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]

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]

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.

[More posts about Brand Research | More posts about Branding vs Advertising | More posts about Brand Opportunity | More blogs about Brand Research]

How should any organization own the conversation about itself or its product? By paying attention to what people say about you.

One method is to understand and tap into the use of social media.

Social media can be a valuable research tool. For example, organizations can go online for real time conversation and feedback through social networking Web sites.

A report in the Chicago Tribune discusses the opportunity:

For consumers, social media “gives them an opportunity to tell us exactly what they want and what’s important to them in an uninhibited environment,” Andy Markowitz, Kraft’s director of digital media, said in an e-mail.

It also offers consumers the opportunity to tell you what is wrong—inauthentic, irrelevant, unengaging, and highly forgettable—about your product. In today’s environment, social media creates a greater accountability for organizations and their brands than ever before. Again, from the Tribune:

Deborah Schultz, who consults on social media strategies for Procter & Gamble, calls the emerging social practice “conversational marketing.”

While we appreciate the likely unintended reference to our trademark, this own the conversation strategy offers a range of benefits. For the responsible organization, blogs, social networks, and other forms of social media can be made to work for you if your organization understands the benefits of transparency. To be successful at it requires a greater emphasis on finding your brand, truly understanding it, and delivering on your promise every day.

In tapping into social media, be prepared. As with most any effort to build human connection:

“Relationships take time, and they are messy. There is a give and take, and companies have to realize it can take a long time.”

Read more in the Chicago Tribune.

Conversation, the painting shown above, is the work of British artist Barnaby Menage. You may see other works of the artist at this online gallery.

[More posts about Online Brand Strategy | More posts about Social Media | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More posts about Brand Promise | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Brand Research | More posts about Social Media Strategy | More posts about Pop Culture | More posts about Brand Opportunities | More blogs about Online Brand Strategy]

The power of emotion behind decision-making comes from what might seem a surprising source.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a young aristocratic French lawyer, traveled to the United States in 1831 to study its penal system. His visit resulted in the classic De la démocratie en Amérique, also known as Democracy in America, a 19th century masterpiece of United States cultural and political analysis. de Touqueville offers this insight of the power of highly charged imprints upon the human mind, and how they guide us throughout life:

[To understand a man] we must watch the infant in his mother’s arms; we must see the first images which the external world casts upon the…mirror of his mind, the first occurrences which he witnesses; we must hear the first words that awaken the sleeping powers of thought, and stand by his earliest efforts—if we could understand the prejudices, the habits and the passions which will rule his life. The entire man is, so to speak, to be seen in the cradle of the child.

Some 170 years ago, de Tocqueville had it right. To understand any audience and identify the basis upon which decisions among competing choices are made, good brand research uncovers what the individual does not know they know, by reaching into the subconscious and uncovering what was experienced - imprinted - at an early age.

It is these imprints — the experiences of early childhood — that form the context through which an individual will view the world throughout their life and, as it relates to an understanding of brand effectiveness, react to communications seeking to influence them. These subconscious imprints, or mental codes, each communicate relevance, assurance, childhood joy, trust, and an expectation. The stronger the emotion associated with the experience, the stronger the imprint. Think of it this way, in an example from The Culture Code:

[A] child [is] told by his parents to avoid a hot pan on a stove. This concept is abstract to the child until he reaches out, touches the pan, and it burns him. In this intensely emotional moment of pain, the child learns what “hot” and “burn” means and is very unlikely ever to forget it.

Imprints are the subconscious memories we file away, forgetting them until they are recalled at some later date if the appropriate emotional trigger is experienced.

Before the importance of research into the effects of human emotion upon brand development was understood, de Tocqueville prophetically pointed the way to success. He could foresee the power of imprints, those first impressions, in most any effort to own the conversation within any industry.

Surfacing these imprints, this context, and understanding each as they relate to the relevance and reputation of your organization or product or city, is what leads to the story behind a brand that becomes unforgettable, and one taking its place alongside others ingrained in popular culture.

[More posts about Brand Relevance | More posts about Brand Research | More posts about Emotional Branding | More posts about Alexis de Tocqueville | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Democracy In America | More blogs about Brand Research]

For nearly every branding effort, a quantitative research methodology such as a telephone survey or opinion poll is a waste.

Why? Any successful brand strategy must rely upon a deep understanding revealing more than the obvious, about the audiences you seek to attract, and about your organization or product. It’s all about finding what you do not know, and mining those insights to your advantage.

Ask the Coca Cola Company. You know the story. Coca Cola relied upon 200,000 blind taste tests, focus groups, and surveys in deciding to launch New Coke in April 1985. Three months later, company president Donald R. Keough admitted, “We did not understand the deep emotions of so many of our customers for Coca-Cola.”

