Maslow. Fond as I am of your Hierarchy of Needs, I think it needs a little review

When I was at college studying marketing, this was a classic piece for us to learn. Maslow proposes that as we grow and attain civilisation and wealth, we move up the hierarchy of needs.

But I think the model is still potentially relevant, just far more muddled than it used to be.

Replace the Physiological needs with getting the mortgage paid and staying out of fuel poverty and you cover a very large proportion of the population.

But what has changed in my opinion, and what matters to people who control brands, is that he progression through the hierarchy is no longer, well, hierarchical. I believe many people now jump from the bottom right to the top. I’ll explain.

For many this is as good as it’s going to get. If you have ever read the book ‘We need to talk about Kevin’ (you should) the reason for all his pain and violence is that even though he is from a normal middle class family, that just wasn’t enough. He wanted recognition too.

Change the word ‘recognition’ to ‘self worth’ and you have an important jump.

If this is as good as it’s going to get for many. They still want more. They want to know they are doing things with their life that have worth, that makes them feel good about themselves.

So for me, it’s an early trend. More people doing more good, creative and artistic things – not for profit, but for self worth.

So if you own or control a brand, it’s time to start thinking what’s in it for them. How can they feel better by hanging out with your brand.

Howies summed it up years ago in a mailer, when they asked whether I just had enough stuff. In truth, we all have enough stuff, so what I’m saying is that we need a little more thoughtfulness as well.

Tesco - a brand to trust? Hmm, Not in my opinion.

Tesco as a business isn’t doing badly. It’s profits are still huge, even if they are slightly down on previous quarters in the UK.

But for me, this is masking a much bigger brand problem and that is because nothing they offer is special any more. They don’t make customers feel valued, they don’t surprise or delight us, they just keep chipping away at prices by chipping away at suppliers who have no choice but to chip away at the quality.

We have always believed that the way a brand should behave is to decide a price and then see how good you can make the product for that target price. To me, Tesco look like they are aiming to produce all of their goods as cheaply as possible and not seeing how good they can make them for the money.

This is a short term profit boost that leads to long term decline.

Look at the section with motoring and cycling products. If you are even slightly into either pastime, you will see that what they are selling is utter crap and not cheap either. This is one tiny category in a huge store, but it’s reflection reaches far and wide in perception. If everything in the store is as badly produced and as nasty as this, why would I trust the brand overall?

Unless they up their game, start focusing on quality again and start treating their customers as intelligent individuals who do have a choice, this will be the first of very many profit warnings to come.

The Haka has always been something I have watched with fear and admiration, but today in the final of the Rugby World cup, I saw it for the first time as a brand marker for New Zealand. It shows their power, their determination and their ability to stand, miles from anywhere else in the world as a distinct nation, that is proud of its roots.

If you were going to write a few rules about a brand, they would be simple.

Do things well

Mean them, ie live your values

Build on your roots

Be differentiated.

They seem to have done all of these rather well here. And to be honest, it’s the first time I have ever seen anyone respond to it like the French. What a brilliant advertisement for the country and the sport of rugby.

In his PodCast on 31/10/08 The Welch Way, Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE explains what he thinks you should do if you are getting a mauling in the press.

1. Get the whole story out there immediately. Their job is to deliver the whole story and you can rest assured they will find it, whether you like it or not.

2. Be consistent in the way you tell the story to which groups. Don’t tell them what you think what they want to hear. These inconsistencies will be reported and you will be well and truly caught out.

3. Be proactive. Tell your story by taking it into your own hands. You can’t change the coverage to your liking, but you can get the last word via your own websites and blogs. As long as your site has a reputation for being truthful/soul searching rather than propaganda you can still win in the end.

All of this applies to a news story as well as the way you manage any brand. Tell the whole story truthfully and consistently and you will win if the product is good enough every time they come into contact with it.

I only need to look at various nieces and nephew’s Facebook pages to see how many of them are drinking well under the legal age. My dad ran a brewery, so we always had lots of beer in the house but I guess our generation has just grown up with far lower price points, far stronger drinks widely available and a far more liberal attitude to drinking at home than any generation before us.

