Author: Johnny Lyle

Creating brands and building businesses in the Themed Entertainment and attractions industry.
branding

Innocent Smoothies ‘A Book About Innocent: Our Story and Some Things We’ve Learned – Book review

Innocent smoothies - everything you need to know about branding
Innocent smoothies - everything you need to know about branding

There are few books that I have ever read that I have enjoyed more than this, because it is so obviously living its own values throughout every single element of the presentation.

From the beautiful simple writing to the clear, friendly design, it is a must read for anyone who wants to truly understand what branding is really about – from the masters of what branding is all about.

So what are the key learnings for me that came from reading and really thinking about what they are saying. Well, there are lots of them, but these are my top ten which made a real and lasting impression.

1. You don’t need masses of experience to start a business, but you do need an awful lot of determination and a brilliantly differentiated idea.

2. If you don’t get it right first time, it is not a failure, it is a potential lesson on the way to getting the right answer.

3. The beauty is in the detail. Its easy to do the big things right, but the differentiation comes in the small stuff that no-one else does like you.

4. Create a set of values that you really believe in and then deliver them ruthlessly at every single level of the organisation. Have fun, you spend a lot of time at work.

5. Recruit and retain brilliant people, even if they are not the same as you, but make sure you have a clear role definition for all of them.

6. Give people real responsibility to manage their own areas and then measure them on that. If they don’t measure up, help them move on.

7. Profit is not a dirty word, it allows you to continue to do more of what you do and live your values even more clearly.

8. Keep listening as you aren’t learning if you are talking. Look for inspiration everywhere, however random.

9. Keep evolving as a business as if you stand still you will slowly die.

10. Try new stuff. It may well work. If it does, do more of it.

Overall, this is a superb book that I found myself actually slowing down on whilst I was reading it so I wouldn’t finish it too quick.

Brilliant, just brilliant. You can buy your very own copy (and I urge you to do so, by clicking here.

And finally, thanks to the rather excellent ViZZZual.com for use of his image.

My new friend Rowena
My new friend Rowena

Oh, and when you read it, look out for my new friend Rowena who is the very smiley one on the Banana phone in the front of the book. Hello.

Andy Hanselman, branding

How to create devoted customers

A very good friend and colleague of ours (currently honeymooning in New York and still blogging) has written a brilliant little presentation that he has published on Slideshare about how to create devoted customers.

I love the logic.

Delighted just isn’t good enough, because when (or if) they come back for me, they already have high expectations and to really win them over you need to deliver even more next time, or they will just be satisfied.

It’s the challenge facing any company, any brand and in effect any employee. How do you keep raising your game, so you don’t get overtaken by the next big thing.

A really simple line of wisdom that I have quoted before from Tony parsons in his book Man and Wife, where he is speaking to his Mum to understand how his Dad and her had managed to stay married for so long, where she says “you have to keep falling in love over and over again”.

If you don’t take this seriously as a brand owner, pretty soon, your customers will fall out of love with you and the devotion will be gone.

branding

An Innocent tale – Updated

A little bit of Innocent fun
A little bit of Innocent fun

I’m reading the rather excellent book about Inocent Smoothies called ‘A Book About Innocent: Our Story and Some Things We’ve Learned’ Which is absolutely excellent and really confirms many of our thoughts about how real branding works. There seems to be so much power in the detail that they take seriously that anyone in any industry can learn from reading this enjoyable book.

I’ll write a full review in the next few days when I’ve finished it, but had to relay one of the brilliant stories in it.

Innocent often put ‘joke’ ingredients in their listings and on one, they added the odd ingredient of ‘Two Plump Nuns’. This was designed to show their purity and innocence – a lovely and funny thought – but really not one to be taken too seriously – who would really be thinking there was bits of nun in it, plump or otherwise?

But not according to the Trading Standards people, who after some to-ing and fro-ing wrote them a letter that essentially said “either you add in two plump nuns to your smoothies, or take them off your ingredients list.

Brilliant.

You can buy it here and I would absolutely recommend you do.

Latest news update
I bought a bottle of the superfruit smoothie today which was lovely and has a brilliant story about the bees knees on the side, so I thought I would write and let them know how much I enjoyed it and how much I was enjoying the book.

So I wrote and said “Afternoon

I just wanted to say I love your bee story on the side of your bottle. And I am loving your book so much, I was forced to blog midway through it about the Plump Nuns

https://johnnylyle.co.uk/2009/07/07/an-innocent-tale/

Thanks for helping me with a lovely healthy lunch

Cheers John”

and then only eight (yes 8, go on count them) minutes later I had a very nice reply from a lady called Rowena which read

“Hello John,

Thanks for your e-mail. Great to hear how much you’re enjoying having a read of our book and the Plump Nuns story. Hope you like the rest of the book too.

All the best,

Row”

Now I guess I was expecting a reply, but a personal one in 8 minutes is exceptional and the reason they are such a fabulous business ad a brand that any sensible business should envy and learn from. I am now a devoted fan!

branding

‘Who moved my cheese’ by Dr Spencer Johnson book review

You need to be a fast mouse to catch the moving cheese
You need to be a fast mouse to catch the moving cheese

What an amazingly simple little book this is. I was expecting to hate it and having read the first few pages, I knew I was going to hate it, but the beauty of this book is its sheer simplicity.

