Davis ThinkingHave you seen Logorama, the movie comprised entirely of animated logos, that just won the Oscar for best animated short film? It's an excellent representation of the technicolor tapestry of branding that our world has become. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your point of view. But what would the world be like if there were no more brands to differentiate products, inspire us, or give us a good feeling about a company or product we've never tried before? I'm one who thinks it would be bad for brands to meld together into a homogenized mess, and I see that starting to happen in places. At the rate things are going, someday soon all brands will look like Walmart 's Great Value label. Why is this happening?
Consumers appear to be slowly returning to big-name brands after fleeing to lower-cost, private labels in the past year. Store brands rose 3.2% at retailers for the four-week period ended Feb. 20, according to a Thursday report released by Credit Suisse analyst Robert Moskow. Such brands account for about 20% of unit sales of food. Figures exclude sales at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. But the increase is down from a 4% gain in January and an about 6% gain, excluding dairy, last July. At the same time, branded-food unit sales rose 2.4% for the February period compared to a 0.2% decline for the four weeks ended Jan. 23. Mr. Moskow said the gains in part could be due to shoppers stocking up on items before and during the recent winter storms.
Buyers Saturday will get their first glimpse of Bottega Veneta's winter handbags at Fashion Week here. But the Italian fashion house has already bet on what it thinks the hottest bags will be. As Bottega pursues its strategy to grow from a niche player into a global brand, it has been conducting a major overhaul to its business, starting from the production line. As part of that, it now decides well before its catwalks what—and how much—to manufacture and send to stores. It is a significant switch for the Italian fashion house.
Back in the day, a decade (to 50 decades) ago, we discovered media — news, information, or service — through brands: We went and bought the newspaper or magazine or turned on a channel on its schedule. That behavior and expectation was brought to the internet: Brands built sites and expected us to come to them. Now there are other spheres of discovery — new spheres that are shifting in importance, effectiveness, and share. I believe they will overlap more and more to provide better — that is, more relevant, timely, and authoritative — means of discovery. These evolving spheres also change the relationships of creators and customers and the fundamental economics of media.
I’m working with a client to develop a new brand platform and thought I’d share one of the tools I used in my engagement – Brand Obituaries. The client lacks a clear brand identity and their brand seems “forgettable.” The problem is not that they don’t have good products – it’s that they no longer know what they stand for, and so neither do consumers.
Even in these tough times, surprising and extraordinary efforts are under way in businesses across the globe. From politics to technology, energy, and transportation; from marketing to retail, health care, and design, each company on the following pages illustrates the power and potential of innovative ideas and creative execution.
Don't be shocked if you can't find your favorite salad dressing or mouthwash on your next trip to Wal-Mart. Large retailers -- including Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500), the world's biggest -- are wrestling with having too many types of brand-name products. At the same time, shoppers are buying less and looking for bargains. So unless a particular brand is a top seller in its category, it's getting knocked off the shelf -- and sometimes getting replaced by a cheaper store brand.
"To build a global medium as central to people's lives as the telephone or television ... and even more valuable." This was Steve Case's vision in the early 1990s, and everyone wanted to be a part of it. The company he founded, American Online, was one of the nation's most admired. By turning Internet access into a home utility, AOL became one of the nation's most admired brands and workplaces. It was the Google or the Facebook of its time. Then something happened.
Brands spend more than $450 billion each year to influence us. They wouldn't spend that kind of money unless they knew something we didn't know. The most-successful brands don't focus on what we need; they focus on what we want. We need a credit card; we want an American Express Black card. We need a cellphone; we want the yet-to-be-released iPhone 4G. Fortunately for brands, when it comes to identifying what people want, we aren't particularly complex. The human mind seeks to satisfy 10 primary wants. Direct your actions toward meeting as many as possible, and your brand will grow exponentially. So what do people want, exactly?
When it comes to innovation, many executives in the consumer goods industry are chasing Apple. Who can blame them? While most retailers spent the holiday season slashing prices, Apple reported record earnings by enchanting audiences with iPhones. Now, as retailers try to re-engage consumers this year, executives are trying to replicate the "Apple thrill." But focusing exclusively on product innovation is a mistake for most companies, say executives who gathered recently at Berglass + Associates, my company, to discuss innovation.
For all of the immediacy and connectedness of online experience, I’d argue consumers feel a gnawing distance from one another and the marketplace. Pay retail? That's for somebody else. Wait in line? There's a way around it. Get better service? There's a special number to call. Terms of agreement? There are always exceptions. Information is ubiquitous and it's brand heresy to fail to present it in a unified and consistent manner, yet every consumer is looking for an exception. The same phenomenon infects our politics: someone else, or the proverbial "they," are either not paying enough taxes or trying to make you pay more than your fair share. The Internet lets me see what's being offered to others, so I want something different. Is it possible that each of us is an exception?
