Living Brands: blog




	Archive: My blog has now moved to here December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 Back to blog home				30th Sept 2004 - A recipe for great brands No, not the latest concoction from Delia Smith, but rather the basis of a recent Fast Company article ("The Good Brand"). And it offers more food for thought on the seismic shifts that are taking place in the world of brands. To get an idea of what might be going on, Fast Company talked to a number of eminent futuroligists (those with the most accurate crystal balls I guess), and identified 7 trends likely to be on the agenda over the next year. Brands will be authentic - aided by the internet, we can find out all we need to know about any brand or company. And when people are starting with the deeply ingrained cynicism that seems endemic today, it's better to be open, transparent and truthful from the outset. The experience will be the expression of the brand - this one's been gaining momentum for a number of years. We have already moved from a functional to emotional brand model. So it makes sense that the next logical step will be experiential. Whenever and wherever people interact with your brand, you must bring that brand and all it stands for to life in a tangible way. Brands will be hardwired into our brains - not really new this. It has long been known that very few messages are processed at high attention in our cognitive, short term memory. Instead of facts and rational beliefs, it is more often associations and emotions / feelings, which our minds register. And these experiences rarely touch the goal posts of cognitive thought, entering straight into our long term memory…often without us realising it. Just so much science you might think. Well, it is now moving from the realms of theory to practice (and from the lab to the market research company). It may not be long till we dump focus groups and wire people up instead. The line between entertainment and brand will blur - this is basically sponsorship writ large and seamless. Which may be one of the few tools open to us in future, as our ability to screen out ads, both mentally and technically, increases. But avoid overkill, and completely swamping people's personal space. They won't thank you for it. Increasingly complex brands will require new organisational structures - in the old model, the only people who cared about brands (apparently) were in the marketing department. In the new model, the people who really care are now more likely to be outside the organisation. And they're in it for the long haul (unlike marketing managers, who come and go). How do you manage this situation? Brands will create social and cultural value - conventional, "one-to-many" push communication, which sees "the corporation" telling a bunch of apparently similar but ultimately disconnected individuals what to think, is on the way out. The future will be all about dialogue between the interconnected members of the different groups or tribes we all belong to. The role of brands will be to facilitate this dialogue (or even to be the focus of the group's attention). There is a great article on this by Bernard Cova, called "Tribal Marketing", which I would thoroughly recommend. Successful brands will be those which, recognising their holistic, organic nature, forgo a degree of control and let their consumers take over (again, begs the question, "who owns the brand?"). America will be reborn as a more culturally sensitive brand - OK, call me a cynical Brit, but I can't quite see this one I'm afraid. Though I am open to persuasion. But I guess point 1 above springs to mind! Like to comment ? (top) 28th Sept 2004 - what's hot and what's not Superbrands, the "independent authority and arbiter on branding", has just announced Britain's coolest brands, in its 2005 Cool BrandLeaders survey. You can check out the full list here. For no other reason than it's the way they appear on the site, here are the top ten cool brands in alphabetical order… Agent Provocateur Alexander McQueen Asahi Audi Bang & Olufsen Beck's Bibendum Bombay Sapphire British Airways London Eye Burton Snowboards There are 63 brands in total, with a handy case history for each. Like to comment ? (top) 27th Sept 2004 - If you can't beat them, let them join you For all its continued dominance, the command and control model of brand management looks increasingly anachronistic. Sussed businesses now realise that they need to co-own and co-create brand meaning with their ever more switched-on, wired-up consumers (or at least give a very good impression that this is what they do). It's hard though. And amongst the most intransigent has been the music industry. Yes, pirating CDs is wrong and should be stamped out. But is it really such a good idea to go after music downloaders with equal vigour? After all, they are the industry's core consumers. And as Business Week said recently, commenting on Walt Disney and AOL chasing down fans for unauthorized use of copyrighted material - "when you get to the point where you're suing your customers over their use of your brand, it's time to change your business model." It is interesting then that rock behemoths, REM, are getting with the emerging paradigm. For the next two weeks (prior to its official release), their new album, Around The Sun, can be listened to in its entirety on-line (here). I've now done this 3 times…and still plan to buy…so it can't be such a bad strategy. Listen.... .....................Buy...... Like to comment ? (top) 25th Sept 2004 - iConic iPod Is the iPod advertising "great"? I don't know. Though I rather