Branding encompasses all of the touchpoints of a business. Every way that a consumer interacts with the company and its products will influence how they feel about that company.
Yet, all too often companies seem to do ‘just enough’. They figure out the least amount that is required and still get by.
The business model seems to be focused on how to do it as cheap as possible, as fast as possible, with as little effort as possible. What’s the least it will take? Then let’s do only that - just enough. It’s as though they start cutting out the ‘extras’ until they get to the lowest possible point.
Sure, profit margins might rise. Sure, it might improve cash flow. Will it grow ‘just enough’?
Those are just short term fixes.
Why not do the exact opposite? Why not do more than enough? As a matter of fact, think about how great the response would be if you did the most instead of the least. Change the conversation by exceeding their expectations.
Over deliver.
And see how effective it can be to have those delighted brand advocates market for you.
There have been some great taglines in advertising history. Positioning statements that achieved advertising greatness. A few of the more notables include:
7-Up - The uncola
AllState - Are you in good hands?
American Express - Don’t leave home without it.
Apple - Think Different
Bounty - The quicker-picker-upper
Burger King - Have it your way
Dairy Board - Got milk?
DeBeers - A diamond is forever
Disneyland - The happiest place on earth
Fedex - When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.
Greyhound - Leave the driving to us.
Las Vegas - What happens here, stays here
M&Ms - Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.
MasterCard - There are so many things that money can’t buy. For everything else there’s MasterCard.
Maxwell House - Good to the last drop.
Memorex - Is it live or is it Memorex?
Nike - Just do it
Secret - Strong enough for a man but made for a woman
Walmart - Save money. Live better.
These have all worked very effectively to best position the companies.
Toyota however seems to have missed the memo on picking a good tagline. As a company that is testifying before Congress about stuck accelerators, is “Moving Forward” really the best choice?
Unless their goal is to provide the opening monologue for Jay Leno’s new Tonight Show, they should have picked a tag that wouldn’t expose them to so much potential mockery.
How often do you say to yourself, or anyone around you that will listen, “If I could just teach them what we do and explain how it will make their life better, then they will buy it in a second.”
Do you think that if you could just educate them on the intricacies of your product and process then they will be convinced of your greatness?
Stop. Please. There are a number of reasons why your plan to educate the world won’t work. The biggest of which is that your consumer doesn’t care about you. They don’t care about your product. They are way too busy living their life and do not have the time or interest to care about you and your product.
The problem is this: no spreadsheet, no bibliography and no list of resources is sufficient proof to someone who chooses not to believe. The skeptic will always find a reason, even if it’s one the rest of us don’t think is a good one. Relying too much on proof distracts you from the real mission–which is emotional connection.
The emotional connection is the whole point. Stop trying to convince. No list of your features and really great data on your greatness is going to convince them. Focus on them. Talk to their imagination. Appeal to their heart. Establish the benefit to them. That emotional connection is stronger and better than any logic.
Businesses are facing tougher challenges than ever before. More competition from other businesses and more distracted consumers. Add to that the amount of control that consumers now possess and it puts companies, most companies at least, at the bottom of the pile.
So what should an organization do? There are literally thousands of opportunities to grow the brand. New technologies that can be embraced. Conversations that can be joined. Potential consumers that can be courted. Opportunities that can be investigated.
What is the first step?
Admitting that you have to change. And that is the scariest step of all. I sit in a lot of board rooms right now and listen to CEOs tell me that their industry is different. Their consumers are different. They either don’t see, or don’t want to see, that change is here and if they don’t adapt they will die.
I leave those meetings and wonder why they don’t see it. Why don’t they want to embrace the change? Why not start doing something differently and getting a different result?
“Good Enough”
They aren’t in enough pain yet. Their profits haven’t dropped to a low enough point yet. They aren’t compelled to do anything differently because it is still “Good Enough”.
Good enough is the enemy of great. Good enough is the beginning of a loss of brand equity. Good enough is what happens right before the profits start to slide.
Consumers aren’t interested in good enough. Consumers want you to work for their love and loyalty. They want to connect with you and they want to know you care enough to work for it. It’s like the early stages of dating. If you aren’t innovating, changing , looking for ways to do it better, then it’s like you stopped opening the car door, bringing flowers, and complimenting her. She will start feeling taken advantage of and will start looking for that attention somewhere else.
Yes, it used to be easier. But it’s not anymore. Start looking for ways to make your brand better than just “good enough”. Or your competition will come along and redefine your space. And then it will never be good enough again.
A study by Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz, released in the February edition of The Psychologist, analyzes how people react to the same information when it is presented in different fonts. Beyond just the language of the message, the typeface used to deliver the message can have great weight subconsciously for the reader deciding whether or not the task is achievable.
As they explain, when people ponder a new exercise routine and whether it is going to be easy or difficult to do, the font used to describe the routine can determine the reader’s perception about the task:
For example, consider the identical exercise instructions. When they were presented in an easy-to-read print font (Arial), readers assumed that the exercise would take 8.2 minutes to complete; but when they were presented in a difficult-to-read print font, readers assumed it would take nearly twice as long, a full 15.1 minutes (Song & Schwarz, 2008b).