There's still nothing like the real thing. Or so say food marketers looking to stand out in the mass-produced herd. What really is "real" could eventually be for the government to determine. In the meantime, real people drink Caribou, real dogs eat Alpo, real sandwiches have Hellmann's and Canada Dry ginger ale is made with real ginger. Don't bother taking notes, because Wendy's says "You know when it's real" anyway. Advertised "real" foods, products, services and even experiences aren't new, but they're on the rise.
The economy appears to have begun recovering after the worst recession in half a century. But businesses ranging from shoemakers to financial services to luxury hotels don't expect American consumers to return to their spendthrift ways anytime soon. They see consumers emerging from the punishing downturn with a new mind-set: careful, practical, more socially conscious and embarrassed by flashy shows of wealth. Much as the 1930s shaped the spending habits of an entire generation, many companies now anticipate a shift in consumer behavior that persists even after jobs and growth get back closer to normal.
At some point in our schooling, we all learned about the ancient Greek marketplace called the "agora." The agora was a place where people gathered to shop, discuss politics and meet friends. Merchants built early commerce around one essential element: human interaction. But gradually, the marketplace changed. Along came the industrial revolution, the creation of mass communications and long-distance travel. We suddenly found ourselves in the 1950s, the true dawn of the consumer society.
Suddenly, you see it everywhere – in airports, hotels, restaurants, and of course, in most public bathrooms. It’s on sale in corner kiosks, wedged conspicuously between the gum and People magazine. And in a blink, it’s been seamlessly integrated into life as an essential everyday item. Just five years ago, the product never existed anywhere, and yet if you were to conduct a straw poll, most would confide that they simply couldn’t live without it. I’m not talking about the iPod or the Blackberry, or even your favourite pair of Crocs – I’m talking about antibacterial hand gel – the kind you can squirt whenever you feel the need to cleanse. From what I see around me, a lot of people seem to be feeling pretty dirty these days.
What a difference a decade makes. Just ten years ago, brands were given huge headaches by cyber-squatters: users who had beat them to registering their brand-name Internet URLs and were misrepresenting the brand. No such problems today. Now, brands are given huge headaches by cyber-squatters, users who had beat them to registering their brand-name Twitter accounts and are misrepresenting the brand.
You know social media is a powerful tool for business when a grocery store attracts more Twitter followers than pop star Lady Gaga and almost as many as Miley Cyrus, whose departure drove her 2 million fans to make #MileyComeBack a trending topic for more than a day. If Whole Foods Market ever followed suit, its 1.5 million registered fans would surely start a virtual food fight.
Recently several manufacturers have announced that they are initiating an e-commerce business. I’m not sure of the motivations behind these moves but it seems to be a growing trend. Although many manufacturers have been offering direct sales for many years through their own e-commerce sites, it seems we’re seeing a new surge of interest in doing so from players who have historically shunned the idea. And this got me thinking about how a manufacturer could do e-commerce in a way that doesn’t simply cannibalize the sales would be generated by a third party distributor or retailer, but instead would increase the value of the brand which is delivered to the customer. I can think of three ways a manufacturer might do this.
A broken brand is a business that has no idea where it’s going; has no way of communicating its purpose (since none exists); and therefore cannot align its activities nor inspire its people. It’s in disorder. And this disorder leads to people walking around concluding that no one cares and that no one is in charge. Employees may see problems or opportunities, but they stop complaining and suggesting ideas, since they’re convinced management can’t do anything, or won’t. I’ve read the results of recent surveys, which showed that fewer than 10 percent of employees believe their daily activities are actually related to corporate goals. That’s pitiful.
Have you noticed that most conversations about branding inevitably include references to Harley-Davidson and Apple? Sprinkle in mentions of Coke, Facebook, and Zappos, and you get the context of every agency pitch for more spending on brand engagement, loyalty, or whatever else these examples might suggest. I suggest you ban these references from your next conversation. Forget about them altogether.
The recession has battered some of the nation's biggest companies. Even so, top marketing executives believe social media and behavioral targeting technologies will help them boost business as the economy stabilizes and consumer sentiment improves. A cautiously optimistic group of marketing executives from big companies, including Bank of America, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Mercedes-Benz USA and Xerox, gathered in Palm Beach, Fla., at the Fifth annual Forbes CMO Summit late last week. There they discussed ways they can rebuild trust and boost sales at their companies as the economy stabilizes.
Interesting article on global brands adapting to local culture in Market Leader by Nigel Hollis of Millward Brown. Nice one Nigel. First thing that hit me was that global brands beat local brands in the five categories researched across eight countries. The global brands were more often considered for purchase, and scored better on statements including 'easy to recognize', and having 'distinctive identities'. The two global brands which stood out were Coca-Cola and McDonald's. Interestingly, both of these were seen by a significant share of local consumers as being part of their own national cultures. So much for the image portrayed by doom-mongers in the press of these brands being multinational, American dictators.