A quantitative opinion poll is useful if tactical information is needed about an established brand. For example, a brand manager wants to know what others think about a well-known established brand, where little has changed within the competitive environment.

A quantitative approach is NOT useful if information dependent on memory recall is needed, or if the brand manager does not know relevant functional, emotional and affiliation levers behind the decision-making process of audiences she seeks to influence.

Any branding effort should look beyond what is readily articulated, and instead dig beneath the surface to uncover what people don’t know they know. Only then are the important mental levers behind human decision-making identified.

Instead of hosting focus groups or performing hundreds of telephone or web-based surveys, we observe and question people in one-on-one settings and, where possible, as they move through their everyday lives. We spend time conversationally questioning and listening as they reveal everyday interactions and behaviors of import to you and your institution, rather than sitting in a room among a group and asking questions such as, “Tell us, what do you think about this shampoo?”

The result is this work leads to entirely new ways to view audiences you seek to engage and influence – the big insight, the “Eureka!” moment – exposing much larger opportunities for human connection than previously understood. A window is opened to convert people you wish to attract to your preferred point of view, offering a unique and ownable advantage any competitor would envy.

Finding “Eureka!” is where your breakthrough begins.

[More posts about Brand Research | More posts about Observational Research | More posts about Qualitative Research | More posts about Qualitative vs Quantitative Research | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about New Coke | More posts about Coca Cola | More blogs about Brand Research]

Our commentary making the case for branding a law firm prompted a reader to ask the following:

Smart people keep missing the difference between communication and branding, or advertising campaigns and branding. It is rather amazing. Do you feel there is some hurried sense of urgency to “get out there” and bring in business that leads these bright folk to do the “default” thing and rush into advertising?

We agree. It is amazing. Yet it’s a phenomenon repeated over and over again by otherwise certified smart men and women. Including many holding themselves out as brand strategists who skip the hard part, by instead offering a new logo or slogan and passing off either as a “brand.”

How does this happen?

The answer is simple. Simple is hard.

Branding is a search for the obvious. By far the most difficult process step of any branding project lies in successfully navigating the intellectual and emotional footbridge to find the positioning statement / value proposition in creating a breakthrough tip of the spear. Creating this authentic and unforgettable spear tip is the hard part of branding.

Any worthy brand consultancy would offer up the following four brand fundamentals, the identification of each crucial to developing a value proposition before proceeding with any brand implementation step such as, for example, creation of a new visual identity:

Pain Point and Solution – What is the problem your target seeks to solve, why and how do they experience pain in seeking a solution, and what is the solution they need and even crave?

Key Difference – Your best single point of competitive difference

Emotional Benefit – Identify the emotional payoff to your target consumer; what is the emotion an individual experiences by tapping into what you offer?

Affiliation Benefit - Uncovering how those who access your product or service want to be seen by others, and how the relationship with your brand enhances how your target sees themselves

Stated another way, the hard part of branding is the ability to articulate within seconds the answer to the question asked by the audience you seek to convert to your product or cause: Why Should I Care About You? Getting to the answer involves getting to the root of consumer thinking through qualitative research, and a crisp analysis of the competition.

Too often we see organizations create a value proposition that is little more than a string of instantly forgettable cheerleader statements. Such cheerleading leads to ineffective business outcomes such as this and other brand blunders.

But you don’t have to rely on us for this. Take a look at the March 2006 issue of the Harvard Business Review, and see for yourself.

[More posts about Branding Resources | More posts about Brand Research | More posts about Brand Differentiation | More posts about Competitive Advantage | More posts about Branding vs Advertising | More posts about Branding vs PR | More posts about Laws of Branding | More blogs about Branding Resources]

Another volume to add to your reading list in understanding effective branding is Gerald Zaltman’s How Customers Think.

Zaltman, a professor of marketing at Harvard Business School, speaks in his book of finding the information crucial to understanding the mind of the market. It’s all about getting at what people don’t know they know, in finding the unspoken drivers that prompt awareness and conversion resulting in a purchase decision, and in creating the ability to see yourself as others see you.

Robert Burns would be proud.

For us, How Customers Think is the seminal volume to which we point our clients if they wish to further understand qualitative consumer research.

Or, you can listen to us demonstrate it in less than thirty seconds.

[ More posts about How Customers Think | More posts about Gerald Zaltman | More posts about Brand Research | More posts about Branding Resources | More posts about Harvard Business School | More blogs about Brand Research ]

One of the most thoughtful reads we have come across is Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink. For those, like us, who are Gladwell fans, you know he is also the author of The Tipping Point.

