A little bit of Mark...

Check out Stories by REL

2006-10-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

I've not been able to put as much time as I'd like into this blog because of a variety of excuses...none of them too very good. However, I'm part of the team blogging at Stories by REL, and I invite you to stop by there, check out our approach to brand management and story telling.

And thanks for visiting here for the past six months. It's a been a fun run.

Engage everyone in brand management

2006-08-24T21:54:00.000-05:00

The doorbell rang, earlier tonight and a neighbor, wearing a harness filled with a little baby, asked me to come restart her mower. When I arrived, I quickly started the mower and proceeded to mow the lawn, not wishing to see the tiny mom with the tinier baby struggle with the mower. Within a few seconds, I started wondering how she had accomplished the one trip around the lawn before the mower stopped. Pushing the mower was shear torture. I rested at the end of each trip around the yard, wondering why it was so difficult. After completing about one-quarter of the yard, I stopped to rest, and commented that I'd never used a mower this hard to push. As she started to walk over to see what my problem was, I realized what my problem was: it was a self-propelled mower, which I had not yet engaged. With the simple push of a lever, the mower practically did the job itself.

I laughed at myself, and then soon realized my experience was a metaphor for brand failure with some of our clients. Like the self-propelled mower, all the great brand management in the world does little good if the employees don't know how to use it, don't embrace the brand or don't own it every day.

My coworkers and I have been discussing this very issue lately, and realized that the failure of many of the brand management advice we give clients is directly attributed to the lack of follow through at the client level. When we include brand training at the front line, company-wide presentations and ongoing training, many clients say they'll avoid that cost and do it themselves.
Like picking a budget printer who has no contact with the designer or letting your in-house help desk team build the corporate website, internally launching the brand with only in-house resources is a recipe for disaster. In most cases, clients who come to us for brand management consultation and support don't have the team in-house to define the brand, let alone present the brand to the people responsible for owning the brand. The same outside viewpoint that discovers these clients' brands is also the best prepared to communicate that effort internally.

Even worse: someone completely outside the brand discernment process steps in at the last minute - without benefit of the lengthy, sometimes painful and always beneficial discussions - hijacks the process and the brand comes out the other end looking like its been through a mower.

The best way to attack the brand job: get many people involved in the beginning - the like-minded and the people most likely to puke on your ideas - in the middle and at the end, then let them get to work. It's a whole lot easier to get the job done that way.

Technorati Tags: employees, brand management, employee communication

Something weird is happening with Blogger

2006-08-18T17:14:00.000-05:00

This is a test to see if I can upload a photo. It worked a few seconds ago....

You get what you pay for with Blogger

2006-08-16T23:05:00.000-05:00

I started this blog about six months ago to say a few things about marketing, work out some of my ideas, discuss marketing and basically do like millions of others - have a take and see if anybody reads.

I've been writing less lately for a couple reasons: first, I've become quite busy with a number of other distractions and blogging has fallen to the bottom of the list. Second, I've become very frustrated with one little, tiny problem with Blogger: I can't post a picture!

Photos are an important part of the story and blogs are more interesting with a good photo. And there are millions of good photos available on the internet and from my own little digital camera (when I've not lost it on a vacation). But a few months ago, the FREE software just quit posting photos. (Weird, it started right after I lost my digital camera...as if MY digital camera was the interface to Blogger!). I've tried emailing technical support (quit laughing fellow bloggers), I've followed the message boards but nobody's addressed this issue. It's just not working.

I mentioned how brands can start to smell if nobody's paying attention. Well, something smells about the Blogger brand, and it's leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I'm going to have to do something about this soon.

Technorati Tags: Blogger problems, free blogware, technical support

Does your brand smell funny?

2006-08-16T22:33:00.000-05:00

First story: A few nights ago, I wandered into the kitchen for a little late night snack and some unfamilar, unpleasant odor hit me. When I asked my wife if she smelled it, she said she thought she smelled something earlier, and that it might be in the refrigerator drip tray. Now I didn't even know the refrigerator had a drip tray, so I proceeded to remove the little grill at the bottom of the fridge as my wife instructed, and then slowly pulled out the most disgusting puddle of hellish liquid this side of The French Quarter. Holding it as far away from my face as possible, I carried it outside, to the curb and then flushed it with the hose for a full five minutes. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect something that vile to be within feet of the food I eat. When I returned, my wife informed me that the water comes from the self-defrosting fridge and that she has to empty it two or three times a year, particularly with the humidity is up and the water doesn't evaporate.

Second story: I walked to lunch the other day, and at a fairly busy intersection on my route, I waited for a light. A guy on a nice looking motorcycle approached the red light and I thought to myself, "now there's one of the good motorcyclists. He's wearing a helmet, long pants, good boots: he's representing us motorcyclists." No sooner had I completed my thought did he blow right through the light and make a right turn without even the slightest pause. In all 50 states of the union, it's legal to make a right turn on red after a complete stop and yielding to all oncoming traffic.

Both stories are very representative of what happens in many organizations: the marketing or sales or management staff think everything's going fine, everybody understands the brand and everybody's living it. Then something starts to smell or someone blows through a stop light: someone ignores a rule, cuts a corner, shuts down early, blows off a customer and all the goodwill goes down the toilet. This is not an ongoing, low grade fever of failure that the zombies bring on: that kind of defect in the brand is pretty apparent. I'm talking about the occasional blip on the screen that goes unnoticed and unchallenged.

I like employees are your first line of brand defense, brand warriors unwilling to give an inch when it comes to protecting the reputation of their brand, unwilling to go to sleep on the job, unwilling to let the drawbridge down after hours.

And when one employee doesn't do the job, it's up to the others to let 'em know, hold them accountable. If employees are fully versed in the brand, are trained how to support the brand, tested to ensure they can protect the brand and empowered to defend the brand with every ounce of their being, they shouldn't be surprised when a co-worker holds them accountable.

Without that level of commitment by everybody involved, a little stink can bring down the brand.

Technorati Tags: brand ownership, brand warrior, defending the brand, employee responsibility

Wrong too many times to hide

2006-07-31T19:57:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I wrote about truth. I think truth is often a casualty in business, a victim of ego. Few people are willing to admit the truth when it makes them look bad, or has the potential to look bad. I've been wrong too many times in my career to put my ego before the truth.

In my third job, I was the communications director for a dairy association. My expertise was writing newsletters. In this case, my main responsibility was to explain the value of the dairy check-off - a USDA mandated expenses dairy farmers paid to support generic dairy advertising. My secondary job was to promote ice cream, milk and other dairy products. Now, I'm a suburban kid through and through, always living in middle class neighborhoods in between the tough inner city and the hard working country. While I learned to appreciate the very hard work of dairy farmers and others involved in production agriculture, I did a lot of on-the-job training.

One day, while doing a radio interview promoting June Dairy Month, I delivered ice cream to a morning radio personality. To add a little fun, I also gave him an inflatable cow that was used in grocery store promotions. I told him "It's not too difficult traveling with an inflatable cow. He packs up real easily." Without missing a beat, the DJ said, "Uh, Mark. Aren't dairy cows female?" I can't remember my response but just remembering it still makes me laugh.

Another time, on the same job, I was taking ice cream to yet another radio station - DJs love ice cream in the morning - on an incredibly hot St. Louis summer day. I had the ice cream in a cooler and it was starting to melt, so I ran into a restaurant near the radio station and asked the manger for some ice to keep my ice cream cold. He looked puzzled, but gave it to me anyway. As I walked out the door, he asked "You know that ice is frozen at 32 degrees and ice cream melts above 0 degrees?" I said, "so?" That's when he told me that by putting ice on the ice cream I actually helped warm up the ice cream and made it melt faster!

Again, I laugh about it today, but I never put ice in the cooler with my ice cream!

I wonder if the guy who thought up new Coke can laugh about it today. Or the person who designed the Edsel or the Cadillac Cimmaron. What about the team that developed the Martha Steward version of The Apprentice?

Technorati Tags: ego in business, humility, bad business decisions, learning from mistakes

A truth about truth

2006-07-18T21:26:00.000-05:00

It was in my second job, as an editor of a company publication for a large insurance company, that I first learned the power of truth. And what people will do to avoid it.

I was writing a typical article about a committee's marketing planning efforts. I asked what the team was doing, who was on the team and when they expected to finish the work, and I got a blank stare from the manager who was my source. She said she didn't want to put a date out there because the team might held accountable to that date.

That's when I first learned the truth about truth: it's a moving target.

And I think that's why so many brands are so bland. Company's say one thing and act entirely different. There's no accountability to the brand.

And sometimes, there's not even a good attempt at being truthful. I was also the editor of a safety magazine for the insurance company, so I got to write articles about propane explosions, vehicle accidents, grain elevator accidents and other things that drive the cost of agribusiness insurance through the roof. On one particular site, the grain elevator manager told me to get on the manlift to go look at the site of a fire at the top of the building, then squeezed himself alongside me, saying "the insurance company doesn't like it when we do this, but it'll be okay this one time." I didn't bother to remind him I WAS THE INSURANCE COMPANY!

It was clear from my vantage point that the marketing effort was never going to be successful and that operation was an accident waiting to happen. Or was it the other way around?

Technorati Tags: truth in business, accountability, communications

Everybody has a story

2006-07-09T18:02:00.000-05:00

As an editor of a small trade magazine, I learned that everybody has a story. Even though I was a freshly graduated communications major, it was my job to figure it out.

I stumbled across a job at a small publishing firm in Collierville, Tennessee after I graduated. I was trying to return to the Memphis area because I was born there and through it would be an interesting place to settle down. The mom-and-pop publishing firm posed unique challenges because mom didn't get along with pop, and would drop in every few months to mess up everything in the name of "this is how we've always done it", and then leave in a huff for us to clean up. In between these visitations we would work hard to create three pretty good trade magazines covering the upholstered furniture, casegoods furniture and building materials industries.

We got good at finding stories because the publisher would sell an ad, and then send us off to write a story that would say something nice about the advertiser. When I'd ask what the story is, he'd tell me to "find it when you get there."

On one visit to a manufacturer - I cant' remember which one - I spent 30 exasperating minutes interviewing the plant manager only to realize that they were doing absolutely nothing that was newsworthy. Finally, almost all hope gone, I asked to take the obligatory tour of the plant, hoping that something would pop up.

And it did. The plant manager stood up from his desk and grabbed a cordless telephone to take with him. This was 1984 and cordless phones were expensive extravagance...and newsworthy. This manager would keep in touch with his plan supervisors via the cordless phone; a sort of high-tech management by walking around. It was a great story that simply appeared.

Another time, I was to interview the vice president of La-Z-Boy. It was the biggest interview I'd ever done, and I was a little nervous as I was lead into Pat Norton's leather-and-wood-filled office. A large man with pinstriped suit, Norton came out from behind a huge wooden desk and kindly invited me to have a seat on the luxurious leather sofa and asked if I minded if he had lunch brought in for us. I said no, and he quickly asked "what would you like on your hamburger?" This high-powered, highly paid executive was a regular at the local Wendy's, and he often had the juicy burgers brought in for guests. He ordered up two Norton specials, a specific combination of meat, cheese, pickles, etc. that he was known for. It was a great story, and it was the highlight of the article that focused on the humble, kind, soft-spoken vice president of one of the country's largest furniture manufacturers.

I'm still looking for stories today. As part of the brand strategy process we use at my firm, we ask a lot of questions and challenge our clients to be truthful about who they are and who they want to me. It's the first step in producing brands that are different, inviting, relevant and truthful.

And I learned how to do it at my very first job more than 20 years ago.

Technorati Tags: story telling, brand management, brand communications, Wendy's, La-Z-Boy

A tale of two tours

2006-06-20T22:25:00.000-05:00

On the recent trip to Colorado, I had the opportunity to see how two organizations use their manufacturing operation as a brand building tool, and realize that there are more than one way to tell a story.

First up was the Coors plant in Golden, Colorado. I'm a huge Coors fan and really looked forward to seeing the plant and tasting the samples! When we first arrived at a well-signed parking lot, we quickly got on a small tour bus that covered several blocks of Golden. The driver told us a few things about Golden but we couldn't here it over the bad public address system.

We soon arrived at the plant entrance and were assigned tickets - labels from the various Coors-produced products. What a cool idea! When the "Zima" group was called together about 10 minutes later, we gathered together for a brief explanation of the process and those under age 35 had their IDs checked for the sampling room, and given a paper band to wear on their wrist.

You can't always get close to the actual process, so the 20-something cutie that gave our tour, would point out points of interest through a window, and then stop at a video display to show the details in a produced segment of two to five minutes in length. This happened several times before we arrived at a long hallway lined with product displays. The tour guide briefly touched on each product - including original Coors, Coors Light, Coors Non-alcoholic, Keystone, Keystone Light, Keystone Premium, Killian's Irish Red, Blue Moon, Zima and the recently acquired Molson brand products from Canada.

Then, we moved into the tasting room, which was spacious and staffed with enough people to handle the groups of 10-15 people quickly and efficiently, serving up almost all of the brands available from the brewer. The surprise: we were offered full 16-ounce glasses, limit three. I don't know about you, but if I drank three of those in 30 minutes, I wouldn't be able to drive out of the parking lot, let alone leave Golden (not that it would be a bad thing to be stranded in a tasting room of a brewery)!

Then, as with any good plant tour, we exited through the well-appointed gift shop loaded with everything-Coors, back onto the bus and back to the parking lot with a friendly "did everybody have a good time?" from the driver.

The tour was polished, but not overly so. We went down some narrow corridors and steps. I saw elevators, but they seemed off the beaten path and not very user friendly. The nooks and crannies proved that the tour came after the plant, not the other way around. Overall, it was a good use of the company's brand management investment, in my opinion, and it helped expose me to some other Coors-owned brands that I wasn't aware of.

On the way through Denver a week later, we toured the Hammond's Candies factory tour in Denver. It was a much different kind of tour, but every bit as valuable to the brand. Our group was given tickets and asked to wait in a parlor-type room, and unlike the brewery tour, the free samples were on a small counter on one side of the room, along with some historical displays and newspaper clippings on the walls. Kids were encouraged to wear a paper hat just like the workers wore in the factory.

When we were called to begin the tour, a young women with a thick accent asked us to sit on benches in front of a large screen TV, where she used a remote control to start up a DVD explaining the company's history and the process. The opening image had burned into the screen, leaving a ghostly image behind throughout the film. After asking if this was anybody's first time throughout the plant (about 10 of the 20 or so people in our group had been there before), she escorted us into the factory and used a microphone to explain the process of making candies by hand that we were seeing through large display windows. She was very pleasant, but a little hard to understand. And she was very engaged, not afraid to answer questions by addressing the person asking the question specifically.

At the end, we were, once again, directed to exit through a retail show room where we could purchase myriad products we had just seen manufactured, including discounted items on the "oops" table that didn't meet the company's standards for custom-made orders or weren't' exactly the right shape.

This was not as slick as the Coors presentation, but every bit as effective. Above each station in the factory hung a low-budget but neatly printed sign that described the job being done there. The process was quaint, as were the barber poles, candy canes and other sundries they sold. I was a little surprised, however, to see a small selection of non-Hammond branded items - including Gummy Bears and Necco Wafers - for sale in the store. We also saw assorted chocolate covered raisins, peanuts and other items that we had not heard mention of.

The tour, however, was a very good use of marketing funds, again, in my opinion. The evidence, to me, was the number of people who had already been on the tour had come back for another round.

The brand point: if you have a manufacturing operation, figure out a way to get your customers closer to it. Use explanatory graphics and or a video to tell the parts of the story that can't easily be told in person. And get connected to your customer!

Technorati Tags: brand management, factory tours, Hammond's Candies, Coors Brewery

Me dost think thou protests too much about soccer

2006-06-15T12:51:00.000-05:00

I'm backtracking on my earlier post that soccer's got a brand problem. If we use Kathy Sierra's love/hate model, I think soccer - specifically soccer in the U.S. - will be just fine. MLS fans are showing up, teams are starting to make some money and the soccer-haters are besides themselves.

Did you see them come out of the woodwork in the aftermath of the Men's National Team 0-3 drubbing in their World Cup opener. They fell all over themselves announcing that this proves that soccer will never make it here.

I think all it proves is that soccer is hated by a certain group, to the point of distraction. I think many baseball, basketball and hockey fans are coming unglued with the amount of publicity the sport has gotten and can't stand sharing the spotlight. Why would they be so vocal?

I watch the standings and will catch a few innings of Cardinals baseball game on TV, but I really don't care for the sport; I don't understand its nuances. The NBA is a snoozer until the playoffs for all but the most rabid of fans. And hockey on TV has never been a draw because you don't get the added benefit of the crowd that is every bit as important as the action on the ice. But you don' hear me or others slamming those sports in message boards or on blogs. I just don't care much for them.

To me, they're like Brussels sprouts, South Park and beauty pageants: they don't make it on my radar.

Soccer, on the other hand, is on the radar of many sports fans. And during this period of time every four years, the rest of the American sports landscape gets nervous that soccer, someday, may actually reach its potential here, too.

Update 6/19/06: It seems that a lot of people are taking notice. Check out the ratings...soccer during the day on cable is beating out hockey finals on broadcast in primetime!

Technorati Tags: World Cup, soccer, MLS, MLB, NBA, sports fans

Photo: Reuters

Maybe it was just that time of the season

2006-06-11T22:10:00.000-05:00

We were munching down on our $3.95 piece of chocolate cake in a small bakery along the Blue River running through Breckenridge, Colorado last week. Eating didn't slow us down from making plans for our next meal, and we asked the cute chick behind the bakery counter if a certain restaurant was any good. She gushed, "Yes, it is." and nothing more.

That's the kind of less-than-friendly responses we got from people in this tourist-dependent mountain town. The website says that friends are welcome, so it was quite a shock to see the brand disconnect between the communication and the reality. Perhaps it was simply that time of the month, er, season - they must have been dog-tired from the winter ski season and hadn't yet geared up for the summer season that, by the closed attractions, must start around June 15th.