Just when brands thought they might muster a passable social-media "sense and respond" defense against the brutal realities of consumer nastygrams or Google search-result hogging, or just when they figured out a few tricks for managing Wikipedia and all those activists and product recalls that make their way onto your entry, brands must now contend with yet another trust broker that wraps candid conversation around their cherished homefront, whether they like it or not.
Gap hasn't had an easy time of it, and not just because of last month's death of Don Fisher, who founded the store in 1969. The clothing retailer, which owns Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy, has suffered through years of declining sales and several executive changes. Only Old Navy, Gap's value-priced brand, has seen a sales increase this year.
Settling into adulthood amid the Great Recession, today's 20somethings are a practical-minded bunch, according to a J.D. Power and Associates study. Examining the online discussions of 22-29-year-olds, the research firm found them particularly focused (relative to other age groups) on "value brands," which are "competing with trendy brands for share of mind."
Image is everything to luxury fashion companies. Preserving prestige is what sets brands such as Gucci and Hermes apart from Gap and H&M. But that same elitism is keeping certain luxury brands from engaging in social media, one of the most powerful forms of marketing at the moment. Luxury fashion companies are known for setting trends when it comes to their products, but their media preferences are surprisingly dated. Most prefer to simply buy ad space in publications where they can present--and control--their image in glossy two-page spreads. While traditional media will remain an important advertising vehicle for high-end fashion companies, social media needs to be part of the marketing mix too.
Do you appreciate your state? Feel like you get a decent return on your tax dollar? Would you recommend your state to friends as a place to live or, conversely, as a place to avoid? Is your state ascending or descending as a brand? States are already "branded" by their histories, economies and populations. California has great weather, beautiful scenery and tons of diversity. It's the land of the Gold Rush, Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Minnesota has icy winters, beautiful lakes and an educated work force. Florida and Arizona are havens for retirees, vacationers and snowbirds. You can look at a map and fill out the brands.
What's the difference between personalization and customization? Are consumers really in control? Do brands (and designers) want them to be? Nick de la Mare considers curation and the myth and reality of control.
Last week on Facebook, amid the cacophony of status updates, many men received a cheeky invitation -- "Turn up your man smell" -- from a hopeful new friend: Old Spice. The Procter & Gamble brand was running an ad on the social networking site hoping to increase its 55,000-strong Facebook fan base. By today, Old Spice boasted nearly 175,000. Brands are finding themselves in a position similar to that of the new kids at summer camp: they're anxiously looking for friends. In the world of social media, the potency of a person's network has always been key. Now, this virtual popularity contest has been joined by advertisers, who are scrambling to build fan bases they hope to mobilize on behalf of their brands.
As Facebook passes 300 million active users, it is quickly becoming the favorite engagement-marketing and communications platform of brands. While the robust social platform brings with it abundant opportunity, it also brings new challenges. Brand marketers and their creative agencies are more than ever operating in new territories, forced to rethink their tactical marketing approach and understanding of what metrics matter in this space. On Facebook, consumers and brands are friends. The notion of consumers as friends is inviting to brands, yet most marketers are still somewhat unclear what this really means and how they should approach this friendship. As such, the remainder of this article aims to unlock some of the secrets to a successful friendship between a brand and a consumer on Facebook.
Branding Is Dead! Long Live Brands?! Many pundits have declared the death of branding and it would be difficult to argue to continue typical branding activities. Creating an image to serve as the “face” of a company, refreshing a logo or tagline in an attempt to reinvigorate the business, developing advertising campaigns to “get our name out there” – the business value of these efforts can indeed be questioned. Today’s savvy consumers are likely to see through a brand façade. They can easily find out if the business practices, products, and people behind a brand are what their ads say they are. And they’re more likely to trust their own experience or the recommendation of a friend or even an online reviewer than a company’s own chest-thumping. In fact, one could argue that the historical role which brands played – that is, serving as symbols to guarantee a certain of level of quality – is no longer relevant or useful today. But that is not to say that brands themselves are no longer valuable.
I was talking with a senior marketer at one of the most famous brands in the world last week. She said, "executives keep coming to me with stuff they find on the internet, stuff they find on YouTube about us, and say, 'take it down!' Of course, I have to explain that I can't take it down. No one can." If your brand has any traction at all, people are talking about you. Of course, they've always talked about you, but now they're doing it in writing, in video and in public. Today, Squidoo (a company I founded) is launching Brands in Public.
Brands, which are mostly untrusted, must develop advocacy programs to influence their market. Despite the good intentions, several risks could undermine the effort and even cause public brand backlash. Interesting. Recently, I attended a corporate event that showcased products related to an industry. Press, media, bloggers, and influencers were invited to attend, and meet a variety of vendors and see products. Some of the attendees were part of the company’s advocacy program and were sampling a few products. Some members of the the advocacy program are bloggers, one with a journalistic background. While the event continued on, a not-impressed attendee with a journalistic background started to make comments that some of the members of the advocacy program were not authentic and went so far as to say quite loudly during the presentation they were “shills”. Let’s break it down, as these same events are likely going to happen to your advocacy program in person and online.