Blink is about thinking that occurs in the blink of an eye, using the same mental shorthand at play with effective branding. As described on Mr. Gladwell’s website:

“When you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions. Well, Blink is a book about those two seconds…”

We often say that whether a product, a university, a nonprofit, a Fortune 500, or a tourist destination, each has all of a few seconds to convince a prospect to invest their time in listening to you further, and how an audience thin-slices the information you offer.

For more about thin-slicing and rapid cognition, grab this excellent book.

[ More posts about Blink | More posts about Malcolm Gladwell | More posts about Brand Research | More posts about Branding Resources | More blogs about Brand Research ]

This verse from the Robert Burns poem, To A Louse, describes the value of qualitative brand research:

O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!

Step out from behind your desk, conference table, or workstation, and see yourself, your product, your organization, as others see you. Rather than speculate in a conference room, get out to watch and listen at how your brand and lifestyles converge. It’s where true insight begins for brands wishing to move beyond the banal.

We are currently engaged in transforming a college into a university.

With nearly a proud century of tradition, and more recently under dynamic leadership, this institution has over the past decade achieved impressive year over year enrollment and campus growth. The institution includes seven campuses, and is growing an aeronautics and aviation specialty. It faces the challenges of an admitted nondescript brand fighting to break through to mass recognition within a global culture.

How will we do it? By collaborating with our client to uncover the obvious, and drawing to the surface a deep emotional connection previously overlooked.

With the results soon to be announced, stay tuned.

The release of Martha Stewart from the United States federal prison system prompted a number of news reports about how her experience will affect Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia [MSO].

Here’s how Ms. Stewart’s experience will affect her company. Although certainly not how she would have preferred it, by serving her time in a federal prison Martha Stewart was tendered a gift — a five-month gift of intense market research — learning how a broad cross section of women lived, and hope to live, their lives.

This research will lead to a repositioning of the Martha Stewart brand — one driven to further build the brand through emotional connections with the market. As reported by the Associated Press in the New York Times:

With barely a break since she was released from a federal women’s prison…on Friday, a beaming [Martha] Stewart told several hundred employees Monday that she’s learned a lot about the country through the cross section of people she met in prison. That’s made her realize that the company she founded…focused too much on the technical aspects of entertaining or cooking in its editorial content, and not enough on why people need to take care of each other.

Noting a growing need to “preserve meaningful traditions” in a rapidly changing world, Stewart pledged…the company is going to deepen its bond “with the millions who read our publications and watch our television programs. And we’re going to engage and inspire new readers and new viewers for whom these topics may have seemed alien, unfamiliar or even — believe it or not — superficial.”

…Where Martha Stewart Living once focused on functional benefits in its editorial, it is now becoming more aware of the “emotional power of the brand.”

For her company this is powerful brand strategy. The emotional power of a brand is unlocked by identifying how a consumer feels and acts when using or affiliating with a brand, and WHY she feels and acts in that way. These emotional benefits, when connected up with the brand’s key point of difference, lie at the heart of any great brand strategy. This connection elevates a brand to one of contemporary relevance, and separates a brand from those of competitors.

While Martha Stewart cannot rewind the events of the recent past and start over, she can begin anew. With five months of introspection and the equivalent of intense market research into human thoughts and feelings, the company will benefit from Ms. Stewart’s heightened self-awareness of the emotional drivers behind the businesses of MSO.

For Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and for Martha Stewart, it’s a good thing.

An early discussion of brand research and the power of human emotion in driving consumer decision-making comes from what might seem a surprising source.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a young aristocratic French lawyer, traveled to the United States in 1831 to study its penal system. His visit resulted in the classic Democracy in America, a masterpiece of United States cultural and political analysis. Without framing it as such, he offers a compelling statement early in Volume One of the power of emotional imprints upon the human mind, and how they guide us throughout life:

[To understand a man] we must watch the infant in his mother’s arms; we must see the first images which the external world casts upon the…mirror of his mind, the first occurrences which he witnesses; we must hear the first words that awaken the sleeping powers of thought, and stand by his earliest efforts—if we could understand the prejudices, the habits and the passions which will rule his life. The entire man is, so to speak, to be seen in the cradle of the child.

Some 170 years ago, de Tocqueville had it right. To understand consumers and identify their emotional drivers, good consumer research uncovers what the consumer does not know that they know, by reaching into the subconscious and uncovering what was imprinted at an early age when encountering a variety of experiences for the first time.

It is these imprints — the first experiences in life — that are the context by which a consumer will see things throughout their entire adult lives, and react to communications and experiences intended to influence them.

Before the importance of research into the effects of human emotion upon brand development were understood by some, de Tocqueville prophetically pointed the way to success. He could foresee the power of those first impressions in most any effort to own the conversation within any industry, even in today’s popular culture.

He understood there is no second chance to make a first impression.