It’s a tale of two mice and two little people who discover a huge supply of cheese and proceed to stuff their faces with it until it runs out.

Obviously there’s a moral to the story that relates to a more general business context.

The two wise ones, realised the cheese was running out and working together, moved on before the supply had completely run dry. The slightly less dim one realised that perhaps the cheese supply had been running a bit light, and was not as fresh as before and he had perhaps been taking it easy for a while. Luckily he moved on before he lost everything and after lots of hard work, found a new supply that was even better than before.

Only the really dim one lost everything. He refused to believe the cheese had gone (ie the market had moved on) blamed everyone else for it moving and essentially sat in place sulking about how unfair it all was. He insisted that someone had moved his cheese.

The parallels with industry are obvious and strikingly simple. For a 30 minute read, it has to be worth a go.

There are so many markets been lost and found these days in such an incredibly short time, its getting harder and harder to spot who moved the cheese and where its gone.

But after 18 years of running a design business, we’ve chased a lot of new cheese and thankfully caught it so far. When it moves again, after reading this, I’ll be quicker still to react.

You can buy your very own copy of the book Who Moved my Cheese by Dr Spencer Johnson from Amazon here

Thanks to MVA for the lovely mouse pic. You can see his work here.

branding

What you need to ask in order to create brand that really works in the words of Rudyard Kipling.

Rudyard Kipling - Six wise questions to create your brand
Rudyard Kipling - Six wise questions to create your brand

The Elephant’s Child

I KEEP six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.
But different folk have different views;
I know a person small-
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!

She sends’em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes-
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!

In short, if you are branding, thinking of branding or looking at rebranding, act like the Elephant’s Child and ask the six wise questions. If you do this, you can create a brand that is differentiated enough to really work.

Ignore it at your peril.

There’s no such thing as a stupid question, it’s just stupid not to ask them.

Brand Experience, branding

It’s not about branding – it’s the product

Malcolm Gladwell chooses between Pepsi and Coke?
Malcolm Gladwell chooses between Pepsi and Coke?

I think we can all get a little distracted by brands and branding. Convinced of our own brilliance and self glorifying world that creating a quirky little logo will have the punters pouring in.

Well I’m here to dispel that rumour. It won’t.

A good logo on its own will not win you a single customer. Not one.

A bad one can however, stop you even being considered for calling up.

Bad logos are hateful, every designers worst nightmare and we love the glow from great work. Peer respect is important in almost every industry and we all feel good when our work is rated.

But it’s the product that really matters, branded or not.

If the product works and people feel comfortable with owning in – no proud to own it – no even delighted to give you their custom and eulogise to their friends about how great it is, then you know you have a potential winner.

So here’s one for you. Which search product is better?

Bing – Microsoft’s new baby
Google – the worlds most dominant search provider
Yahoo – yeah, remember them?

Well now you can see, in a blind test. Judging only by the efficacy of the product. How quickly did it give me exactly the answer I was looking for, how efficiently my problem was solved or how painless the experience was.

Try it for yourself with this Blind search tool.

It comes from a very clever man called Michael Kordahi who has his own blog here.

It means the branding is irrelevant and you have to choose on the results.

Now I will add the caveat here that blind testing is not always a faithful predictor of what you are going to do in future. Martin Lindstrom in his book Buyology massively disproved that, but it will make you think.

Now Pepsi also tried this with their own taste tests. For years they proclaimed that people preferred the taste of their brown fizzy water over Coke’s but it still didn’t translate into long lasting sales. (although it did prompt the launching of ‘New Coke’ if Roger Enrico the former Pepsi CEO is to be believed.) Latest thinking shows this is more to do with it being a sweeter drink (which is easier to like in small quantities) than it actually being preferred as a long term brand ‘friend’.

Anyway, try it for yourself. See which you think really works, brand or no brand.

Thanks to Niall Kennedy, for the use of the Malcolm Gladwell (my hero) Pepsi v Coke image

branding

The increasing importance of business cards

A big pile of business cards
A big pile of business cards

In the old days, long before I was even a twinkle, when men wore ties and waistcoats, gentlemen’s calling cards were the thing to have to prove you were actually a gentleman.

In the late 1900’s they were an essential accessory for anyone who did not want to come across as a cad. According to the book ‘Our Deportment’ from 1881, where they summarise its place in society…

“To the unrefined and underbred, the visiting card is but a trifling bit of paper; but to the cultured disciple of social law, it conveys a subtle and unmistakable intelligence. Its texture, style of engraving, and even the hour of its leaving combine to place the stranger, whose name it bears, in a pleasant or a disagreeable attitude…”

For me, they are coming right back into fashion. As our entire world moves online, your offline presentation will come down to differentiating yourself with your card again. Unless people are actually interested in engaging, or even doing business with you, they will never see your brochure, they will never download your corporate profile and they may never even be engaged enough to see your website.

We are so bombarded by the different media channels where we have the opportunity to see people’s ‘stuff’ that the simplest becomes the most important again.

So as part of your overall, brand presentation, never underestimate the importance of doing the card part right. In the 1800’s, they talked about texture and so do we – constantly. A card that looks and feels right is essential for any gentleperson in business today.

It may be a very little detail in your mind, but if it’s all that anyone is seeing, it could be every detail in their mind.

As an addition. i’ve just been shown these which I think are brilliant!

branding

A Kit Kat is NOT the same as an Aston Martin

Kit Kat is a chocolate brand that has a bit of history behind it when it comes to messing around with their brand and seeing how far they can stretch it.

Not all of it has been entirely successful either.

I was running through the various brand extensions in my head and could quickly remember orange, mint, dark, chunky, two finger, four finger, ones with noisette filling, chunky peanut, caramel and one called a duo.

They tried to aim them at the health conscious, with 100 calorie badging and they even tried marketing the bigger ones to people who thought the little ones were a bit too girly.

They are an example of a brand stretching policy that went too far. So far in fact that, according to Wikipedia, Chris White, the Managing Director of Nestlé Rowntree left his job a little abruptly in 2005 amid accusations of him damaging the long term health of the brand, by his watering down/stretching methods.

So I have to say, that I was more than a little surprised to see that Aston Martin are planning the launch of a City Car based on the Toyota IQ.

Aston Martin Cygnet - hmmmmm!
Aston Martin Cygnet - hmmmmm!

What a ridiculous idea. What a totally ridiculous pox of an idea.

They already know they are in the wrong as they are saying it will only be available to existing customers. Apparently they are worried that Aston martin owners drive City cars too. I would guess that most Aston Martin owners can probably drive pretty much what they want as second cars.

Are they worried they fly and may use trains as well and start building these?

You simply cannot own every bit of all of the markets. You can be brilliant at what you do and stick to it. When you specialise and you are brilliant at it, you make money.

Its taken twenty years for Aston martin to become a superb brand again. They’ve done this by building beautifully designed, beautiful quality cars that people would love to own. Those that can afford to, do. They haven’t gone just around banging a new grill on Jaguar.

According to the Piston Heads website, it may be more to do with Aston Martin needing to lower their overall CO2 emissions as a business to get around some new and rather nasty US/EU directives on average C02 outputs – which will save them millions in taxes and could effectively make the production a cost neutral launch.

But even taking this into account, if you water down your brand and try and offer something for everyone, you end up with MG badged Maestros – and look what happened to Austin Rover.

The magnificently awful MG Maestro
The magnificently awful MG Maestro

I hope they don’t launch this and kill it before I have a chance to own a real one, because I certainly don’t want a Toyota one.

branding

Tango With ATtitude

Tango with added TWAT
Tango with added TWAT

I’m really not sure if this is on general release, but I spotted it on the blog of Carwyn Lloyd Jones and have been trying to find it ever since. It has either already been withdrawn, was never actually widely distributed or may be just a PR mock up.

It’s hardly subtle in the grand scheme of things, but in the steady move by Tango towards it being a more ‘attitudinal’ drink, this is a great stunt. I can imagine the Tango Man of old finding this gag vey amusing.

It feels a bit like the ‘slag of all snacks’ for Pot Noodle, that was eventually banned and must have had the creative team wetting themselves laughing at he poor account handler who had to sell it in.

But anyway, nice work – If you can find one, you’d be a twat not to try one today.

branding

Christine the clever cleaner

I don’t often read the West Bridgford News. It’s a bit of a local rag that is full of badly written blatant ads with the subtlety of a psycho with a hammer, but over my breakfast cereal today happened to be flicking through the latest copy to land on my doorstep.

And then this ad jumped out at me. Christine the cleaner with one of the best ads I’ve seen in years, that was 100% out of place in such a low grade publication.

Christine the Clever Cleaner
Christine the Clever Cleaner

I don’t need a cleaner, but I had to ring them to find out more. Apparently business has doubled since it ran in another local magazine, but they still have space for more clients.

Christine Dalby (the Christine in question) was lovely but her husband Bill, had to confess that as a young economics undergraduate, where they were studying advertising as part of his course, he was taken with a story from the deep and distant past in the history of Hoover.

Apparently a young Hoover employee in the advertising department was left on his own and being badgered for copy by the Daily Telegraph. With no line managers to ask advice and no obvious ad to hand, he ran an ad that was effectively a blank page with the words in the middle ‘Hoover cleaned this page’.

And the ad, took the market by storm.

Now, try as I might, I can find no trace of this old ad and would love to see it, so if anyone has any idea of where I could find a copy of it or knows any more detailed history, please let me know.

In the meantime, if you live in and around West Bridgford in Nottingham and you need a cleaner, please call Christine or Bill. If they clean as well as they write ads, they’ll do a thoroughly brilliant job.

Christine Dalby can be contacted on 0115 981 8310 or mobile 07796 660 076.