They also thought that the exercise would flow quite naturally when the font was easy to read, but feared that it would drag on when it was difficult to read. Given these impressions, they were more willing to incorporate the exercise into their daily routine when it was presented in an easy-to-read font.
Martin Bishop used the following example to highlight what Song and Schwarz were referring to:
image: Exercise Example by Martin J Bishop, Landor
Not only will the font determine how difficult they think the task is but also if and when they will attempt it.
They observed that 17 per cent of their participants postponed choice when the font was easy to read, whereas 41 per cent did so when the font was difficult to read. Apparently, participants misread the difficulty arising from the print font as reflecting the difficulty of making a choice.
Branding is a broad umbrella that covers all of the touchpoints that a consumer comes in contact with and summarizes how they feel about you after contact. The crucial component of branding is the consumer’s feelings. Their gut reactions to your company and product. As we tell your story and highlight how you benefit them so that they become truly connected to you emotionally, it is important that the story is told and shown in a certain way.
This study proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the science of design, the choice of a font, will have dramatic effect on what feeling your consumer has about you and more importantly what action they take after connecting with that touchpoint.
Do you make it easy for them to integrate you into their lives? When they read more about you will they leave with a feeling of ease or difficulty? These seemingly small choices, like font, have very big ramifications. Think before you ink.
Our purpose is to change the conversation to build an emotional connection that will drive consumer action. As this study illustrates, sometimes changing the conversation will start with changing the font. A seemingly small detail that you didn’t even consider to be important. You, or your design agency, picked that font because it looked good. But in the end, how it looks to you isn’t nearly as important as how your consumer will react to it. Will your font slow down their decision to love you?
Marketing used to be about ’set it and forget it’. Not just in the Ron Popeil ‘but wait, there’s more’ kind of way.
A company would create a newspaper or tv ad and run it for two or three or in some cases even ten years and their sales go up every year. There was no advertising clutter and very little competition to get in the way. Consumers wanted to hear about your product and were interested in its features.
Times have changed.
Now consumers have the power.
Now consumers only want to know about what benefit you can provide to them.
Now consumers will seek out the information they want and ignore everything else.
Now consumers are so overwhelmed by the clutter of advertising that they have to block it all out just to protect themselves.
It is no longer “if you build it, they will come”. Now, the consumer doesn’t need you or want what you have to offer because there are a dozen more just like you. Or at least that’s how it seems to them.
What choice do you have?
Don’t stop. No coasting. Keep your eye on the prize. If you are not a company that continues to evolve, then you will become extinct.
A great example of this is Tsunami, a sushi restaurant with locations in Lafayette and Baton Rouge (and in the interest of full disclosure - a client). Although one of the first sushi restaurants in Lafayette over a decade ago, they quickly became the hot spot. They truly changed the conversation. At a time when every restaurant was cajun or tex-mex they introduced a whole new concept. And quickly became the place to see and be seen. It is common to wait upwards of an hour for a table and patrons do so without complaint. Why? Because the experience exceeds their expectation. Always fresh. Always good. And it’s fun. The food is incredible. The service is impeccable.
That doesn’t come easy to them. They aren’t coasting. From the top down there is a team of attentive, caring, believers who go out of their way to keep improving. Not change for change’s sake but true improvement and adjustment and evolution.
There are 26 sushi restaurants now, yet Tsunami shows no signs of slowing down. Why not? Well, even with a competing sushi restaurant opening up right next door they have continued to do what they do best and their consumers keep coming back for more. That other restaurant? Can’t even get the people waiting for a table to come in. Tsunami has brand advocates - people who have an emotional connection to the restaurant and chose it above all others.
And they are always marketing. Not in a ‘bought a full page in the phone book’ kind of way. Every one of their touchpoints is in harmony. And most importantly, they are engaged in conversations with their consumers - not just broadcasting messages. They know the psychographics of their consumers. Tsunami gets inside their heads and their habits and knows how to stay appealing. They use this consumer insight to continue to provide the experience that their consumers are wanting.
Are you still tending to your garden? Do you market as hard as the day you started? Is your competition?
So often in marketing the focus is on the big idea. The big campaign. The big splash.
Step back and think small. Think of your consumer from a new perspective. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute and see what need you can satisfy.
We recently stayed at a Hilton Hotel in Dallas and this is a picture of the room key. Now, some of you might think it is nothing more than crass commercialism to “sell an ad” on the back of the room key.
I think it is genius. Pizza Hut and Hilton both scored big on this one. Sure, I could have ordered room service. And there was a very nice vending machine full of yummy snacks just down the hall. Not to mention a well stocked mini-bar. But sometimes only a hot cheesy pizza will do the trick.
This local promotion put the product right in front of me at time when I might need it the most. As I opened my door to my room after a long day and realized that I had worked right through lunch. Now I don’t have to go to google to figure out who the local pizza guys are. I don’t have to use the map on my iPhone to track down the closest pizza place. It’s all right there on my key.