While the concept of personal branding has taken off corporate branding seems to go in and out of favor. Economic cycles may have a lot to do with that. With the growth of the Internet and social technology tools, personal branding activity and opportunities have exploded. On the other hand, in some ways, the arc of Web 1.0 to 2.0+ (not to mention this current economy) has seduced many marketers into being focused on tactics at the expense of strategy including branding. Hot media tactics often substitute for the "strategy." If you are skeptical that brands still matter in the age of 1-1, millennials and social media, or if you are trying to run a business and make numbers and don't have the patience for brand consultant-speak or theories, here is a quick, simple refresher on good old fashioned branding that works today, that can help you frame your marketing and other operational tactics...to drive business results.
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Great Gatsby that personality is forged by an "unbroken string of successful small gestures." And, as with people, so with brands. Brand personality takes root in the soil of its own heritage and history. Some brands have to make up a past. Others have ancestry galore to utilize if the brand's stewards can strike the right tone without relying too much on nostalgia. I call this brand mythos--the archetypal true back-story, the legend of itself told to itself and its fans.
This news might actually sway some of the executives left who still fear the use of social media for business. Research from Penn State found that a full twenty percent of tweets mention specific brand names or products. Out of half a million tweets examined during the study, one fifth were essentially free brand advertising. Those tweets contains a mix of requests for information about specific products as well as responses to those queries from people’s networks, giving companies an unprecedented window into the concerns and questions customers and potential customers have about their products.
As a consultant working with many brands on social media strategy and efforts, I hear a lot of perceptions about social media. Extended out to the conferences that I attend and sometimes speak at, it is surprising how often I hear the same myths about social media. These are not things that brands are just using as reasons to not engage ... they often come from brands and marketing teams that are actively using social media as well. The following is a selection of some of the myths that I hear most often, as well as some thoughts on why they are simply myths and what your brand can do to get past them.
Marketers across all industries are buzzing about social media these days, but no one has really figured it out, said Jose-Alberto Duenas, Kellogg’s marketing vp of ready-to-eat cereals in the U.S. Though digital and social media may soon overtake the 30-second spot as the most popular form of advertising, brands still have a lot of experimenting and learning to do in this space. That’s what Kellogg is doing with social media campaigns on its Special K, Pop-Tarts and Frosted Mini-Wheats brands. It’s also teamed up with Ashton Kutcher’s Katalyst Media and Feeding America to raise up to $1 million for hunger relief. Efforts like the latter program have attracted 210,000-plus in Facebook fans.
We read and hear constantly about social responsibility -- what it means, how to do it, who does it best. Often anecdotal and top down, the cacophony of pundits is painful. It might be refreshing and even important to let real people tell us what brands and companies they see as socially responsible.
At Pangea Media, we regularly gauge the attitudes of tweens and teens who make up the bulk of visitors to our site, Quibblo.com. Recently, we conducted two surveys which asked them to tell us how they interact with brands and, specifically, which brands they think are "cooler." True to the demographic, some of the 2,000-plus results were in line with what we expected them to say ... others were not.
The world’s next Coca-Cola or Starbucks is more likely to emerge from Asia, the Middle East or South America than the US or Europe as global economic wealth shifts.
H&M, Esprit and Adidas are apparel brands that are coming on strong, while Nike, Zara, Gap and Puma are weakening. And although Wal-Mart is still tops, Amazon -- a brand that does little conventional advertising -- is blistering past its retail competitors, according to the latest brand evaluation from Millward Brown Optimor, a division of WPP.
Brands are pollinating the social web with easy-to-share features like Sharethis. As conversations splinter across the web, brands must prepare to aggregate those same conversations on their corporate website. As a result, the trusted conversations will centralize back on product pages.
Industries worldwide are transforming as the economic upheaval takes its toll. It's affecting both leading brands and challengers in nearly every category.
At the risk of being branded a heretic or perhaps just being shown the door by my agency HR director, I have to say it: I hate social media. Why? Because it's just media. And since when was media ever interesting?
Chinese brands have come a long way since the days of Mao where coats and boots came in two colors and consisted of dubious quality. Rising in complexity and caliber, brands such as Haier and Chery are not content to rule the middle kingdom and instead seek to invade new markets. Forget bringing your brand to China, are you prepared for the onslaught of Chinese brands in your home market?
Brands have adopted a variety of tactics in response to changing consumer attitudes and behaviors. In the first quarter of 2009, we monitored more than 100 brand responses to the recession. We found that most approaches fit into six buckets: optimism, humor, nationalism, nostalgia, consumer empowerment and value/price.
Draftfcb last week merged its media, digital and CRM practices into a single unit called the Real-Time Marketing division. The move was designed to, among other things, make brands more responsive to happenings on the Web, good or bad, which can drastically affect the way consumers perceive the brands. Brandweek editor Todd Wasserman spoke with Draftfcb chief media officer Richard Gagnon this week to see where direct fits in with all this and how the unit will work in practice.