like it. But what can't be argued is that it is iconic in it's simplicity. And anything iconic is guaranteed the iconoclastic treatment nowadays. Indeed, the number of "adaptations" of the iPod campaign seem to grow daily. And the latest edition has something to say about the war in Iraq (or is that iRaq ?) The thing is though, whilst the motivations may differ (for all the iPod's faults, Apple isn't a big business villain for most. Nor can it really be blamed for the conflict in Iraq), the brand association with bad stuff in Iraq is now there. As it is with other issue campaigns that have borrowed the iPod look. But will these negative associations have any effect on the brand? And what will Apple do in response…without coming across as all heavy handed, litigious and corporate? Like to comment ? (top) 22nd Sept 2004 - Don't be a control freak Another bag I like. It's such a great idea. You buy a sandwich from Pret, and on the bag they tell you how to do it yourself. You never will. But it makes you feel good that they care enough to share it with you. And it brilliantly reinforces the fact the these are fresh, hand made sandwiches, as the sticker says… This is the truth and openness that people are looking for in brands; the chance to co-own and co-create the brand experience. Poses an interesting question for other businesses though - are you confident enough in the relationship you have with your consumers to give them control over your product? Like to comment ? (top) 20th Sept 2004 - Truth is the new lies Verisimilitude is my word of the moment. According to the Oxford English Dictionary it means… "The appearance of being true or real" Now it has to be said that the only reason I know this is because I had to look it up in 1995, after buying Teenage Fanclub's album, Grand Prix (see side 1 track 5, for those old enough to remember when things like that mattered). But it does now mean I can lob it into meetings to gasps of amazement all around. 10/10 for linguistic gymnastics aside though, why is verisimilitude so important ? Because being seen to be "true" and "real" are perhaps amongst the most vital qualities brands can exhibit nowadays. And if you're actually true and real as well it obviously helps no end! So what's going on then? Well, once upon a time, we had products. You knew where you were with these, helped by the quality reassurance of a "brand" mark. But come the 1950s / 60s, and the birth of mass affluence, and then on into the self-actualising 70s and 80s, the game changed, and brands as emotional constructs came to the fore. The combination of monolithic media, big budgets and a willingly complicit ("never had it so good" Boomer) consumer, opened the brand floodgates. It wasn't about selling products any more (how positively 1940s). it was about selling dreams. Or, and let's be honest here (hey, verisimilitude), it was about selling lies. Not bad lies. Often they were nice lies. And they were lies we wanted to hear, and which made us feel good about ourselves. But lies nonetheless. About improved social status. Improved sex appeal. You know the story. And those of us in marketing and advertising were the dream weavers, the court magicians confounding lesser mortals with our ability to conjure something amazing out of nothing (often, quite literally). So what went wrong? How did people come to realise the emperor had no clothes? The following may have had something to do with it. Suicide. We believed so strongly in our own magic that throughout the 80s and 90s we ignored truth completely. Product was irrelevant. Brand was all. The result? On the one hand, there are now so many identikit brands we often can't tell them apart (oh the irony! Come back product, all is forgiven). On the other hand, those brands which wanted to be different had to resort to ever more ludicrous emotional claims, stretching consumer credulity to breaking point...and often beyond. The proliferation and fragmentation of media. It is now nigh on impossible to communicate consistently and on mass with people, the precondition of advertising-led brand development in previous decades. We can no longer bludgeon people into submission through marketing force of will. The brand game has been rumbled. People know what we're up to. Hackneyed I know, but your gran can probably bandy around terms like "positioning" and "target audience". And your average 20-something will have been taught the brand development rule book in school. The word "self" is in self-actualisation. Generation X, Y or whatever may have started the process, but people are now less enamoured with the mass-marketed, imposed consumer dream. We no longer need (or accept) someone saying what will make us happy. We'll make our own dreams thank you very much. The internet. The killer app of the 21st Century. We can know everything about anything if we want to. And when it comes to brands, in true Oz-like fashion, we have looked behind the curtain and found out that the wizard is some warts and all bloke just like us. This isn't to say that the age of brands is over. Brands remain as important and potent as ever to our self identity. But we will no longer accept mass-produced corporate spin as we once did. We decide what brands mean to us. Because today, in a very really sense, the platitude that "brands only exist in the mind of the consumer" has come back to bite us. Big business may still own the trade mark rights to the logo, but the consumer (us included) has become the co-owner and co-creator of the brand experience. It's time we realised that we are no longer selling fluff to an ill-informed