Thoughts on Marketing
Brand
A brand is the conscious and unconscious thoughts that your audience has when you, your company or your product comes to mind. Experience, perception, recommendation, virtually any source can come together to form your brand.
How To Take a Marketing Risk…Safely
013 days
Miller Lite "Man Laws"
You have seen risky marketing ads. Anything Apple does always seems like they are out on a limb. The Miller beer ads that have introduced the big, burly beer driver for Miller High Life, or the Men of the round table, certainly the 1970′s introduction of Lite as “Tastes great vs. less filling”.
Considering how overwhelmingly successful those risks can turn out, it sure makes every marketer hope for that really cool idea that can lift their brand. But stop right there.
Those risks are not risky at all. At least the successful ones aren’t. Or at least they turn out not to have been so risky. They are almost always sensible executions of sound marketing fundamentals. You can break them down by analyzing the message they convey to prove it to yourself.
Lets take the beer delivery driver. High life’s brand promise is that it is the beer for blue collar-thinking, real-life, middle class beer drinkers. So they convey that message with a blue-collar delivery driver who disallows his beer to be consumed by those who don’t fit that image.
It defines the brand and strictly identifies the audience powerfully.
Compare that to Miller Lite’s effort at “Man Laws”. It was never clear to whom the beer was targeted, if the ads were ultimately for beer at all. The agency sold the concept as “contributing to the brand currency”. Sounds like some agency B.S. Turns out it was.
The best way for you to get the most outrageously creative marketing is to test concepts against your fundamentals. Does it define your brand? Does it clarify your audience? Do they ads convey news, excitement and a strong call to action? If they do those things, by all means, don’t hold back. Make yourself nervous about what you create. If a concept doesn’t do all those things, then I don’t care how cool the creative seems, dump it.
Steve Jobs: Marketing iCon
0235 days
Peter Drucker, one of the world’s most brilliant business management experts said “Innovation and marketing produce results. All the rest are costs.”
If the head of your company respects that, you are most likely very successful. But what if the head of your company happens to be a genius at both? Then you have Steve Jobs.
When Jobs began his company in 1976, he had the vision to create a computer for daily life. At that time, no one even considered the idea. At that time the world’s most advanced computers were at NASA and the Department of Defense. Today, Jobs’ iPhone carries far more power than anything either of those entities held in 1976. His crystal clear vision was far beyond what anyone else could even imagine. His determination and success in making it happen gave proof of the value of that vision.
Then came the Macintosh in 1984 and with it, what many consider the greatest ad ever. To think it only ran one time is part of its lasting genius. But it was a unique piece of marketing that only he could have created.
Fast forward to the iPod. The mp3 player was already invented, but Jobs marketed it in a way that made it his. The iPod was an unfamiliar product with an unfamiliar interface. One would think an explanation of how it works would be in order. Not Steve Jobs, though. He never showed it, never talked about it. He only had silhouettes dance to it, earbuds in place. The iPod was instantly cool.
He later reinvented the telephone with the iPhone, reinvented the convenience of a laptop computer by removing everything mechanical from it with the Macbook Air, and now has revolutionized portable computing with the iPad.
That doesn’t even mention revolutionizing product naming by adding an “I” in front of everything…that is after he revolutionized naming by calling his products by the least obvious names imaginable. Sure the Macintosh made sense for Apple, but Apple itself makes no sense, nor does naming his progression of operating systems after predatory felines. But that kind of thinking is what you get from a genius in innovation and markeing.
Unsure About Social Media? Then Your Problem is Strategy
0301 days
Your audience is never as widely defined as you think. Your success depends on it being narrow.
There continues to be a lot of attention paid to social media. If you are not sure if social media is right for your company, your problems go deeper than whether your answer is yes or no. Despite the fact that social media requires a whole new way of looking at your relationship with customers (it is a conversation that the audience controls, not you just sending out a message you hope they receive), the fact is, it is just a medium. Just a tactic.
If you are unsure of its value to your company, that means your marketing strategy is not clear to you. When you understand your strategy, decisions on tactics and media almost make themselves. To see if your strategy is clear, answer these three questions.
- Think of your two closest competitors. What sets you apart from them?
- Create a profile of your primary audience?
- What is it about your company that makes you the best choice for that audience?