As the recession keeps depressing, luxury brands are experiencing a wake-up call from this nasty cycle and from chastened luxury buyers.
The first quarter of 2009 will be remembered for many things, mostly bad. But it may also mark a turning point when the world's biggest marketer and its broader industry finally got serious about digital media.
This week I was asked to talk to the Marketing Directors Network in London about how organizations are using Twitter. We’ve written before about how celebrities are using Twitter and how organizations are using Twitter as an engagement tool. In both cases, perhaps the best advice is just to try using Twitter and to see what happens.
Like every other category, the beverage market has been pounded by the recession, with 2008 marking its first volume decline on record as consumers buy fewer bottled beverages. Still, thousands of products continue to launch each year, making it one of the most competitive categories around. Backed by smart marketing strategies, some drink brands are breaking away from the crowd and amassing loyal consumer bases.
At the end of the rubber chicken relay, the human chariot races and the jump rope jam session, contestants of Brooklyn's recent inaugural "Punk Rope Olympics," quenched their thirsts with a drink from their sponsor, Vita Coco. The New York company is the largest maker of a drink that is all the rage in the beverage industry: coconut water.
How many brands can revive a TV commercial that last aired nearly two decades ago--and not in a nostalgic or camp way? Not many.
People today are awash in news and stories about war, climate change, famine, and disease. Their lives are increasingly being touched by financial hardship, illness, natural disaster, and death. These images, stories and intimate, personal associations and experiences are creating a richer understanding about the fate of others and, thus, a deeper sense of empathy.
I'm calling out British marketers today. They have a lot to learn about the importance of provenance, heritage and history.
Sometimes people push back on posts of mine they don't like by telling me I'm out of bounds. Somehow, they say, I've crossed the boundary of what I'm allowed to write about. They are angry that I'm now writing about something outside my defined area.
I accept that people and brands are going have a use for their own websites (I still do). Given that, the important questions are: What role will your website be playing within the overall context of the internet as a whole? Are you spending and an amount of money, effort, and time that is appropriate to that role? Would you be better off putting that money, effort, and time into developing content?
The United States has the highest healthcare costs in the world, but it remains the only Western country without a national healthcare plan covering all citizens. That's why healthcare reform is a top priority of the Obama administration. One interesting side effect of impending reform could be the new marketplace it creates for healthcare brands.
Perceived quality is a brand association that is elevated to the status of a brand asset for several reasons.
Step into an Office Depot these days and you'll see crayons, markers, glue sticks and other items from Scholastic. Best known as a publisher of children's books and educational materials, Scholastic initially linked with Office Depot for an exclusive branded product line of schoolbooks for teachers, but now it's a sort of house brand for the chain. "Sort of" because such licensors are expanding the definition of private label and, along the way, providing a bright spot in the otherwise moribund licensing industry.
Late last week, Procter & Gamble Co. revealed its sales expectations for the next few years, and things don’t look good: 2009 will increase 2-3% (below prior forecasts), and 2010 will be worse, perhaps climbing only a percentage point or two above flat.
What if something you thought you knew to be true, turned out to be exactly the opposite? What if an approach you imagined was working for you was actually working against you?
As publications continue to struggle or fold because of dwindling advertising revenues, one is thriving by selling not just ad space, but entire marketing campaigns.
No doubt about it. The economy is contracting, and it’s a painful process. Businesses, large and small, are going under, impacting jobs and revenues in communities. Brands, even well established ones, are vanishing from the map, leaving us to wonder what’s coming next.
There are many ads today from our imperiled banks, insurance companies and automakers telling us that we can still trust them and should still buy their products. But there's one word consumers haven't heard much that might serve these companies better than their current dirges: sorry.
The Internet was always fast. Google made a point during its rise to prominence to detail -- to the millisecond -- just how quickly it delivered a search result. And, as we all know, the Web has gotten even faster.
If there has ever been a time for brands to stop selling product and start acting like a company, it’s now. This is the time to prove to one’s loyalists – the family of customers, vendors and stakeholders - that brands feel their pain. A ‘grown up’ brand needs to sympathize and recognize that it understands people aren’t living their lives in a ‘business as usual’ mode. These times are business most unusual. It’s time for brands to remind their fan base that everyone is in this together. Brands need to be leaders with a voice that inspires.
Why does a diploma from Harvard cost $100,000 more than a similar piece of paper from City College? Why might a BMW cost $25,000 more than a Subaru WRX with equally fast acceleration? Why do “sophisticated” consumers demand 16-gigabyte iPhones and “fair trade” coffee from Starbucks? If you ask market researchers or advertising executives, you might hear about the difference between “rational” and “emotional” buying decisions, or about products falling into categories like “hedonic” or “utilitarian” or “positional.” But Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico, says that even the slickest minds on Madison Avenue are still in the prescientific dark ages.