I’m not one to lecture on this as I was smoking well under age with most of my peers, but almost all of them have given that up. It does seem that smoking early is perhaps inevitable as part of the ‘trying to be a grown up’ process but at least it’s one that most grow out of. Drinking isn’t though.

From a branding perspective, getting associated as a kids drink is very bad for their long term health. It always seem to kill them in the end.

Diamond White was (I think) the first of the premium bottled ciders and after a while, gradually started moving from 275ml bottles (ie a small and controllable amount) into 500ml cans and then eventually into 2litre PET bottles. In doing so, they cheapened the brand, killed it for ever as a premium product and ensured it’s demise.

It was also announced today that White Lightning, it’s spiritual successor is being withdrawn too as the brand owners are admitting it has become a problem for them.

Andy Dawson, in his brilliant article (here) reports on the decision by Heineken’s Marketing Manager in charge of the brand Mark Gerken,

‘He admitted that white cider “is a problem drink” for the booze industry because it tends to have negative connotations with “the park bench,” adding: “We’re trying to distance ourselves from the negative images that the old traditional category had. Cider is now much more about enjoyment, refreshment, sharing and over ice.”

In other words, it used to be for tramps and now it’s just for twats’

White Lighning as shown by some of their underage core audience enjoying a quiet parkside drink

Brilliant. They are attempting to relaunch cider upmarket again, which probably means it will drift down towards being a kids drink within the next few years.

And there’s Stella, or Wife Beater to it’s friends. It used to be reassuringly expensive, now it’s worryingly cheap. Partly because they changed the recipe to allow them to hit new price points, so they could chase market share. In doing so, they took away one of the key differentiators of the brand – which was that it was far more flavoursome and better quality than other similar beers – and made it accessible to kids.

There has to be another generational change to make drinking a social occasion rather than an ‘all the time’ occasion, or there will be far more teenage alcoholics, dying kids and lots more dying beer brands.

Adults and beer brands shouldn't really try to get down there with the kids

Beer brands, like most adults, shouldn’t try to get down there with the kids, it will kill all of them in the end.

Is it plausible, does it differentiate and is is it sustainable?

These would be three questions we would ask when we were looking at any strapline to work with, or support a brand and for us, in most cases. Best is just not good enough.

Case 1 – Seattle’s Best Coffee

As already discussed here, I think this is impossible to prove and almost completely implausible when they are faced with the might of Starbucks on their doorstep. I can see why they are making that claim, but don’t really believe they are Seattle’s best. You would hope however that if they are making such a ludicrously bold claim then it should at least be better than average and prepared with some care, skill and dexterity.

Seattle's best coffee and now in Japan?

Case 2 Gillette – The best a man can get?

When Gillette came to the UK, they briefed their agency BDO to look at, and work with, this strapline. BDO rightly pointed out that this was unprovable and as such, couldn’t be used in UK advertising. Gillette challenged this in court and the decision was that they were not claiming they were better than anyone else so therefore, anyone else could also be best too.

It was in effect, top parity. By being at the top themselves, they didn’t have exclusive ownership of that top slot and could share it with others. They have used it ever since in ads that I find continually irritating and tired. I also make a point of not using their products.

This ad from 1989 shows their thinking when they came to the UK with the first use of this strapline. For me, it shows how far we have moved in terms of advertising techniques and what worked then. It is awful, patronising and again, completely implausible. When did you last see an ad this cheesy?

Their brand tags show how effective its been for them however as you can see here

Case 3 – Elf (2003)

When Buddy (Will Ferrell) is wandering around New York, he sees a sign outside a crappy coffee shop and runs in to congratulate them. Later on in the film he takes his new girlfriend Jovie (Zooey Deschanel) for a treat at the home of the world’s best coffee. She is slightly unimpressed – again because it is so implausible.

Case 4 – BB Muffins Nottingham

I saw this today and laughed. If claiming to offer the best coffee in Seattle is a big claim, this one is plain stupid.

BB Muffins the home of the world's best coffee - and by law, their coffee is only actually as good as anyone elses!

It’s a bun shop that sells coffee on the side. For them to make a claim as the ‘world’s best’ is 100% ludicrous. I’ve never eaten or drank there, so I can’t vouch for their work, but it’s about as plausible a ‘world’s best’ as the one in Elf.