The front desk guy at the time share resort that had invited our friends to visit treated her like the guy behind the glass at a hotel that rents rooms by the hour. When he couldn't find her reservation, he told her "sit down over there and I'll got figure out the problem." When my friend relayed this incident to the salesperson showing her the resort, the salesperson replied "that's because you aren't an owner." I wasn't there so I don't know if this was said in jest as a bizarre sales pitch or if she really believed it, but it, too, was shocking. She was more important than an owner: she was a prospective owner!

We received the opposite treatment from a man in the tiny town of Fairplay, a burg on the other side of Hoosier Pass from Breckenridge. It was a small mountain town that catered, I'm sure, to workers and residents more than the occasional tourist who stumbled into town. We were considering driving over Boreas Pass, and when we pulled up to ask directions and get some feedback on the safety of crossing the pass in our gas-sucking family minivan, he was quite friendly, telling us that it was a nice drive, not a bad road because it had been regraded two years ago. Then he gave us perfect directions to two different parks in which we could have our picnic lunch.

It was a completely different experience. Two contacts with locals divided by a mountain, and a world apart.

The town of Breckenridge and the entire area was beautiful. Clean. Easy to get around. But, based on our experience, the Breckenridge brand warriors need to get everybody on the same page.

This is a great picture from The Korky on Flickr...I lost my camera somewhere along the way :(

Technorati Tags: Breckenridge Colorado, tourism, community branding

I met a zombie in Ogallala

2006-06-11T22:08:00.000-05:00

We managed to survive a six-day vacation across three states without once stopping at the Golden Arches, but we did meet a zombie at an Ogallala, Nebraska Wendy's.

It was a clear summer evening, and darkness hung in the air as we entered the largely empty Wendy's restaurant to get a late night meal. After standing at the counter for a couple of minutes, Wes stepped up, looked at the cash register and then yelled at someone in the back, saying "You didn't sign out at the register." He then turn to us and asked us if he could take our order.

I should have said, "I doubt it" and moved on. It took 15 minutes to get two rather large orders of burgers, chicken nuggets, fries, baked potatoes and a drink. They had no chicken nuggets, but it would take about three minutes, we told us. After ordering baked potatoes, he said they didn't have any potatoes, then he said it would take two minutes to get some more, and asked us if we wanted to wait.

After several other missteps, he started to tell us his tale of woe; how he'd been there since 10 that morning, went home for an hour before returning, and how two others had called in sick and they only had one person preparing food. And there was a manager there because I saw her void part of the order he screwed up.

This wasn't Wes' fault. He was tired. He was overworked. It was his manager's fault and the owner's fault and Wendy's fault. They didn't prepare him to own his brand. They didn't empower him to treat people right, no matter the time of day. He didn't know or care about the Wendy's brand; he was just earning a paycheck.

Mike Wagner calls these types of workers zombies, and they can ruin the good work of a brand owner. Wendy's has a lot of minimum wage workers but I've never seen one this willing to stab the brand in the back, all because of lack of sleep.

Ogallala Extra: We also stopped in at a small grocery store and had a great brand experience. It was late so one of the two entrances were locked, as is common when stores are open late. Although we would have appreciated a "use other door" sign, we were greeted by a sweetheart of a cashier who smiled warmly while checking us out, let us out the locked door when we asked about it, and then held it open for another confused late-night shopper. I can't remember the store name or the employee's name but I'll go back if I ever get to Ogallala.

Technorati Tags: Ogallala, Nebraska, Wendy's, brand owners, brand management, employee training

Utah gets to the point with its plate

2006-06-11T21:22:00.000-05:00

The Brand Warrior was on vacation last week, driving across Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado for a few days in the mountains. You don't earn the title "brand warrior" by shutting down for a few days, so brand observations kept coming along with the miles on the family minivan.

As we played the old license plate game (Okay, the adults played the game while the kids watched videos, played Gameboy and asked "are we there yet?" every 14.3 minutes) I started thinking about the valuable little piece of real estate every state owns on the back - and sometimes the front - of their citizens' cars.
And I began to make a few unscientific observations about the role license plates play in brand management and the success or failure many of them have achieved.

Plates serve one of three roles, by my estimation: simple identification, brand building and marketing. The plates on trucks seem to be the best example of identification. Use simple helvetica letters for the state name and big letters for the plate. Brand building plates simply remind you about the state, whether it's important to you or not. Illinois is a good example with it's "Land of Lincoln" tagline. So is Ohio with its claim to be "the birthplace of aviation" to trump North Carolina's claim on the Wright Brothers. None of those claims, however, do a very good of attracting visitors. The best marketing plate, in my humble opinion, is that of Utah. The plate reads "Ski Utah". Simple, direct and active. They don't want you to live there, they don't want you to visit there, they don't want you to look for history there. They just want you to ski there. The rest will come when you ski there. Brilliant!
Plates are a great way to make money. In the old days, each state had but one version and no pictures. Along the way between Des Moines, Iowa and Breckenridge, Colorado we spotted at least a dozen different versions of Colorado plates. And I'm not talking a template with a different type of emblem for a special cause. I'm talking totally, completely different plates. The Colorado DMV website lists 82 different types of plates! They must make a fortune off license and registration fees in Colorado (they don't make it off hotel charges: our bill for one night in Golden included the room rate and one line item for taxes of about $2.70!). A quick web search shows that Tennessee has 90 different plates, California has 11 versions and 117 different logos, mostly for specific military groups. And Texas, where everything including the DOT budget is bigger, has more than 120 different plates to share your message.
Some plates are beautiful, but illegible. The Minnesota plate is as stunning as the lake country but you can't read it unless it's standing still. Illinois has replaced the familiar blue box and san serif type with a new, white, simple plate with "Illinois" spelled out in stunning cursive, but you can hardly read it unless you're driving at the same exact speed in the other guy's blind spot!

If license plate graphics interest you, check out this site for a more technical history of each state's plate and some good reference photos. Illinois gives visitors a history of license plates here.

So, hats off to Utah for making use of a great little piece of real estate to support its brand. The rest of the states - or at least the 33 we saw on our trip - could use a little work. Make it different, inviting, relevant and truthful and you'll make it yours Tennessee, or Illinois, or Texas.

Technorati Tags: license plates, state marketing, tourism marketing

Brand ownership moment in a garage

2006-05-30T13:13:00.000-05:00

In no other business, in my humble opinion, is brand more clearly defined as a reputation than in the auto repair business.

That's a sensitive subject today because I took our 2000 Town and Country Van in for an oil change and a brake inspection and found out that I need new brakes. If I really do need brakes, it's better to know now than as we roll down a mountain in Colorado next week. If I don't really need brakes, it's par for the course for an industry that carries plenty of dubious baggage.

I say this because I've been spoiled. We had a great mechanic: Randy was trustworthy, neighborly, and fair. He would tell us when we didn't need to do anything to the car. He was typical small-town America and we never once questioned his judgement or his estimate of what was needed to keep our family vehicles safe. He closed up his shop a month or so ago, and went to work repairing a company's fleet vehicles, much to the dismay of his loyal customer base, of which we were one household. Now, we're back at the mercy of an industry that gets intself on 60 Minutes about every two or three years because it performs so poorly and instills such little trust in its customers.

Today, I took the van to the local Tuffy franchise near my office. The owner was cordial, and several in our office had experienced good service from them in the past, but I still had more than a little trepidation when I heard the estimate.

Just last week, I took our 98 Lumina in for an oil change and the manager tried to upsell me on several fluid system flushes that would cost about $250. Now, I've never changed those other fluids and it was entirely believable that they needed flushed, but he'd never mentioned that during previous oil changes. And those services are on sale this month! One coworker said they almost always find $300 worth of work that needs to be done, and always say you need a serpentine belt. The estimate from fixing my brakes was $372. And the 129,000-mile Lumina would soon need a serpentine belt, he told me last week.

I really don't think they're taking me, but I just don't know for sure. I just think it's an unfortunate coincindence: My brakes need work and Randy's not there to take care of it. And the industry's brand got in the way. I hope this place proves me wrong.

Flickr photo from Jon Haynes

Technorati Tags: auto repair, reputation management

Does your brand make you puke?

2006-05-26T12:56:00.000-05:00

Brand ownership isn't easy. In fact, its very difficult because we've all been taught to suppress our natural creativity. The only time we take our eyes off the bottom line is when we wrap our hands around what Hugh McLeod calls business porn - the stories of great brands, great businesses and great lives in the pages of Fast Company, In Search of Excellence, and others - dreaming of immersing ourselves in the self-satisfaction of a good brand, an invigorating work environment and or job that doesn't make us puke.

This is what it looks like.

Mike Wagner's post about Blu Dot gives us some clues about what the alternative might look like. In his post is this clue:

"Andrew Blauvelt, design director and curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is a big fan – and a customer who owns several pieces. He raves, “They take a lighthearted approach, but are still serious about solving design problems. Their furniture has spirit and ingenuity; a down-to-earth appeal."

It's not about making money - although they made $7.5 million last year, according to Mike. It's about why they are in business: to solve design problems. And look at the picture: they're smiling. They enjoy their job! If you can't love what you're doing, why do it?

How do you know you don't love your job? How do you know that you're not even close to owning your brand? You start saying things like:

"We can't spend money on marketing until we make a few more sales?"
"We can do that in house and save a lot of money."
"Customer service and quality are our strengths."
"I'm getting tired of our logo. Let's freshen it up."
"What's that going to cost."

Most of the people at Blu Dot, at Southwest Airlines, at Starbucks love their work. And it shows.
How do people know you love your job? And what are you willing to do to change?

Technorati Tags: new job, careers, love your job, career planning

Bad customer service you gotta love

2006-05-26T11:44:00.000-05:00

Last night, I popped a new, refilled ink cartridge into my printer to find it wouldn't work. I called the Walgreen's technical service number on the cartridge and was greeted with a thick, but delightful female British accent. I began by explaining my problem, telling the lady my printer type, etc. but was soundly cut off with "Just a minute, love, I'll ask the questions." And then she proceeded to ask my name, address, telephone and email address. I could hardly keep laughing as I dutifully answered her questions before she told me that a technical services person would call me back shortly.

They didn't call back last night, and hadn't as of early this morning. Nevertheless, it was an interesting example of bad service that left me with a smile on my face. She was entertaining and I didn't expect to get a good answer anyway. I guess that's what happens when you go in with low expectations.

Today, Mike Wagner reminded me that Ireland has embraced the world's customer service work, so I figure that's where she was when I called. I think I interrupted her tea time!

Technorati Tags: Ireland, customer service, call centers

Who's your mama?

2006-05-15T13:23:00.000-05:00

Mike Wagner's done it again. He's lobbed a timely brand-centric post linking moments of truth in the family with brand moments of truth in business. He cites the mom-delivered line "That's how we do things in this family" as the ultimate brand management dictum.

While Mike reminded me in an offline conversation that many companies (dis)function like families, I found myself wondering how would we act if our moms actually worked alongside us every day?

Would we use only brand-appropriate language?
Would we be more diligent about sending thank you notes to our clients and vendors?
Would we get our work done on time, checking it twice before leaving the office?
Would we say please and thank you - and mean it - to our co-workers?
Would we follow up on our promises to others?

Or would we slip out at night, hang out with undesirable vendors and drink cheap beer?

Technorati Tags: mother's day, brand, disfunctional families, disfunctional businesses

A personal brand that hits close to home

2006-05-14T10:38:00.000-05:00

I went to a going-away party for my wife’s co-worker and discovered the power and longevity of a personal brand.

At the party, a guy name Jerry sat down next to me and introduced himself. He had spent a lifetime in various manufacturing jobs, and even did a little marketing, so that’s what we talked about. When I shared that my father worked his whole career in manufacturing, at International Harvester in the Quad Cities (of Iowa and Illinois), he cocked his head quizzically and asked his name. When I told him by dad was John True, his eyebrows shot up and his eyes practically bugged out. Knowing that my dad had a reputation as a tough man with whom you didn’t want to tangle, I thought I was staring at a victim and asked with great trepidation “where you one of the guys on his good side or his bad side?”

A smile came over his face, followed by an excruciating long pause, after which he started to tell me how much he admired my father, how calm and quiet my father had been when he supervised Jerry and others at that plant. He said my father was a gentile man, never said a bad thing about anybody, never spoke in anger, never raised his voice and was always fair. He said, second only to his first employer (a man to whom he’d run in an instant if he needed Jerry’s help), my dad was the man he respected most in this world. Through the tears welling up in my eyes, I could see Jerry admired my father deeply.

He told stories, shared names of co-workers I remember my dad talking about, and made the evening very enjoyable.

On the way home, though, I began to think about my dad, and realized how short of that brand I’d fallen in my own career. While I think I’m a fair person, I don’t know that anyone would notice because I’m as far from quiet and gentile as you can get. And I’ve been known to speak in anger about people, raise my voice and fly off the handle. With a smile on his face, my boss once said “Mark, if there were a war, you’d be the first one to get your head blown off!”

While my clients sometimes believe that I take ideas too personally, in reality, I take their brand very personally. If an idea supports my client’s brand, I’ll defend it loudly even when the client doesn’t seem to care. My title is brand warrior, not brand guesser or supporter or guy-who-will-tell-you-what-you-want-to-hear. The title of this blog reflects this brand because a little bit of Mark goes a long way. And I believe my brand represents passion for ideas and a penchant for action.

I think my dad had a passion for people and for empathy.

Talking to my wife, I told her of my concern that I’d fallen short of the standard John True set. She reminded me that he and I have something in common: the role we play with clients. After retirement, he did some consulting, and would quietly observe managers in their environment before offering advice. He offered constructive criticism in a calm, quiet and personable manner. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t speak poorly of the man. He was fair. And that’s the job he was paid to do.

In my role as a consultant, helping clients understand their brand and use it to drive forward everything they do, I think I can put a little John True into my work. I can be the voice of the brand, but lower the volume, slow it down a little.

That’s when I realized a little bit of John True lasts a long time.

Technorati Tags: personal brands, client relationships, leadership, marketing consulting

Sports logo blog's a winner

2006-05-10T12:32:00.000-05:00

If you want to combine your marketing interests with your sports interests, check out the Sports Logo Pundit Blog. The guy's admittedly an amateur design critic, and he's sometimes a bit harsh in his commentary - such as on the Connecticut Defenders logo pictured here - but he's not afraid to share his opinions. Besides, logos are really subjective, and everyone has an opinion.

I'll be visiting regularly because he writes quick, clear and concise about logos I know and many that are new to me. I'm also a logo junkie from way back (have you ever seen the Memphis Rogues' logo from the 1970s North American Soccer League?). And I'm fascinated by the money sports teams make on gear while generating interest and unequalled brand loyalty.

Technorati Tags: sports logos, sports marketing

Soccer's got a brand problem

2006-05-08T22:42:00.000-05:00

First of all, I'm a soccer fan. I've played the game - slowly and rather awkwardly - for more than 20 years and watched it with interest for about 10 years. It's a sport, not unlike baseball, that takes a lot of experience to understand. I watch a little baseball but I don't get anywhere near as much out of it as real baseball aficionados. And while I don't know all the intricacies of soccer, I imagine I know a lot more about that game that the average American.

I know...that's not saying much. Americans generally despise the game of soccer. They think it's slow. They think it's boring. They think it's not worth their time. Some sports journalists and on-air personalities actually go out of their way to blaspheme the sport rather than simply ignore what they don't understand.

Yes, soccer has a brand problem.

For the last 10 to 15 years, people have been forecasting that millions of youth players would grow up to be fans and soccer would boom in America. That never happened because the kids grew up and were told by the culture that soccer was foreign, it was uncool and boring. Even in my home town, the high school football coach has openly insulted players who even hint that they want to play soccer when they're not in football season.

In the old days of the North American Soccer league (NASL) during the 1970s, the plan was to develop US-born players and personalities that would draw fans. Purists got impatient and started importing has-beens from around the world because they had a name, and fans abandoned ship. They even resorted to a minimum quota of American-born players on each team. American fans couldn't pronounce that players' names (even when they only had one name, ala Pele). David Litterer has assembled a nice history of the sport in America, and the U.S. Soccer Federation features an abbreviated timeline here.

About that time, I remember reading in sports magazines that the short shorts, the fit bods and the flowing manes on the young, good-looking players would attract women in droves. Again, it never happened.

Up until the last few years, the men's national team would play friendlies (those are games that don't count toward any league standings or tournaments) against Mexico in San Diego, against Poland in Chicago and against Ireland in Boston just to assure a good gate. Now that the team is getting combative - they're ranked number 5 in the world the last time I looked - they play competitive games against Mexico and Costa Rica in the snow of Columbus, Ohio. And a growing audience is paying attention. During the 1994 World Cup, the American hosts - who many thought would fail miserably - drew an record average of 67,000 spectators per game!

The women's national team has been the cream of the crop around the world for a decade, and it made media stars out of several of its regulars, including Mia Hamm, but the buzz has fizzled with the retirement of key players, and the women's pro soccer league has folded when interest faded after winning the Women's World Cup held in the US in 1999 and reaching the semi-finals on its home turf again in 2003.

And Major League Soccer (MLS) has only managed to get one weekly game on ESPN2, a few on the limited Fox Sports Channel and subscription packages with Dish Network or Direct TV. Starved for viewers, MLS fans on non-LA teams have to wait for the weekly game between the LA Galaxy and their home team because ESPN follows the team around like a homeless puppy. The league championship game pops up on ABC in the fall like a spring mushroom, with little to no promotion on the broadcast station. Only a few MLS teams play in soccer-specific stadia, the Home Depot Center in California, however, is a jewel.

With the steroid scandals in baseball, the inflated egos of the NBA, the NHL strike of last year, it would seem that soccer has a huge advantage right now to make some hay. And the men's national team is going into next month's World Cup finals in Germany with its highest ranking ever: fourth in the world.

I'm looking for answers: what's it going to take for soccer to explode in this country? Does America simply expect a winner? Can American's support a sport that we didn't invent? (Think about it...even American football borrowed the name from soccer, known in the rest of the world as football.)

