If you’re with a start-up, chances are you’ve had your head down in financial projections and your back end seated in chairs at the bank and the accountant’s.  Your ideas are gelling and long-laid plans are emerging into a reality.  Along the way, you may have given some thought to a logo and business cards.  Definitely a web site.  Customer-facing pieces like these line up on your To Do list like dominoes, just behind those gotta-get-done line items scratched in red ink.

Whether or not you realize it, even when you talk financials you’re talking about your brand.  When you’re talking about sales methods and pricing models, you’re talking about your brand.  Logo and web site?  Yup, definitely brand territory there.

A company’s intangible assets (like brand) can form up to 80% of its corporate value.  So shouldn’t we take a tougher, longer look at the concept and the framework brand establishes for business, both operationally and in communications?

Brand Development

Building your brand starts long before color palette A or color palette B come into question.  Ages before the question “Should the logo be bigger?” is pondered. Your brand is more than any single piece of marketing communications material or chunk of honed copy.  Your brand transcends the pithy elevator pitch, emanating from the core of its leaders and out through the products/services in a guiding light I’ll call RTB or reason to believe.

Brand Ownership

I think brand RTB – reason to believe – is like the sturdy 3-legged stool comprised of these parts:

1. Internal brand: encompassing company values and beliefs, leading to behaviors and priorities.  In this way, culture becomes your internal brand, influencing people’s choices and some of their decisions.  These forces guide the direction of the company.
2. External brand:  the position the company seeks to hold, the messages laying claim in the marketplace, and the manner in which it (and its representatives) conducts itself with customers, prospects, and other valued audiences like the media and business community.  These are the words and deeds seen by those outside of the organization.  This is the brand promise.
3. Third Parties:  Internal and External activities will lead to third parties forming ideas about the brand and associating value and weight based on their personal experiences or perceptions.  One goal of nailing parts 1 and 2 above is to create customers who hold (and share) positive connotation with your brand.  As they use your products or services, they’ll come to place a value on the impact it had on their lives, and the place it holds in their hearts, often with considerable emotion.  Did your brand save them money? Remove some of their pain (inconvenience) points? Did it allow them to recapture some of their lost time/vanity/sanity?  These people have come to own your brand in their minds, and the memories are theirs.

Can a business survive with a $99 logo, table-based web site design, and a lock on the cheapest-priced widget around?  Sure, at least for awhile.  But as discussed in this post about building enduring brands and memorable taglines, it’s a hardscrabble life, one forever on the edge of obscurity because it wasn’t strong enough to take the weight of fluctuating markets and fickle consumers.

What do you think about the 3-legged stool idea?  Is it too much to expect?  Does it leave out important parts?  Get us thinking with your comments.

When I think about 1%, or 2% for that matter, the top-of-mind association is milk.  While I don’t care for milk personally, my family consumes about 1/4 of the daily General Mills cereal production.  Some are soakers (let cereal and milk stand until achieving a soggy Lazy Acres Senior Community type consistency-bleh!), and some are crispers (just enough milk to wet the cereal), and to that end we have the Whole.  We have the Skim.  We have the Chocolate.  And no, we can’t just go with Whole (no matter what that might mean in terms of grocery shopping efficiencies and resource management).  It really isn’t all-purpose.  It just isn’t appropriate for all of our cereal consumption needs.

Tying the concept of “all-purpose” (one size fits all) with a classic post from the Church of the Customer blog is something I’m mentally wrestling with right now.  A germ of an idea, I immediately see two applications:

1. All-purpose, traditional marketing strategies deployed with a presumption of interest and relevancy on behalf of the consumer audience (the shotgun effect to a relatively captive audience).
2. All-purpose, organizational roles where innovative thinking isn’t explored or leveraged, due to a failure to understand (and maybe a fear) how that type of approach might fit within standardized schema.

I’ll stick to item #1 for this post.  I’m long-winded as it is, no reason to go on a rant and swarm you.

Good For Everything

The “All-Purpose” marketing approach rests on the premise that the message originates with the brand (the in-house team, the agency, some variable).  After rounds of options and decision-making, a campaign may get crafted around a message the brand wants to push out (I refuse to get sidetracked by pointing out that the final creative and messaging likely result from subjective preferences by the senior stakeholders of said brand and not based on primary research findings, as recommended by their agency. We already know that if the Big Guy likes blue, its gonna be blue).

So these messages get pushed out through campaign venues like TV, radio, print, and direct mail.  Tactics might even get a little crazy and include an email or e-letter to a database segment.  A Facebook app might get thrown in, something everyone is wide-eyed and excited about.  Wowzers, now we’re makin’ advancements.

And by sheer mass, or inertia, or laws of statistics (maybe all?) there could be some activity on the sales front. Maybe even a competitive response of some type.  Gratuitous self-promotion press releases ensue, backs are slapped.  Just don’t ask anyone what the return is or if the campaign was perceived as genuine. Whether there was a measurable effect.

I Beg Your Difference

This “All Purpose” approach is faulty on many levels. It’s antiquated in execution. It perpetuates a methodology that can’t carry ROI water (and in these economic climes, that’s critical). It inherently lacks accountability measures. It’s disjointed, trend-seeking and authentically shallow.

But worst of all, the brand’s most egregious strategic error is that its plan was not consumer-centered.

For a brand to strongly appeal to consumers, a deep-seated understanding of their interests, needs, applications, and use cases is imperative.  Only then can products be designed to deliver ease of use (efficiency increases, productivity shifts, etc.). Folding consumer data into a positioning and messaging methodology ensures opportunity for a meaningful connection.  By then matching a product (solution) with a receptive consumer base, only then can a brand resonate in the minds of its consumers.  By then it’s earned the position.

Do It Your Way

But yeah, you could continue down the same comfortable path, with the same well-established roles and practices.  Throw in something hip every now and again when there’s pressure to be like the Other Brand.  You might even move some product, won’t that validate everyone.  For awhile.

Or Do It The 1% Way

Alternatively, you could examine data and accept that your current efforts are not performing. That you’re losing some share or public sentiment.  This is not a path you can continue to travel, lest your brand become obsolete.

You can instead make a conscious commitment to get in touch with your consumers and targets, and find out what really matters.  How you’re perceived and what they want from you.  What isn’t working.

And you can go back to the drawing board, and with the help of some smart problem-solvers on your team, think about how to reach your consumers in an emotionally compelling way.

Now that’s an elite 1% club capable of a cult following.  Or at least significant sales success.

I was plesantly surprised once I caught an article in the business pages titled “Words That Sell.”  The topic was taglines.  Now that’s something I could sink my teeth into.

“. . .(taglines) create a memorable phrase that will sum up the tone and premise of a brand or product, or to reinforce the audience’s recall of a product.”

Epsilon CMO Steve Cone has released a new book titled “Powerlines:  Words that Sell Brands, Grip Fans, & Sometimes Change History,” Bloomberg Press.   Mr. Cone suggests that marketers have lost their touch when crafting memorable and relevant brand hooks.

Mr. Cone provides six tips for creating taglines with staying power:

1. Taglines must convey a genuine truth or depict an experience (real or imaginary)
2. Line must be built to last and rarely, if ever, changed
3. Taglines must either convey a benefit, show how it will improve the consumer’s lives, recommend a specific action, or offer a specific satisfaction.
4. Recall mnemonics?  Naturally taglines are more memorable with the perfect music score
5. Infuse movement into the tagline when used on Internet or TV media
6. Line must play a central role in all visual touch points with the consumer

I wrote about about taglines a few weeks ago and brought an example from Winn-Dixie. In that post, I expressed my opinion that “Getting Better All The Time” missed the mark for me.  What say we examine it against Mr. Cone’s six tips?

1. Genuine truth? – Tthis one is a little tricky.  Suspect the tagline stems from 2006 Chap 11 emergence.
2. Stand the test of time? – I really don’t feel this has the staying power it needs.  Maybe it’s evolution could help bring consumers along as they leave the Chap 11 behind.  Leveraging the confidence from the “all the time” portion of the tagline could take Winn-Dixie to a place that felt more like a brand consumers could count on, rather than one that had to tell them they’re “working on it” as I feel the current one does.
3. Benefit/action/satisfaction? -  Well, there is the add of “We Guarantee It” as seen on their site.
4. Catchy? – Nope, at least not on the ‘net.
5. Razzle-dazzle – Nope, at least not on the ‘net.
6. Front and center - Yes, I’d say it’s pretty evident.  Saw it on bags and their site.

I think Mr. Cone has some strong suggestions in his book, from the excerpt I read.  Writing taglines for new products was one of my favorite assignments in school.  Hey, maybe I could give the Winn-Dixie folks a call. . . 

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A few of my favorite taglines:

• “Like a Rock.” – Chevrolet Trucks
• “Just Do It.” – Nike
• “Revolutionizing eHealth” – Geonetric, Inc.
• “Because You’re Worth It” – L’Oreal

“Branding is what people say about you when you’ve left the room” – Jeff Bezos

Have truer words ever been spoken? Branding is about delivering on a promise. What your consumers say (or don’t say) about your products/services when they’re facing their friends, relatives, coworkers is likely to be about how well (or how poorly) you delivered on that promise. You made an implied commitment to them to fulfill upon their needs by making claims to specific benefits you could provide, advantages you could offer. You solicited their trust and confidence that you would make their clothes softer, their hair shinier, their air cleaner, or their birth experience more comfortable. And in doing so, they will feel indulged, more attractive, healthier, or more at ease. That’s what you promised them.

Promises are made on the product/service level and the brand level. And I don’t believe they’re distinguishable in the minds of consumers. Simply put, if you produce a well-priced, high-quality, stain-resistant, stylish line of shirts for toddlers but your pants are of lesser quality and staid, it’s unlikely that you’ve earned yourself any evangelists there. You’ve made it hard to believe that your brand has a commitment to budget-conscious families who aspire to have a modern image. It’s unlikely that you’re good at manufacturing one, but only bad at the other. That’s not logical.  It won’t be worth the effort for the consumer to internalize and adopt.

What implications does this have in the modern world? We know from Forrester (only one source) that the highest level of trust is generated from friends or acquaintances. Even public consumer reviews can significantly influence a consumer’s decision to buy. So when you make a promise that one consumer feels you’ve broken, what is the extent of the liability?   You can bet it doesn’t end there.

You can also bet that when you deliver on your promise, you’ve not only made a customer, you’ve made a friend.  Someone who will recommend you to others.  Maybe more importantly, someone who will overlook any slight hiccup that may develop in the relationship.

The approach Avis took is still the best example of honest transparency, in my book.  “We Try Harder.”  How’s that for commitment and promise?  Not that they’re perfect, or the lowest-price.  But that they will try harder to make things right.  That’s an offer I can appreciate.

But texture is something my hairstylist talks about, too. I have very thick, long hair and there is a lot of it; to keep it from giving me the narrow-faced “droopy dog” look (a la old Hanna Barbara cartoons) she texturizes it each month, or makes snips of varying angles and lengths, adding dimension.

This talk of texture made me think of a profile I read in this months’ Medical Marketing and Media about agency Digitas Health. “We build and manage a brand’s surface over time,” said Digitas EVP Larry Mickelberg. I thought this was a really interesting statement, and probably one of the most profound statements I’d read in awhile (and I’m a voracious reader).

Focus now, let’s break the important parts down:

1) brand’s surface 2) over time

I think it crystallizes the concept of a brand promise for me. Could it be that the brand surface is comprised of its promise, its essence, its position, its relevance. The brand surface is multilayered, multifaceted and subjective to touch. It’s merely a representation of what lies beneath. And like most surfaces – think of your delicate facial skin or sheets worn smoother by years of washing – I’ll argue that the brand surface changes, morphs, evolves too. I mean that in a few ways:

1. At my present life stage, I’m more concerned about broken bones and braces than I am about pregnancy and delivery. Since my interests and to some degree values have changed through parenthood, has my insurance carrier changed the way they engage me? The messaging, interaction tactics, etc. Are my habits and interests the same today as they were 10 years ago?
2. And what can be said about what the brand has come to mean to me? The regard in which I hold it? I’m sure that when I started cooking for myself in college that I bought Land O’Lakes butter because that’s the product I was familiar with, as both my mother and grandmother had used it What did I know from butter? At that critical time, LOL was comfortable, a known entity and I was desperate to eat. Today I continue to use LOL because its come to mean quality, easy, and reliable taste.  I made an emotional connection over 30 years ago that remains strong today, thanks to LOL delivering on their promise.