Now your score. Which is your longest answer? It should be question 2. You should be able to give an instant and fast answer to questions one and three. No more than two sentences should be necessary to state your brand promise, and it should roll off your tongue as easily as does your own name. But defining your audience should take more of an explanation, because a lot of things distinguish them from the overall audience of those who use a product like the one you offer. If you make tool kits for instance, they may be for automotive professionals, roofers, handymen, single women, do-it-yourselfers or those not handy at all. Your tool kits might be packaged for easy apartment storage, for accessibility from a pickup truck, etc. Meaning that despite the fact that most people need tools, yours are best suited for some very specific group of people.
Are the answers to question 1 and three the same? They should be. What makes your offering unique should come as an automatic answer to any question of that type. What makes you different from your competitors should be as easy to identify as that which sets you apart in the eyes of your audience. After all, how you appear in the eyes of your primary audience is all that counts.
Once you understand your audience, and your place among them, forming a strong message and delivering it is easy. You can make a strong case for or against the use of various media as long as you make your brand the priority.
Guilty of Murdering Her Brand
0328 days
Not guilty is not the same as innocent.
As the Casey Anthony “not guilty” verdicts are handed down, the logical connection was to the O.J. verdict. It makes sense. Both situations featured a defendant who was clearly guilty. In each, the system failed to succeed in delivering justice. However, the marketing is where these two cases are different.
In O.J.’s case, he has spent his life as a popular athlete who had never gotten into any significant trouble before. No matter the evidence, at that time it was impossible to convert the image of O.J. Simpson into a cold blooded murderer. Casey Anthony enjoyed no such brand value. In fact, she brought with her an image a reckless party girl who could not come across more coldly in court. Beyond that, her family was clearly a mess. Not just dysfunctional, but downright freaky-weird. However, murder is a serious charge, and for a jury to convict, they really have to understand what exactly went on. They have to know in their minds what happened and why. Otherwise, they feel that “reasonable doubt”.
Her brand wasn’t helping at all. I would consider it a strong, negative brand. It played a large part in her poor public perception and would have been considered a substantial contributor to her conviction had one occurred. Instead, not only does she walk free, but that very same strong but negative brand is likely to make her a media star. Certainly, the price of her first interviews will be substantial. Just think of The Octomom and Kate Gosslin.
Loyal Customers Will Buy The End of the World More Than Once
0370 days
Oh, no. May 21 turns out not to be the end of the world. Imagine my embarrassment and disappointment when I awoke to that fact sometime Sunday afternoon. Now clearly, Harold Camping, who went out on the craziest of limbs is now proven to be a lunatic…or perhaps a great marketer.
Among the ways to measure a greatest of marketing campaigns is to see if the language has changed as a result. Xerox is a classic example as is Kleenex. More recently Google and Yahoo are words to gain meanings from marketing. The “gay” lifestyle took the word for their own. It meant something different in the 1920’s, and a tweet was the sound a bird made before Twitter stole it.
Now, search the word “rapture” online. Harold Camping owns it. What is an even better piece of marketing, is that “rapture” is used as a word to describe natural disasters so bad that they kill nearly every person on earth. It takes brilliance to use a word with such a positive definition to describe the most tragic and horrible episode in human history.
Now that the world hasn’t ended, though, what is a marketer to do? Why not reschedule it. That’s right, when the end of the world is inconvenient, just click and drag it down your calendar to a more convenient date.
But it works. I guarantee his popularity increases. One other premise of marketing is never think a tightly defined audience is too small. An overwhelming majority of people think he has no credibility at all. Some are disgusted by his audacity and hold very negative feelings toward him. But why should he care about them? There will be a group to whom he appeals even more. That is his audience.
The publicity he uses to reach them is free, the billboards that triggered it should get nowhere near the views they have received. It has been masterful in that he looks ridiculous to 99% of the people. But by doing so, he can reach that 1% that is his potential audience, and he reaches nearly all of that one percent this way. The only way he doesn’t benefit from such a great marketing plan is if he turns out to be right this time.
Farewell to Lynn Hauldren, the Empire Carpet Man
0396 days
Elmer Lynn Hauldren 1922-2011
Lynn Hauldren passed away yesterday. Those in Chicago know him as the Empire Carpet guy. His famous jingle of “588-2300” can be recited by anyone who calls themselves a lifetime Chicagoan. As an advertising man, he may not be Don Draper, but he practiced what he preached.