What will happen the men's national team comes home from Germany with a nice piece of hardware? It looks good for a U.S. team loaded with talented young players like Landon Donovan (pictured), Brian Ching, DeMarcus Beasley who have earned a few caps (games played) in international competition, joining veterans Claudio Reyna, Kasey Keller and Eddie Pope to form the most talented and deep US Men's National Team ever.

If they did win, how long would that keep the fickle America sports fan happy?

A wonder if John - a PR pro and soccer nut - has an idea on this subject?

Technorati Tags: World Cup Soccer, MLS, Claudio Reyna, Landon Donovan, DeMarcus Beasley, Kasey Keller, Brian Ching, soccer, football, spectator sports, NHL, NBA

Why do franchisees buy franchises?

2006-05-02T00:20:00.000-05:00

I stopped by one of my favorite sandwich shops tonight, a Blimpie owned by one of the most engaging franchisees I’ve ever run into. He and his wife work behind the counter at their two stores because they’ve seen what happens when minimum-wage zombies are put in charge of a business.

It was slow, as it has been every time I’ve visited in the past year or so, and I got to talk to him about his business. Traffic and sales have been lousy for over a year, and the high price of gas has killed store traffic even more lately. He’s spent thousands of dollars redesigning the store in bright colors, and keeps the place spotless.

He went on to explain that the national Blimpie office is in a mess, and has quit supporting the franchisees with advertising. The result is a lawsuit by a bunch of franchisees and subfranchisors. They claim misappropriation of funds and accuse Blimpie and its CEO Jeffrey Endervelt of entering into agreements with Pepsi and a large turkey supplier that resulted in higher costs for lesser quality products. Endervelt recently resigned as CEO, chairman and president, which might have been a good thing to do after last year’s makeover of the Blimpie brand identity.

The local owner said he always believed that a great product and great service was all it was going to take to make a living. In fact, the Blimpie sandwich is arguably comparable to sandwiches from competitors Subway and Quizno’s, and these two Blimpie owners set a high standard for engaging service but they’ve not seen the success they expected. He admits that the price points are a little bit higher than the competitors, and now they are getting beat up by Panera Bread and brown baggers.

The Subway sandwich shops I’ve seen don’t exactly scream "clean," yet the chain has been ranked the number one franchise opportunity in Entrepreneur magazine’s “Franchise 500” rankings for 14 of the last 18 years, and first place since 2001. Note: Blimpe comes in at #88, behind Hungry Howies Pizza & Subs, Panera Bread, Arby's, Carl's Junior, Denny's,Burger King, Hardee's, KFC, Dairy Queen, Popeye's, Church's Chicken, Hot Stuff Foods, Taco Bell, Quizno's Subs, Sonic, and McDonald's.

Of course, like any franchise, Quizno’s has had its own problems with franchisees.

So I wonder why entrepreneurs decide to buy a franchise. Why buy a Blimpie? Are the branding package, the opportunity to learn from other franchisees, the resources and the promise of ongoing support really worth it? Is the instant recognizability worth the restrictions? Can you really believe what you read in the Uniform Franchise Offering Circular (UFOC)?

I’m really curious about the pros and cons of franchising, so entrepreneurs out there let me know what you think.

In the meantime, I may stop by Blimpie again soon and suggest that he start again without the baggage of the franchise, without the expensive overhead, without the high-cost ingredients. He’s learned how to do it. He’s learned how not to do it. And I think he can do it better.

Technorati Tags: Blimpie, Quizno's, Subway, franchising

Entrepreneurs trip out of the blocks

2006-05-01T22:34:00.000-05:00

Stan DeVaughn is singing a sweet tune in his latest post over at Branding Post blog. In his post about the long distance between "vast vision and a half-vast go-to-market effort," he zooms in on the lack of a brand. "Hint: It's not about the logo" he writes.

In my post about short-sighted entrepreneurs a few weeks ago, I thought this was because most entrepreneurs are in love with their ideas and can't believe that anybody wouldn't also love them. In fact, these are the same business owners who believe that a great product can sell itself and marketing is something you do after you make a few sales.

One more great tip for start-ups from Branding Post: branding "demands that you see through the target’s eyes, stand in his loafers, and know precisely how he describes and feels the problem you profess to solve for him."

Wow. That takes a lot of work, a lot of vision and a lot of humility.

Technorati Tags: go-to-market, entrepreneurs, starting a business

May Fast Company opens with fast start

2006-04-30T23:20:00.000-05:00

The May 2006 issue of Fast Company hit my mailbox yesterday, and it got out of the blocks quickly with “Fast Talk: voices from the creative front lines,” interviews with five brand warriors from the world of sports. Except for the cheesy photo of the Oakland Raiders’ Patty Herrera wearing shoulder pads, it was a great look into the strategies these pros employ to make their brands different, inviting, relevant and truthful.

The aforementioned Herrera, a former Raiderette, is now the director of multicultural initiatives for Raider Nation. She overseas outreach to minority communities, and has helped the black and silver connect with Hispanics, Chinese, German and, even, Navajo. In the interview by Michael A. Prospero, Herrera says “The Raiders have always been about being different from the rest, which is why we decided to broadcast Raiders games in Navajo; to unite the Navajo Nation with the Raider Nation.”

Tom Whaley, executive vice president of the St. Paul Saints, has one of the most intriguing jobs, serving up bizarre activities to keep families coming back to fill the 6,000-seat minor-league baseball season all summer long. Under his guidance, the team started using live pigs to deliver baseballs because they thought mascots were becoming too fluffy. And for 2006, they’ll feature “ballet parking” – ballerinas who’ll park your car. The bespeckled Whaley says “If we just did baseball, we’d probably have 1,000 people here each night.”

The article also includes interviews with Paul Brooks, president of NASCAR digital entertainment and broadcasting (“Everything we do with technology is about giving fans the choice of how they want to watch the race.”); Tanya Van Court, vice president and general manager of ESPN broadband and interactive television (“The appetite for video on demand online is growing, and a year from now, it’s going to be insatiable.”); and Brett Yormark, president and CEO of the New Jersey Nets (“We’re fortunate to have great character guys like Jason Kidd and Vince Carter on our roster, so if I can exploit that in a positive way, why not? Our All Access campaign puts them in touch with fans…”).

These folks are winners that we can all learn a few things from. Check out their programs and their sites and see if you can apply their game plan to your operation.

Technorati Tags: sports marketing, Oakland Raiders, New Jersey Nets, NASCAR, St. Paul Saints, ESPN360, brand

Please put your hands up and back away from the table

2006-04-28T23:00:00.000-05:00

Professional organizations that support communicators - such as IABC, of which I've been a member for a good part of the past 20 years - are always saying that communicators need to earn a seat at the management table. They need to support the organization's goals, speak management’s language and get serious about business. If they don't, the line goes, they'll be seen only as tacticians for the rest of their lowly careers.

Ron Shewchuk recently posted on this subject and, if you're involved with corporate communications either inside or outside the organization, I think it's worth your time to read his comments. They're really insightful.

Here’s a taste:

“Well, I’m here today to tell you that I’ve been a temporary dinner guest at that strategic table more than a few times in my long and sordid career. And I’m ready to share a little secret: most of the time the guests are insane and the food is undercooked, overcooked, rotten or poisoned. Very few decisions actually ever get made. Long-term direction is often nothing more than the path of least resistance, or whatever your cranky investors are insisting you do next. And battle tactics are devised in a very deep, cushy bunker in which the primary goal is not victory, but self-preservation.

“Want to have the ear of your CEO? Fat chance. So few chief executives actually listen to anyone, let alone a lowly communicator, that you might as well just forget it.”

After going through a litany of reasons the strategic communicator is a myth, Ron ends solidly with some very practical application in the third of the three-part series. Frankly, his tips parallel some of the things I wrote in my “be subversive” series, but he forgets one important foundation: brand.

If communicators want to get to the table – and have the courage to go there – they need to be brand warriors. They need to either fly under the radar, slowly communicating the brand standards internally, or be loud and proud about the value of brand, so that everybody starts asking “what’s with that guy?” They need to hold others accountable to the brand: write about the brand and how others are using it to make every decision. And they need to help people establish guidelines and deadlines and communicate them so they can’t cop out when the going gets tough.

Yes, it’s going to make some people angry. Some people are going to fight it. In the end, however, you’ll not only be at the table, I think you be standing on top of the table, holding up the brand as a shield against all things ordinary.

Or you’ll be out the door, pounding the street for a new and better opportunity.

Technorati Tags: IABC, communications, brand, marketing, careers, management

A little bit more of Scoble

2006-04-24T22:52:00.000-05:00

I wish every corporate communications pro would read at least one short segment in Robert Scoble's interview in Communication World. In answer to a question about organizations being threatened by blogs, the A-lister answers:

"The fact of the matter is (corporations are) out of control and they're just holding on to a memory. When I talk about blogging to big companies, I see fear: I see a memory of the way the world used to be."

For more about the article - the online version of Communication World is not posted yet - check out IABC's engaging blog, IABC Commons.

Technorati Tags: Robert Scoble, IABC, corporate communications

How do you monitor blogs?

2006-04-24T22:31:00.000-05:00

I've been slow to post over the past few weeks because of travel, a number of thunder storms that forced me to shut down the computer during my evening sessions and the desire to catch up on much needed sleep. Today, however, the May-June 2006 issue of Communication World, the magazine of the International Association of Business Communicators hit my mailbox. The cover story featured an interview with Microsoft's Robert Scoble.

The piece is a great primer for those corporate communicators who are cowering in the corner of their cubicle hoping an executive doesn't come by asking "what's this blogging thing all about?" For the rest of us, it's reinforcement for many of the issues we already understand and look forward to sharing with others not yet embracing the emerging tumult in communications.

I was particularly intrigued by one quote: "When you start putting everything you're doing in public, you start getting new kinds of input that you didn't have before. People start working with you." So, in that spirit, I'm asking a question today; not giving advice.

How do you monitor blogs and message boards for comments on your clients, your employer and topics of interest to them?

I use Bloglines to subscribe to a number of blogs, but don't make a regular habit of hitting them all. And I use Technorati to search for specific topics at specific times. But what's the best way to keep an ongoing eye on the whole blogosphere or message boards?

In the old days, we used clipping services that simply filled our file cabinets with tons of newsprint in two-inch-wide strips. And video monitoring services cost a fortune. There's got to be a better strategy to passively monitor digital discussions on behalf of our employers and clients.

Let me know how you do it.

Technorati Tags: Technorati, blogosphere, monitoring, clipping services, public relations, YouTube

When personal decisions bring a brand down

2006-04-22T11:35:00.000-05:00

On the way back from the National Agri-Marketing Association's Trade Show and Conference in Kansas City this week, I came across this example of good brands going bad because of personal decisions. I say "personal" decisions because I don't believe that this local McDonald's restaurant in Bethany, Missouri, was following brand standards when they plastered these red golden arches across the front of this awning. Many brand identity standards don't allow for their logo to be used as a decorative element, either. I believe the local manager thought this was a cool idea, and he liked red and black as a color combination, so he called up the local sign company and asked him to make a bunch of vinyl logos. Then he probably asked one of his teenager employees to put them up. It didn't matter if it was straight...it just needed to look cool. Will this little error kill McDonald's? No. But will a bunch of personal decision that aren't built on the brand kill McDonald's? Definately.

In my 20+ years of experience, I've learned that this is what happens when personal decisions override brand standards. There's absolutely nothing wrong with red and black - I love red and black - but I'm thinking the brand identity standards for McDonald's don't allow for a red logo.

I'm working with a client - a professional services firm - that employs one person who wants to be the marketing director, create a new logo and marketing materials, even if it's not his job. His heart is in the right place, but his responsibility isn't.

A small town bank client had one employee who would bend over backwards to serve customers, even when it violated policies, put the bank at financial risk and made his coworkers look bad.

This is the same thing that happens when marketing managers leave organizations and new ones arrive: ready and willing to change agencies, change logos and put their imprint on the brand, if that brand needs it or not.

Employees should take charge of the brand, but only after they understand it thoroughly. It's up to an organization's leaders to define that brand, teach employees how to communicate that brand and then allow them to own the brand and hold others accountable to the brand every day.

And then someone should say "Golden Arches are to be printed in gold!"

Technorati Tags: McDonald's, brand management, employee empowerment

Brochure basics

2006-04-05T22:09:00.000-05:00

A few posts back, I started a short series of posts about business basics including business cards, letterhead and websites. Today, I want to tackle the basic brochure.

Since the explosion of the Internet - I was there when we called it the "Information Superhighway" with a straight face - the lowly printed brochure has fallen on hard times. Two dimensions just aren't sexy any more.

I disagree, and think there will always be a place for a printed brochure. It's usually where there's not a computer or an Internet connection, such as a trade show hallway, at dinner in a nice restaurant or on an airplane: some common places to tell your story to would-be clients and influencers. It's in the hands of people that don't spend hours a day searching the Internet or those who spend all Sunday morning reading the New York Times.

A printed brochure can use photography, typography, texture and weight to ignite the vision and the sense of touch unlike a Website. Typography adds dimension to concepts in a completely different way than even sound and video on the Web. Creative folds can also create motion and emotion.

I'm not suggesting a printed brochure is superior to a Website, it's just different. And when it's done right - with a foundation in the brand - it can complement every other communication tool in the brand warrior's arsenal.

Make it dynamic; make it personal
Ironically, the dynamic characteristic of the Internet is the driving force behind my overarching brochure creative. Brochures that my firm creates are flexible, consisting of multiple components that can be used alone or in combination to tell a story to a targeted audience after understanding their motives, the desires, their pain and their needs. If you sell three product lines, and you're talking to a customer who's interested in only one, why put a brochure about all three products in front of him. Act like you've listened and show him only the most relevant piece of information you have. Why pull out a catalog with a hundred items when you can pull out a short brochure that explain what your brand means to his company and two product detailers about the models that will get him excited. A component brochure is like a website in that the reader only sees what they need to see.

Make it emotional
The old adage "sell the benefits, not the features" became an old adage because it's true. Your competitors can sell features, only you can sell the benefits of buying from you: it's called a brand and it's an emotional response in your prospective customers. Roy H. Williams is the master of meaningful copy that elicits emotional responses, in my opinion, and anybody can learn some helpful tips from his book Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads. I suggest you read it if you want to make your brochure copy sing to clients.

Don't forget to exploit the drama of great photography. Use faces to grab the readers' attention. Move in close to create excitement. Or pull out wide to create awe. And don't skimp on the photographer: Photoshoping is not a verb!

Make it memorable
Use beautiful paper that reeks of passion. Or heavy paper that beats its chest with power. Or light, delicate paper that crinkles when you breathe on it. Paper holds unique clues in a story: let it work for you.

Make your brochure BIG so it stands out on a desk, or make it small enough to carry conveniently in a jacket pocket. Or make it tiny so you can whisper a single, simple and critical point into the mind of your reader.

Use type right. It's not something I claim to know how to do, but typesetting is the difference between good and great design, and it's worth paying someone who knows the difference to get a hand on your design. I know it when I see it, and your readers will enjoy the experience if the type's done right.

In the end, a brochure is just another tool, but when used correctly it's amazing the brand you can build with it. Don't ignore it: embrace it.

Technorati Tags: brochures, photography, paper stock, emotional branding

The truth about teamwork

2006-04-05T21:05:00.000-05:00

"Top performers are not enough" according to Mike Wagner in a post that points squarely at teamwork. The comments at the bottom of the post point out the trouble with teamwork: it rarely exists despite our constant lip flapping.

Patti Digh writes "...Ours is one of the most individualistic cultures on earth - we have much to learn from more collectivist cultures about teamwork, " but Mary Schmidt really nails it with "It's been my experience that the more a company talks about something - teamwork, ethics, quality - the less they actually believe it/have it. "

While others say teamwork is a myth, Lucia Mancuso writes "The whole theory of 'the team being as strong as the weakest link' drives me insane." She sounds like she's been the victim of too many weakest links in a system that sees teamwork as a way to keep the hangers on hanging on, which is another form of denial.

Both situations are sad. Companies that talk of teamwork but don't actually support it, are lying to themselves and their employees. And if they aren't truthful about something simple like that, you have to wonder what else they'll lie about. And in Lucia's case, her employers aren't getting the most out of the team because she's been burned before. Fortunately for her, she's self-employed and gets to make the rules.

The truth about teamwork lies somewhere in the middle of that spectrum: While there's no I in team, I am the one who has to take the first step. No organization can create teamwork: individuals create teamwork.

I used to be like Lucia; I didn't like teams. I liked doing it myself. Then, about six years ago I completed a rather in-depth strengths a styles assessment and realized the root of my teamwork issues. I was the type of person who wanted to get moving, do something, don't stand around waiting for things like facts and policies and procedures. I thrived in an environment that promoted "it's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission." The problem was that I needed someone alongside me to slow things down, sweat the details and build the systems. I needed a detail oriented person to dot the i's and cross the t's. I needed someone to be the social butterfly that keeps the team together in tough times and celebrates in good times.

I needed a team. And they needed me. Once I learned a little humility - something the sports superstars Mike writes about don't understand - the truth about teamwork became clear to me.
It was an amazing realization that has allowed me to appreciate others more, produce more incredible work and enjoy my time on this Earth a whole lot more.

Technorati Tags: teamwork, humility, superstars

Stop advertising!?

2006-03-29T18:35:00.000-06:00

Okay, I admit it. I got hooked by Mary Schmidt's latest post titled "Advertising does nothing for the brand". And while I'm not passionate about advertising, I will strongly defend advertising as brand building tool when used correctly. Fortunately for my blood pressure, Mary writes short and to the point, and the real gem was in her P.S., where she wrote:

"If you're a small company, you probably can't even afford effective advertising - so stop it. Spend the money on something that will get results, like better customer service, employee benefits or community support. "

I've been fortunate in some of my past jobs because I had generous budgets, and advertising was a key element of an integrated marketing campaign built on the brand. It was the linchpinpin in a system of events, event sponsorship, PR and other related brand building tools including face-to-face sales, promotion, facility tours, public affairs and customer support; but it wasn't the only thing we did.