Not familiar with BRM? Perhaps you are more familiar with its cousin CRM, or Customer Relationship Management. As technology has improved CRM tools and functionality, it has changed the way marketers connect to people by helping to organize and filter information about buying habits to better serve customers going forward. But with people connecting more and more to brands on social networks, the next wave of marketing may be providing people the information they need/want through social media, making it a "Brand Relationship Management" (BRM) tool.
Newspapers have a future, both in print and online. They just have to find the money to get there. That’s the conclusion of a PricewaterhouseCoopers report, “Moving into Multiple Business Models: Outlook for Newspaper Publishing in the Digital Age,” which the consulting firm released Monday.
As a follow up to our recent webinar, Facebook Bootcamp for PR, you’ll see five blog posts in the coming weeks exploring the five trends set out in our presentation. This installment looks at the quickly evolving role of Facebook Connect and reviews how brands can use this open ID to enhance their Facebook presence and expand other social media programs.
Elevator pitches, 30-second spots, viral videos, strategic PR, the brand called "you." Today’s commonly accepted view is that great brands are great at telling us their interesting stories. That’s a misguided view. In reality, we use our interaction with brands—their sceneries, props, set decorations, scripts, and actors—to construct our own stories, ones that we want to tell about ourselves. And since we define ourselves both according to what we identify with and what we reject, and given the abundance of marketplace choice, we now choose interactions which we feel will produce the best story possible. And we reject the others.
It appears that something interesting has happened with the growth of social media. There was a time when media experts talked about mass fragmentation with audiences splintering into tiny interest groups that consumed media in unique ways. The proliferation of cable channels, digital radio stations and websites suggested this would be the way of the future. The assumption was that people would come together a few times of the year for big events like The Oscars or The Superbowl. This was before social networks, now we are all in these loosely affiliated networks. On Twitter, we have followers we've never met and in many cases have never heard of.
One thing this recession hasn't knocked out is the power of brands. Despite the pounding global business is taking, the $2 trillion value of the top 100 brands has held steady, according to Millward Brown's annual BrandZ report.
Dos Equis beer has launched an "Expedition Cinco" tour of 14 key markets around the Cinco de Mayo holiday.
As the executives at Apple (AAPL) were passing around the Dom Perignon, their counterparts at other companies which design and manufacture smartphones were putting all sharp objects out of reach. In a recession, there is only so much air in any room. Smart phone sales are suffering like all consumer electronics. If the iPhone is doing extraordinarily well, others are doing badly.
As the recession deepens and stretches out quarter after quarter, more companies will close or will shut divisions. More brands will disappear because their parent firms fold or can no longer afford to support them. Other brands will be obliterated by mergers. We have compiled a list of 12 brands that we believe will not survive until the end of next year. Each brand and the major reasons for its demise are listed along with some of the public information 24/7 Wall St. examined.
"Know your consumer" is a business commandment certain to be deeply ingrained at the heart of any successful company. Never, however, has that consumer morphed so quickly or become so elusive. It is important for marketers to grasp and understand the key drivers of this new empowered consumer, one who has grown up with brand new perspectives and redefined the interplay of communications, relationships, brands, technology and media. This is Consumer 2.0.
The branding community has launched a massive, collaborative project intended to utterly rewrite the principles and re-purpose the tools of brand marketing. The announcement comes as the world's most valuable brand names suffer a veritable perfect storm of problems: consumers have gotten harder to find, more difficult to convince, nearly impossible to keep loyal and, most recently, they've become stingy.
While basic transactional email practices remain strong, many well-known brands have missed opportunities to maximize sales and up-sell potential, according to a new report conducted by Return Path's newly revamped Professional Services Group.
If the fundamental approach to brand positioning is to work with what is foremost in people's minds, then we can safely say this recession, depression, collapse -- whichever label the economic pundits eventually agree on for this crisis -- should be understood and appreciated for what it is: a systemic change in peoples' value systems as consumers.
Putinka vodka piggybacked on the cult-like popularity of Vladimir Putin to become one of Russia's top-selling brands of spirits. For a new vodka named after Mr. Putin's presidential successor, Putinka is proving to be as tough an act to follow as Mr. Putin himself.
I recently wrote the post, “Why big brands struggle with social media” right here on Mashable. Unsurprisingly, it prompted lots of debate about the role for brands in the social media space. There was, however, one line of thought that got me thinking. This was around the idea that big brands shouldn’t be active in social media, as the presence of big business will destroy the consumer driven spirit and purity of what the social revolution stands for.
In a few weeks we will learn the ultimate fate of GM's Saturn brand. A number of options are on the table, but it is now clear that Saturn is no longer part of GM's long-term future. How did a business-school case study, and a rare moment of GM shining brilliance, fall so far so fast? Yet, while Saturn has lost its trajectory in GM's orbit, it continues to point the way car companies and many other brands need to go in these challenging times.
Facebook has announced a completely redesigned homepage which significantly changes the focus of the site. Along with the new look, which offers much more organized, easy to digest updates from your friends, there are also some new features that users have been clamoring for for some time — like the ability to filter or mute content from select friends.