Case 5. Tina Turner – Simply the best

Hmm, not for me, but as we were talking about this in the office, they dared me to add this to the list, so I did. Enjoy it as it’s from her live tour in 1990 and she’s put on some years since then. Does the word ‘simply’ at the start help with her differentiation?

Summary.

Anyone can claim they offer the ‘world’s best’ as it isn’t a point of difference, it’s just a point of top parity.

To make this claim and deliver a product that is less than world class, will (hopefully) kill your brand forever.

Any brand has to have a clear and demonstrable point of difference, or people will not understand what they are about and what they should feel by having a ‘brand’ relationship with them.

‘Best’ isn’t good enough and ‘better’ normally isn’t provable, so where does that leave all these?

Who else can we add to the list of fame/shame as making brilliant/ridiculous claims to be the best?

Show me the videos or stills and I’ll happily link them off here. Have fun.

Thanks for the Seattle’s best shot to Cloganese. You can see more of his fine work here

The best ever Icon that completely represents all of Spain's brand values

But when Spain started using the Joan Miró ‘logo’ to represent the Spanish brand, the whole offer started to make more sense. It had in effect, displayed its brand values in one beautifully simple representation to show that it was all about fun, easy living and a lovely relaxed style. For me, it is one of the most beautifully timeless ‘icons’ I have ever seen.

But then it all started to go wrong when they started trying to sneak in a few extra brand values, namely profit and perhaps even profiteering.

One of the attractions for us Brits of a Spanish holiday was always that it was incredibly cheap when we got there. Cheap beer, freshly cooked fish on the beach and change out of £20 for a family of four. The introduction of the Euro saw the first real move away from this with money pouring in from the rest of the Euro Zone and a move towards comparative wealth in the most popular destinations.

But then it all went wrong.

People rushed to buy the cheap apartments, being promised and initially seeing, spectacular growth in value, fuelled by the cheap flights of the low cost carriers. But as we’ve all worked out, there’s no such thing as a free flight and there’s certainly no such thing as a free lunch.

Sun, Sea, Sand and a pretty poor branded investment with a superb view over the motorway

Profiteering was rife. Land that was being bought for comparative buttons, was being converted to thousands upon thousands of Penthouse apartments, and in an exact mirror of the buy-to-let crash in the UK, there soon became a HUGE oversupply and the market tanked.

Where I was staying above La Cala, which was a lovely development, there were only one in eight apartments occupied. Around us in other developments, the figures looked much worse, with one opposite only having three occupiers in over 100 apartments – and that is in the height of their summer season. I personally know three people who are trying to sell (absolutely lovely) places in that region alone and all are now offering them at 40+% less than they were a year ago, with not even a sniff of a viewing, let alone any buyers.

The taxi drivers are reporting a 25% drop in traffic and the one I spoke to said he could not afford to have another summer like it. He had moved from selling timeshare, but he acknowledged, that dreadful mistakes had been made in the property market. Even the taxi market is massively oversupplied with over 400 taxis waiting at Malaga airport on one of the days I was there, for far too few fares.

The restaurants reacted by putting their prices UP, so that a meal for four is a struggle for less than 100 Euro. They too are reporting huge falls in numbers – which is hardly surprising either. The visitors seem to have reacted by staying away and buying from the supermarkets, which still offer remarkable value.

So Spain has completely trashed its brand values. It has stamped all over them and probably ruined them forever. Unless they can rebuild their business case with far fewer visitors and go back to their original values, their situation will get worse and worse and worse – and they already have 25% unemployment in some areas.

Spain is a lesson for any brand owner. Know your brand values, keep them steady and keep looking after your customers. Give them reasons to fall in love with you over and over again and never, ever put profit before quality.

Anyway, Turkey for me next year. If that’s not a Spain waiting to happen, I don’t know where is!

Buildabrand - automatically generated branding?

According to their own blurb, it’s ‘an online branding system that allows entrepreneurs, businesses and individuals to create, manage and apply instant and personalised branding to their business.’

Wow, that sounds clever. Maybe even too good to be true.

You tell it what your name and values are and then it automatically generates a brand for you.

So, referring back to my previous post about what branding was and what branding is, it clearly isn’t a system to build a brand, it’s a system to sell you merchandise with logos on it.