If more organizations would take Mary's command to heart, I believe we'd have more successful brands and fewer commodities.

Better yet: Imagine the impact if just a few newspaper, magazine, radio and TV ad sales people would first ask about the client's other brand-building efforts before they started selling their own product....

Technorati Tags: advertising, brand, brand management, marketing

Website basics

2006-03-28T22:07:00.000-06:00

Given the ubiquitous nature of the Internet these days, I've become a firm believer in investing in a website early on in the process of opening a business. I think it comes right after setting up the computer in the spare bedroom! (That's where most entrepreneurs set up shop on day one, isn't it?) and creating a brochure. It’s the first place people look for answers about your company and the first place you have an opportunity to tell your story.

I’m going to keep these comments short because there are plenty of great resources on building websites, and I’m assuming that you’ve defined your brand and defined your story. There’s no better place to define your story that with a brand-driven, dynamic website.

Find a web pro – Yes, you could get your nephew to build your website, but I’m concerned they will be at soccer practice the next time you need to troubleshoot why a PDF is not uploading. And I’m sure he won’t have the experience necessary to choose the best programming language for your content needs. Besides, you need to be intimately involved in the development of your site to ensure that it is driven by the brand, not by the latest fads.

Demand a content management tool – Keeping a site dynamic will require regular updates, so you need a tool that is easy to use. My firm builds a content management tool into every site to encourage clients to keep the content updated. There’s no quicker way to a stale website than relying on your web programmer to make a page edit or add new content. That costs money and time.

Consider a blog – Blogs are nothing more than websites with user-friendly interfaces that speed the updating and management of content. Mike Sansone is a strong advocate of blogs because they’re fresher than (cob)web sites.

Make time for content updates – The content won’t update itself, so schedule time weekly to review other related websites and to update the content on your website. As you expand your staff, recruit and hire someone with some writing ability and a desire to work on the web.
Again, blogmeister Mike suggests using using RSS feeds from other sites to populate news on a page via a RSS to HTML script (like this one) and incorporating RSS feeds themselves (here’s one service). Remember, you can also re-purpose content from other media, such as white papers or speeches or news releases (in PDF form), for use on the website. And include useful links to like-minded or related websites.

Use your website as a foundation – If you build an easy-to-use website and make managing it a priority, your website should always be the most up-to-date information source for your audiences. When you make a product change, add new distribution or introduce a new service, put the information on your website first. It takes days to print a new brochure or product sheet, design a new add or issue a news release, but only seconds to launch a new section of a website.

Finally, one word of advice: Like with good printing, good design and other marketing tasks, if you can’t afford the time to keep your site updated, you can’t afford to go into business.

Next up: brochure basics

Technorati Tags: websites, brand management, entrepreneurs, starting a business

Watch out, I've got the blog flu?

2006-03-24T07:37:00.000-06:00

Olivier Blanchard of the Brand Building Blog has sneezed on me as part of a experiment called the The Indie Virus. It's a test designed by another blogger to measure the effectiveness of a viral campaign among the non-top-100 bloggers. As a non-top-200,000 blogger, I'm honored to be among the subjects in this experiment.

Now I'll pass it on to a couple of blogs that have emerged recently, but are a blast to read:

The first is the evangelicalchurchblues blog by a friend and client of mine. As far as I'm concerned, this is the "I wish I would have said that" blog! If call yourself a Christian, be ready to be held accountable.

The next is the brand evangelist blog that I posted about a few weeks ago. I don't know where Aaron Dignan's blog rests on the pecking order, but I do know that he writes with skill and attitude that is honorable and admirable. And he's on fire about the value of brand.

Now, would someone pass me a tissue? (And thanks to mattie_shoes for the flickr photo.)

Technorati Tags: The Indie Virus, brand blogs, evangelical Christians, memes

Letterhead basics

2006-03-23T21:10:00.000-06:00

Letterhead is one of those basic tools that I outlined in a post several days ago grouped closely with business cards. I didn't include letterhead in the business card post because the post was already too long, so here is a short bit about this often overlooked brand management tool.

Many organizations settle for plain white paper (usually 2olb. bond) with their logo slapped dead center at the top. Others may actually move it to one side and put their contact info along the top or along the bottom. Then they set the margins wide right and wide left so they don't have to use a second sheet of paper for an average letter.

That's so shortsighted, in my humble opinion.

There are a number of strategies to help your letterhead - like your business card - tell your story when you're not around, including the following:

Use interesting paper - If you want to stand out, make people notice you're there, don't use standard 20- or 24-pound bond white paper: save that paper for the copiers. Make it heavier, add some fiber content or choose a light colored stock. And who says it has to be 8 1/2 x 11; try cutting the sheet just a little smaller (this lets you get a bleed using a standard letter-sized sheet). The designers at my firm have been creating interesting business papers using rounded corners (we've even used a paper that comes pre-cut with rounded corners right from the mill) for an interesting, friendly, casual look.

Make the logo large or small - A tiny logo centered at the top of the page can give the piece a classy, contemporary look. Some logos, when printed large and screened back make a great looking watermark. We've even been experimenting with printing the logo on the back of the page so that it shows through like a watermark on the front, creating a little more WOW along the way.A large flood of color on the back adds visual weight.

Related items - Don't forget to order a supply of blank stock of the same kind for second sheets. Don't forget to order matching or coordinating envelopes to make the package more purposeful. And for a low-cost, high-impact alternative to printed envelopes, create a classy self-adhesive seal and use it to close the envelope like an old fashioned wax seal (just use the "labels and envelopes" feature in Word to create a simple but classic return address on the front of the envelope). While you're at it, why not create a related note card or undersized sheet to complement your communication with a short handwritten note?

Set it up right - Don't forget the stuff that's going to go on the letterhead: the type. Think about the fonts that should be used and leave generous margins so the letter can breathe. If used judiciously, you might want to place other interesting things - such as quotes, facts, even random product shots - in the margins to help tell your story.

And once you've created a fantastic piece of letterhead, don't forget to create a style guide that shows others how to use the letterhead, including approved fonts, margins and signature styles. There's nothing worse than an elegant piece of letterhead featuring comic sans type and half-inch margins.

Next up: website basics

Technorati Tags: letterhead, business papers, starting a business, marketing

Business card basics

2006-03-19T22:06:00.000-06:00

One of the first decisions a new business makes is what to put on its business cards. I suggest that a clear understanding of your brand - or the brand you expect to create - helps you decide the stock color and weight, the ink colors, the shape, the feel of the card and, ultimately, the content on the card. Too many organizations slap together a business card, relying on conventional type, printed on one side of a standard-sized horizontal white card. There are so many possibilities for that little space, so many opportunities to begin to tell your story, and the first chance to make a great impression. Here are just a few things to think about when making decisions about your business cards:

Pay attention to design. If great design is part of the brand experience, you're card should be amazing too. Use a legible typeface and print the basic information in black or a dark ink. Please don't use six point, san serif type in a nice shade of gray. It's just not readable.

Think about the paper. Use a paper stock that attracts attention, that says your serious about everything in your business, right down to the business card. You don't even have to use paper: if you're a plastics manufacturer, why wouldn't you have plastic business cards? Steel fabricators: how about steel business cards? Wood business cards? A little extra thought can turn a business card into a product sample.

Use a great title. My card says "brand warrior" and 99.9 percent of the time, people look at it and comment on it, often asking "what's a brand warrior do?" giving me an instant opportunity to explain my personal brand and how it will help them define their organizational brand. Do you have the guts to be something other than a "manager," "director," "specialist" or some other title plucked from the organizational chart? I keep trying to get my boss and chief sales guy to add the title "chief disruption officer" to his title because that's what he gets to do when he engages prospective clients as he gets to know them better.

Don't forget the contact information. Communicating your name, title, address, phone numbers, email addresses and web addresses are the first and most important role for a business card. Carefully think about how to arrange that information and don't forget a toll-free number if you work with people outside of your area.

Please use the name you want to be called. This is no place to put your full given name if that's not what you want people to call you. If you want to be called "Chuck" use "Chuck" on the card, not "Charles." If you use your middle name, please just put that on the card: it's "Brian Whatever," not J. Brian Whatever." (Okay, I admit this is just a pet peeve of mine, but why confuse the reader when you don't have to?)

Don't be afraid of color. Color has an emotional effect on people and begins to tell the viewer something about you. Carefully choose a color palette that reflects who you are, and make sure that it relates to the rest of your brand identity. Visual integration is the first level of integration: if you don't at least make your materials relate to each other, how to you ever expect the marketing and the sales people to tell the same story? Shouldn't a John Deere business card have a huge splash of John Deere green somewhere on it?

Use both sides. Few organizations ever think about the back of a business card: there's valuable real estate that can be used to make a bold statement with color, or extend your message beyond the business basics of name address and phone. Sometimes, organizations say they need to keep the back of the business card white so they can write notes on it. I don't believe that one: they're usually afraid to pay a little more to print on that side. It's the designer or brand warrior's job to use that real estate strategically. One commodity organization I know features recipes on the back of its business cards. If you have a hard-to-find location, why not put a small map on the back. If you're in retail, use the card back side as a coupon or as a frequent-buyer card or to give directions to your location. Mission statements are fine when printed on the back, but why not ask an intriguing question in that space, list three key product features or repeat an image from a corporate branding ad?

Size matters. The business card has to fit into Rolodexes (yes, some people still use them) or in a card binder, but it doesn't have to be the exact shape and size as everyone else's cards. My firm recently created business cards with rounded corners and they really stood out from the crowd: better yet, they repeated a visual pattern in all of the other printed materials and helped communicate the friendliness and unstuffy attitude the company delivered. When I worked in the vitamin business, one business had cards shaped like a two-part capsule, which was unique (believe it or not) and relevant. Folded cards work when they're important information to be communicated.

Who says it has to be a business card? Think outside the rectangle and create a tool that tells a great story.

Smile for the picture. Why not put a picture on the card? Many people are scared of looking like a real estate agent if they put a picture on their card, but if done right - and for the right reasons - a photo business card will help tell your story. For example, if individual service is a hallmark of your brand, put the person's picture on the card to help connect the customer with the employees. If you're an actor or model, you're going to have to provide photos sooner or later; why not make it sooner. And make it special. Make it big, get it outside a small box, bleed it off an edge, cut out the background or turn up the image.

A word about cost: if you can't afford to print your card without the printer's ad on the back, then you can't afford to be in business. Pay a local printer or pay an online printer (I like vistaprint.com, but there are others that do an adequate job for simple projects like business cards) but don't use the freebies. They make you look less than professional.

Ultimately, your card is the first opportunity to tell your story, and make it different, inviting, relevant and truthful. You can't be gimmicky, but if you're not taking advantage of this opportunity - and using your brand as a decision making tool - you're starting out with one strike. And that's not a good place to be when you're starting a business.

So tell me, what are some of the coolest, most innovative, most interesting, most strategic things you've ever seen in a business card?

Technorati Tags: business cards, starting a business, design, printing

Small business owners have small ideas about marketing

2006-03-19T09:50:00.000-06:00

Most entrepreneurs - deserving of the title - have great ideas. Many of these small business owners have unending passion for those ideas. They see how a product or service concept works and how it can make life better for people. They understand everything about the product or service they want to offer. And some even know how to organize a business to make money with that idea.

Few, in my experience, understand the basic concept of marketing.

I believe the majority of entrepreneurs are blinded by the light of a great idea. They believe that if they make it, the world will beat a path to their door. This usually is evidenced by the following statement:

"I can't do any marketing until I sell some product!"

That's the statement of someone who believes marketing is an expense rather than a tool. It's also a sign that the small business owner's vision doesn't reach past his or her own nose.

Now, I'm not an advocate of pouring loads of cash into a marketing campaign. There are plenty of large, pretentious advertising agencies in the world that will gladly be the recipient of that kind of marketing. Instead, I'm all for setting the stage with marketing basics and then building upon those to be different, inviting, relevant and truthful.

I think the small business needs the following just to be credible:

Business cards and letterhead
Basic introductory brochure
Basic introductory website

In the next few posts, I want to elaborate on each of these items. Until then, what do YOU think are the basics? What should you have with you on your first day in business? On your first sales call?

Technorati Tags: entrepreneurs, business cards, letterhead, websites, business supplies, starting a business

I've been tagged

2006-03-15T22:03:00.000-06:00

Earlier today, Mike Wagner walked into my office and touched me on the shoulder, saying only, "Tag, your it." Deep into my work for the first time on a completely unproductive day, I said "huh?" and we started talking about blogs. It doesn't take much for Mike and I to talk about blogs...or brands or creativity or leadership; we've been learning about blogs side by side for the last couple of months from Mike Sansone and we like to share little victories and frustrations with the technology and wrestle with those other subjects.

That's how the "Four Things Meme" made its way to me.

So here goes my attempt at carrying on the conversation...

Four jobs I've had:
1. clown mascot for a minor league baseball team
2. very inept (still a clown, some would say) forklift driver
3. pizza driver (thank goodness we didn't offer a 30-minute guarantee)
4. editor for an upholstered furniture trade magazine

Four movies I could watch over and over:
1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. Hoosiers
3. Remember the Titans
4. The Firm(it was shot in Memphis, so it reminds me of home)

Four places I have lived:
1. Memphis, Tennessee
2. Davenport, Iowa
3. Des Moines, Iowa
4. Carlisle, Iowa

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. The West Wing (I was a late adopter, and will really miss this one)
2. Love Monkey
3. Survivor
4. College Basketball (I have to agree with Mike on this one!)

Four places I have been on holiday:
1. Myrtle Beach, S. C.
2. Hackensack, Minn.
3. Wisconsin Dells
4. Platte River State Park, Nebraska

Four websites I visit daily:
1. The ICE Technorati Tag Generator
2. Google (can we say 'hourly')
3. Bloglines
4. OwnYourBrand.com

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Pizza
2. Cornbread
3. Barbecue anything
4. Pizza

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. geocaching in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park
2. Saguaro National Park, AZ (one of my two most creative places on the planet)
3. Sundance Ski Resort (the other most creative place on the planet, preferable right next to the wood oven grill in the restaurant in the main lodge)
4. In a cabin on any lake north of Brainard, Minnesota (well, maybe not right NOW, but in a few months)

And four bloggers I am tagging:
1. Jennifer Rice of What's Your Brand Mantra, because she was the first to warmly welcome me to the blogosphere.
2. Olivier Blanchard of the Brand Builder Blog, because his was the first blog to put a link to mine, so he must have thought I had something worth reading.
3. John Wagner of On Message from Wagner Communications, because he's a soccer fan and a PR guy and knows that soccer could use some more positive PR.
4. The Sporting Rogue, if he'll accept, because he's a soccer nut who listed me under "eclectic blogs" on his soccer-full website and seems to live and breathe the beautiful game.

Technorati Tags: Memes, tagging, blog community, Remember the Titans, Hoosiers, The Firm, Myrtle Beach, Memphis, Sundance, Arizona

Be subversive: be courageous

2006-03-13T21:53:00.000-06:00

Now that you've figured the lay of the land, you've learned the issues and opportunities within your organization, you've crafted a brand promise and tried it out on your colleagues and managers, and you've started wearing the brand proudly, what happens? Do others rally around you? Do they insist that the organization be different, inviting, relevant and truthful?

If the answer is yes, then you've won the war. You've created something wonderful and you and your organization with survive and thrive.

What happens when your pleas for brand warfare and doing what is right fall on deaf ears? What happens when the team falls back in lock-step with the way things have always been done. What happens when your organization settles for mediocrity, uninviting, irrelevant and deceitful practices?

You run! And you fast. You run away with courage.

I believe the saddest thing that can happen to a brand warrior - or any employee, for that matter - is to go to work in the morning without passion, without a sense of accomplishment and without something to look forward to. All too many workers these days are stumbling through the day delivering average service, making average products and producing average results. These are the zombies that Mike Wagner writes about. Many times they are the result of managers who donÂt empower them to be brand warriors. Other times, they are victims of the brand war; walking wounded emerging from repeated battles to do the right thing in a world of the wrong thing.

So I say to you brand warriors, donÂt become brand martyrs. Run. Now.

Technorati Tags: brand owners, employee empowerment, zombies, management practices

Word of mouth made simple

2006-03-11T21:28:00.000-06:00

If you've not figured out by now, I like things simple. That's why I like Olivier Blanchard's recent post on the brand builder blog. He's just one of many marketers in the blogosphere who make Trout look really out of touch in his Forbes.com article. They address this foot meal point by point, but Olivier's effort below is the big take-away:

Tip to Jack's clients: Keep giving mouths great stuff to talk about, and they will keep talking about you. It's that simple. Make better products. Make better packaging. Give your customers better support and service. That's your jobs - Not Jack's.

This is what brand warriors should be drumming into their clients' ears 24/7. We can only help them if they have a good story to tell. Mike Wagner calls it being gasp worthy. I call it taking care of business.

Thanks Olivier.

Be subversive: be vocal

2006-03-11T16:31:00.000-06:00

Okay, you’re almost there. You’ve scoped out situation and discovered the organization’s brand promise. You’ve identified the key decision makers and the people who play key roles within the organization. Now, it’s time to speak up.

Start living the brand so that others take notice, and watch for reactions.

Talk with other strategic thinkers – They are more likely to understand you best, and pick up on your actions to spread the story. If they don’t take notice, turn up the volume a little at a time until they do notice. Ask them what they think about your ideas. See if they are comfortable wearing the brand promise. Ask them if they can use it to make every decision. Then challenge them to start doing it!

Talk with the naysayers – These are the ones that can kill a great idea with a little whining so, when you’re talking to them, don’t push it too hard lest they start waving the warning flags. Carefully try out your ideas on them to identify hot buttons.

Talk with management – Carefully, slowly and deftly begin to use them what you learned in the last step (be observant) and the language learned in the second step (be connected) to expose them to brand warfare. Surround yourselves with other brand warriors in meetings and other opportunities to demonstrate brand ownership to your management team.