To cope with slumping sales, toy makers are trying to breathe new life into some old brands. This year, Zizzle LLC is rolling out a doll called P.J. Sparkles that has a tiara that lights up and a dress that can be transformed into pajamas. But the line isn't new: It was retired by Mattel Inc., its original manufacturer, nearly 20 years ago.
Over the past decade, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. has closed magazine titles, cut staff and developed a mounting sense that its French parent has little regard for the U.S. unit's management or its brands, which include Elle and Woman's Day. This week, the New York publisher will take what it says is a big step toward fortifying itself, reorganizing its women's magazines, which make up the bulk of its business.
How do you measure your own happiness? Do you gauge the tingly feeling in your fingers? Or perhaps the slightly giddy sensation just above your belly button? I only ask because something called the Gadget Helpline surveyed 2,500 of its most helpless customers and discovered that the Nintendo Wii is the electronic device they would most like to marry.
Convenience store 7-Eleven is ramping up its efforts to grab some Starbucks. The company is aiming to woo cash-conscious consumers--who still crave premium java--away from higher-priced brands with a trio of new blends: Colombian, Exclusive Blend and the stronger Brazilian Gold, all included in the chain's hot beverage bars.
With layoffs on the rise and stock markets headed down, we know that buyers are spending less. What that means for brand loyalty is a crucial question that's still unfolding for purveyors of consumer goods and services.
Package-goods brands face their greatest crisis and strongest threat from private label since at least the early 1990s. And that's the good news.
We live in an age where the Internet and the telephone have created enormous scale and opportunity for businesses large and small. For the most part, this has been a good thing, allowing companies to reach, acquire and serve more customers than ever before. While this reach and scale has helped to foster innovation at an unprecedented rate, it has also served to disintermediate companies from their customers.
If you want to see how the nation's foodmakers are weathering the recession, the proof is in the pudding. Kraft Foods, the nation's largest food maker, will no longer sell Handi-Snacks pudding to retail customers. Food companies from Sara Lee Food to H.J. Heinz are trimming their offerings to focus marketing dollars on their higher-margin, best-selling brands and retain consumers, who are trading down in the recession.
I noticed an interesting juxtaposition of taglines the other day. Both reference the identification a user has with the brand, but one seems to be a positive self-affirmation while the other comes off more like an elitist challenge.
For starters, Phelps is not a brand. He is an athlete who, through association with brands, can confer meaning. People, no matter how famous, are not brands. Yes, they have symbolic meaning, but so do road signs and mythological gods, and no one is confusing them with brands.
As we battle a global recession, corporations are looking for new ways to sell their products and engage their consumers. Many have turned to the Internet, with Social Media in particular, to market their goods. Let’s take a look at 10 companies that have done a phenomenal job of taking advantage of social media platforms.
As a consumer I love Pret A Manger. Yesterday, however, I was unimpressed with its sushi, despite the fact it has been my favourite lunch choice for the past few years. Has Pret dropped its guard? Is it poised for a descent into bankruptcy? Probably not. On reflection my disappointment was caused by a more subtle marketing phenomenon: there are two sides to satisfaction.
Despite its looming demise, the American auto industry dismissed demands for brand reduction in December 2008. Forced by the federal government into a mea culpa that was supposed to include plans for drastic cost-cutting and other reformative measures, GM was expected to agree to eliminate a handful of its brands. But GM went no further than admitting it should streamline Pontiac, keep Hummer for sale and maybe ditch Saab.
Procter & Gamble is working with Goldman Sachs to identify potential buyers for its pharmaceuticals brands or find other ways to pull out of the business, people close to the matter said on Wednesday.
Bad news, celebs: The era of simply slapping your name on your own fashion brand and waiting for royalties to roll in is over.
Super Bowl commercials cost as much as $3 million this year, but the contest between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers wasn't an advertising blockbuster. Longtime marketers such as General Motors and FedEx pulled out of the game, and marketers were snapping up discounted airtime right up to kickoff. BusinessWeek's advertising and marketing mavens—Jon Fine, Burt Helm, and David Kiley—settled down with a bucket of wings and a dose of disbelief at some of the branding plays they were forced to witness. Behold their picks and pans of Super Bowl advertising, 2009.
At a reporters' roundtable in Detroit today, Chrysler Vice Chairman-President Jim Press said the auto industry has too many brands -- before saying Chrysler, rated by auto experts as the weakest of Detroit's carmakers, won't trim any of its three.
Andrew Shaffer had a problem on his hands. The Order of St. Nick, the irreverent-greeting-card company that the former office manager runs out of his Iowa City home, was gearing up for Valentine's Day -- a bread-and-butter occasion in the card business. But few things can kill a romantic evening like a limp GDP. If your beau just lost his job, chances are you're not getting two dozen long stems and a box of Godivas this year. So when Shaffer sat down to write his cards, he scoured for a theme that was right for the times-memorable, romantic yet realistic. He found it all in the Depression.
