All posts tagged Brand

Find your Brand Belief.

Some of us have no issue talking about ourselves. I certainly don’t (I’m a Gemini born in 1970, BTW). But when it comes to brands, some are a little too eager to pound their chests. “This is our stuff! Here’s our product! Have you tried it?! Have you got our coupon?!!”

We know about the decreasing impact of advertising, the clutter in the space and the consumer’s ability to skip right past us. Given the choice between cat videos and product information, finicky consumers are actually choosing Morris.

Simply put, nobody wants to be pitch slapped. So many of us agency folk have been telling our clients, “Don’t talk about yourself so much.” It’s right and it’s true. But it inevitably creates the client response,

“Well, what the hell am I supposed to talk about, then?”
Oh. Right. We didn’t tell you that part, did we?

Brands have to elevate the conversation to content that people want to interact with. But it’s not just randomly generated cool stuff. It has to be strategically relevant to the brand and its customers. So how do you do that?

Find your Brand Belief. 

Your Brand Belief is the first critical step in designing your content marketing or social media strategy. Do it and you’ll actually have something to talk about. Don’t do it and you’ll either be haphazardly generating hit-or-miss tactics or worse, you’ll be left to repurpose your list of ingredients as a blog post.

Getting to the Brand Belief isn’t easy but once you get there, it does give you somewhere interesting to go.

One of our clients is Dx3 Canada, the country’s largest trade show and conference focused on digital marketing, digital advertising and digital retail. The show only  happens 2 days a year (March 6-7, 2013) so talking about the product would get old at the second mention of “Register today”.

Their Brand Belief on the other hand, is “We believe Canadian business needs to get more digital.” Awesome. Now their content decisions can be evaluated by asking, “Does this fulfill our brand belief?” opposed to “Does this mention registration?”

I don’t know that’s there’s a better Brand Belief example than Expedia’s new work, “Find Yours.” Obviously, people can find hotels and flights on Expedia but they’ve elevated the conversation to a far more interesting place with an incredible insight.

They’re not a client of the Tite Group and I doubt they used the Brand Belief process but I think their brand belief is “We believe travel allows people to find a lot more than cities and towns. It helps them find themselves.”

It’s a beautiful story. It has great production value. And it stars a couple from the reality show, “The Real L-Word”. Most importantly, it features the brand without being about the  brand. It simply tells a story about how one man found understanding by traveling to the other side of the country. While I assume he used Expedia to book his flights, I didn’t need to see him do it.

I’ve always known that I can go to Expedia to find flights.
Now I know what they believe in. And I’ll be coming back for more.

Business should busk.

What marketers can learn from street performers.

I’ve always thought that buskers were “Carnies with Talent”, working their way around the world entertaining suburban dads decked out in a Tilley hat and a willingness to be embarrassed in front of a crowd of assembled strangers. Now, given your average street performer makes less than minimal wage over a 40 hour work week, it may not seem like there’s much to learn from them. But there is.

Busking is the epitome of the cold call.

No brand awareness. No liquidation sale. No inbound marketing techniques. A busker has the unenviable task of selling their product in an environment filled with the direct  competition and booths with food and face painting that distract their customers even more. In one 20 minute set, they have to build an audience, deliver their product and then ask for voluntary payment. Is there a more pure business transaction in the world? I doubt it. Here’s what we can learn.

1. They build a unique product.
When you’re competing against other performers, you can’t simply do what the other guy is doing. Even if you’re juggling stuff, you have to look unique, act unique, sound unique and in some cases, smell unique. And when you hit the stage, you better have invested the time to perfect your product. Who’s going to invest the time watching someone perfect their bit when there are so many other perfect options available?

2. They use the audience to build an audience.
Stepping into an empty space, a busker has to immediately create interest in his or her product without the benefit of a social media agency to help them do it.

To build an audience, they simply start with one person. They’ll politely ask an innocent bystander to get involved. “Can you hold this? Can you stand there? Can you put your hand up?” Volunteers aren’t given the 3 year strategic plan and asked to share with their friends – they’re just asked to do something simple. They’re involvement intrigues others to at least stand around and wait to see what’s going to happen. Even the most skeptical will wonder what we’re missing when a crowd starts to form.