Talk about it with anybody who will listen. You don’t have to recommend an organizational name change or a completely new ad campaign; instead, discuss small operational changes on the front line can begin to make a difference. And begin living the brand yourself, and establish your personal brand at the same time. If you’re a newsletter writer, highlight positive brand management techniques. If you’re a speech writer, start introducing brand ownership language into your drafts. If you’re a sales person, practice using versions of the brand promise in your presentation. If you’re the marketing coordinator, ask how the tasks you’ve been assigned reflect the brand.

These are the baby steps, and if you do them right, you may not even get noticed right away, but you’ll begin to build a grassroots effort that makes brand the foundation of your organization.

Next up: be courageous!

Technorati Tags: brand management, brand warfare, personal brands, career building

Be subversive: be connected.

2006-03-08T21:04:00.000-06:00

The brand warrior in training can start building a personal brand by getting connected to the people in an organization who make things happen as well as those who stop projects dead in their tracks. It's fact-finding that goes far beyond the facts, and begins to help the brand warrior understand the dynamics of the organization so you can better leverage the strong connections and get around the barriers. And it takes the following steps:

Find the other brand warriors - When you talk to others about your findings in step 1 (be observant) you'll soon pick up positive and negative feedback. Take note of both and get closer to those who smell what you're cooking. By connecting with others, you begin to build critical mass for the brand battle to come.

Find the other strategic thinkers - Who are the big picture people? The ones who think long-term and understand the methods that make businesses great. Start hanging around this crowd. Their thinking skills will come in handy when the time to launch the offensive arrives.

Find the naysayers - Who are the ones that hold the company back with short-sighted thinking and negative thoughts? They can often be found by honing in an irritating cackle that sounds like this: "we'vealwaysdoneitthis way" or "wecan'tdothat". They are usually at the center of a group of young strategic thinkers or other would-be brand warriors who have all quit talking at once and sat down dejected in their seats at a big meeting.

Find the ones who can say "no" or "no go" - Who can shut down a project or fully fund it with a "yes" or "no"? These folks usually hang out in the executive wing. Understand their motivation. Understand their hot buttons. And understand how to formulate your ideas into their language.

By circulating in these crowds, and observing how they speak, how they process information and how they make decisions, you can begin to form a game plan for creating positive change.

Next up: be vocal!

Technorati Tags: brand warriors, brand management, leadership

Be subversive: be observant

2006-03-07T22:47:00.000-06:00

In a post last week, I encouraged would-be brand warriors to be subversive as they build their brand warrior resume, and I suggested five steps to get there. Today, step 1, be observant.

I've seen many a newbie marketer jump into her first job feet first, eager to serve. She quickly engages the writing or designing or organizing skills she's developed in college and plows ahead, following her supervisor's orders without regard to what's going on around her. Her only motive is pleasing her supervisor, whether it's the right thing to do or not. Likewise, veteran brand builders have rolled into a new job head first, snorting like a bull, goring everything in sight. He knows what's worked in his past he's eager to make his mark on the new organization, if it fits or not.

I know this because I've done it both ways.

I believe a more prudent path would include the following steps:

Listen to the conversation - Get yourself invited to meetings and go in with a closed mouth and open ears. Listen to not only what's being said, but also how it's being said, and by whom. Take good notes and compare the content to what you read in company newsletters, advertising, annual reports, project proposals and sales presentations.
Watch the executives - Observe their public action and speech. Check what they say against the advertisements and the annual report and the website. If you're in a meeting with them, listen carefully and observe other's reactions.
Engage the sales staff - They are, most likely, taking your organization's story to the streets more often than anybody else, and they often get ignored by the people responsible for developing the story. Don't forget the inside sales people: ask to monitor some of the conversations with customers so you can listen to the real language of the transaction.
Get out in the plant - If your organization has a product, learn how it was designed, how it's made, how it's packaged and how it's shipped. If you deliver a service, get on the front lines, examine how the service is delivered and watch for non-verbal communication from your team and the customers. Critical brand disconnects are often born here.
Talk to the outsiders - Ask your vendors what they think of your company. Talk to colleagues in related organizations. Don't forget your friends working for the competitors: you don't have to drop any trade secrets to find out "what do people say about us?" These are often overlooked audiences that can have devastating - or positive - effects on your brand.
Document what you've learned - If you already have a well known brand promise, match it up against reality and see if it fits. If it does, learn it and be able to say it in your sleep. If it doesn't fit, start crafting an alternative, but keep it quiet for now.

If you take these first subversive steps - newbie or seasoned pro - I believe you'll be on your way to being a brand warrior because you'll know the organization, warts and all.

Anybody out there have some other subversive observing tactics that help you understand the organization better?

Next up: Be connected.

Technorati Tags: branding, brand management, marketing

Dynamo dynamics intrigue me

2006-03-06T17:53:00.000-06:00

The team formerly known as Houston 1836 has folded under pressure from the Mexican-American community, and changed its name to the Houston Dynamo. It's a pretty good name, but I'll leave it to others like John Wagner to comment further. And please don't count me in with this guy.

The official news release includes this quote from the Houston Dynamo general manager Oliver Luck:

"The scientific genius behind the dynamo's invention is the rotation of a single magnet, whose North and South poles create electricity in a nearby coiled wire...We believe a parallel can be drawn to the two major communities in Houston: English speakers and Spanish speakers, who together will create electricity at games unlike any other in MLS."

That seems like a stretch to me, especially given the PR dynamics before, during and after the team's original "1836" announcement. And John can probably add some on-the-ground comments here (he's a PR pro and a soccer fan in Houston) too, but I'm still concerned, from a PR perspective.

Judging from the media I've read on the subject, the team seemed to do all the correct work before making the decision, received the blessing of the Mexican-American political and business leaders, involved prominent Mexican-Americans in the public introduction of the name yet were blindsided by a small group of Mexican-Americans. From that, I can draw from several possible conclusions:

1. The research effort was not all that exhaustive and the ownership of the team either was asleep at the wheel or lied to the community about the results. This is not a good sign for the future of the team or of its ability to forge long-term relationships.

2. The so-called Mexican-American business and political leaders are NOT, in fact, leaders and do NOT represent the Mexican-American community. This is not a good sign for the Mexican-American political and business leaders who hope to be a voice for their constituency and improve their representation in the greater Houston community or the community that has high expectations for its leaders.

3. A small but vocal ethnic community can effect change within the greater Houston community. This is not good for the businesses that now must invest even more resources to ensure that they are being sensitive to the community lest they become the target of the next effort.

4. The "small" community described in the media was, in fact, quite large, has a legitimate influence and, thus, can really mean trouble for organizations, business and political leaders and businesses who don't pay enough attention to them before acting.

To those who care about the soccer team, about Houston and about its Mexican-American community: which of these conclusions - if any - are correct? We can learn from your answer.

UPDATE: I'm not from Texas so I didn't realize this, but the team announced the new name today, the anniversary of the battle at the Alamo. Sheez...who's pulling the PR levers for these guys? Don Rickles?

Technorati Tags: Houston 1836, Houston Dynamo, soccer, MLS

Be subversive!

2006-03-05T12:55:00.000-06:00

Most professional development evaporates soon after the recipient leaves the room because they don’t know how to apply what they learned in their own situations. I realized that again last week after hearing Mike Wagner’s "Own Your Brand presentation" at an IABC/Iowa chapter meeting.

One veteran communicator told me after the meeting that his company “was all about brand.” He worked for one of the large insurance companies in Des Moines so I asked him if he felt his company’s brand was different, inviting, relevant, and truthful, and if he and his co-workers knew how to live the brand daily. His eyes dimmed slightly when he realized the answer, and told me, “your right. We aren’t about brand”. His chinned dropped and the smile left his face when, after discussing it a bit more, he discovered his insurance company employer was about brand identity, not brand management.

As he walked away, I wondered what I could have told him to help him and his co-workers. I wanted to give him the steps to being a brand warrior. After further thought, I suggest communicators become subversive, and take these steps to make their organizations truly brand-driven:

Be observant – Make sure you’re doing a lot of walking around your organization, talking to co-workers including the executives and the front-line staff. Talk to sales and production people. Review the mission/vision/values statements and annual reports. Begin to define your organization’s brand. If they already have one articulated, learn it.
Be connected – Start conversations with the executives and the front-line staff; with the sales team and the production crew. Talk with the guy in the mailroom and the gal at the front desk. Begin to refine your organization’s brand message and build relationship with those who are in a position to easily communicate it.
Be vocal – Try the brand promise out on co-workers, on managers, on customers. See if it is comfortable with everybody, if they can live it. If you get push back, probe a little deeper. See if it’s because that employee can’t live up to the brand or if the company can’t live up to the brand. Only by trying out will you determine if the brand fits, if it's authentic and believable in the marketplace.
Be courageous – Once you’ve defined the brand that fits, start using it to drive your communications and to drive your action. Hold others accountable when their actions conflict with the brand – even those above you on the organizational chart. This is how to build your personal brand. Let people know that you're a brand warrior!

And be ready to bold if the brand is not embraced by others. If your organization doesn’t want you, others do.

Technorati Tags: professional development, brand, personal brand

I'll choose "humility" for $100, Ben

2006-03-02T20:34:00.000-06:00

I made a comment about humility on a post on the Church of the Customer blog, and Ben McConnell asked if I believed in Jim Collins' theory that great companies are lead by humble, quiet people. Here's my answer:

Ben (even though I called him Ed because I misread the post...do'h) :

I try not to buy into absolutes, because as soon as you make an absolute statement, you'll get bitten in the backside.

With that caveat, however, I'd say that humility is an admirable characteristic as long as it doesn't come off as weak, indifferent or scared. Jim Autry seems to be a
humble man, and he successfully lead Meredith Corporation. Jesus Christ certainly wasn't indifferent or weak or scared. Colin Powell had a very successful military career and his head still fit comfortably inside a helmet.

I've worked for egocentric losers and watched them succeed despite creating chaos around them: they succeed because their employees are too scared to fail. I think these leaders can build good companies. I don't believe, however, that they can build great companies. They don't have the empathy for others' needs. They don't have the patience it takes for some ideas to take hold. They don't have the common sense to listen to someone else's idea and work together to make it better.

On the other hand, I've worked with quiet, sensible, humble people and I've seen them fall short of greatness because they don't have the stones to make something happen. They often keep the wrong people on the bus - to use one of Collins' metaphors - because they don't want to hurt them. I've seen otherwise sensible people make dumb decisions because they give in to big egos on the team.

So, in answer to your question, I'd rather support a humble leader than an ego-filled leader because I think the odds for success are in our favor.

An additonal thought...even the humble people have to let people off the bus, but instead of kicking them down the steps and out the door, they'll carry their bag, help them down and give them a hug as they walk way, knowing that it's the best thing for everybody involved. It's a task that really got to Jim Autry.

One more thing...Ben and I left three related characteristics out of our dialogue: modest and willful; humble and fearless. Collins says great leaders are a duality of those characteristics.

As for me, I'll choose "modest and willful" over "pretentious and willful" any day.

Technorati Tags: Colin Powell, Jim Autry, Jesus Christ, humility, leadership, Jim Collins

Cooler heads prevail in "brand" battle

2006-03-02T20:30:00.000-06:00

Last week I blogged on the Laura Ries-initiated debate over brands. Drew Hendicks came alongside Jennifer Rice to add another level of common sense to the debate, suggesting that the problem grows out of a confusion over the definition of "brand."

As soon as we quit calling logos and advertising "branding" we'll all be better off, and our clients will make more money.

Brand and you keep your job!

2006-03-01T21:40:00.000-06:00

For about an hour today, about 50 communicators attending an IABC/Iowa meeting learned about brand ownership and the role they play in helping organizations use their brand to move forward.

Mike Wagner, of the White Rabbit Group, gave his Own Your Brand presentation, saying several times, "We need communicators like you" to carry the message of brand ownership throughout organizations.

I had the privileged of introducing Mike, and challenging those in attendance to listen closely because it's what we, as communicators need to know. Mike got their attention by reminding them that building a brand will help them keep their jobs! (read his Whirlpool post to see what happens when brands die). Judging by the scribbling of notes at every table, Mike's message resonated. That's a good thing because, I believe, corporate communicators have spent way too much time whining about not being invited to the table of decision making, too much time perfecting their writing skills, too much time begging to be in the marketing meetings and not enough time being relevant.

Brand management is the best tool in their own relevence battles. And they don't need anyone's permission to start being relevent. By simply listening, asking the important questions of people in the know, networking with the real power brokers, discovering their organization's brand and then using their tools and talents to start telling their organization's story, communicators will get noticed. As they get noticed - begin to build their personal brand - they'll be taken seriously.

And then they'll be invited to the big table.

Technorati Tags: IABC, Mike Wagner, brand, brand management, communicators

1836 update: holding the line

2006-03-01T16:46:00.000-06:00

We're less than a month away from the home opener for Houston 1836, the MLS soccer team I blogged about a few weeks ago. They've not yet caved to the small Mexican-American minority that raised a stink about the name despite the Mexican-American community's political and business leaders giving their thumbs up.

Way to go Houston! Hold the line. If you give in on this, the next thing you'll know is people will be complaining that the shorts are too long/short, the uniform colors too bright/dark, the seats too wide/narrow, etc.

Branding at a different altitude

2006-02-28T21:52:00.000-06:00

I found an insightful and valuable branding blog today so I thought I'd pass it along to you. Aaron Dignan is a brand evangelist, so I like him already. I like his focus. I like the questions he asks. I like the language he uses to invite you in and deliver relevance.

In a post titled "all sales final", he wrote "A good brand builder knows that all sales are eternal, the effect you have on that customer will ripple through time and space."

Wow, I wish I would have written that. It's emotional, stare-up-into-the-sky type of wordsmithing that digs much deeper than the how-big-should-we-make-the-logo thinking that often passes for branding. I think it's the kind of statement that should get brand warriors lathered up for battle.

Aaron is thinking on a much higher plain than am I. His bio says he's "an accidental brand evangelist, who came to the industry from a background in neuroscience and psychology."

Mike Wagner and I speak the same brand language, but with a different accent. Aaron and I, however, speak the same language, but at a different altitude.

Yeah, the comments suggest that he doesn't post constantly, but when he does, it's worth the climb.

Technorati Tags: brand evangelist, brand language

Empowering brand managers give special treatment

2006-02-27T23:58:00.000-06:00

I believe executives who give their employees the tools and the freedom to live the company's brand would be Jim Autry fans. They fully understand the first essay in his, Love and Profit: The Art of Caring Leadership: a very simple edict that flies directly in the face of today's corporate culture of fear (i.e. Home Depot). He writes:

"I think I started maturing as a manager when I discovered that one of the oldest principles of organizational management was hogwash. That principle is stated in many ways, but the military guys used to put it best: 'Nobody gets special treatment around here.'"

Later in the essay he writes:

"Some people do good work but are slow; some people do fast work but are sloppy. Some are morning people; some do better in the afternoon. Some have children who cause schedule problems; some have elderly parents. Some need a lot of attention and affirmation; some want to be left alone to do their work. Some respond more to money, less to praise; some thrive on praise. Some are workaholics; some work only for the livelihood....Who in the world could believe that all those special needs could be accommodated without some special treatment?"

Autry saw it in the executive suites of large companies, environments where these kinds of notions grow like mold, thriving on fear and laziness. Employers fear being sued by the employees who feel slighted. Or they're too lazy to find trustworthy employees, so they let human resources write the rules and hope that the legal department signs off on them.

Like brand management, treating everybody special is hard work. It takes ingenuity and courage and time to discover and then implement strategies that address those needs in ways that don't encroach on other employee's needs.

For most of the last 20+ years, I've worked for people who treated me and my fellow employees feel special. They understood our needs. They understood what motivated us. And they created an environment of flexibility that allowed us to move the organization forward. We didn't suffocate under so-called "fairness."

I heard it formally addressed by an American Red Cross leader speaking at an International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) leadership conference in the late 1980s. He was talking about how to deal with volunteers by first understanding what motivates them. At the end of his presentation, I began to immediately apply his ideas to employees, and I began to wonder:

If an employee has children that can get sick or have school functions, why not give them flex time?
If the employee works better in the afternoon, why not shift his/her hours to later in the day?
If the employee works slower, why not reassign some of their workload?
If they thrive on public recognition, why not give them credit for a job well done in a public venue like a staff meeting? If they hate public recognition, why not give them a word of thanks in private?
If they like to travel or get involved in community events, why not provide additional vacation days in lieu of pure pay increases?

You know the answer. "Because then we'd have to do it for everyone!"

You know what I say to that? Then do it for everyone! Hire good people. Give them the tools to do the job. Give them clear expectations. Trust them to do it right. And get out of the way.

If they abuse the special treatment, fire them. Show them the door. Make them pay for taking advantage.

But don't make the rest of us pay. Leave that for the people at Home Depot.

Technorati Tags: Home Depot, brand management, leaders, management, flex time

My good friend Jim Autry

2006-02-26T19:28:00.000-06:00

The other day, I started thinking about my good friend Jim Autry. It's been a while since Jim and I got together.

Actually, we've never gotten together. I first met Mr. Autry when he spoke to my graduate communications class at Drake University about 15 years ago, and I think I got to ask him a question. Even in that impersonal, public environment, I found the soft-spoken Mississippi native to be a friend worth listening to, following and emulating. He had just written another book, Love and Profit: The Art of Caring Leadership and he was guest lecturer in an integrated marketing communications class. He gave his thoughts on the need for more caring, compassionate leadership in the American corporation.

During recent discussions with colleagues about the deteriorating brand management skills of corporations today, Jim's viewpoint came rushing back to me. I quickly found a copy of his book - a collection of short essays and poetry about compassion, love, caring and emotion in the executive suites - and started reading it. I'll be blogging on some of his topics in the near future, with, of course, an empasis on how this approach is necessary to make great brands. Jim's thoughts need to resonate throughout the executive suites if we're going to overcome low wages and production capabilities by the rest of the world with great brand management. I don't know how far these rantings will reach, but if I can change one organization by exposing its leaders to Jim's ideas, then I'll have made the world just a little better.