The Super Bowl presents not just a huge platform with astounding audience numbers where consumers actually lean forward to watch your ad. It also pays surprising ancillary dividends in awareness: reams of press coverage that drive word-of-mouth and stampeding traffic to websites. Most importantly, for the right company, it can establish a relationship with key consumers and sell product.
We all know brands are using Twitter — whether or not you want them around. Some of them don’t quite get the medium and just tweet self-serving links or marketing speak, but you won’t find any of those brands here. We’ve handpicked 40 of the best brands experimenting with the micro-blogging platform, and asked them a few short questions about how they’re using Twitter.
Add Coach and Burberry to the list of luxury retailers feeling the pains of the pinched upper crust. Coach, Inc. says its net income fell 14% for its second fiscal quarter to $217 million, while sales slipped 4% to $960 million.
Not long ago a press release went out with the provocative title, “Brain Works Like Google, New Study Finds.” More specifically, the news release claimed that the study showed that our brains choose brands from our memories using predictable unconscious rules, much like Google ranks sites using an algorithm.
While most of its luxury rivals retrench, Audi is looking to grab more market share with a stunt-filled Super Bowl spot.
Chrysler Group, rated by auto experts as the weakest of Detroit's three carmakers, said today it has tied up with Italy's Fiat in a nonbinding deal for a strategic global alliance.
The latest wrinkle in the cola wars: the battle of the upbeat. Pepsi now boasts a series of smiling logos, and a new tagline, "Every generation refreshes the world," was set to roll out over the weekend. Coca-Cola, meanwhile, is poised to launch a campaign, "Open happiness," that will replace its "Coke side of life" -- which is, naturally, the bright side.
Chrysler Vice Chairman and President Tom LaSorda took to the podium Wednesday to lambast reporters for perpetuating rumor-mill grist that the Auburn Hills, Mich. automaker is aiming to sell off its parts, including the Jeep brand. LaSorda, in a telephone press conference, said stories suggesting that Chrysler is looking for a dance partner for Jeep, looking to spin off various of its production facilities or current Dodge, Jeep or Chrysler model platforms are "absolutely false."
Much like living organisms, brands have a lifecycle. At times, they take on a life of their own. While some brands stand the test of time, others fade away soon after they come to market. What happens when it’s time for brands to die, and why?
Thing is, most of the stuff you do online doesn't cost money. In the old days, money added friction. Money made you choosy. Today, reading and posting and linking and networking and connecting and commenting and podcasting and linkblurbling and doseedoing online all feel like essential marketing tasks. But is the activity getting in the way of action?
USA Today recently ran a cover story on Will Smith that spells out how the affable actor has amassed over $2.45 billion in North American box office receipts. Just about any brand can learn from him.
PG Tips will mix festive cheer with classic British comedy to inspire a little nostalgia for the Unilever-owned tea brand.
With a recession all but upon us and the average passer-by more distracted than ever—either with financial worries or simply with the digital device he's carrying—the guerrilla tactician has to do more than startle with the traditional craziness. People are looking for escapes and ways out, brands have to give people something else to think about.
Nine components that powerfully engaging brands share with religion.
Steve Forbes believes "capitalism will save us." You know he speaks on behalf of a generation of businessmen who believe that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the system; that what we're seeing right now is simply another of those cyclical periods of correction and Darwinian winnowing of the weak.
Brands, in general, have found Facebook unforgiving terrain for marketing. It's well known, for instance, that banner ads perform poorly on the site. But the Facebook Platform, launched 18 months ago -- which lets developers create social applications for users -- was thought to offer the perfect opportunity to move beyond banners to provide "branded utility." So far, however, Facebook apps from brands like Coca-Cola, Champion, Ford and Microsoft are as popular as desolate Second Life islands.
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the faintest scent can evoke numerous, even conflicting, memories and emotions. No other sense can revive experiences and recollections so vividly as the sense of smell. Words, objects, pictures, scenes, images and songs are not as powerful and dynamic when it comes to recalling cues—even ones buried deep in the human mind—as scents and smells.
The deepest and broadest retail discounting in living memory is creating a quandary for consumers: There are so many sales that people don't know where to start -- or when to hold off.
It looks as if Pontiac, Saab and Saturn could be on the General Motors endangered-brand list -- and with them some $300 million in measured-media spending.
Branded widgets are the refrigerator magnets of the Brave New World. These compact, portable little software apps -- from video players to countdown clocks to makeup simulators -- are inexpensive to distribute, free to the user and (often enough) distinctly useful.
2009 will be different: many great brands will fall, and so they should, because this is the way of the jungle. This is the game of capitalism and the rule by which it is played.
Of Interbrand’s Top 100 Global Brands in 2008, ten were German brands—five automobile brands as well as brands in technology (SAP and Siemens), clothing (Adidas), financial services (Allianz) and cosmetics (Nivea). Together, this group of German brands is valued at over US$ 98 billion.
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