They made an emotional connection with me because they used good consumer insight. In so doing it improved the brand of both companies. This strategy is right on target and a great component in their marketing campaign.What could be the ‘key’ to your local marketing that you might be missing. Which neighbors could you partner with to provide more for your consumers? How can you better serve them?
Few brands have been as troubled for as long as the New Orleans Saints football team. Founded 43 years ago, the team has spent most of their existence with losing seasons. For a large part of the 1970’s and 1980’s, the fans that bothered to attend games did so with bags on their heads with “Aint’s” written on the outside. At one point there was even a sign on a local highway that read “Interstate 10, Saints 0″.
Yet, despite all of that, we all stuck by them. In some ways, the losing streak of the team represented how we all felt about our state. It’s not perfect, but we love it anyway. This belief in ourselves and belief in our state manifested itself into a belief in the team we loved. Their brand wasn’t about winning - even though they were able to manage that occasionally. Their brand wasn’t about superstar players - although we had a few of those…Archie Manning. The brand of the Saints was about believing. Believe in the future. Believe in who we are. Believe in who we could become. The very definition of an emotional connection between a product and it’s consumer.
And now, so much is changing. Louisiana is starting to show up on the top of some great lists - “Happiest state in the US”, “Best place to start a business”, “Hot Market in a Cold Economy” and “Top 10 place to run a small business” as well as dozens of others.
We believe in ourselves. We believe in our state’s future. We believe in the Saints.
This video, The Soul of New Orleans, does an incredible job of capturing why we believe. Win or lose on Sunday, it won’t change how we feel. It won’t change what we believe.
We are a “Who Dat Nation”. This chant is a symbol of our belief. It’s been around for decades and is our greeting to one another. It represents the years we have all waited to be on the good list. The years we have waited for this team and this moment in time. Yet, now the NFL is sending cease and desist letters to vendors who sell “Who Dat” merchandise. Whether they have a legal right to the trademark of the phrase no longer matters. They don’t own our history. They don’t own our passion. They don’t own our belief.
fleur de lis
No matter what happens in Miami for the Super Bowl it won’t change how we feel. We believe in the brand. We love our team. Geaux Saints!
A long-time B2B client called me yesterday. He is a successful entrepreneur. Bought out his boss years ago and now runs the company. We have been working together for about four years now and whenever we discuss a new challenge that his company is facing, the conversation seems to go the same way. He describes the challenge, we strategize the solution, he tells me why it won’t work and that he thinks it’s too expensive. He’s just not sure how he can get a return on that investment. Every time. Same conversation. I’m used to it. Part of his resistance is that what we want to do is so different than what he has always done. Also, when we talk about ‘building his brand’, ‘changing the conversation’ and ‘making an emotional connection’ he feels the need to roll his eyes - says it sounds too new age-y.
So when he called yesterday, I was expecting more of the same and not at all prepared for what he said.
Knowing that his company was really struggling when we last spoke and his industry had been particularly hard hit during the recession, I asked how his year ended. When we last spoke, he was facing the most challenging time in the thirty year history of his company and when I didn’t hear back from him for a while I had begun to assume the worst.
He apologized for not calling me back sooner and told me that he had been really busy with new projects and that he actually grew last year. He went on to say:
“It got really bad for a while. So bad that I was going to have to lay off 40 people. I had decided which ones were going to have to go and even drafted the paperwork. These are people with families. Some of them have been with the company for almost the whole thirty plus years we have been around. I held on as long as I could but just couldn’t do it any more. Right before I pulled the trigger and fired them, I got a call from a new customer with a really big new project. He said that he saw the marketing materials that you created and hired us. Then I got a call from another one. In all it was $9 million in new business from that campaign.”
I thought about how much he had fought me when we shared the concept with him.
I thought about how much he complained about the price tag, which was .002 of the new business he had secured.
I thought about all of the times he told me that he had ‘done it all before and it didn’t work then so why would it work now’.
I thought about reminding him of that but instead I said, “that is great news. Congratulations. What’s next?”
We started talking about a new market that we thought he should go after. I explained the strategy behind the idea and he told me that he didn’t think it would work. And I was comforted to know that our relationship would continue on as it always has and those 40 people still have jobs.
Companies are still providing plenty of reasons to avoid social media. Below are the ten most commonly heard excuses:
We’ve already allocated our budget for the year.
We are busy with a new product launch.
We want to see if social media turns out to be a fluke.
Legal won’t let us.
We want customer service to handle all customer interaction.
Social media won’t help us achieve our objectives.
The CEO isn’t comfortable with social media.
We don’t think our consumers are using social media.
We don’t have the resources to invest in social media now.
We are B2B and it’s more of a retail thing. OR. We are retail and it seems like a B2B thing.
At this point, there are hundreds of case studies of companies with growth through the use of social media. Not to mention the thousands of companies that have used social media to connect with consumers. Yet, all of the excuses to avoid social media are about themselves. “We don’t think…” “We don’t want…” Where is the consumer in that equation?
So what’s your excuse? Why is your company still avoiding social media?
If you want to get some pointers on where to start and what to do first, check out the social media ebooks in the knowledge section of our website which are updated weekly. Also, subscribe to this blog and get daily updates that will provide valuable info.
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