Jim was ahead of his time 15 years ago - probably always has been, but I didn't know him before then - and it's apparent in this paragraph from this introduction to his book:

"In case you haven't noticed, we're in the midst of a turning point in the history of business. The last chapter on management by fear is about to be written. I think it's time to wake up out there in the halls of traditional old-line management, time to wake up in the business-school classrooms. It's time to fully accept what's going on in the socieety, in the workplace, in the management-training pool, in the labor unions. It's time to re-examine the old notions about power."

I hope that the end of the turning point in history is here.

Technorati Tags: management, brand, caring managers, employees, Jim Autry

Calm in the brand-speak battle

2006-02-26T12:13:00.000-06:00

Jennifer Rice steps into the latest Laura Ries’ foot-in-mouth episode with a post that provides clarity and calm. Laura, unfortunately, has a habit of oversimplifying some of her points, and her detractors have a habit of piling on, often questioning her credentials.

Like Rice, I believe brand should be a foundation for all of an organization’s efforts, not just its marketing or, worse yet, its advertising. Therefore, a strong brand can overcome less-than-perfect product or zombie employees.

Saturn was a great example of a strong brand supporting a mediocre product.
The Betamax was a clearly superior product, from what I understand from history, but lost out to VHS as the video standard for a couple of decades.
McDonald’s has its share of zombies running the retail experience, but continues to be a pretty strong brand across the globe.
Wal-Mart is successful selling a lot of very average products and employing a lot of marginal employees.

These are just a few examples that debunk the myth that good product and good people are all it takes to be successful, and that you can't be successful without good products or good people.

Laura is also vilified because she often makes and defends oversimplified absolute statements and positions: check out her long-running battle with graphic designers after she supported an online logo factory. After all, she and her father used “immutable” in the title of their book that included many mutable laws. (Full disclosure: I really like 22 Immutable Laws of Branding because it's a great starting point for brand discussions, but only that: a starting point). Unfortunately, Ries' opponents often attack with equally absolute statements.

If you agree with Beyond Marketing Thought's Karl Speak’s definition for brand (“brand is the reputation an organization earns based on the audience’s experience with its product or services”) it’s easy to see that brand management is a company-wide task, not a marketing task. When one part of the system doesn’t get it – and doesn’t take ownership of the brand – it becomes an impotent too; not much more effective than a trademark, an ad or a tagline alone.

So Laura oversimplified the value of a great brand, and her opponents greatly underestimated it.

Let’s hope business owners reading all these comments don’t do the same.

Technorati Tags: Laura Ries, brand, products, employees, brand management

McDonald's gets healthy, again?

2006-02-24T20:14:00.000-06:00

If you've been over at McDonald's "Open for discussion" blog, you might have read about the new new nutrition panel the golden arch people are considering.

First, I believe there's a huge brand disconnect between McDonald's and healthy eating - nobody goes to McDonald's if they're concerned about eating healthy! They tried and failed miserably with the Arch Deluxe sandwhich ten years ago.

Second, why are they recreating the label when the federal government is spending millions of dollars to create and promote a uniform label for our food products?

I'm just curious.

Technorati Tags: McDonald's, nutrition label, healthy eating, fat

A most unique introduction

2006-02-21T15:38:00.000-06:00

Today, I was honored with a most unique introduction. A client contact introduced me to his board of directors by saying "This is Mark True, and what I like about Mark is his last name: True. I've come to admire the work he and his firm does because he's not afraid to hurt someone's feelings if it reflects the truth and helps his clients."

I can live with that. That's my story.

As I said in an previous post, consultants have to be willing to stick their necks out. They have to be willing to tell the client what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. If your consultant or agency or design firm isn't willing to offend you once in awhile, fire them.

You deserve better.

Technorati Tags: marketing, consultants, business

The fusion isn't DIRTY, it's only D'oh

2006-02-21T00:16:00.000-06:00

My earlier post on the Fusion razor from Gillette only focused on the story being used to market the product. If we use the the D.I.R.T.Y. (different, inviting, relevant, truthful and yours) brand measurement model, it still comes way short of being a great brand.

Different - Yep, but not necessarily in a good way. It's got six blades and one of them is likely to inflict severe damage if you aren't careful. I'd say that's pretty different.

Inviting - Yep, if you believe the promise of a closer shave and the dubious story about the pressure created in the space between the three blades in other razors. Good try.

Relevant - Definitely. Who wants anything less than a close shave?

Truthful - This is where the brand falls flat on its five-o'clock-shadowed face. In my humble opinion, the promise is not the least bit believable.

So I'll be interested to see how many of these expensive razors actually are sold. I think you'd have to be pretty gullible to buy this story, or this razor.

Cheney's got a PR problem

2006-02-19T08:24:00.000-06:00

John Wagner's recent post asks "Is Dick Cheney's hunting accident newsworthy?"

Clearly, the vice-president's accident is newsworthy: it would be newsworthy if a local citizen shot another local citizen in the same manner. What makes it more newsworthy - growing bigger and lasting longer, perhaps - is the way it was handled. He didn't tell his story and the media filled in the blanks.

According to A Practical Guide to Planning for and Responding to a Crisis, by Wixted, Pope, Nora, Thompson and Associates' Ray Thompson and lawyer Christian Liipfert:

"Every incident - in any company, in any industry - that is handled poorly increases public skepticism. And every incident that is handled well only serves to increase public expectations."

This is a vice-president that fosters plenty of public skepticism whether or not he deserves it. And this is just the latest example of behavior that stirs the pot and raises questions about his character.

There are a number of really good sources for training executives to speak to the media - including the good people at JohnstonWells Public Relations and at Wixted, Pope, Nora, Thompson & Associates (WPNT), two firms with which I've worked in the past. I'd encourage any serious entrepreneur or CEO to contact one of these folks or a local pro in their area to learn how to increase expectations, not skepticism in your organization. In the meantime, I'd like to offer the vice president few tips:

Be proactive - When you don't tell anybody about a shooting accident for 24 hours, it makes you look bad. It makes you look guilty. It makes you look like - gasp - Ted Kennedy. Being proactive, available and transparent is always better than reactive, hard to reach and paranoid.
Be humble - Part of transparency is being humble about the situation. Show some humility and you'll receive mercy. That's in the Bible, Dick! There's nothing wrong with saying it was an accident, then show that you're human. Show some concern for the victim - your friend - and tell the public what's happening with him so they know you're involved, concerned.
Smile, don't smirk - I know God gave you that face, Dick, but work on your on-camera posture, your facial expressions and your nonverbal communication. Those factors often communicate far more than words; just ask George H. W. Bush about looking at his watch during debate. (I found this out firsthand several years ago, when on camera, my standard, at-rest facial expressions and goatee made me look angry. Eileen Wixted, of WPNT, told me I had to smile just to look indifferent!)
Stick to the talking points - There's nothing wrong with using talking points: they help keep you on track and out of trouble. It takes discipline, however, to be constant, and practice to use them with skill. If the talking points are built on the brand expectation, they'll come out sounding authentic. Dick is a strong defender of the second amendment and he needed to step up to the podium and, after explaining what happen, apologizing for the accident and showing some concern for the victim, be ready to defend the support of the citizens' right to bare arms when the questions come up.

Let me make it clear: this would have been newsworthy if it was Al Gore, Dan Quayle, George H. W. Bush, or any other modern era V.P. It would have been newsworthy if it was the local dog catcher! But because the vice president didn't step forward, make a statement and take charge of the story, the news media did it for him. There is currently a lot of information that may or may not be true circulating because he didn't step up right away and take charge.

The news media hates a vacuum.

Technorati Tags: Cheney, PR, shotgun

Houston soccer team blinks

2006-02-17T08:44:00.000-06:00

There's a ruckus being raised in Houston over the name of the new (relocated) MLS franchise there. John Wagner of Houston's Wagner Communications explains the situation in his blog post.

In short it goes like this: The owners of the franchise were in a hurry to get the marketing in place for the season, which begins in April. The team, formerly known as the San Jose Clash, then the Earthquakes, came up with the name "Houston 1836" which has a bit of a European soccer ring to it while celebrating the year Houston was founded. It's also the year Texas gained its independence from Mexico so team officials ran it by the Latino community's business and political leaders, got sign-off from them, and then announced the name and the logo. Wagner reports from Houston that, in fact, "City Councilman Adrian Garcia even appeared on stage at the news conference announcing the name, addressing the crowd in Spanish."

Then a few 'professional sensitives' - as Wagner calls them - started to raise a stsink. The Houston Chronicle story reports that "Many Hispanics have voiced their dislike for the controversial name" while Wagner reports "just a couple of very visible folks" wanted the name change. That was enough, apparently, to get the attention of sponsors.

Now, it seems, the owners are shaking in their cowboy boots and are reconsidering the name, less than seven weeks from the opening of the season. You can follow the blow-by-blow on the HoustonNet blog, too. The team is apparently, according to the Chronicle article, considering a tired and overused "Lone Star" or "Lonestar" as an alternative. How sad.

Wagner, a PR counselor, asks: "What would you do?" I wrote in his blog that they should stand strong so they don't look weak. In soccer-speak, the defense needs to "hold the line."

In my comment, I suggested that they address the Mexican-American audience with purposeful, brand-driven action, not to save face (pardon the mixed cultural reference there), but to do the smart thing because it's the smart thing. It should have been done before the name issue even came up. Specifically, I suggested the following:

"Tactically, I'd be encouraging the team to work with the Mexican-American community by supporting youth soccer leagues, literacy programs and families-in-need programs. Build the roster with more than a few Mexican league and Latino
players. Include authentic Mexican food on the concession stand menu. Hire a Latino to deliver Spanish language radio broadcasts on a Spanish language station."

Unfortunately, the franchise has blinked, and it may be too late, but this is another example of what happens when an organization doesn't lead with its brand! Stay tuned.

Bobby's got a new brand and he's showing it off in Daytona

2006-02-16T21:06:00.000-06:00

If you liked my earlier post about Bobby Labonte, or you're just a fan, you'll want to catch a glimpse of Bobby's new brand in this weekend's Daytona 500, the sports Super Bowl. He's starting in the eighth position.

Technorati Tags: Bobby Labonte, NASCAR

A PR firm where creativity is queen!

2006-02-16T18:16:00.000-06:00

One of the most creative workspaces I've ever seen is at a PR firm. It's been more than three years since I hired Denver's JohnstonWells Public Relations at my last client-side job, but I thought of those ladies today while considering the value of a creative workspace. I was constantly amazed at the creativity, the fun and the energy that exuded from that place. Creativity was definitely a key brand component (and the almost all-female staff, but that's a subject for another post) at JohnstonWells.

When you walk in the door, you see art everywhere. JW holds monthly creativity seminars. And each employee's office or cubicle is identified with a small, hand-crafted totem rather than a name plate; the totem is made of elements that represent the person. JohnstonWells earned the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts 2003 Small Business Award and 2005 Creative Workspace Award. The staff - especially Kirsten Ritter and Ann Dickerson - oozed with enthusiasm borne of creativity. They approached every task as an opportunity to use their creative spirit to be relevant and to show the power of public relations.

Some might say the source of the creativity is the Rocky Mountains. It might be the city of Denver. I'm pretty sure, however, the creative vortex is in the office of Gwinavere Johnston, the CEO, the leader, the champion of all things creative at JW. Clearly, no firm invests that much in art, creative education and fun if the big cheese doesn't approve, encourage and embrace the effort.

Frankly, my organization was at the beginning of a marketing retrenchment, and we didn't allow the JW to sprint like we should have, but I always looked forward to interacting with the JohnstonWells staff. They brought something extra to the game every day. At JW, creativity is definitely queen!

Bobby Labonte gets rebranded: will fans follow?

2006-02-16T16:19:00.000-06:00

Bobby Labonte made me a NASCAR fan a few years ago. After turning his expensive race car into a pile of scrap metal, he told an interviewer that he just screwed up and didn't drive the car very well. I liked that kind of honesty in a world of sponsor-laden gearhead speak by most of the stars of NASCAR.

For the past 11 years, he drove the green number 19 Interstate Batteries car for Joe Gibbs Racing. He was one of the top 10 or so stars of the sport, and won a championship in 2000, so his gear was everywhere. I have a small collection of 1:24 scale models of his car, micro models and foil wrapped chocolate cars on my desk at work.

Now, he's changing teams, he's changing numbers and he's changing color schemes which will be a true test of his star power. As Bobby changes, I wonder if his fans will goes with him.

NASCAR does a great job of managing its brand and the brands of its drivers. Drivers set unmatched standards for connecting with their fans, and the fans show their love by buying a lot of gear with their favorite driver's number and colors. Frankly, I don't have any doubt that the fans will follow the driver, but what will happen to their $100 leather jacket, the $30 football jersey or the $99 stained-glass table lamp?

The green and red color scheme of the number 18 was easy to spot in most races because it was the only green car on the track. Based on the amount of no. 18 gear that was for sale compared to other stars, I'm thinking the green and red color combination might have kept sales down even after he won the championship.

I'm thinking the new baby blue and yellow scheme of the no. 43 is not going to do a lot better. Early results are in on a fan poll on Bobby's official website, and the fans don't like it either. When last I looked, 94 percent voted for "I hate it." Ouch. There goes the stained-glass lamp sales.

What's worse: the story or that extra blade on the end?

2006-02-16T08:13:00.000-06:00

I really get irritated when the critics say marketers create needs for their product. To some extent, that's true: do we really need iPods, cars that can go 100 miles per hour and Botox? For the most part, however, we create stories that help buyers fill wants, as Seth Godin writes in his book All Marketers Are Liars.

I believe the makers of the new Gillette Fusion razor, however, have gone too far in their story telling. I received one of these lethal weapons in the mail recently, and threw it away shortly after one use. And, as you can see by my profile picture, I know a thing or two about razors.

First of all, Gillette creates a problem by suggesting that the pressure that builds in the spaces between three blades causes discomfort, and that by adding two other blades, the pressure is eliminated! It doesn't matter that there's only a fraction of a fraction of an inch between those blades!

Right!

The lethal part of this instrument of death is the sixth blade - yes, I said sixth blade - on the end of the thing. They say it's for getting to those hard to reach places. I say it's a lawsuit waiting to happen. Who expects to have an exposed blade on the END OF THE RAZOR!

I'll stick to my old fashioned, save, cheap Good News razors. Remember, the first blade pulls the hair out while the second one cuts it off.

Right!

Olympic ads score bronze, at best

2006-02-15T22:56:00.000-06:00

After reading Olivier Blanchard's post about advertising during the Olympics, I had to pay a little more attention. While I don't agree with Oliver's claim that the spots supporting the Olympics broadcast is proof that advertising agencies were still more than capable of producing really great ads, I did notice some elegant story telling. There were several good ones - bronze medal winners, at least - but there were also plenty of pretenders that should be happy to even be there.

I'm usually pretty hard on US automotive manufacturers' spots, but the one with the Chevy Tahoe horns playing the Olympic theme - parked in awe inspiring natural settings right out of the NBC bumpers - was truly elegant. It had a simple premise: saluting the Team USA. No vehicles on impossibly curvy roads. No nauseating list of features. No billboard at the end promoting the best prices ever.

General Motors killed the mood, however, with spots for the Silverado pick-up truck "with ThunderPack", the GMC Sierra and the GMC Envoy. Each spot included a long list of features, beauty shots of the vehicles in action and, in the case of the Silverado spot, ended with a billboard showing the rebates that are currently being offered (in effect, saying our product is so great, we'll give you money to buy it!) At least the two GMC spots hid the price in the context of a simple, old-school product comparison ad.

One of the most awesome examples was a short promotion for NBC's coverage of the Daytona 500 this Sunday, and used some great editing to show speed skaters being run down by Tony Stewart.

Another for an insurance company (I can't remember it so it wasn't a great example of brand building) told a beautiful story. A 50-something couple is inspired to go skating while watching the pairs figure skating. At the local pond, the man falls down, bumps the warming shed and a sheet of ice slides off the shed and crushes his car. Great story telling that was very well connected to the content of the program.

I'm going to keep watching the Olympics because there are a lot of great stories during the coverage, but I'll be watching the spots too, so see who scores well with the judges.

Governments have brands? Heck yes!

2006-02-12T20:57:00.000-06:00

"Wait, just a minute here Mr. Brand Dude," I hear many of you saying. "I just read you last post and I hear you saying Iowa has a brand problem, but how can that be? How can Iowa - or any government - have a brand?"

Easily. Every person or organization or entity has a brand - aka reputation, perception, promise - based on the experience people have with said person, organization or entity. Just ready Adam Ash's post about New York City and you'll see it's a stronger brand - at least with this one person - that the whole darn U. S. of A!

Excrement in the aisle

2006-02-12T16:49:00.000-06:00

My friend Ed doesn't know exactly what I do for a living. He's read this blog, however, and, yesterday, asked me a rather honest and - for me - invigorating question: "Does this branding stuff really mean anything to the average consumer?"

I gave him several examples of how organizations use their brand to support their business and how some simply ignore it, and pay the price, but there's a really good example in a front-page story in today's Des Moines Sunday Register. Evidently, Iowa's rivers and lakes are some of the most polluted in the state and it's going to take a billion dollars - plus or minus a half-billion- to get us in compliance with the 1972 Clean Water Act. Yes, that's a law that's almost 35 years old!

So, Ed, here's an example where different people have different agendas, and there's no common brand driving the decisions. While the state's economic development people, the chambers of commerce, the tourism promoters, private developers, employers and others are trying to tell Iowa's great story (see my earlier post suggesting Iowa refocus its efforts on attracting families), the people responsible for keeping our lakes and rivers clean are asleep at the switch.

Iowa is one of the final six states to come into compliance with the 1972 Clean Water Act, according to John Reyna of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency's regional office in Kansas City in the Register article. Worse yet, Albert Ettinger, a Chicago lawyer who follows Clean Water Act cases and represents Iowa environmental groups, says "To my knowledge, there is no state that is out of compliance like Iowa is."

If Iowa was a Target store, this would be the equivalent of an associate defecating in the sporting goods aisle.

