Saturday, March 26, 2011

Fixing Your Brand

Here is what Scott Bedbury,former Marketing Executive of Nike and Starbucks says about Brands. He is the man behind he " Just Do It "campaign.
 Fixing A Broken Brand 


The marketing excesses of the past few years left broken pieces scattered across the branding landscape. As a result, many companies are left with bogged-down, boring -- even dying and dead -- brands. Now take a look at your brand: Do you know what's broken? Do you know how to fix it?
In the past few years, everyone has tried to jump on the brand wagon. Creating buzz, being cool, breaking through the static, embracing viral marketing -- you name it, everyone's tried it. The late, lamented dotcoms most recently led the charge, inspired by the notion that throwing endless amounts of money at the customer would build a great brand -- even if there wasn't a relevant product or service behind the campaign. Never in the history of marketing have so many companies spent so much for so little. This branding eruption has left in its wake more than a few broken, bent, or badly confused brands. Here are nine of the most common complaints about brands that are in need of fixes -- and some practical approaches to applying brand aid.


1. I know that my brand is broken -- I just don't know why.Brands get sick, lost, or broken for many reasons. Before you know it, everything that you thought was crystal clear about your brand positioning becomes murky and impenetrable. Too often, when companies realize what has happened to their brand, they blindly jump into action. They fire the ad agency or the chief marketing officer. They hold a boardroom retreat and look to the CEO for divine inspiration. Some argue to spend more, others to spend less. Everybody has an opinion. The problem is, every opinion is just that: an opinion.
If you're not sure why your brand is broken, the place to begin is with an almost anthropological approach to understanding the brand -- something that I liken to a "big dig." Revisit where your brand started out. What did the brand stand for originally? Why did it resonate with customers in the first place? What were its core values? Are they still present? Just as important, are they still relevant? The world changes. You need to be sure. Probe consumers about the product category that you're in. How do they feel about your competitors? What does your product or service provide them with? What are the tangible benefits, and, perhaps more important, what are the emotional benefits? Think of this as a brand audit, and don't bring your personal prejudices to the table. Listen and learn.


2. My brand changes direction with each new product and marketing campaign. Everything is disconnected and off on different tangents. How do I keep it cohesive?




3. My brand is boring. It doesn't create excitement in my customers or in my employees. (And it's been a long time since it excited anyone on Wall Street.) Maybe you just need a little therapy. Abraham Maslow, a founder of humanistic psychology, is not often mentioned among the ranks of history's top marketers. But embedded in Maslow's idea of human motivation -- his "hierarchy of human needs," which places complex needs at the top, above the basics of survival -- is a key to the future of any brand. Because of the clutter of offerings in the marketplace, brands need more than customer awareness or surface-level connection. Brands need to connect on a deeper psychological level. They need to respect and acknowledge the customer's emotions -- feelings such as the yearning to belong, the need to feel connected, the hope to transcend, and the desire to experience joy and fulfillment.
Smart companies recognize that great products and services can deliver more than profits; they deliver experiences that make life better in some small way. That was the insight at the heart of the Starbucks brand expression. When we did the big dig for Starbucks, we unearthed the role that coffee has played in society for more than 500 years. We found that coffee isn't really a drink -- it's an experience that has been a part of our culture for centuries. Starbucks was less about engineering a great cup of coffee than it was about providing a great coffee experience. We went a little further up Maslow's pyramid and found ourselves thinking well outside the cup.


4. My brand is dead.
Okay, it happens. You ignore your brand for too long, or simply let it ride for too long, and at some point, it just expires. It loses all of its energy, its power to capture your customers' -- or even your -- imagination.The good news is that even a dead brand can be revived or completely reinvented. Think of Banana Republic. It started out as a clothing retailer with a gimmick: Wouldn't it be fun to buy safari clothing and shop in a store that has fake palm trees, shipping crates for props, and a piece or two of a Jeep? Well, maybe for a while. But the half-life of even the best, most narrowly defined concept is painfully brief, and that version of Banana Republic soon enough became an endangered species. But still, there was something there, something within the notion of "business casual" that had potential for resuscitation. The Gap acquired Banana Republic and reinvented it, this time as a more upscale retailer offering everything from essential sweaters to aromatherapy products to knockoff Donna Karan crepe suits. Quite a leap; quite a rebirth. (Of course, in time, it will need to be reinvented again.)


5. My brand is stuck in the past.It happens to the best brands. In fact, it almost always happens to the best brands. They take off like a comet, only to plateau. They make gradual improvements, but they need transformation.
It happened to Nike. When I joined the company in 1987, it was attempting to transcend its narrow base of hard-core competitive male athletes and appeal to a broader consuming public. Up until that time, "brand Nike" was essentially pure competition: Its brand DNA was testosterone heavy, with a "wimps need not apply" ethos. "Authentic athletic performance" was being interpreted too narrowly. Nike needed to be a more inclusive, rather than exclusive, brand. At the same time, it couldn't jeopardize the young-male franchise that considered Nike to be "their" brand.
A few months before I came on board, Nike had aired a TV commercial called "Revolution" that was a huge departure for the company. It featured a complex juxtaposition of gritty black-and-white 8-mm images that ranged all over the cultural map. The message: Nike was a brand that spoke to women as well as to men, to the old as well as to the young, to obscure street athletes as well as to world champs.
The problem was, the subsequent campaign was a step in the wrong direction. "Hayward Field" -- a loving visual testimonial to the track at the University of Oregon -- was both inward and backward looking. We killed the ad minutes after previewing it to a thousand Nike sales reps who then left the sales meeting with nothing to show the footwear buyers when writing back-to-school orders. We were in a very tough spot. We sent Wieden+Kennedy back to the well with a short brief that stated the obvious: We had to stop talking just to ourselves and open up the access point to the brand. The emotional and physical benefits to sports and fitness were much more expansive than we had defined them to date.
Two weeks later, Dan Wieden, David Kennedy, and four or five staffers (who made up half of the agency at the time) had the answer. Consumers already knew all that they needed to know about fitness. Most were not happy about the shape they were in. Few had the time to be serious athletes. So why rub their noses in it? They just needed a little encouragement, an optimistic challenge. ''Just Do It'' was a watershed moment for Nike. It established a broad communication platform from which we could talk to just about anyone. It wasn't only about world-class athletics; it was about fundamental human values shared by triathletes and mall walkers alike. It wasn't a product statement either. It was a brand ethos. Nike had found a way to respect its past while embracing its future. ''Just Do It'' was a much-needed reexpression of timeless Nike values.


6. My brand is too narrow.Here are five smart ways to build intelligent brandwidth.
First, develop a beneficial cobranding deal with a good partner -- someone who brings something of value to the table that you don't have. Starbucks's deal with United Airlines put Starbucks coffee on United flights worldwide and allowed both sides to achieve important brand objectives.
Second, reach out for a brand extension. Time magazine had a very popular section in the back of the book that featured interesting people. A brand extension turned that section into People magazine. People magazine was a dazzling success -- so much so that it launched its own brand extension: Teen People magazine.

Third, leap into new distribution channels. Putting Starbucks on United flights cobranded the cup of coffee. Putting whole-bean and ground coffees into more than 30,000 grocery stores created a complementary channel for an existing product.
Fourth, jump into new product categories. Think about Ralph Lauren's line of paints, which are now sold in home-improvement stores. The company unearthed a new category and a new distribution channel. Martha Stewart started with a cookbook. Today, if I need garden clogs, I'll buy them from her. Starbucks became the maker of the best-selling coffee ice cream in grocery stores around the nation in less than six months.

Fifth, create a new subbrand. Nike is a big brand -- but Air Jordan is a tremendously successful subbrand. Toyota is a big brand -- but Lexus is such a successful subbrand that most car buyers don't even think of it as the child of a parent company (which may be the best compliment you can pay any subbrand).


7. My brand is immature. The Internet bubble was on the verge of bursting when I found myself speaking before a gathering of high-flying Silicon Valley techies. Flush with stock options and thrilled with their startups, they wanted to know how to make their brand-new brands into overnight hits. My advice to them: Think like a parent. Raising a great brand is like raising a great kid. And that means you need to be patient. (It wasn't what they wanted to hear.)
Great brands take steady guidance, a long view, and uncompromising values. Brands, like children, absorb the qualities of those who nurture them. Like children, brands thrive in an inspiring, caring, learning environment where they are respected, protected, and understood. When raising a brand, be consistent and committed. The shuffling of brand responsibilities and the management churn within organizations can easily produce a troubled brand. It takes time for a brand to develop its own values and personality. Good brand stewards, like good parents, build values into their brands that help them grow and endure. Great brands outlive their creators -- just like kids. And if you do your job right, they can make you proud.


8. My brand has been reduced to a commodity. If you ignore it long enough, you can take a perfectly vital brand and reduce it to a commodity. Think coffee before there was a Starbucks. Sure, there were big coffee sellers back then. But instead of delivering a great coffee experience, those sellers delivered whatever was needed to keep the grocery chains happy. They cut costs wherever they could and stacked their products high at the ends of grocery aisles -- walls of green and red tin that reduced a once-great product to a commodity.
If that's what has happened to your product, then here's what you don't do: Don't throw money at the problem. If the dotcom era taught us anything, it's that brand awareness isn't the same as brand strength. Even the best advertising can't create something that isn't there.
My advice is first to set your sights high. Great brand builders don't just reinvent the product, they see themselves as protagonists for an entire category. That's what Nike did with sneakers, Starbucks did with coffee, and Southwest Airlines did with flying.
Second, elevate your product. If you want to be more than a commodity, offer a unique product that is unique and so much better than the rest of the field that it can't be considered a commodity. Is Krispy Kreme just a doughnut? Third, offer more than the product. Create an experience around it and pay attention to the details. Everything matters.
And fourth, remember that the company is the brand. Customers are looking through the product to your values and how you do business. Today, the difference between similar products may be corporate reputation.


9. My brand isn't cool."Cool" and "edge" are dangerous words. Dan Wieden is right when he tells clients who want "edgy" work that having edge means that someone gets cut. Contrary to what some people may think, Nike does not set out to be cool. It knows that cool is defined by its customers -- not by some people in Beaverton, Oregon. Be careful not to worship cool. It's a false god.
Given where the world is going, I recommend that companies be more concerned with their karma than with being cool. As a society, our concerns about the effects that globalization has on cultures and the environment will only intensify, and the bar for corporate behavior will rise. I expect that we'll look to our most trusted brands, big and small, to help reduce the enormous gap that exists between profits and benevolence.
It's a new brand world out there. We are just starting to see the issues and opportunities associated with brand karma. However it evolves, I do know that strong karma will develop after years of doing the right thing: being honest and principled and being respectful of customers, employees, and the environment. Brands like Nike and Starbucks took lightning bolts early on because they were highly visible, global, and influential -- and because they care. These companies aren't perfect, but I'm confident that they will help write a much-needed new chapter on brand management. They will prove that big doesn't have to be bad, that profits are only one measure of success, and that great brands can use their unique superhuman powers for good.
Now that would be cool.
Scott Bedbury (
One solution: Think like Plato. You may not think of the great Greek philosopher as a brilliant marketer, but he understood a fundamental principle that lies at the heart of a great brand: the concept of essence. Plato believed that deep within everything concrete is the idea of that thing. Plato, in other words, was the first to articulate the importance of a brand's essence. Nike's essence, for instance, is authentic athletic performance. When everyone in the organization understands what those words mean, staffers can unleash innovation in every quarter -- from advertising to product design to promotions -- and it all connects to something larger and more enduring.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Making Sense of Marketing

(3a)Undertsanding Marketing
There are numerous definations of marketing and this further complicates the process of making sense of what marketing truly is.
From my stand point marketing is creating an awareness of the solution you offer,delivering it as promised, meeting and exceeding the expectations of the consumer.
A leading business Author defines marketing and selling in a very precise manner. He says, "selling is what you do one on one ,marketing is selling via a system".
As mentioned in my previous topic of Designing & implementing succcessful systems,a business is a system of systems and marketing is one of those systems .





I will begin with branding because no marketing is effective without the aspect of branding. Now, what is a brand ?A brand is the aspect of marketing which communicates the virtues of the product or service( on offer ) by creating a level of spontanous awareness, trust and confidence .It is more than just a logo.
A brand, in essence, must create an emotional connectivity with the consumer so that the product or service earns consumer loyalty.
A strong brand must convey a message of optimism and positivity.The advertising campaigns must communicate these uplifting qualities. This is especially relevant as we live in world that continuously feeds us with negativity( just watch the news ).Every successful brand carries an uplifting mantra. A brief look into sport brands such as Nike ,addidas ,puma etc ,showcases these characteristics .


 
What must a powerful brand have to succeed?

It must have coherence ! Its meaning and message must identify with the consumers.
The marketeer must have a genuine passion for the consumer in order to correctly construct the relevent brand
Focusing on the consumers by continuously looking for ways to better understand the them ,their needs ,desires and behaviours is a sure way to build a truly successsful brand .To achieve this, the marketing people must immerse themselves into the world of the consumer .In my words marketin people must get into the "shoes" of the consumer.

How?


Through extensive consumer research, the entreprenuer and his marketing team can gain an accurate understanding of the consumer's expectations - thereby hitting the nail directy on the head by building their business around the expectations and requirements of the consumer.

(3b)Brand Visibility


I believe there are many companies offering great services or goods out there but unfortunately, their brand awareness strategies are just not there or are simply not working because we don't know these companies .However ,certain companies are constantly firing up our imagination . I am referring to companies like Coca Cola,MacDonalds ,Google ,Apple Toyota,I could go on -you know them .

How do they come to win our attention so often?
They use passion points . These are areas or events where an emotional connection between the consumer and the product/service occurs . Coca Cola utilises sporting events such as soccer events (they have practically made the Soccer World Cups their turf - compare their visibility with that of  FIFA who own the event ? ).

The fact is Marketing people are dominantly psychologists and study human behaviour closely. They have come to the conclusion that the Human mind is most receptive when its excited and happy. In other words ,we pay better attention when we are excited .
Once the emotional connectivity is made .It doesn't end there It is necessary to continuously re-invent the product/service ( observe what Apple has done with the iphone & ipad -they started of with simple computers & stay relevent ).
This is necessary so that consumers grow with the product/service or vice versa .

I will not go into detail on how a good marketing plan should be done & implemented because I believe all marketing initiatives are centred on consumer perception. This is where all marketing strategies should begin -perception. It is possible to invent a problem and communicate it to the consumer in such a way that they feel they have a genuine need , and then make the solution and sell it to the consumer .
In the case of the entreprenuer ,it turns out that the entreprenuer recognises or identifies a problem, creates a solution and then builds a business around the solution . He must also find a way to communicate his solution in a way that connects well with consumers and powerful branding enhance can this help him achieve that .

(3c)Fostering Brand Recognition

It goes without saying that Chinese manufacturing has been made successful by duplicating well known brands .They know that brand awareness and brand loyalty can motivate sales ahead of quality .
We only come to realise that the product is inferior when it fails to perform as expected however,we would have been drawn to purchase it because of the brand which caught our attention in the first place .

I do not condone these practices but wish to bring to notice the issue of brand recognition .All consumers are motivated to buy goods or services out of brand recognition and brand loyalty.
For the entreprenuer this can be the best way to drive sales .Through a creative and rigorous advertising campaign ,the entreprenuer can create brand recognition and through consistent quality-one can create brand loyalty.
 

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Designing & Implementing Effective Business Systems (Chapter 2)

(2a)What exactly is a Business System ?
Any business is a system of systems. As the human body is a system of systems ,so is a business . If the circulation system does not function at optimal effeciency ,the entire body is affected .
A business system is a structure a business adopts in order to successfully deliver services or goods to the concumer .It is made up of guidelines or policies which are implemented by those working the system.
Four critical categories make up the framework of any basic business system or structure .These can be summed up as
1) Operations
2) Human Resources
3)Financial
4)Marketing
5)Research
We could choose to call these departments. These departments are as critical to a business as strikers,midfielders and defenders are to a soccer team . How they combine and supplement each other is as crucial in a soccer team formation.Similarly ,how departments combine and compliment each other is equally important in a business . One department needs the other in order to function at maximum effeciency.
These departments can be more than those shown here.The purpose of a business system ,formation or structure ( you may call it whatever you prefer) is to optimize the role of each department and ensure that it performs its role efficiently.The sum total of all departments performance ensures the effeciency and success of the business.
In my undrstanding, effeciency is the ability to achieve more with less.

(2b)Designing a Business System
Start with a clear VISION -a statement defining where exactly you want to go ,what exactly you wish to achieve .
Follow up with a Mission Statement-a statement oultining how you will get your vision acccomplished .
Conclude by setting out your VALUES- a statement of what you believe in as a company.
These three statements must be visible to anyone who gets in touch with your business . When a businesses vision and mission statements resonate well with your team ,comsumers and prospective consumers -it becomes a powerful entity .
No business, I know of , ever succeeded without a clear Vision or Mission Statement.I can simplify my opinion by stating that a Vision is where we are going , a mission statement is how we are going to get there ,and values are principles we believe while on the journey.

(2c)Creating Roles within each Department
Work through the processes of service /goods delivery for each depatment .
Get to know the routines of the work processes intimately.
Then document how each function within a department must work .
Craft these functions with aim of getting them to contribute to the eventual, successful attainment of the business objective( the VISION ) .
Make job descriptions for each role since the aim is to find someone who can work within the roles defined in each department . It is inevitable that the routines of work will be amended as time goes on and/or as the business grows .

2(d)Finding The Right people to Run the Business system
It is often said systems don't fail -people do . I don't fully subscribe to this view .However, I do believe that badly designed business systems can fail . I also do know that for a well designed business system to succeed it must be run by the right people . And , finding them is no easy task .

(2e)What to look for in prospective team members
Always be on the look out for people driven by passion -they don't need that much motivation when the chips are down .
Look for experience -its a rare quality . If you intend to list your business -you will need someone on your side who has been exposed to all the processes of listing on a practical basis .
Avoid people whose chief objective is to make a lot of money( a get rich quick mentality ) .They are meant employees after all and the employers only duty is to pay an employee enough for them to work and live comfortably -not to get rich quick !

(2e)Leading A Team
I rate experience ,passion and integrity as the top three qualities in a Leader .To me integrity is doing what you say and saying what you do or walking your talk. Once what you say is not in alignment with what you do it becomes difficult for people to trust you . Remember ,when you're leading people in business that they have entrusted their career in your care !

Once you become the most knowledgeable person in the team you're leading -something is wrong. Let your team achieve and let them take the credit .Your job is to bring out the teams maximum potential,individually .A coach doesn't score the goals in a soccer team ! His job is to bring out the best in all players -so it should be in business . The reason I use soccer as an example is because soccer leaders ( coaches ) and players are tested nearly every week. This means all the systems are brought to test regularly ,whereas ,in business results are seen monthly,quarterly or even annually. Think what these means about the effectiveness of a system of a soccer team -so should it be for a business systems.