Ever the cynic about systems like this, I have registered to se whether it will generate a new brand for me or for Purple Circle, so I’ll let you know if I get ‘accepted’ into their beta programme.

It seems like it could be a progression from the plethora of $50 logo sites out there, but it certainly won’t generate you a brand or anything close to a brand using their automatically, powered ‘algorithms’. (A pseudonym for seeing which logo they have in stock which seems the least wrong when compared to your values)

Years ago, I was on a TV programme called Love at first sight, which was quite like a low rent Blind Date. The idea was that you said some comical things about yourself and then Cupid, the Love Computer matched you to one of the three lovely ladies in front of you. What actually happened was that you wrote down on a piece of card which one irritated you the least and if they picked you too, you won a prize.

I suspect that the Buildabrand algorithm uses similar technology.

Building a brand is far more than throwing a logo at a set of values. It’s about living them in everything you do and the logo showing people they have arrived at the branded experience.

UPDATED

I added a link to this piece on Twitter and it obviously got picked up by the people at Buildabrand, who posted the following reply.

Buildabrand - reply via Tweetdeck

I think they do have a point in that they are lowering the barrier to entry for start-ups in that they may be able to produce decent logo design on the cheap. What they will not be able to do however is build a brand. They can possibly do one tiny element of what constitutes a brand.

My issue with this as a service is that they are claiming they can sell you something worth many thousands of £££’a for a few pence. Anyone who thinks they can shortcut their way to a brand is deluded.

Branding takes time effort and consistency, not throwing a few values into a computer and seeing what pops out.

UPDATED AGAIN

I have to give great credit to the people at Buildabrand in that they have clarified their position a little further in what is quite a brave piece directly responding to some of the criticisms that myself and others have levelled at them. You can read that here.

What they are now saying is that they are not trying to replicate what true branding agencies provide, but offering a low cost solution to those who need a quick and dirty logo for a project they are looking at but can’t afford to do properly. They say they have a bank of 1800 logo ‘solutions’ built up ready for the onslaught. Maybe I’m being unkind in saying that sounds remarkably like an adaptation of clipart (which is exactly what the likes of $50 logo do), but only time will tell.

I’ve applied for the beta, so lets see if I can get onto their scheme (now extended to 200 freebies from the original 50) and then set them a worthy challenge. I’ll let you be the judges, by sharing the results here – when and if I get selected. They are now following me on Twitter, so it will be a test for them to decide whether they want me as a customer.

This has slowly morphed into the black art of branding, which seems to have its hooks into every aspect of a business and its public face.

So whilst I was writing a presentation this morning about what branding now encompasses, I was surprised to see quite how far it had come in those 19 years.

Branding is about everything, including the kitchen sink

Branding is now about every aspect of the way an organisation presents itself, both internally and externally. You first have to win your staff over, to allow them to sell the message of what you do, and how you do it, to the rest of the world.

So this is a list of what we have worked on under the guise of a branding:

Brand strategy, naming, design, management and implementation covering all physical aspects such as signage, van liveries, staff uniforms, office and retail interiors, point of sale, packaging and exhibitions.

Literature, newsletters, annual reports, white papers, direct mail.

Advertising production, photography, image management, illustration, print management, copywriting, tone of voice and language guidelines.

Website design and production, social media marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO), email marketing, DVD and training film production, TV graphics.

Online PR, marketing research and brand insight, staff engagement programmes, public speaking on Brands and social media.

Merchandise management and strategy

Have I missed anything?

The real danger here is that working in a small agency you end up being mediocre at everything and many, many practitioners do (which is why you still see lots of dreadful work out there!), but I believe you have to have the confidence to hold the brand to its absolute core values and then work with close partners to deliver the specifics in areas you have less than expert knowledge.

Our role moves more towards the brand management and less to do with the specific deliverables.

Any brand that doesn’t cover off all its public and internal facing touchpoints is leaving itself open to problems of inconsistency from the outset, so it may be a good idea to use this checklist and refer back to your brand values.

Are all of them as good as they could be, or will a little bit of new brand thinking help get your brand properly branded?

To be a brilliant brand, you have to be brilliant at everything, not great at some and barely okay at others.

Thanks to Hoppetossen for the lovely Kitchen sink image. You can see more of his good work here.