Lynn worked on the Empire account as an account executive in 1977, and was asked by the company owner to be the face of the company when auditions failed to provide the right personality.
It is a role he held for the rest of his life. Now that is branding. Advertising experts tell companies all the time to find exactly what they do best, then permanently promote that one thing. What better example can there be, but for the advertising executive to find that one role and do nothing but that forever.
Being the Empire icon was what he did, not who he was. Among his other interests were performing and singing, particularly in a barbershop quartet called “Chordiac Arrest”. A full and successful life to be sure.
Rest in Pease Lynn. You left a fine legacy.
UPDATE – Empire Carpet was kind enough to dedicate a website to their beloved spokesman. It is an online museum that does justice to his contribution to their company as well as our community. Be sure to stop by and take a look. You will enjoy learning more about him while reliving your own memories.
Why Plan Your Marketing?
0468 days
Las Vegas as a family destination was just one marketing mistake of the 90's
Ah, marketing in the 90′s. Those were the days. Everything worked. It was just a matter of going out and marketing. Direct mail, broadcast, billboards who cares? Whatever your agency sold most profitably just so happened to be the best strategy for you. Sure, your bank’s checking accounts did best when sold via newspaper ads, but they also made money with direct mail, so who is to say which is better?
The problem is that profits were left on the table. It is impossible to know just how much, but you can guarantee that things could have been run better. When testing came, new creative was tried. Not new channels, not new messages, just a new look.
I say good riddance to those days. Branding was ignored. Strategy didn’t matter as much as a campaign did. Since everything succeeded, the industry wasn’t held to the highest standards anymore. Low standards worked well enough.
Today the marketing plan is back. Brand strategy matters. We can’t afford to just market lazily, because we are no longer going to be profitable if we don’t do it right. So be sure to do these basics, before asking a creative to rework your website. Don’t print a brochure unless you plan its use. Know what motivates your audiences, and here is a hint. The features in your product do not.
- TOWS analysis. Sure it is a SWOT analysis, just backwards, because backwards makes more sense. Measure your Threats, Opportunities, Weaknesses and Strengths.
- Find out from your audience, not your management just what they understand your brand to be.
- Articulate your brand through a written statement that is superlative, important, believable, memorable and tangible.
- Boil that short statement down to a single word or phrase.
- Understand your audience is a subset of who you think it is. Break them down to as small, not large, a statement as possible.
Make sure every message you send to your audience contains news, excitement and a strong call to action.
Don’t try to expand the audience, but communicate that message frequently to that core audience.
Now, the hard part. Consciously deliver this message with every communication for the next few years, so they will get used to it.
Marketers Are So Good, They Can Even Sell Santa Claus
0521 days
Hard to steer at these speeds
Normally, a marketer is asked to take an indistinguishable product, and bring it to life by accentuating its minor differentiations from competitors. Occasionally, they are asked to do the opposite and make the unrealistic believable. It can be said that Santa Claus has become an advertising icon for the holiday, created by generations of great marketing. Just take a look at what marketers were asked to work with in bringing the Santa Claus brand to life.
1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn’t (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total – 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s 91.8 million homes. One presumes there’s at least one good child in each.
3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop our of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh an move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purpose of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding, etc. This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 time the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second – a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, the conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting the “flying reindeer” (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload -not even counting the weight of the sleigh – to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison – this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance – this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force. In conclusion – If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he’s dead now.
The Battle of the Logos
0563 days
by Cliff Zugay
in Brand
November 11….Veterans’ Day, and as usual, our thoughts are divided between two issues. Our military heroes, and the NHL season. But to the marketer in me, it is not about the activities of either as much as it is about the logos.
Sports logos, at least those that have been devised recently, can’t hold a candle to the bold and profound logos of U.S. Military units.
A logo should be as simple as possible. I suggest creating a logo based on the kind of art you would draw in a rapid fast game of Pictionary. The image should be instantly recognizable, and carry the essence, not necessarily the accurate depiction of what one is trying to convey.
Take a look at these examples from our military, and the others from the NHL. Which make their point better with you?
Now that this pressing issue is off my chest. I am off to honor our veterans. I hope you do the same.
