branding – Page 6 – Johnny Lyle's new brand thinking

Brand Experience, brand values, branding

Why reviews matter – don’t trust a brand without them

An Express Queue with Goldcar, where you can expect to wait over two hours and then get royally fleeced

I’m not going to hide the fact that I am involved with Feefo who manage customer reviews. It’s obviously made me more aware of why reviews matter. But when I went overseas a few weeks ago, I broke my own golden rule and made an online purchase from a supplier I had used many times before even though they had no real reviews on their site. So I thought it was worth writing down my experience and learnings from it.

The company is Do You Spain. I must have booked cars through them ten times in the past. This time, on our way to ski with family in Andorra, I was lured by an amazingly low price of €42 for the week for a Ford Focus. Wow. It was with Goldcar as Do You Spain are a broker for lots of different car hire companies.

I read the small print that went with it and found a few little treats. Firstly €62 to take it out of the country and into Andorra. and then a full to empty policy on the fuel. So I figured say 55 litres at €1.40 per litre. By this stage we are up to a figure of €181 with no real chance to burn a whole tank of fuel on a 350km round trip to Soldeu and back. But still cheaper than five of us paying for transfers at €75 per person.

I read on and then found a hidden extra which was an €850 excess, in case I crashed it. Sensibly I thought, I can insure that with http://www.carhireexcess.com/ at £1.99 per day, that has to be £14 well spent.

So when I landed at Barcelona El Prat Airport, and after a staggering two hour wait in the Express queue I was offered the following option. An upgrade to a slightly bigger car. Okay, don’t mind if I do. Fuel at €108, which works out at €1.80 per litre, surely the most expensive fuel in the whole of Europe?

But then the real shocker. Take out our additional insurance to protect the Excess at another €14 per day, or hand over the €850 excess and we will give it back to you if the car is undamaged. Who would trust them not to find some damage after their track record so far. Anyway, the final bill was €258 against the listed price of €42. Not terribly accurate pricing in my opinion. In fact none of the costs related in any way to the quote of €42.

So, on return home, I tried to speak to DoYouSpain and guess what?

Despite many, many positive reviews, they wouldn’t reply to my concerns or answer any of my queries. When I searched around, it appears that lots of people have expressed similar concerns on Money Saving Expert and other forums.

So the simple moral of this story?

Trust brands that display honest and open reviews. Distrust those that don’t. In fact avoid them like the plague. They are hiding reviews for a reason. And sadly, for Spain to recover, it needs to begin to behave itself, treat customers with respect and offer good fair prices we can rely on. Sadly I won’t be using these companies again and when I go back in a few weeks, i’m just paying for the transfer.

brand values, branding

Michael Eavis – Glastonbury – How to build a brand

I was lucky enough to be invited to see Michael Eavis of Glastonbury fame speak at Confetti Industry Week yesterday. The whole week is designed to give students access to real industry people and occasional legends to put their own futures into context and get insight into the secrets of success. It’s a brilliant marriage of business and education and feels very much like the future route to success for HE and FE colleges. I have no doubt that some of the young people in that room yesterday wil be inspired to even greater success.

Michael Eavis is a quite unassuming 77 year old man, who was clearly nervous in front of a relatively small audience. I guess it’s not often that he is examined that closely in his shorts and t-shirt by 200 young people. What he did though in his interview was lay down the simple rules as to how to create a brand from scratch. What was even better is that he never mentioned or hinted that Glastonbury was a brand in any way, shape or form, he just did it, by doing the right things. Another accidental hero of branding.

So as a tiny bit of background. He started the festival in 1970 with Marc Bolan headlining and (eventually) paid him £500 for his appearance. Tickets were charged at £1 each. He lost £1,500 but as he was funding it from his family dairy farm, he could afford the losses, so he kept on reinvesting in the product itself, making it better and better each year. It wasn’t until 1982, when it finally turned a profit and was recognised as the global phenomenon we know it for today.

So this is the secret to building any brand – Which isn’t that different to what I wrote in 2009.

Do things right.
Keep doing things right.
Keep investing in making it better and better over and over again.
Don’t think ‘how cheaply can we make this’ but rather ‘how good can we make it for the money we can afford to spend’.
Be passionate about what you do and really care about the little details, they are the difference.
Act decently, treat both suppliers and your customers with respect and you will get loyalty back in return.

I don’t think I was expecting to be inspired by Michael Eavis, but I was and i’m pretty sure that an awful lot of other people were too.

Picture of Michael Eavis borrowed from MixMag, with thanks.

branding, Economics, Social media

Rocket fuel for advertising – the future is Artificial Intellgence

wargames - AI in action and a little less powerfu than Rocket Fuel — wargames – AI in action and a little less powerfu than Rocket Fuel

Advertising was never a very exact science, we all knew that 50% of our spend was wasted (but famously didn’t know which 50%), but that’s all changed now and changed forever.

I was lucky enough to be in a presentation from Lucy Arkwright of Rocket Fuel, who’s strapline is a rather cool ‘Artificial intelligence. Real results’. I haven’t seen a more amazing presentation in some time.

