The campaign is appearing as two other powerhouses in food marketing, Bush Brothers Company and the Campbell Soup Company, have entered the chili category with, respectively, Bush’s Homestyle Chili and Campbell’s Chunky Chili…. [T]he Bush brand is [positioned] as “a ready-to-eat chili that looks and tastes like homemade” and the Campbell product … is [positioned as] “Hardcore chili for hardcore fans.”

[Paul C. Krapf, senior product manager for Hormel Chili says] the Bush and Campbell products “are geared toward in-the-bowl eating occasions instead of out-of-the-bowl eating occasions.”

“It’s not, ‘Next time you want a bowl of chili, buy our product,’” Mr. Krapf says. “It’s, ‘Next time you want to make chili nachos, chili fries, the only chili to use is Hormel.’”

… [T]he concept of likening chili to condiments was “a pretty big idea, which became a fresh angle for the category,” he adds. “That’s where we rounded the corner.”

We agree.

This repositioning of Hormel Chili creates new mental real estate, developing a new Chili niche, at a time when two competitors choose to rely on advertising strategies for their new products, each shouting how much better they are, rather than demonstrating how different they are.

What Hormel Chili accomplishes with their new brand identity provides a textbook example of good brand strategy.

As the first to stake out the unique mental position of chili as condiment, Hormel Chili reframes the market conversation to a basis it can win against all competitors. The new brand position demonstrates competitive difference. Demonstrating a relevant and compelling difference ALWAYS drives the sales needle.

Pass the chips.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Wendy’s canned Mr. Wendy today:

Wendy’s International Inc., based in Dublin, Ohio, and advertising agency McCann Erickson announced Thursday that “Mr. Wendy” won’t be seen after the end of the month.

“While decisions are still being made about new creative, food has always been the hero at Wendy’s, and we’re going to make sure that comes through loud and clear,” Wendy’s marketing executive Don Calhoon said.

The ads had drawn some poor marks on Wall Street.

For a brand that communicates quality is our recipe in fast casual food, Mr. Wendy was a distraction from this brand positioning.

Wendy’s may have been looking for a new spokesperson after the death of founder Dave Thomas some three years ago. The problem with such a strategy is that during thirteen years as pitch man for the chain, Mr. Thomas became an icon for the brand, so much so that any new spokesperson pales by comparison.

Wendy’s will now attempt to reframe the conversation on a basis that is authentic, relevant and compelling to the consumer, to win this conversation within their business category, and ultimately to own the conversation and set the tone for the entire industry.