Admittedly, getting everyone in a state together - regulators, political leaders, private businesses, citizens - focused on the same task, is a difficult one. It's certainly more challenging than getting everyone at the local coffee shop to smile pleasantly to the customers, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try.

It takes leadership from the top. It takes a vision. It takes a brand. And when that's absent, it just confuses people. Any questions, Ed?

Education as a business - part 2

2006-02-09T00:13:00.000-06:00

Tom Lane is a businessman in a school superintendent's tie. He treats students and parents like customers, the school like a business. He listens and he leads. He owns his brand. Tom is superintendent of the Carlisle (Iowa) Community Schools and he actually refers to his students and their parents as patrons. In school board meetings I've attended and every one-on-one conversation I've ever had with the man, he has exhibited a real understanding that families have a choice, even of public schools. He realizes that he runs the most important business in Carlisle, Iowa, the bedroom community on the southeast corner of the Des Moines metro area. And he knows the school's brand is one the most important, if not the most important, element in a family's decision to move to Carlisle.

In just a few short years, he and the school board has lead his district from financial turmoil to the point where it's one of the most financially sound districts in the state. And it's preparing for a boom with an influx of students from a new development in town and in the eastern part of the school district.

He talks regularly with teachers, members of the community, students and their parents about the issues that affect them, like he did last summer in preparation for an upcoming bond issue vote for a new elementary school. The school board purposely timed the vote so that the new tax would take affect when the previous bond was retired and the tax bite would be almost painless. Then and now, he gathers his facts, engages the community in conversation using a robust and content-rich website; clear, concise articles in the local weekly newspaper; detailed articles in the district's weekly newsletter and in candid community forums. He regularly attends city council meetings to answer questions that always arise when the issue of taxes and development come up. The school is part of Carlisle's future, and Tom represents the school. He owns the brand.

He hires professional building administrators that share his business like approach and supports them with young, innovative teachers who connect with student-patrons and encourage parental involvement. They own the brand, too.

I've seen him and his team in action. I helped develop the school's website, ran an unsuccessful campaign for a Carlisle school board seat, have worked with the district on developing a long-term recreational plan for the community and I interact with teachers and staff members on visits to the school. I've talked with his patrons on the sidelines of soccer games.

By most counts, Tom's approach is working. Carlisle Schools are well-respected and growing rapidly. There are no "sales" figures available for this "business," but enrollment is rapidly increasing and, I bet if you asked a few patrons, you'd find customer satisfaction is up, way up!

Education as a business - part 1

2006-02-07T11:52:00.000-06:00

"We're not in the business of trying to make money. We're in the business of trying to educate students, and that's a little different than selling cars," so says Rudy Fichtenbaum, a member of the American Association of University Professors and an economics professor at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, in a Des Moines Register article about marketing efforts at Iowa State University.

Fichtenbaum just doesn't get it. He doesn't understand that he has to sell the college experience - the brand - if he is to have a chance to educate students. He has to get noticed, be different, inviting, relevant and truthful if he wants to get paid.

Besides Iowa State and Wright State, there are 4,166 institutions of higher learning in the U.S. that a student may choose to attend and to whom they may write their tuition check. The ones making the best argument in the most meaningful way are the ones that students will choose.

The Register story (and this WHO-TV story) highlights a proposal to allocate marketing dollars to the various colleges based on enrollment. In other words, they want to give more support to the strong colleges. They are considering acting more like a business and less like the only game in town.

Critics of the plan believe professors might start taking short cuts to keep students (So much for academic integrity.) Supporters of the concept believe that most faculty members wouldn't tolerate a decline in academic quality. That's brand ownership in action!

Supporters say the proposal would actually make instructors and administrators improve the educational experience so that more students want to attend that school, pursue that major and take those classes. They may even add a few sections, as indicated in the article, so students don't have to wait for popular classes. They may integrate innovative teaching tools and methods and delivery channels.

Again, according to the article, Marc Harding, the admissions director at ISU, said colleges could attract new students by offering high-demand degree programs, and retain more students by creating learning communities and supplemental instruction. More brand ownership!

David Acker, the College of Agriculture associate dean says his enrollment budget has doubled in the last two years - reaching $53,000 - and enrollment is up - 10 percent - for the first time in four years!

It's not perfected, yet. The concept deserves more than Fichtenbaum's dismissive response. I hope the leadership of ISU will investigate this budgeting allocation issue within a brand framework. I hope they will take the time to understand ISU's story and how to leverage it to make the University more relevant to more students. If they discover their brand and use it to make all decisions - including marketing decisions - they'll be successful. They'll attract the students they need to attract. And they'll be able to buy a few marketing books for professor Fichtenbaum.

Different strokes...about McDonald's blog attempt

2006-02-05T13:01:00.000-06:00

Shel Israel at Naked Conversations gave McDonald's a little tough love in his evaluation of the fast-food giant's first attempts at blogging. Check out his comments. They are very helpful to any new blogger, including this one! I said as much in my comment that it was clear, concise and just enough tough love to be helpful without being mean spirited. Kate at My Name is Kate, however, took offense to Shel's advice, or at least the tone of it. She said it was a case of an A-lister overflowing with arrogance.

She says the advice was unsolicited even though McDonald's senior director Bob Langert actually asked some very specific question - opening a conversation - in his post. And by the tone and content of his next post, Langert seemed to appreciate the comments, and has asked additional questions.

Kate also writes "I feel like 'A-listers' are often speaking out of both sides of their mouth. "Companies should be in the blogosphere. But they should stay out unless they are perfect." I didn't see that tone anywhere in Shel's post. In fact, he seemed to be saying "here are a few tips to make it better." And I think many of us on the sidelines are cheering on McDonald's (and other corporate brands interested in doing a better job).

Let 'em go. They'll come back, to Iowa.

2006-02-04T21:20:00.000-06:00

One of the most meaningful books I've ever read is Now Discover Your Strengths, by Marcus Buckingham (He's the guy who wrote First, Break All The Rules). The easy-to-read book encourages individuals to enhance their strengths instead of focusing hours and hours on weaknesses and then finding you've made no progress.

I think the state of Iowa needs to read the book. I'm constantly reading newspaper accounts and hearing TV news stories about the Hawkeye State's efforts to keep young people here instead of letting them go off to the big city - Chicago or Kansas City or Minneapolis, in most cases. We keep trying to build entertainment districts of bars and restaurants and bring in big-time sports teams and more bars in attempt to keep 20-somethings between the Mississippi and the Missouri.

I think we should give every high school grad a state road map and tell them to go seek adventure, sow their oats, party 'till the cows come home. And then come home. If we raise them right, they'll come back to Iowa with some life experience, some work experience, a new expensive car that we can tax and a few kids that we can't. They'll come to appreciate what we offer: clean air, safe streets and good schools. And low insurance rates. You can't say that about Chicago, Kansas City or Minneapolis.

I think our state's strength is its family-friendly cities, towns and villages. You can walk the sidewalks at night. You can leave your keys in the car in the driveway. You know your neighbor's name. Our governor is not afraid to wear a Winnie the Pooh costume.

Yes, we have problems. We have more than our fair share of meth labs (what rural state doesn't have meth labs). People drive way too fast on the freeway (at least they can). And the family farmers don't get along with the big farmers (but you don't see driveby shootings to settle the issue).

But it's also true that this is a great place to raise kids and we need to quit being ashamed of it. We need to plaster it on the welcome to Iowa signs. Iowa needs to play to its strengths. It's a different, inviting, relevent and truthful brand.

The most fearful marketers on the planet..auto dealers?

2006-02-01T07:45:00.000-06:00

Walter Koschnitzke has touched a nerve with me in his Branding Ad Vice blog. His latest post on auto advertising is basically what I've felt for more than 20 years. In my comment, I write that I feel automotive dealers, as a group, are the most fearful marketers on the planet.

Hyperbole? Maybe. But I can count on two fingers the number of auto retailers in central Iowa that have tried to be different, inviting and relevant in the past 20 years. And one of those was a one-time shot that was soon replaced by spots screaming prices.

The other is Karl Chevrolet. If you've seen a Karl Chevrolet television spot, you know it's a little like a lot of others because it features the owner, in this case Carl Moyer, and his family, but Karl spots look better than other car commercials. They focus on the Karl Chevrolet experience and the things the dealer does to make that experience something different. Sometimes the ads feature family members, like this one from this past Christmas season. Even it tells a story in an unexpected manner. The rest of the Karl experience is different, too. The company extended Chevy's "Like a rock" theme by placing a huge rock at its entrance and perching a vehicle at the top (see the website header). The dealership features a golf hole (bring your clubs) and a walking trail (bring your walking shoes) in case you need to think before you sign that paper for a $45,000 SUV. And, perhaps most important, they feature convenient services hours six days a week - Monday through Thursday, 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.; Friday and Saturday, 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. - and have round-trip shuttle service! That's different, inviting and relevant.

Karl, the dealership, takes chances like its owner, Carl, a race car driver. Maybe more dealers ought to drive race cars before they try to sell sedans.

Get more sales by involving sales more

2006-01-31T11:09:00.000-06:00

The void between marketing and sales is often daunting, at best, an insurmountable barrier, at worst. Sales people don't think they need marketing people and marketing people don't think they need sales people. I struggled to close this gap while serving as marketing services manager at large ingredients manufacturer in the food and dieatary supplement business. When we involved the field sales staff - actually sought their opinions, not just told them where they should be and at what time - great things happened.

By working together, we made trade shows, for example, a multi-faceted communications opportunity. We told our story a number of different ways.

At one show in New Orleans, we set up a duplicate trade show booth with every known marketing tool we'd every used in a meeting room near the arena. The sales people set up 21 customer meetings prior to the show, and held 19 of those during the trade show. Two client companies missed the show entirely because of another comittment and a missed airplane, but made up the meetings by visiting our corporate headquarters shortly after the show.

At another, we bought an opening night reception sponsorship and, instead of relying on recorded music, we hired the Bacon Brothers - Kevin Bacon and Michael Bacon - to put on a live concert. We sent CDs to our top 25 customers inviting them to the concert, held a meet-and-greet during the sound check, and gave them seats up front during the show.

That was six years ago, and I remember the moment like it was yesterday. Over the din of the band, Doug, one of the sales managers, yelled into my ear "Mark, you're a f_____ genius." Actually, it was a success because we got a lot of people involved in the planning and execution - including the sales staff - and we asked a lot of questions and we worked hard. The industry still talks about that concert today, and concerts have become pretty common at industry shows, so I know it works.

I just hope the people organizing the concerts are talking to the sales guys.

i'm lovin' it...McDonald's is blogging

2006-01-30T17:35:00.000-06:00

I don't know about you, but I'm impressed with the launching of McDonald's new corporate responsibility blog. There are only two posts up, but the plan is to address a number of topics including: personalities & places; balanced, active lifestyles; community; environment; people, policies and programs; responsible purchasing; and Ronald McDonald House Charities.

Based on the first post, senior director Bob Langert is taking his role as the corporate blogger seriously, demonstrating a clear understanding that the McDonald's brand extends far beyond the burgers, fries and Ronald McDonald. Yes, there's a fair amount of corporate-speak, but after introducing the concept of cooperation with vendors, Langert actually asks the readers' their opinions:

"In a nutshell, our approach is to work collaboratively with our suppliers so they can meet our expectations and advance our priorities. What's your view of this approach? For example, should we set across-the-board targets and goals for suppliers, rather than work with them to develop individual targets and goals? What should our priorities be for promoting social responsibility in our supply chain?"

Then he continues by demonstrating the corporation's commitment to social responsibility issues including it's work with the Center for Environmental Leadership in Business (CELB). I won't review the whole post, but I encourage you to check it out.

It's an inside look at how a huge corporation might want to interface with its audiences. While this is an encouraging sign that a corporation is cranking up the relevance component of its brand, it will be more exciting to see how McDonald's builds on this effort, to see if it creates a conversation with its markets, as Mike Sansone likes to say, and ultimately begins to build a new paradigm for everyone involved.

It begins to tell a different story about McDonald's. And, ultimately, it will be up to us to decide if it's true or not.

Love Cavanaugh, Love Monkey

2006-01-30T10:40:00.000-06:00

I've watched two episodes of Love Monkey and I love it. Not only because Tom Cavanaugh is such a funny guy but because he's wickedly funny. The stories are rather average, but the story telling is engaging. Like in Ed - another favorite of mine - Cavanaugh breaks the third barrier regularly to add zip to his already-zippy repartee and keep you on your toes.

The coolness of the music industry backdrop adds to it because everybody wants to work in a funky office like his, making a paycheck by listening to musicians and arranging concerts. I'm betting that it's not as much fun at it looks. His pals - including a suddenly middle-aged Jason Priestley - aren't very interesting characters and I find myself getting up for a beverage when one of their storylines is being played out.

I have a rather limited range of music interests so I don't know if those are real artists doing cameos (other than country music's LeAnn Rimes) or not, but I imagine so. Rimes' 10-second appearance was teased in the ads last week and The Late Show's Paul Schaffer is highlighted next week.

Check it out on Tuesday night and let me know if you love the monkey, too.

When does a brand consultant really earn his or her money?

2006-01-26T22:24:00.000-06:00

When they tell the client exactly what the client wants to hear? No. They can get that in front of the mirror in the morning. And it's free!

I think brand consultants earn their paycheck when they do everything they can to help that client take charge of their brand and uses it to drive everything they do.

It takes being a pest. It takes being consistent. It takes a willingness to stick your neck out. I've found over the years that a little bit of Mark's brand talk can go a long way for the client that doesn't get it, doesn't want to get it or can't get it. They sometimes act like they can't make a decision. Sometimes, they just disappear. Sometimes they just say 'no.'

And sometimes, it clicks. That's when I hear the client repeating what I'm saying, holding others accountable to the brand and taking ownership.

It began to happen with one client a few weeks ago. We were discussing employee recruitment efforts when I told him the best tool for recruiting new employees is your current employees. If the current employees understand the brand, and wear it proudly - at the grocery, at the ball fields, at church - they'll spread the word and attract like-minded prospective employees. (The same is true for employees who don't understand the brand, who are confused and dazed. Zombies is what Mike Wagner calls them.) A few hours later, when the client dropped me off at the airport, he looked me in the eyes and said, "Mark, you really got into my head. I went out to the plant to look around a bit and started seeing our employees in a whole new way."

The brand warrior had won the battle...Stay tuned to find out if I win the war.

D.I.R.T.Y.

2006-01-25T19:20:00.000-06:00

Coke or Pepsi?

The invitation is lost in the translation

2006-01-25T13:06:00.000-06:00

I really don't understand why some brands use stories that are offensive to the prospective audience. They aren't 'inviting' as required by the D.I.R.T.Y. (different, inviting, relevant, truthful and yours) brand model to which I subscribe.

A posting in Walt Koschnitzke's Brand Ad vice blog discusses a local cable commercial that has the effect of fingernails on a chalkboard for him. The Capital One commercials are so negative that I don't want to have anything to do with the brand.

And then there's the cell phone commercial in which the lead actor gives a testimonial while a man in a lobster suit gets caught in a revolving door in the background. What's that about? Does anybody even hear the pitch?

On the other end of the spectrum are the Hallmark Cards commercials. They're actually little movies that invite you into a little slice of life. Even the local furniture store - pick one, any one - uses an inviting message to tell the story about this week's sale!

Do you know of other brand messages that are inviting? Which ones are not inviting?

The most strategic designer I know

2006-01-23T13:52:00.000-06:00

Sally Cooper Smith is the most strategic designer I know. I've told her to her face that this is so, so I don't expect her to be embarrassed when she reads this. She knows it's the truth.

You see, Sally takes a sketch book into meetings, but she takes notes. She asks a lot of questions, not about the color or the font or the photos, but about the strategy. She wants to know who the audience is, what the audience wants, what the audience knows about the organization and what the organization expects of the audience.

I know because I've been Sally's client. I've heard her questions and I've seen the result of that kind of smart thinking. She's unlike many of the designers I've run into over the past 20 years; the ones who only sketch in their sketch book, who choose colors because they look good together and often use fonts that are unreadable or illegible because they're cool. They design for the sake of design. They design ESPN - The Magazine.

Sally wants to understand the brand because it drives the design.

The designers where I work are much like Sally. Jeremy and Carolyn ask questions and give reasons for their choices. They want to know about the brand.

Designers like Sally, Jeremy and Carolyn make clients better, stronger and more focused.

Whose brand does Barry Bonds represent?

2006-01-23T13:00:00.000-06:00

If the comments attributed to Barry Bonds at a weekend golf tournament are any indication of his ability to represent a brand other than his own, I don’t want him working for me.

When he heard San Francisco manager Felipe Alou was thinking about putting him second in the batting order to give him more at-bats, the seven-time MVP reportedly said “I am going to speak to Felipe because at this point in my career it doesn’t work for me to be second bat.”

Excuse me, but doesn’t the manager do the managing? As long as he’s getting a paycheck, shouldn’t Bonds do whatever the manager tells him to do and learn to represent the San Francisco Giants’ brand, especially when he's in the San Francisco Giants' uniform?

What would happen to the Target employee who said “at this point in my career, it doesn’t work for me to wear a red shirt?” What if the Starbucks barista said “it doesn’t work for me to charge this much for coffee?” Would the nurse who said “it doesn’t work for me to use a clean needle” still have a job?

Yes, Barry Bonds still sells a lot of tickets, and yes, he’s probably going to bat somewhere other than second because of it. But it’s a good – if not over the top – example of what happens when employees don't take ownership of a brand. It’s what happens when the brand doesn’t drive the decisions, but the decisions drive the brand.

Extreme value

2006-01-19T18:15:00.000-06:00

I went to a seminar today that delivered way more than the price of admission. Mike Sansone offered a ton of value during his business blogging seminar in Des Moines. As Mike toured the blogosphere and built his story about conversations, all the participants started thinking he needed about 12 hours instead of six that he planned.

I've read blogs for a year or so, and I've only blogged for a couple of weeks, but I thought I knew enough to be an adequate blogger, and was getting everything I wanted out of my blog experience so far. I went to the seminar to see if I can pick up one little nugget because, given the state of most seminars and conferences these days, I only hope for at least one item of extreme value in exchange for my time. After learning from Mike, touring dozens of highly relevant websites, and hearing the questions of other newbie bloggers, I realized I was only scratching the surface.