In short, what Rocket Fuel do is use single pixels on page to track a users real traffic. Then, using Artificial Intelligence (ie learned behaviour) they build up a picture of your real internet usage and shopping habits. It’s far more than just clicking likes, it’s about behaviours and real moves to action. So, less of what you say you’ll do and all about what you actually do.

As an example, with a traditional ad for a dishwasher, the agency buyer would just buy space in a magazine and hope enough people looking to buy their dishwasher wandered past and happened to want one at that point in time.

This was largely replaced by behavioural retargeting of ads (those ones that follow you around on the internet) which repeatedly show you dishwasher ads if you have ever clicked through to a site selling dishwashers or large kitchen appliances.

What the Rocket fuel system does is understand your specific behaviour. It begins to learn what brands you are most likely to buy and when you are really in the market to buy them. It knows to stop serving you ads when you have seen it more than a given number of times (your personal preferred number and not the rest of the worlds) and then stop serving you ads if you have actually bought a dishwasher from anywhere online. It’s like the Perfect Market, but all the sellers now have all the information. It’s a perfect, perfect market.

The AI bit is the really clever technology. This learned behaviour is done through a billion decisions per second that the system makes about how you like to think, shop and browse online. And this doesn’t just change the game a bit, it changes it completely.

I’ll leave you with a stat to prove the point.

The average click through rate (CTR) on a conventional online display ad is 0.03%, so all in all, pretty wasteful. and clicks aren’t anywhere near as good as actual conversions.

In one of the Rocket fuel examples, they showed that 40 percent of purchases of new BMWs in North America in the second quarter of 2012 were influenced by Rocket Fuel advertisements.

None of us had actually noticed that it wasn’t 50% of our ad spend being wasted, it was 99.97% being wasted. And it’s now with this system it’s back to being closer to 50% again.

When this technology rolls down to smaller users, it will change the way advertising is bought and sold completely. And forever.

Wow, just wow.

brand values, branding

Waitrose, Tesco, trust and horse burgers

Horses wouldn’t be served at Waitrose, because we trust them and it’s in their values

I did a workshop at Nottingham Trent University yesterday and one of the key points I wanted to get across was brands who work with very focussed brand values have clearer marketing messages. More than this, they have clearer business propositions and it would seem to me that they are ultimately more successful as businesses too.

Take two companies, Tesco and Waitrose.

Tesco brands says ‘Every little helps’. What this says to me is that they chip away and chip away at every tiny little cost to try and drive the price down to one that is almost unsustainable by the supplier. I’m not saying I agree with them throwing a horse in with the beef to make a value burger, but I do think it may have de-specced the product to such a degree they just needed to add the protein to get them to the 63% meat content that their recipe demands (which is higher than Birds Eye’s Value burgers 45% meat!), so really, what do we expect?

A horse didn’t just fall into that beef vat by accident. Someone threw it in, knowing they needed to add some cheap meat to make up the weight of their consignment. That’s supplier desperation in action.

Waitrose work on the core brand value of ‘Trust” and for me, this comes trough everywhere. I just don’t believe they would buy their meat on the open market, without knowing where it came from. I trust them. For me, they have almost become curators of good food choice. If they sell it, then we know it’s going to be pretty good – certainly for supermarket food and we can be pretty sure it won’t contain horse.

It’s too easy to take pot shots at the giant that is Tesco, but they deserve it in this case. Their values are wrong and too many of us care about what we eat for them to remain as the force they are now. They need to change their values, change their brand behaviour to be a little more loveable and change the way they treat their suppliers. Or, they’re off……

brand values, branding

Sam Farmer, Clever thinking grooming products

Sam Farmer, made for the blindies and those who actually care about what they wash themselves with

I don’t much go in for personal grooming products and have genuinely never knowingly bought an after-shave that has a smell to it. As a series of brands, they have just rather passed me by. I’m not sure if it’s just because i’m quite cynical and know too much about the production cost/selling cost ratio, or whether it’s because I don’t have much of a sense of smell.

But this range which I came across the other day, has two really clever points going for it, which give it a real chance of succeeding in a very crowded market place.

1. Older people like me, have poorer eye-sight I was genuinely struggling to find out whether a shampoo style bottle contained shampoo or conditioner last week because I couldn’t read the miniscule words on the front of the pack. in the same way that fashion brands use an XL size that is tiny, to stop people like me from buying their wares, maybe the shampoo brands are so clear in their targeting that me buying it would damage their brand. Or maybe it’s just poor user design.

2. It’s backed up by the research I was lucky enough to see a speaker from CrowdDNA talk about their Road Trip research they did for MTV. One of the key learnings from this was that today’s ‘youth’ would prefer that they were marketed to as individuals and not by gender. The whole concept of gender neutrality, is apparently important to a significant proportion of youths. Sam farmer has addressed this directly.

Time will tell though, whether these two points are strong enough to allow Sam and his range to stand out and sell in the market. I hope they do, because I love the fact that it’s such a small player up against such global business opposition.

You can see the website here or like them on Facebook.

branding

Jamie Oliver in Boots – The other guy blinked

Jamie Oliver in Boots - A sort of meal deal with Innocent — Jamie Oliver in Boots – A sort of meal deal with Innocent

I have written about Jamie Oliver in Boots a few times and the brand asking to extend the lunch price from £3.29 to nearer £7.00. A lovely idea, but unlikely in practice.