outsider. To maximise our chances of sales success, we must view what we do as a collaborative exercise, working with well informed insiders (maybe more of an insider than we'll ever be). Which is why qualities such as honesty and openness are so vital to future brand success. As someone I work with said recently, truth is very much the new lies (in the best possible way). Indeed, it might even be argued that it is time for us to start thinking beyond verisimilitude. It is too open to abuse. Too open to spin. It may no longer be enough to be seen to be true - these "truths" could still be lies after all. Our brands and businesses must be known to be true. Our emotional promise (or the promise people imbue us with) must be demonstrably provable. We can't scam people any more. Flim flam is over. We've got to tell it how it is…because, nowadays, the truth will win out eventually Which may be why we're seeing some of the big, long established and famous brand-led businesses struggling at the moment. Could it be that they are still playing by the old rules, pushing "off-the-peg" invented meaning, sprinkled with marketing fairy dust, to people who can make their own minds up. Oh, and they can see the cards up our sleeves. Like to comment ? (top) 19th Sept 2004 - Irony bypass ? I am the first to nail my colours to the mast when it comes to the ills of globalisation and corporate wrong doings. But I'm not sure about the pathological hatred of brands that always seems to come as part of the package. Yes, a brand is a good shorthand for the company that owns it (e.g. Nike). But brands per se are not this issue. And I'm sure even the most po-faced of "anti-brand" protestors have their own (niche, sub-culture etc.) brands which are cool for them. Which is why the latest stunt from Adbusters (who have done some good and interesting stuff in the past), seems to be suffering from a major irony bypass. Their Blackspot sneaker is being described as "the world's first global anti-brand". They may be playing the game more than I'm giving them credit for, but that sounds suspiciously like a positioning statement to me! Like to comment ? (top) 16th Sept 2004 - Luscious Cut from similar cloth to Innocent and Aveda when it comes to walking the walk of the story it tells, Lush is another of my favourite brands. As it says on their bags… A Lush Life We believe… …in making effective products out of fresh organic* fruit and vegetables, the finest essential oils and safe synthetics, without animal ingredients, and in writing the quantitative list in English as well as Latin. We also believe in buying only from companies that test for safety without the involvement of animals and in testing our products on humans. We believe in making our own fresh* products by hand, printing our own labels and making our own fragrances. We believe in long candlelit baths, massage, filling the house with perfume and in the right to make mistakes, lose everything and start again. We believe that our products should be good value, that we make a profit and that the customer is always right. * We also believe words like "fresh" and "organic" have honest meaning beyond marketing. Unlike most brands, which wallow in wishy washy neutrality, alienating no-one without appealing to any one, with Lush you know what you're dealing with, and whether you want to be a part of that particular story. Personally, it makes me want to grab a bath bomb. Like to comment ? (top) 15th Sept 2004 - Age of confusion I've not had a rant as yet, so here goes. There were two things in Futurescope, the trends newsletter I produce (hey, cross-selling opportunity !) that encapsulated for me the mixed up view of age Western society (and marketing / advertising within it) has. A view that fixates on early 20-somethings as the idealised age / look / behaviour we should all aspire to. The result is that those of us who aren't 20 either feel annoyed and misunderstood, or are in the process of getting screwed up for life. On the one hand, you have things like this going on… "Many over-50 women feel frustrated by fashion that's either too young or too old…(But) this fact still hasn't registered with some. Belly-baring tops and hipster trousers still are prevalent...Dresses, too, are difficult, offering few options between 'Sex and the City'and 'The Golden Girls'." Basically, if you're anyone north of 50, your choice is to look and behave like Britney, or be a boring frump. Which misses the point totally. Whilst over 50s (over 40s even) have, and never have had any desire to took like pop moppets, they rarely live boring lives any more. After all, why don your carpet slippers when you can go surfing (real or virtual). It's about time we recognised that there are many other points on the Britney - frump axis that these people can aspire to, which don't mean they end up looking like mutton dressed as lamb…or their gran (who could, conceivably, still be alive). Oh, and they have all the money as well (unlike 20-somethings), and will have more of it as time passes. And this logic (or failure of it) doesn't just apply to clothes. The vast majority of new cars are bought by the over 50s. But you wouldn't think it to look at most ads. Again, these often seem fixated on the young and funky, people who'll never actually buy the product, rather than show the reality. And you can spin the "aspiring younger" line as much as you like, but I'm not actually convinced that's the motivation. More often than not, we (in advertising) are making ads for people like us. And if "old people" do feature, it's usually so we can have a laugh. But why steer clear (ho ho) of the truth. The reality needn't be boring. We know people value brands rooted in truth and honesty. So get real, and show some respect. It might just work. And then, on the other hand, we have this… "Used to be a new haircut, outfit and shoes made the back-to-school look. Today, teens add designer outfits, eyebrow waxing, manicures, pedicures, highlighted hair and teeth whitening, so great is the social pressure to fit in coupled (paradoxically) with a desire to be independent…(which is all) part of the trend to turn children into tiny adults…(driven by) an appearance-oriented culture which overvalues "perfect" looks…(and suggests that) unrealistic appearance goals are easily obtainable." If we refuse to let adults grow old in the way they want to, society seems just as committed to forcing our children to grow up before their time. Again, it's look and behave like Britney (or the male equivalent), or be uncool and boring. And this pressure to grow up, whether in looks, behaviour or experiences, seems to be getting younger. Now maybe it's because I'm a parent, but what happened to childhood ? It's great. It's fun. Why force it to be over sooner than it needs to be. Our kids will have enough adult rubbish to deal with for the rest of their lives. And this seems to be a view that's gaining some adherents. Already we've seen the red-top tabloids (hypocritically obviously) having their say. But when the issue makes the cover of Marketing Week ("all things nice ? Marketers pilloried for sexulasing young girls")… "As public concern about marketing to children mounts, the spotlight has shifted to sexulisation of young girls. Parents and teachers argue that teen magazines focus too much on sex. Meanwhile, sexy underwear for kids, and the statistic that most seven to ten year old girls wear make-up, are reality." …you've got to think that change is (thankfully) on the way (see food additives and obesity for a recent example). It seems to me that society is age-dismorphic, and we in marketing, advertising and the media are primarily to blame. And once we recognise this, and start letting people live the age they are (and are happy to be, if only we'd leave them alone), rather than impose our own idealised perspective, the world will be a much better place. Like to comment ? (top) 10th Sept 2004 - Preference is all in the mind It is a well established part of marketing (folk)lore that people prefer Pepsi to Coke in blind taste tests. This is the basis of Pepsi's famous "Challenge", and Coke's ill-fated foray into the world of "new". The latter now of course looks like a massive lapse in confidence, given that the same research showed people prefer Coke when they know what they're drinking. Heh, funny that. The power of brands ! Rather annoyingly, the only evidence for this that I've ever been able to find (courtesy of De Chernatony and Knox) relates to Diet variants. Although I'm sure the same principle holds true. Blind: Prefer... Diet Pepsi 51% Diet Coke 44% Branded: Prefer... Diet Pepsi 23% Diet Coke 65% But hope is at hand, as the Baylor College of Medicine has updated this study in true 21st Century Sci-fi fashion. Though yet unpublished, their findings have been reported in a number of places already (see the Economist, "Inside the mind of the consumer", Brandchannel, "The science of branding" or MSNBC, "Mind reading"). What did they do? This research is but one of many examples where the tools of neuroscientists, such as electroencephalogram (EEG) mapping and functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI), are being used to find out more about the mental processes behind purchasing decisions. And Coke vs. Pepsi? Well, the men in white coats have "proved" that we do genuinely prefer the taste of Pepsi in blind tests - fMRI scanning showed that drinking Pepsi lit up a region called the ventral putamen, which is one of the brain's "reward centres", far more brightly than Coke. But, emotionally, we still prefer the Real Thing. When told which drink was which, most subjects said they preferred Coke, showing once again that an emotive brand is usually far more important than a functionally better product - but then we know that don't we ;-). Which just goes to show the weaknesses of conventional research - people don't really do what they say...or say what they really think. So why bother, you might ask? Because it gives us reassurance...and maybe just as often, an excuse. As John Banham famously once said "We are in danger of valuing most highly those things we can measure most accurately, which means we are often precisely wrong rather than approximately right". Does all this science stuff show us a light at the end of the tunnel thoug ? Personally, I'm not sure. At a theoretical / academic level I think it's great to better understand how our brains work. But should we be wiring respondents to electrodes (metaphorically speaking) to pre-test ads? Maybe yes, if they're happy to do it. But I must admit that the lefty liberal in me feels a twinge of discomfort. A debate that needs to be had I think. Like to comment ? (top) 8th Sept 2004 - Yet more creativity Fraid I've nicked this wholesale (with a bit of paraphrasing) from Evelyn Rodriguez, who writes lots of clever stuff over at Crossroads Dispatches (rather than just borrowing magpie-like from elsewhere as I do). Although I think see in turn was reporting back on a seminar by Tom Peters and Daniel Pink (author of "Free Agent Nation", and the up coming "A Whole New Mind: The Right Brain Revolution"). And it's yet more advocation for a refocusing on creativity as the way foward for the