3. VIP access for early adopters.
Why hang around waiting for something to happen when there are so many other options? Well, anyone who has been to a busker festival knows that the early adopters get front row seating. They get to see more and hear more and if they’re lucky, there’s a chance that they’ll actually get to star in the show. There should be a reward for those who stuck with us even when there wasn’t any show to speak of. I hope I never forget that.

4. Make ‘em feel special.
A positive attitude creates a positive experience. Every time someone does something, says something, or volunteers to join the show, the professional busker initiates a response with the age-old, “Let’s give Phil a really big hand, folks…” And it doesn’t just make the volunteer feel ridiculously special. It creates intrigue for customers who may be bored at another show. We consumers don’t want to think we’re missing out on something. With this strategy, the bigger a crowd gets, the bigger the crowd will get.

5. They use humour.
I don’t think puns or sexual innuendo are funny. Apparently, I’m in the vast minority. While crowds bellowed at lame one-liners, I was heard muttering, “They think this shit is funny?” Oh well. Regardless of the specific tone of the humour, I think we can all agree that humour is critical when building relationships.

6. They ask to get paid. 

Can you imagine if agencies had to complete a campaign before asking, “How much do you think that was worth?” Yikes. Part of me thinks agencies would actually make more. Well, that’s what these folks do every day of the week. And those who are good at it make more. When they make more, they can perform more.

The approach is usually honest: “I do this as my job and the festival doesn’t pay me.”
It’s rational: “Can you see a show this good for $10 for your entire family?”
It’s promotional: “If you give $20, you get a free DVD.”
It’s humourous: “If you give $10, you’ll go home happy. If you give $100, you’ll go home with me.”

I always feel bad asking for dough. I think I may change my approach.

It’s not like I’m asking brand managers to get a guitar case, work on stilts or juggle their product while it’s in flames. But there’s a lot we can learn from our nomadic creative colleagues. We all want to build community, give a good show and create applause. But unless people put money in our cap, we won’t survive.

If you want to check out more photos I took at Buskerfest, click here. 

Relationships. for life

Volvo XC60

Image via Wikipedia

Volvo has been a client of mine for the better part of a decade. They’re nice people. They have a great product and a wonderful brand. My commitment to them even extended to driving their cars for the past 5 years (Even though I’m never been a huge car guy, I absolutely love my Volvo XC60).

There have been a lot of changes at Volvo lately. Ford sold them to Geely. Stefan Jacoby became CEO. And they created “Team Volvo” with a few trusted agency partners. With huge goals (double sales by 2020), they clearly have a lot to do. But there’s one thing they didn’t do:
They didn’t fire the agency.

Far too often, new clients come in, look at the situation they inherited and immediately fire off a request for proposals. This is never a good thing for the incumbent. New people, new goals, and new strategy usually means “new agency”. And while most responsible agencies hunker down to participate in the pitch, it rarely works out. The writing may not be on the wall, but it’s certainly imbedded in a PowerPoint deck somewhere along the way.

Volvo didn’t do that. They respected their agency partners for their intellect not for the work that had been produced in conjunction with clients who also preceded the new regime. As Jacoby stated, “The work is as good as the brief and our agency hasn’t had a good brand brief to work from for some time.”

Changing agencies can be tough for a business. Critical months can fly by as the old agency winds down and the new one ramps up leaving the client with few partners who truly understand the brand or the legacy of it. Combine that with any internal changes and it’s a recipe for disaster. Besides, I just don’t like the relationship implications of it. While many brands treat their people with respect, there aren’t many that extend that to their partners. What does that say to your new agency? Hell, what does it say about the brand? It’s kind of like cheating n your wife. It doesn’t say much about you but it certainly says a lot to your next wife.

Compare this to Mr. Sub debacle last year. Even though Mr. Sub approved and aired a campaign, they fired their agency, Bos, when consumer complaints started coming in over it. Not cool. They threw their agency under the bus for something that they participated in themselves.

The sub people can learn a lot from the Volvo people. How you treat your agency says a lot about how you treat your customers.

I remain loyal to Volvo and I use my consumer vote to never eat at Mr. Sub. Has anyone got the number for Subway?