Some of the key suggestions I picked up:

Be passionate about your blogging - Whether your doing it for fun, doing it to make a little money or doing it to make a lot of money, make sure you're passionate for your subject. The blogosphere is littered with blogs populated with a few dozen posts, evident of a petered out passion for blogging.
Be ready to change - Blogs are a dynamic tool for communication so they are ideally designed to change as you change. You topics may take on new focus or migrate into a new direction completely. That's fine because we learn, we change, we have new things to say.
Don't use time as an excuse - Blogs are conversations, so shouldn't you want to make time to converse with customers, vendors, prospective employees and others? If you don't have time to blog, you don't have time for business.
Get noticed - There are several strategies to get your name out - comment and link on other, relevant blogs; link your blog to other blogs; learn to write good copy with paragraphs and complete sentences; take advantage of feeds; and ping the aggregators. Mike also outlined the power of the aggregators for monitoring the blogosphere on behalf of clients.

I hope to incorporate these strategies into my blog and into my company's website in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, I'll be carrying on the conversation with Mike because he's a great source to learn more about these specific subjects. If you want to learn more, drop him a note at his blog.

The Marriott mattress is majestic, relevant

2006-01-18T23:36:00.000-06:00

I'm going to a Marriott property tomorrow to attend Mike Sansone's blogging seminar. Too bad I won't be staying in a room overnight, because Marriott has hit relevance on the head as far as I'm concerned. It's right there in the mattress. Those pillow-top mattresses are something to behold. They just cradle you so gently that you can't help but sleep.

Marriott decided that a good night's sleep was a relevant part of the Marriott experience, so they replaced all the mattresses in every single Marriott property over the past few years. Seth Godin blogged about the bad advertising last September: luckily, the mattress is better than the ad.

Marriott is working hard to manage its brand by focusing on performance and making sure that the Marriott brand is different, inviting, relevant and truthful. In this case, the implied promise that you’ll get a good night’s sleep is inviting, but it’s the mattress itself that is one of the most relevant brand components. More importantly for the business traveler; it's truthful.

At it again
Marriott is at it again, trying to be relevant to women travelers. In this article (registration required), you’ll read that they’re working with geniuses at IDEO to reinvent the extended stay hotel. Except for the part where they say they followed travelers around, it seems like they’re really getting to understand the female traveler so they can be even more relevant.

Marriott is one of the ones that gets it!

Another brand disconnect

2006-01-18T12:54:00.000-06:00

Mike Sansone shares a story about his recent visit to CompUSA, and the disconnect between promise and performance. It's another example of what happens when truth is not part of the brand. In this case, CompuUSA thought branding meant a good tagline. They didn't understand that the tagline is part of the promise, and that they have to live up to that promise. They didn't empower the employees to make good decisions and make the brand stronger by meeting that promise.

I've given CompUSA several opportunities over the years to meet that promise, and they never had. They'll go on that unwritten list of brands that are no longer relevant to me.

Which brands are on your list?

Doesn't anybody read long copy anymore?

2006-01-15T21:21:00.000-06:00

A friend recently suggested that my posts were rather long for a someone trying to shorten his copy. While I admit that's my goal, I'm also getting a little frustrated with the widespread emphasis on short copy that seems to be chasing me. See this post for more about copy length.

So my question is: Do we have a problem with long copy, or do we have a problem with long, BAD copy? Isn't short BAD copy as much of a letdown as long BAD copy? How about if we just seek GOOD copy, no matter the length.

I learned to write after 23 years of writing

2006-01-14T14:53:00.000-06:00

A little more than 23 years ago, I began putting words onto paper and getting paid to do it. I started working on a trade magazine in the furniture industry and have since produced a safety magazine in agricultural insurance, an employee magazine, a dairy producer newsletter, print ads, news releases, magazines, television commercials, corporate newsletters, radio ads, posters, displays and myriad other things filled with words.

But only learned to write about a year ago.

A friend, Mike Wagner of OwnYourBrand.com handed me a copy of the
Secrets of the Wizard of Ads, a book by Roy Williams over at the the Wizard Academy. It's a wonderful book of short essays that really focus on the spirit of writing, the importance of crafting stories. And it changed the way I look at writing.

I've always had to look hard for the story in any story: my publisher used to assign me stories based on an advertiser's claim, telling me "You'll find the story when you get there!" And I was pretty good at it, but I didn't love writing and it showed. Writing was just something I did between creating big ideas, crafting strategies that build upon each other and trying to be a designer (that's another post for another day).

After reading the Wizard of Ads, I've been slowing down, digging deep for the story inside the story, trying to cut away anything that doesn't capture the imagination and attention of the reader.

Blogging is a good work out for cutting the fat in your copy. So is working with graphic designers who want less copy all the time. Just this last week, I was working on some lean copy, and I got really defensive really fast when a co-worker started saying we might cut it down even more, and use some bullets. But bullets don't deliver passion and energy and rhythm, so I went back to the keyboard and started microsurgery, trimming little pieces of fat here and there until the copy was free any any unnecessary calorie.

We'll see if it satisfies when the rest of the team get their teeth into it.

Be relevant

2006-01-13T08:45:00.000-06:00

The problem with many brands is that they use advertising messages that aren't relevant. They yak more about themselves - features, price, etc. - than they do about the audience.

This is one of the exceptions. It's for United Sugars, selling sugar, a commodity product that is practically identical to anybody else's sugar, but it hits the relevance nail on the head. It tells a story that is completely relevant to the person who buys a lot of sugar.

The copy reads:

Another day in purchasing

At United Sugars, we know that your job is anything but easy. That’s why we’re focused on providing you with a reliable supply of sugar. And willing to do whatever it takes to help you keep your cool. Give us a call at 1-800-984-3585, or visit www.unitedsugars.com.

Simple copy about a simple promise - we provide a reliable supply of sugar. Outstanding execution, don't you think?

Full disclosure here: I had nothing to do with this ad, but I wish I had thought of it.

In the absence of truth is disappointment.

2006-01-12T00:06:00.000-06:00

When a brand isn't truthful, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the audience. After all, a brand is a promise or an expectation. I've also used the word reputation to describe a brand.

And what happens when a person, for example, isn't truthful? Others are hurt, distrustful and disappointed.

Example: Years ago, I saw a big white moving truck with a roughly scribbled label "Two Men And A Truck” and I instantly thought “There’s a local company that is probably a low-cost alternative to the national brands. Good for them.” Then, a few years later, I saw something that disappointed me: I saw two “Two Men and A Truck” trucks right next to each other. Before I realized that it was a chain operation, I was really disappointed. I wanted to see two men and one truck, not two trucks. That lead to all kinds of questions? Where there two men and two trucks? Four men and two trucks? Or were there other men and other trucks? And where were the women?

The brand name was cute, but it wasn’t truthful. Even at the local level, shouldn’t they make every effort to hide the second, third and fourth truck?

That’s an obviously mild case of a brand without truth. Can you think of other brands that aren’t truthful?

Jim Wier is my hero!

2006-01-11T19:50:00.000-06:00

Jim Wier said ‘no’ to Wal-Mart.

Wier is the former CEO of Simplicity, the people who make Snapper brand lawnmowers, and his applause-creating stand against the brand-killer from Arkansas is highlighted in a new book by Charles Fishman, titled "The Wal-Mart Effect" The Wier story is excerpted in the Jan/Feb 2006 issue of Fast Company.

It was in October 2002 and the vice president in charge of buying lawnmowers told Weir that he wanted to buy even more mowers. Wier, who started sweating, said “Let me tell you why it doesn’t work.”

“Wier traveled to Bentonville with a firm grasp of the values of Snapper, the dynamics of the lawn-mower business, the needs of the dealers, the needs of the Snapper customer, and the needs of the Wal-Mart customer. He was not dazzled by the tens of millions of dollars’ worth of lawn mowers al-Mart was already selling for Snapper’; he was not deluded about his ability to beat Wal-Mart at its own game, to somehow resist the price pressure. He was not imaginging that he could take the sales now and figure out the profits later.

“Jim Wier believed that Snapper’s health – indeed, its very long-term survival – required that it not do business with Wal-Mart.”

In other words, he looked to his brand to decide to whom he was gong to sell his products. Even more amazing, he actually looked at the retailers’ customer before realizing that the opportunity wasn’t aligned with his brand. His brand told him NOT to sell through Wal-Mart.

By his own admission in the except/book, no lightning bolt struck even though Snapper instantly gave up almost 20 percent of its business. “But when we told the dealers that they would no longer find Snapper in Wal-Mart,” writes Wier, “they were very pleased with that decision. And I think we got most of the business back by winning the hearts of the dealers.”

He’s now working for someone else, but I want his autograph. He’s my hero.

Note: The book's author, Charles Fishman, is a senior author of Fast Company.

Full disclosure

2006-01-10T23:11:00.000-06:00

I talk a lot about brand. That's why I'm blogging about it; to give my friends and colleagues a break. In my professional circles, I'm known as a 'brand' guy. People know that if they ask me about marketing, communications, advertising, sales, etc. they're going to get an answer based on brand. Heck, if they ask me about sports, current events or TV they're probably also going to hear about branding.

But I have no vested interest, at leat not a lot of vested interest. Branding is not a cash cow. If I successfully convince a client that brand is the critical foundation on which to build all business decisions, I still only get a little bit of the work. I can do the video, the advertising, the brochures, but they still have to manage their brand. They still have to train their employees to manage the brand and them empower them to own the brand.

That's dirty work and the client has to do a lot of the heavy lifting.

I recently worked with a small town bank, and we created four critical issues based on an extensive strategic mapping process. Of the four, only one was marketing oriented. The other three were operational issues that they had to fix on their own.

A law firm came to us for a website a year or so ago, and we said "maybe you need a website and maybe you don't. Tell us about yourself." When we finished, there were several operational issues that had to be fixed before we could start on the website. I think I sold the fact that we focus on what needs to be done too hard because when we finished, we didn't even get to do the website: they found a friend-of-a-friend-that-does-websites to do the work.

The point is I think it's more important that my clients understand who they are and use it to drive everything they do - including the marketing communications - than it is to have a pretty logo or a nice looking brochure. And if they do it right, they don't need to rely completely on me, my firm or my services.

Does "brand" need more syllables

2006-01-10T11:32:00.000-06:00

A co-worker tells me that brand may be getting overexposed in the marketplace, that clients are bored with it. He may be right, or maybe clients are being wooed by sexier concepts, like CEM.

Marketing Profs.com includes a new article about "customer experience management" Author Leigh Duncan writes "While there's a clear reason to become a staunch supporter of CEM, there's a great deal of confusion over what it really is. As more individuals get on board the CEM bandwagon and build services, confusion seems to be increasing. It's time to demystify the hype."

In my humble opinion, the problem is the hype: CEM sounds like another example of agencies trying to reinvent themselves into something different, something new, something else.

I saw it 20 years ago with IMC (integrated marketing communications). I went back to school to study IMC and, fortunately, the degree was paid for largely by my employers, because when I finished, all I could say was "duh!" I'd been thinking integrated marketing communications without even knowing I was doing it. I was integrated before integration was even cool!

Duncan added to Bernd Schmitt's definition of CEM ("the process of strategically managing a customer's entire experience with a product or company)" by writing CEM "represents the discipline, methodology and/or process used to comprehensively manage a customer's cross-channel exposure, interaction and transaction with a company, product, brand or service."

In another post today, Tom Whelan, seems to put customer experience management as the end-all, be-all, with brand as but one component. (Then again, he's a "customer experience management" expert and I'm a "brand" warrior so we're wearing out biases on our sleeve.) I humbly submit that his definition is correct only if you define brand as the brochure, ad or other purposeful event or activity to "brand" (used as a verb) yourself or your organization.

Unfortunately, many in our business, and the clients we serve, think that brand is a new logo, a tagline or an ad. And, thus, they are giving the concept less and less credibility. I guess it doesn't have enough syllables to be of value.

I believe the customer experience is but one component of brand, with the brand being defined as "a person or organization's reputation based on the experience with it." Unlike CEM, brand doesn't ignore employees, suppliers, the general public, media, competitors and other influencers. Don't we want to manage the brand there too? And shouldn't it be consistent?

I'll admit that I'm a simple person, and I need a simple framework for my ideas. Brand is that framework. I don't like big, complicated ideas that are hard to explain, hard to implement and hard to get paid for. I believe that if we first understand the brand - aka the reputation - and then use it to make every other decision - including how we manage the customer experience - we can't go wrong?

Sometimes, it's still hard to get paid for that realization so maybe I need to add a few more syllables to the definition.

Teddy Roosevelt was a poseur?

2006-01-07T00:31:00.000-06:00

In another post, I mentioned the book Denison, Iowa. In the pages of that story about secrets was another that gave me reason to pause. Author Dale Maharidge, in a passage describing Teddy Roosevelt, writes: "Roosevelt owned a ranch in North Dakota and by many accounts was a poseur: he wore ornate cowboy costumes and buckskins that no real rancher would ever by caught in.” Later, he tells the reader that Roosevelt designed his own uniform…the one he wore while riding up San Juan Hill!

I was (sort of) crushed. That was such a great story…Teddy and the Roughriders, all that leather fringe in those old photographs. And it was fake. I’ll never be able to hear the name “Teddy Roosevelt” again without questioning whatever comes after it.

His brand will forever suffer in my eyes because it’s not truthful. How sad.

That's a huge problem for all brands. One of the key attributes for a successful brand is its truthfulness. How many organizations are fooling themselves about their brand.

How many employees think they are about "quality," but take short cuts all the time in the name of saving money or speeding production or making the boss happy?
How many owners think they are about "customer service" yet have store hours that are convenient for them, not their customer?
How many organizations think they are about integrity yet are known by their suppliers for unethical dealings?

How many brands are poseurs? Is your brand one of them?

The difference between brand and stereotype

2006-01-07T00:01:00.000-06:00

I just finished reading Denison, Iowa, a fascinating book by Dale Maharidge about the transformation of small-town Iowa in the wake of increasing Latino immigration. The subtitle says it all: “Searching for the Soul of America Through the Secrets of a Midwest Town.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning Maharidge tells the story of the year he spent in the tiny (pop. 8,000) northwest Iowa town of Denison, hometown of the late actress Donna Reed, the Donna Reed Museum, the Donna Reed Foundation for the Performing Arts and two meatpacking plants. And, as the book documents, it's also home to a certain amount of underlying racism, lies, fear, pride, courage and, ultimately, glacier-like change that make up many small towns in flyover country.

As I read the final third of the book this evening, I also watched one of my favorite movies, Remember the Titans. You may remember Remember the Titans was about how a newly integrated football team in 1970's northern Virginia struggled with the same issues, ultimately overcoming them and winning the state championship.

While reading and watching, I came upon an interesting brand management lesson.

Q: What’s the difference between a brand and a stereotype?
A: Truth.

Brands are based on experience; stereotypes, on ignorance.

The movie ended on an upbeat note. Once Denison gets a chance to read the book, think about what was written and consider its truths, I have high hopes that it will start a winning drive, too.

She was glamorous

2006-01-06T13:48:00.000-06:00

I once worked for a woman who understood the meaning of fabulous. And she knew how to get it. Fabulous was her brand.

Her name was Karen, and she was a vice president of marketing in a small, growing, entrepreneurial, creative division of a big, entepreneurial company. I was her only employee when I joined her company and she expected fabulous things of me and the cool, interesting and like-minded people she hired. She also created an environment where being fabulous was possible.

She sent me out to pick the most powerful laptop - because I would be traveling a lot - and a big monitor, and all the important graphic design software. I was the only person I knew designing with a IBM Thinkpad and a 21-inch monitor!

She told me to visit the local art supply store with a company credit card to get inspired. She said I should attend trade shows outside my industry just to see other ideas.

She asked my help to put our favorite sayings on the wall, not little posters with mission statements. Large, colorful, sprawling visions, inspirational quotes.

Even after we grew up and into new surroundings, she insisted that I be part of the team that was outfitting and decorating the new office. Even though we used cubicles, we used cool, colorful, inviting cubicles, and set them at odd angles.

On a trip to Chicago, she made me eat French food overlooking Michigan Avenue. I had to wear one of those borrowed jackets because that was the rule in this restaurant. And she asked my opinion on the expensive suits and ties she bought for her husband at a men's store on the Miracle Mile. When in Milan, she pointed out the Prada store and the other centers of fashion and design.

She expected - no, demanded - creativity, and knew that often meant asking forgiveness instead of permission.

When she spun off a company selling to the cosmetics industry, she wrote this as her vision statement: “Surround ourselves with smart, creative people. Inspire a driven, entrepreneurial spirit in each of us. Develop and exceed big, hairy, audacious goals. Have fun in all our endeavors and be glamorous.”

Karen died unexpectedly a few years ago, but I think of her often. I miss her and I miss her glamour.

Now stepping up to the plate

2006-01-05T22:50:00.000-06:00

Another blog. And it's about branding. You're probably thinking "Jeeeesh, can't these brand people get someone to pay them for their ideas so we don't have to read them on blogs?"

Yes, it's true. There are a lot of bloggers whipping out brand missives. And there are a lot of well-known brand experts using up bandwidth, but I think that's part of the lifelong learning that seems to be rampant among some of the best and some of the not-yet-known. The people I have the pleasure of talking brand with are always reading, always looking at new ideas and always updating their own thinking. They read the latest business books, they dig through business magazines and they observe what's going on around them. And they use blogs - and the amazing quality of community that blogs can build - to give shape to their ideas.

That's what I hope to do. While I write for my firm's website I don't always think my comments warrant that amount of effort. And our website isn't built for blogging. Therefore, I'll give it a shot here for awhile and see what happens...just like millions of others who have turned to the internet because they think they have something to say.

If you read it, good. If you write back, even better. But if nobody comes to this site, that's okay: it will give me a chance to work on my writing, flesh out a few ideas and not waste anybody's time doing so.