world in which we live (see below). We're moving from an Information Age, which was about knowledge workers, to a Conceptual Age, which will be about creators and empathisers. Turning up the metaphors, this is a shift from using our backs (Industrial Age) to our left brain (Information Age) to our right brain - which is holistic, big picture, intuitive and non-linear. It's a shift from high tech to high concept and high touch. The attitudes/abilities needed for the Conceptual Age? Design - functionality...but also great looking and emotive Story - crafting a narrative for your business or brand - argument isn't enough, logic isn't enough (this is something I believe in passionately, and will develop further...at some point...on this site. But I did have an article published in Admap which I shall promote yet again !) Symphony - crossing boundaries, synthesis, metaphor (guessing a bit here, but I think we talking a holistic approach, which pulls together lots of, on the face of it disparate elements, to create an idea...ehhh...symphony...probably) Empathy - see things through other's eyes, stand in someone else's shoes to understand them Play - the Information Age was intensely dry and sober; ideas and innovations come from having fun and mucking around Meaning - in our increasingly confusing, dangerous, tumultuous times, people are more and more looking for transcedence, beauty and meaning Like to comment ? (top) 8th Sept 2004 - The story of Dell You may not have noticed it, but the juggernaut of success that is Dell Computers had a bit of a wobble a few years ago. The reason ? It was felt within the business that they had lost sight of Dell's reason for being; it's story and character, and the values underpinning this (something I have written on more generally elsewhere). If you want to know how Dell got its groove back, there's a good article in the current edition of Strategy & Business - "How Dell Got Soul". If this link doesn't work, go via the main S&B site and register (it's free...or at least was when I did it). Like to comment ? (top) 7th Sept 2004 - Create more than you consume (part 2) I've already linked to this once. But John Griffiths at Planning Above and Beyond has written two more articles in his drive to shift us from a "consumer" world view to a "creator" one. Use expertise, not yours you idiot - theirs! Improvising in a crisis Like to comment ? (top) 7th Sept 2004 - Being creative Gaping Void is the blog of American (I think) creative and cartoonist Hugh Macleod. He recently offered up his 23 tips on "How To Be Creative". Quite personal to him, but thought provoking none the less... Ignore everybody. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world. Put the hours in. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail. You are responsible for your own experience. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Keep your day job. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside. Dying young is overrated. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not. The world is changing. Merit can be bought. Passion can't. Avoid the Watercooler Gang. Sing in your own voice. The choice of media is irrelevant. Selling out is harder than it looks. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time. And there's loads of great cartoons as well. Like to comment ? (top) 6th Sept 2004 - Herding cats And on the subject of cats, someone showed me this EDS commercial from a few years ago at the weekend. Managing businesses in the information age? It's a bit like herding cats. Genius (If this link ever goes dead, drop me a line as I have a copy) Like to comment ? (top) 6th Sept 2004 - Daisy, Daisy... This had absolutely nothing to do with anything really, other than the fact that we have a new kitten called Daisy. Feel free to say ahhhh ! Like to comment ? (top) 3rd Sept 2004 - Cola gets political Two interesting developments in the world of soft drinks. One French in origin. The other comes form our own Derby. And what both have in common are Asian founder, giving them a rather different perspective on a market some see as one of the bastions of Western imperialism / capitalism. Mecca-Cola is the most extreme. "Shake you conscience. Drink with commitment" is it's challenge. And it adopts an explicitly political stance, based around Palestinian independence. Qibla Cola takes a far more inclusive approach, basing it's business on fair trade, ethical behaviour and giving 10% of profits to charity. And where the extremism of Mecca may be a barrier to sales (or maybe not if it's gauged its core audience correctly), Qibla is already creating interest in the UK. And it's not just about Cola. Both brands run the full gamut of soft drink. And Qibla has a bottled water as well. Like to comment ? (top) 2nd Sept 2004 - Pease pudding and saveloys The things you find in supermarkets. Up until last week, my only knowledge of pease pudding (thanks to "food glorious food") was that it went well with sausages. Beyond that, I had forever consigned it to the world of Dickens, like poor houses and rickets. Until, on an accompanied shop round a Tesco superstore in Nottingham, there it was. I was so excited I had to take a photo. And what great packaging - like something out of Viz ("beer", "tabs", "pease pudding"). Still no idea what it actually is though, as I didn't have time to interrogate it fully ! My shoppee was moving swiftly on, pease pudding obviously not on her list. And searching on Google seems a little sad. So if anyone would care to let me know… Like to comment ? (top)

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