Brand Experience, brand values, branding

A product isn’t a brand but it is one element of a brand promise

A product itself, is just one element of the overall brand experience. Like a burger in McDonalds to the Petrol in a Shell station, the product is the product is the product. It is not the brand. If it has a logo on it, it’s a logo’d product. It’s still not a brand.

McDonalds Burger – All part of the branded experience

But any product, whilst not a brand in its own right, is the start of a brand ‘promise’. If people have an expectation about a branded product being able to deliver them some ‘effect’, some feeling or some performance benefits and the product fails in that, they will start to have serious doubts about the overall efficacy of the brand itself. In effect, they will start to believe that everything else the brand owner says, must be questionable too.

There is a lesson in here for any brand owner that is well worth thinking about.

Is the quality of anything and everything you do adding to the reputation of your brand, or is it slowly undermining it for it to become average at best, or potentially collapse around your ears at worst?

In what way is it enhancing its differences?
In what way is it making itself one of one to its potential audience?

Is it honestly the best it can possibly be for the money or is it made as cheaply as you can get away with? – if it’s the latter, your brand is in trouble.

Those running brands for big plc’s may well be tempted by the short term gain and leave the longer term problems that they invariably create, to those following in their footsteps. Guinness used to say that brands were far too important to be run by mere brand managers.

For some time, there was a difference in the UK to the US with the way brands were run. In the UK, if your brand did well, you were moved on to others and left your baby behind. This hardly encouraged long term planning. In the US, the opposite applied and if your brand got bigger, so did your job. But it still remained your responsibility and you treated it with far more reverence.

In building a brand, you create layer upon layer of brand expectation and brand experience.

Using the onion analogy, a brand has many layers and a core of values. Every contact or touch point builds another layer. A good one obviously adds in a positive sense and a bad one if you’re lucky, may just peel back one layer, but still leave lots of good stuff in place.

The fear for any owner is however if your layers are thin or if there are doubts already beginning in a consumers mind, it could almost certainly undermine all the hard work you have gone into building it in the first place.

So, a product isn’t a brand, but if you get it wrong you can guarantee that consumers will make a negative connection between the two very quickly indeed.

Thanks to ‘The Food Pornographer’ for the use of her image. She’s from Perth and you can see more of her work on Flickr here and her website here.

brand values, Robin Hood

The New Robin Hood film is coming

I’m working on the brand for Robin Hood with the City of Nottingham and we’re trying to define what his values are all about. What does Robin Hood mean to the current generation growing up and how does that differ from any of our own perceptions.

Many see him as a movie character and even then, everyone has their favourite from Kevin Costner in Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves to Robin Hood Daffy.

Whichever is your favourite, this latest version with Russell Crowe looks like he’s being painted as a real tough guy, fighting on Nottingham beach.

branding

Your logo should say who you are and not what you do

One of the biggest changes for any organisation that is considering a new logo, is top accept that the logo doesn’t need to say what you do, and just concentrate on letting it say who you are.

Look in the yellow pages and you will see many, many ‘logos’ where there is a person with a hammer or spanner or pipe wrench next to the name of their company. These don’t say who you are, just what trade you practice. They make it impossible to extend into another area without causing confusion, but they still proliferate in ‘trade’ markets.

The really rather excellent Mr Plumber logo - A role model for any designer

By removing the ‘what you do’ element, you have to work harder to explain this, and so the second option is to introduce the strapline to attempt to explain the services offered, or the ‘what you do’.

There are hundreds of examples out there.

‘Britain’s favourite retailer’ by Tesco

This line allows them to say what they do without having to say underneath the name on the front of the shops.

It is very rare to see a logo out of context anyway. You would normally see a Tesco logo on a store, a pack a vehicle or an advertisement, so the logo is simply an identifier to say that it is ‘one of theirs’. The branding work comes in saying what can be expected by choosing a Tesco product over any other one.

A strapline is quite different to a campaign slogan such as
‘Vorsprung durch technik’ that Audi have used since the 1970’s. This was already on the wall of the factory when their German design agency MetaDesign went for a factory tour. They saw that it summed up what the business was all about and their living the brand ever since has been part of the reason for their growth to become one of the biggest car makers in Europe from their humble roots as the fabulously mad little NSU luxury car brand and their hugely innovative but incredibly unreliable RO80 Wankel engined car of the late 1960’s.

Their chosen phrase actually means ‘Advancement through Technology’ and as such, does not actually explain what the business does. The slogan therefore just adds a little more layering to the brand by way of an advertisement theme.

The big brands such as Tesco become known for ‘what they do’ because of their scale, visibility on the high streets and the (omni)presence delivered by big marketing budgets.

But when Tesco lunch into another country, they invariably work under another brand name or with a local partner. Jack Welch, in another of his Podcasts argues that it is ALWAYS more effective to buy local talent in the target market than it is to try and import it, citing their plastics businesses opening in China as a real life example.

When Tesco went to the US, they started under the brand name of Fresh & Easy, launching a much smaller format store to those they are known for in the UK and starting out from California. They therefore face the same issues as any start up. They may be better financed, but they still have to prove and refine their offer in order for them to begin to roll it out nationally. Even Tesco don’t have deep enough pockets to attempt this with a flawed or unpopular concept.

It is often argued that smaller companies can’t go down the ‘who you are’ route because they don’t have the marketing budgets of the likes of Tesco. We would argue that they could make their smaller budgets both more cost effective now and more valuable in the future, by concentrating on the ‘who you are’ now.

Focussing on a one or very few key message will always make marketing more effective and make what you do spend work in a more focussed way.

Without the ‘who you are’ you can only sell ‘what you do’. This limits the growth and expansion possibilities of your brand.

Potential customers who like what they see in the ‘who’, will go the extra mile and find out more about you, what you do and what you stand for. This creates devoted customers who both love and understand your brand.

brand values, branding

Volvo confirms its brand values

Volvo is one of those brands that few people actually fall in love with. It is a car that is far more likely to be bought with your head than your heart as they have had a reputation for safety for as long as I can remember (which is quite a long time as I’m quite old).

The 1960’s P1800 coupe was a beautiful old thing and I wanted one when I was at college. I loved the old 1980’s 480es as well and I really love the new C30 and their product placement within the Twilight series of vampire films is an inspired way to deliver the brand to a younger generation. In my opinion, it’s probably the best car placement since the Bond films and its association with Aston Martin.

But I can’t say I’ve ever really hankered after an S60. It’s all a bit anonymous and well, worthy for me. But now they have made its safety systems even more central to its reason for being.

They have just demo’d a new system that will reinforce these brand values even further and it looks brilliant.

Anything that makes life safer for cyclists and pedestrians in crowded city centres has to be good news if it’s as intuitive as this. Nice one Volvo, good luck to you.

branding

This is how bikes can save the world

I’m quite a keen cyclist, but not as fit as I used to be or I should be. It’s often not practical to use a bike to go to a meeting because I arrive as a sweaty mess.

The Copenhagen Wheel changes this. It reuses your kinetic energy from braking to power other stuff and even powers a bluetooth connection to your phone. Whilst this video isn’t of the best quality, it does show the possibility this product offers and it’s very exciting. With some proper tax breaks, it could push loads more of us into using it for our daily commute as it will keep it affordable as well as very cool!

I want one. If I could retrofit this to my hackabout bike it would be amazing.

There’s a bit more here with a prelaunch interview and a close up.

brand values, branding

How to kill a drinks brand

On the day when Liam Donaldson, the Uk’s Chief Medical Officer, announced that allowing children to drink under 15 is not just a bad idea, it’s dangerous, I thought it would be a good idea to look at Kids and drinking from a brand perspective.

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.

brand values, branding

The Tiger brand is well and truly tanked

Not one to kick a man when he’s down but some of the numbers that surround Tiger Woods’ sponsorship deals are starting to reach the public domain. So lets look at a few of them and see which ones have a chance of surviving.

1. Gatorade

The Pepsi owned gatorade brand is one of the biggest at with a multi year $100m deal. Gatorade is a drink that aims to promote sports, concentration and clean success. The drink they have created is Gatorade Tiger, which you can see here.

Gatorade Tiger - Put a Tiger in your tank next time you need to perform!

I would imagine, if it’s selling they’ll keep it in their line up anyway and one thing he isn’t short of is coverage at the moment, despite his being in total hiding for over two weeks now.

They announced on Wednesday last that they would be withdrawing it, but that this was nothing to do with his personal problems. It’s a bit of a coincidence though isn’t it.

The long term damage for Gatorade’s brand is to be established but with Pepsi, they will distance themselves very fact if they need to.

2. Accenture

These are the people that just escaped from the corporate clutches of Arthur Andersen that was brought down by the Enron scandal. They have it in their interest to both act and appear to be as clean as clean in a brand sense. Any sniff of a scandal will see them running for the hills.

They have just removed the Woods image that has been on rotation on their front page of their website. Oops.

3. Gillette

Thierry Henry is allowed to cheat and put France through to the World cup finals and deprive Ireland from their chance to progress and yet he still seems to be acceptable to the brand.

But infidelity runs deeper and hits harder. We become a prudy bunch in the uK and the US even more so, so Gillette may well drop him altogether.

Or will they?

When Thierry had his affair with celebrity make-up artist, Sadie Hewlett, they didn’t drop him then, so maybe Tiger will survive.

Gillette's Roger, Thierry and Tiger - a really wholesome bunch of gents
Gillette's Roger, Thierry and Tiger - a really wholesome bunch of gents

I guess all eyes are on Roger Federer now to keep his end up (so to speak) and to see if they can make it a full house of cheats. Gillette hve aid they will be cutting back the role that Tiger plays in their promotional material.

4. Nike

Nike is obviously one of the names he’s most closely associated with and he appears to still be at least listed on their site.

It’s hard to say how high profile he was on this site before, but he’s now only listed under their athletes and even then he is last on the list. There are no other pictures of him on the front pages of the site at all.

That sounds expensive.

5. EA Sports

Tiger Woods golf for the Wii, is one of the only computer games I have ever played and I loved it. Its worth over $60m as a brand and I don’t believe this will take one tiny hint of damage. Maybe they’ll push him on the deal next time they renegotiate, but who else have they got in the game that is anywhere near as high profile?

6. Summary

There’s obviously others like Swiss watch maker TAG Heuer and AT&T who all help with his $100m a year sponsorship income, but for me, after this does down a little, most if not all will stick by him as a brand spokesperson if he continues to be good for their business.

He needs to realign his own brand a little. He can’t really claim the moral high ground anymore and he will struggle massively with some mainstream family brands, but if he adjusts his position to be a little more ‘laddy’ and works the media a little, he can possibly recover his status.

David Beckham did it by concentrating on being good at what he does and by being photographed everywhere with his kids, looking like he’s having fun.

Hot off the press

It’s just been announced that Accenture will be withdrawing from the deal with Tiger, stating that he is no longer the right representative for their brand. It looks like they are being as sensitive about any potential bad press as I thought they maybe. There will now be others following. Expect Gatorade to go more public pretty soon.

branding

Tony Lyle RIP 10.12.39 – 23.07.06

This is a very personal blogpost as my Dad would have been seventy years old today. This was him in 1983 when he blagged the Lowenbrau Porsche for the weekend and then let me drive it about a lot, even though I was only 17 years old. I overtook his boss and good friend Tony Hales on the Oxford ring road going far too fast and to his eternal credit, he kept quiet. Thanks Tony.

My Dad in the Lowenbrau Porsche

I’m off to a big meeting in London rather than moping about, so I want it to be a really positive day today and i’ll raise a glass to him tonight.

He was a good man and he is very much missed by all of us.

augmented reality, branding

Gaming takes on a new dimension

This is a tough one to call. Is it a fake, is it a spoiler or is it the face of things to come in the future?

It’s almost like a usable version of augmented reality.

My belief is that it is a demo to see the public reaction to a new gaming format. This takes what the Eye Toy first delivered on the PS2, which was then picked up by the Nintendo Wii and delivers it in a far more seamless and intuitve fashion.

Whilst I’m not a gamer and can’t be bothered with any of the formats really (although I do like a bit of Tiger Woods golf on the Wii) what this does deliver (if you have an enormous house with no furniture to kick over as in this demo) is a gaming format that forces you to expend some calories whilst you play. Anything that gets kid playing properly and physically has to be a good thing, so i’ll watch with interest.