As much as I wanted to try it, I couldn’t quite bring myself to buy the sandwiches. Call it mental block or sheer tightwaddiness, But finally, the other guy blinked and they have added the whole Jame Oliver range into a form of meal deal. It’s not within the full £3.29 spectacular, but rather a £4 partnership with Innocent.

This is quite clever. Brands hang out with brands that work for them and make each other look good. By sharing the deal, the two brands feed off each other and may both benefit.

So, I bought one. A ‘Proper Salmon Sarnie’ and I have to admit it was up there with the nicest sandwiches I have ever had from a supermarket. Certainly equal to the taste of the ‘Taste the Difference’ sandwiches in Sainsbury’s, which are part of their £3 meal deal.

So, maybe there’s hope for the range yet.

brand values, branding

What a beautiful brand video by Chipotle

I think I must be turning into a bit of an old softie as I saw this video today and just loved it. The music by Willie Nelson is a beautiful interpretation of the Coldplay song ‘The Scientist’ Which I have since bought and played a few times to check it is as good as I think It is. It is.

I knew nothing about Chipotle, but it turns out the are pretty big in the US with over 900 stores, none of which incidentally are franchises. If they are half as good as this video and the way they present themselves on the rest of the brilliant website, they will be a place that I want to hang out. There are four stores in the UK, all in London, but i’m hoping the development page here, may be picked up by some of my agency friends and some perfect Nottingham sites suggested to their development team.

But this simple video tells me everything about their values. They do the right thing, they are a simple business model and they are prepared to invest in quality. That doesn’t sound far off the perfect brand value set to me. Please come to Nottingham, you will be very welcome. Better still, come to West Bridgford, you’ll be alongside, the fabulous Escabeche, Fellicini’s and the busiest Pizza Express in the UK (allegedly).

In the meantime, enjoy the video and go and buy some locally produced food.

Updated 28.03.13

I was in London yesterday meeting some friends and colleagues and managed to get chance to finally go and eat in a Chipotle restaurant and I wasn’t even a tiny bit disappointed. The food was lovely and the staff friendly and helpful. For what is effectively fast food, there is almost no saturated fat and you leave feeling full and healthy rather than ‘dirty’ as you would with other fast food joints.

Chipotle Burrito – One of the nicest things I have ever eaten

I was lucky enough to travel across Costa Rica some years ago (on a bike!) and one of the highlights for me was the food. Chicken, rice, black beans and some chilli style sauce with Guacamole. Chipotle serve this plus some. Chipotle, please come to Nottingham. We need you.

brand values, branding

The new WeighTWATchers logo

Sorry to be rude, but exactly how is the new logo for Weightwatchers an improvement over the old one? I have underlined the offending area of oversight in red.

Weightwatchers logo – before and after – This may make you feel a bit of a twat

Admittedly the old one was a little dated, but is this really better, more inclusive, younger, more dynamic, or does it just make the agency – Pentagram – look a little silly and the research they would have carried out look a little flawed.

branding

This is why the Apple brand is still world class

Sometimes I fall right out of love with Apple, mainly because it isn’t individual or special any more, but this just reaffirmed why Apple is still an astonishing brand with a stunning eye for detail.

I asked Siri a simple question “who let the dogs out?” and this is the conversation we had.

Apple Siri - Who let the dogs out? Who, who who, who who — Apple Siri – Who let the dogs out? Who, who who, who who

Apple as a brand has always had it’s own little quirks and one of these is Siri. Apple have pre-programmed jokes into it that we slowly uncover as we use it. One of my other favourites happens if you tell Siri you are a little drunk.

‘Neither of us is driving home then’ comes back as an answer with a button to press to call a taxi.

That could have been done in a totally boring way or ignored as a valid question/statement, but Apple, in the search for the tiny details that really make a brand special, have hidden these beautiful brand quirks all over the products and I love them for it.

Brand for Nottingham, branding

Julie Meyer – Welcome to Entrepreneur Country

I was at an event last night where Julie Meyer was the star attraction. She first made her name in setting up and selling First Tuesday and now heads up Ariadne Capital amongst others.

I was actually lucky enough to be in the small group that got to talk to her for an hour or so beforehand. So than you New College Nottingham for the invite. She was promoting her new book Welcome to Entrepreneur Country through the Gazelle Group of Colleges, but it didn’t really feel like she was peddling a book, it was more as though she was sharing her hard fought wisdom.

But for such a successful woman, she came out with a few things, which I thought were just lovely. The one that struck me as the most amazing was her attitude to work. It’s so far from the 1980’s view of money making, it’s amazing. No more ‘lunch is for wimps’ to be replaced with the brilliant aim..

“I want to work with smart, hardworking good people win” .

Brilliant, simple, exceptional and a nice way of doing business in what she described as the ‘New Normal’ in the economy in which we trade.

I bought the book and got it signed. I’m going to read it next and report back. But if it’s as good as it promises, i’ll be an even bigger fan.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: