Tag: branding

Brand Experience, brand values, branding

Brand experience by Disney

Selena Gomez and Mickey Mouse hugging
Selena Gomez and Mickey Mouse hugging and creating a memorable brand experience

As i’ve said before, brand experience is about caring enough to control the tiniest details of your brand and how it is perceived by your customers.

Well, I heard a Disney detail that I loved recently, which you may not have noticed before and it’s perfect and tiny. If  as an adult or child you hug Mickey Mouse, he will not let the hug go before you do. Think about it. It’s really clever. If a child gets the perception that Mickey needs to move on, they would be devastated. Mickey would then become a character, or worse still, someone doing a job and not their friend. They need Mickey to be seen as a friend for as long as possible and caring about the hug, could be enough to keep it going for longer.

There was another great detail I heard too, which was that if someone shouted ‘Andy’s coming’ near any of the Toy Story Characters they would throw themselves on the ground and play dead. This would have been massively open to abuse but perfect. Sadly it’s been debunked as a myth.

Brand Experience, brand values, branding

Brilliant Brand Experience by Hot Wheels

One of the biggest areas of work for me at present is delivering a brand experience for different brands. It’s about living your values through what you do, how you do it and who you do it for.

Hot Wheels is a brand to admire as they are so clear and consistent in what they do. We all had the orange track in our bedrooms as kids and made our toy cars do all sorts of impossible things. Well, now they have taken it one stage further, by bringing their brand to life. Literally.

Enough said.

branding

Bye Bye Blackberry? (well RIM operating system anyway)

Blackberry_RIM_Logo

I was looking at some mobile usage stats for a client of mine last night and I couldn’t help but notice how much RIM (the operating system for Blackberry is falling away). Research by Gartner shows that whilst it’s still hugely significant, it’s falling off fast. And, this got me thinking.

We have no Blackberries left in our house. All have suffered white screen of death or just been quietly replaced in favour of iPhones. Please don’t accuse me of being an Apple Fan Boy, as I have been using their computers for well over 20 years and have never owned a PC.

But, I wonder whether to survive, RIM, the owner of Blackberry, have to ditch their esoteric and unreliable operating system, in favour of the lighter but increasingly popular Android system – which is growing the fastest.

This would be a huge change and it would bring the market back to being a fight/choice between a few key operating systems, but it would shed a huge cost for RIM and give them the chance to bring their brand back up on the back of decent, usable handset design. It feels to me more like they design within the capability of what their system can deliver, rather than what customers want. This is never sustainable. Designing Apps for RIM is a nightmare and I guess fewer and fewer will bother to do it and just build for Android and IOS.

It may be an old argument, but it’s not one I’ve seen before for RIM. For me, it gives them a far better chance of survival.

Brand Experience, brand values, branding

The Tonsorial Artist – Holt – A brilliant barber and a brilliant brand

I was lucky enough to be staying in Holt last night at Byfords Posh B&B (which is fabulous) and had a bit of time to kill, so took myself off to find a haircut. Looking quite unassuming in the centre of the brilliant little town was the Tonsorial Artist. And I have to say it is the best barbers experience I have ever had.

Firstly the music. Laid back and cool music by the Skatalites and two guys working there with luxuriant facial hair and a total focus on doing a great job.

The Tonsorial Artist - Holt, Norfolk
The Tonsorial Artist – Holt, Norfolk

I had my meagre barnet tidied up by the slightly scary looking Doug, who was great, incredibly knowledgable and he gave me a great cut.

Doug from The Tonsorial Artist - Holt, Norfolk
Doug from The Tonsorial Artist – Holt, Norfolk

All this and it was only £11.50 – admittedly more than I pay at my local barbers, but it felt like a real treat.

I love places like this and I would love to get my hands on their brand to do some work with – It would franchise out beautifully and would have people queuing out the door if it was done as well as they have delivered their outlet.. People who are doing great work and clearly differentiating themselves in what must be a quite crowded market.

If you’re ever in Holt, stay at Byfords Posh B&B and get a hair cut by the Tonsorial Artists.

branding

I’m not sure what to say about this

But I don’t think I want to add it to anything i’m going to eat this Easter.

Cock flavoured seasoning - Hmm, I don't want to add that to my dinner
Cock flavoured seasoning - Hmm, I don

And what is that at the bottom right of the label?

Updated

I have just read the instructions on the side of the pack and it comes with some helpful tips. Apparently….

“Cock flavoured seasoning is a versatile ingredient. You can use it to prepare marinades, gravies, soups and stews. You can rub it on chicken, fish or meat, let marinate and then roast or grill”

So now we know.

brand values, branding

Paul Bennett – Ideo – 20 minutes to change your thinking

This is a guy called Paul Bennett speaking at the Economist Conference and it as changed (again) the way I look at things.

His four words:

People

Authenticity

Service

Simplicity

Can be applied to any business in any field. If you get them right, you can create a clearly differentiated successful business and a successful brand.

Stick with it as he does come across as a bit superior and has one of those funny mid Atlantic accents. There are a few more killer points that come across to me too.

1. Play well with others. We will achieve more by working as a collective and working together.

2. Be transparent and listen to feedback. If you have things to hide, customers will see it and tell others.

3. Look for people with passion behind the eyes.

Just brilliant simple stuff. There must be a part two as it does end a little abruptly though.

Part two

It took a while, but I found it, so here’s part two

branding

How to use Twitter in ten easy lessons

Twitter_Bird_logoI’ve been asked about this a lot in the last few weeks, so thought it was worth sharing my thoughts on how to best use Twitter. Ten things you really need to know about Twitter and how to make it work for you and your brand.

1. Decide whether you are a person or a business
Twitter is used by three distinct groups: Celebrities, who like to talk about themselves and the everyday trivia of their lives; Businesses, who are talking to their customers and trying to build rapport with a younger audience and by Individuals who often use it to share gossip and news amongst their own group – like Facebook but without the pictures. An on line version of texting between each other on their mobile/cellphones.

2. Choose a good name to work with
Like creating a brand for yourself, you need to start with a good name. If you’re a business, it makes sense to choose the business name and if you’re an individual, use your own name. I simply can’t understand why someone would want to try and build another brand with a random name. It’s exactly like splitting your spend and your time across two different brands and halving its effectiveness.

3. Personalise it with an icon and all your info
When you sign up to Twitter, you have the ability to personalise your information in the Profile panel. There is lots of talk on the Twitter forums (fora?) about not following people who don’t bother with an icon for themselves as they’re probably spammers. If you’re going to do it at all, do it right and that means adding in your own URL, your own or your brand’s icon and by being as interesting and engaging as possible with your 160 character introduction.

4. Choose your tone of voice
If your brand has tone of voice guidelines, STICK TO THEM! Just because you’re speaking in a different medium, doesn’t mean you need to start being all chatty and inappropriate. If you’re an individual, decide whether you want to be friendly and engaging, cold, useful but clinically efficient or some combination. But whatever you decide, write it down as your agreed tone and stick to it in every tweet.

5. Choose your area of expertise
It’s the same for what you say as to how you say it. If your expertise is in mortgages, then why would you have any credibility talking about advertising? Decide what you are going to speak about, again, write this down and agree it with yourself or fellow contributors and then stick to it. If you are shouting about any old subject, you’ll get seen as a loudmouth rather than an expert and people will lose interest in what you’re saying all too fast.

6. Follow back
The reason I follow no celebrities at all is that none of them ever follow you back and I care very little about their trivia. Why should I care about what they’re saying if they don’t care about my thoughts? This has been escalated recently by Twitter introducing ‘lists’. Organise your favourite tweeters into lists, so you can see what they’re saying even if you’re not constantly monitoring their every tweet. This can be by subject, area of interest or even geography.

7. Tweet things that you like and that others can learn from
“Waiting for a train to Nottingham“. “On a train to Nottingham“. “Arrived in Nottingham“. And so on and on he went. The most dull set of tweets I‘ve ever seen. There were nine in total all involved this boring man’s journey to and from Nottingham. Another person, in my own industry, I used to follow said “I have to stand up from the table to let my colleague go to the toilet.” Who cares? Why should I waste my life looking at his pointless tweets? Think about what you’re saying. How will your audience learn more about you and what you do by reading what you’re writing? Would you ring someone and tell them what you’re tweeting? If so, go with it.

8. Twitter is a conversation
It’s all about dialogue, not diatribe. If you speak loudly at people, no-one benefits. Think of Twitter as a conversation and allow others to speak, retweet the things they say that you find interesting and do them the service of acknowledging when they have been kind enough to retweet your thoughts. Just because it’s online doesn’t mean you can behave impolitely. If someone serves you, you would normally say thankyou. Behave online as you or your brand would offline.

9. Build a like minded community
If you’re interested in branding and marketing, then don’t follow someone in California who is interested in real Estate or Madcap MLM schemes. When I follow someone, it’s because I think we can learn from each other. I always turn down people who are talking about things I don’t care about. It does mean I have limited myself to around 3,000 followers, but it also means that they have something to say that will be worth me hearing and that they may benefit from my own thoughts and ideas.

10. Keep listening, keep talking, keep tweeting
Stick with it. It’s a frustrating time when you’re trying to build a community. It doesn’t happen overnight unless you are a porn spammer or someone using a ‘foolproof system’ that follow millions of people and bombard them with irrelevance. But if you’re working to a plan and set aside a little time most days to work on your Twitter account, it will grow, it will be useful and it will be fun doing it.

See you in the Twittersphere.
http://twitter.com/johnlyle

branding

Starbucks new brand

Starbucks existing logo
Starbucks existing logo

As a brand man through and through, I have to comment on the new branding for Starbucks.

So, i’ll nail my colours to the mast and say, that I like it. I like what they’ve done and I like their thinking, but i’ll show why and what the risks are.

1. I like it
It’s an evolution. You can see from this graphic that it is the fourth major variant since they started 40 years ago, but none have thrown away the heritage, just moved them along to reflect their current needs. That’s good thinking and good branding.

Starbucks Logo - An illustrated history
Starbucks Logo - An illustrated history

They clearly cut down the number of lines they run, when they dropped spices and tea from the logo to concentrate on coffee. Well, that worked didn’t it. they are a global phenomonem that some may find addictive.

2. It allows them to go into new product areas

This is where the risk lies. Most brand owners think their brands are very stretchy and can work on anything, but very few can in reality. being known for one thing doesn’t make you cool or credible in another. Look at what happened to Porsche when they introduced the more affordable 924 (that they are apparently considering again!).

I can see them doing spices, some cooking products yes, but hardware for cooking, no. Beer, no. Wine, no. Ice cream, yes. Sweets, maybe. Beyond that, i’d be very doubtful it would have any real brand power.

I’ll watch to see what products they are trying, so if you see any before me, feel free to send them across.

Andy Hanselman, branding

The Internet – creating the perfect market economy?

Nottingham's old market square
Nottingham's perfect market economy in the old days - if a seller sold bad product - everyone knew

I’ve written a few pieces recently about consumer power (and blogger power) and wonder whether we are reaching the position of a perfect market economy. That is the previously theoretical situation, where all the buyers having all the information to buy identical products.

When I studied economics at school the section I was most fascinated with was the perfect economy.

And I think that we’re almost there, because that’s the Internet now isn’t it?

All the buyers have all the information and almost all retailers are selling identical products.

And, as the theory of the perfect economy states, if all the buyers have all the information and the market is selling identical products, then people will always buy from the lowest price supplier. This has to be true, doesn’t it?

Well, no. they’ll buy from the one they trust the most, as long as the price is there or thereabouts.

My mate and business guru Andy Hanselman once said to me that ‘advertising is the price you pay for being mediocre’.

He’s right.

Products and services rise from mediocrity by being exceptional, by being differentiated and by being well branded.

So rather than the internet killing brands, it’s offering them the most incredible opportunity. A world at their feet, that’s theirs for the taking.

It’s the perfect market opportunity.

A version of this article was first published as The Perfect Economy and branding? on Technorati.

branding

Yeo Valley – How to reposition a brand in 2 minutes

Sorry to make this the third video in a row, but this is a super piece of brand repositioning. Thanks to Kelly Herrick of Abacus for sharing it – I certainly wouldn’t have seen it as I simply can’t bring myself to sit down and watch X Factor. Yeo Valley would hardly have been described as a happening, trendy and even cool brand, but they may do now.

But this is really clever. It works the organic angle, the natural, the beautiful people and youth all in one ad. My only complaint is the terrible dubbing of the girly farmers voice.

if this doesn’t help their sales and be a comparitive brand reposition to that achieved by Nick Kamen all those years ago with the Levi Ad, I don’t know what will.

They deserve all the success they get.