denise lee yohn: brand as business bites™ / stuff for your brain to chew on

New formats of existing retail brands seem to be popping up all over the place.  Best Buy Mobile was introduced a couple of years ago as a store-within-a-store concept — the company then launched standalone Best Buy Mobiles and recently announced plans to open 40 more this year. 

Petco just launched Unleashed (with more personalized service and “hipper attitude” than the original format) and Baskin-Robbins has been testing Cafe BR (featuring a make-your-own-sundae bar and higher-end desserts such as fondue) and BR Express (a smaller store focusing on soft-serve ice cream.)

These new formats seem to be a great way for retailers to appeal to more shopper need-states.  A need-state is defined by a group of consumers who seek similar product benefits and attributes in a particular usage occasion.  Need-state segmentation overlays usage occasions onto attitudinal classifications.

For example, in the snack foods category, there might be some consumers who are looking for a snack to tie them over between meals, while others are looking for something to eat post-workout (two different usage occasions) — but they share a desire for healthy alternative (same attitude).   Unlike attitudinal or demographic segmentation approaches which classify consumers into discrete groups, with need-state targeting, a single consumer can experience different need states over time — and thus be reached in multiple ways.

Typically need-states have been used by manufacturers to drive product development.  By understanding different purchase drivers, manufacturers develop different product variations and brand extensions — e.g., a healthy snack food that’s packaged in portable packaging might fulfill one need-state while a more traditional pack lends itself to another.

What’s interesting is that more retailers are getting in to the game.  Best Buy Mobile is targeted specifically to people shopping for cell phones and services.  These consumers may be the same ones who browse the aisles of the big box retailers’ regular stores in search of the latest gadget, but when they are specifically looking for a mobile solution, Best Buy wants Best Buy Mobile to be their go-to store.

Likewise, Petco’s Unleashed boasts a smaller format, is located in high-traffic locations, and emphasizes community — perfect for the pet parent who is already passing by the store and needs to drop in for a quick purchase or some friendly advice.  Baskin-Robbins’ Cafe BR concept seems more like a destination (a great post-movie date place), while BR Express’s name makes its target need-state clear.

With these new formats, these brands expand their appeal, giving existing customers more options and reaching new customers who previously hadn’t found the brand relevant or convenient.

New formats also provides other benefits:

• emphasizes select brand attributes — Best Buy Mobile is described as having “one of the largest selections of carriers, handsets and accessories available anywhere, as well as a highly-trained staff to help customers make the most of their mobile phones…Employees undergo at least 80 hours of intensive training, as well as continuing education on mobile phone technology and trends.“  As such, the new concept shores up Best Buy’s credentials in wide selection and knowledgeable staff.
• reinvigorates the brand image — Unleashed has a more urban contemporary feel than its master Petco brand.  By embodying these attributes, Unleashed helps update and improve Petco’s brand image.
• opens the brand to new opportunities — Jimmy Fitzgerald, VP of concept innovations for Baskin Robins’ parent company explains the chain’s new formats by saying: “This allows us to open doors and go into places we really don’t fit — upper-scale malls and downtown locations.“

So it seems these new retail formats hold a lot of potential for their parent brands.  It will be interesting to see how well they do — and who else jumps on the new retail format bandwagon.

I’ve been thinking about the importance of connecting the internal organization with external customers.  All too often it seems companies are either too inwardly focused, getting too caught up in their own capabilities, technologies, and process — or too outwardly focused, trying to be everything to everyone and ending up being nothing to no one.

My thoughts were sparked by a proposal I’ve been working on. It’s for a well-known company with a what most people would agree is a really strong brand.  So imagine my surprise when I learned they were seeking a resource for “brand discovery.”  At first blush, it didn’t seem to me that they needed any help.

But then as I immersed myself into their situation, I realized their issue is connecting the internal to the external.  Their internal culture and passion for their brand is really admirable, but what they seem to missing is an intimacy with the customer.  I believe they need to connect their internal strength with external customer understanding and passion — knowing which segments in the prospect pool are the most fertile for them, knowing how to connect with them, and channeling their energies toward delivering value to them.

At the same time some companies are so focused on the market, they don’t have an internal bedrock to ground their efforts, nor an internal compass to guide decision-making.  You know the companies I’m talking about — the ones who seem to be consistently re-positioning themselves — always trying to tie into the latest fad and never presenting a consistent POV.  In a way, these companies pursue “customer centricity” to a fault.

Peter Drucker believed the need to connect “the Inside that is ‘the organization,’ and the Outside of society, economy, technology, markets, and customers” is so vital, he advocated for an organization’s CEO to serve as the link.

I would offer an alternative — the brand is the link.  The way I see it, customer centricity only works when you have a strong brand to act as a filter for prioritizing customer segments and a tool for developing and managing customer relationships.  A brand defines what the company stands for, which in turn determines who it’s for and what value it will deliver.

The brand embodies the “Outside” by defining the value the organization delivers to its customers; and it embodies the “Inside” by defining the way the organization does business.

So my conclusion:  the brand connects the internal and the external. What do you think?  Do you agree? or do you see it a different way?  Please let me know.

Today my series on brand value creation comes to a close with a look at companies’ Learning and Growth.  Previous posts have examined how brands create value for companies from the Customer, Financial (2 posts) ,  and Internal Business Process perspectives.

The Learning and Growth quadrant of the Balanced Scorecard asks, “To achieve our vision, how will we sustain our ability to change and improve?”  The results produced by a strong brand relative to this quadrant may be the most difficult to quantify, but they are perhaps the most significant.   Here are 3 ways a brand creates value by impacting an organization’s Learning and Growth:

1.  When the “brand as business” management approach is engaged, the purpose and values of the organization are clarified.   Using the brand as the North Star for the business, your company not only adapts to outside changes appropriately but also create its own changes and use them to its advantage.

• Patagonia provides an example of a company which uses its brand — their “philosophies” — to be prepared for change. Yvon Chouinard, the company’s founder and owner, says, “What good does having a fixed set of written philosophies accomplish when everything else in the business world is so dynamic?…The answer is that our philosophies aren’t rules; they’re guidelines.  They’re the keystones of our approach to any project, and although they are ‘set in stone,’ their application to a situation isn’t…We have made many mistakes during the past decade, but at no point have we lost our way for very long.  We have the philosophies for a rough map, the only kind that’s useful in a business world whose contours, unlike those of the mountains, change constantly and without much warning.” (emphasis mine)

2.  Your brand can help you actually change the way business is done if you adopt a bold and differentiated brand platform.  Jim Collins, in his book Built to Last, describes how “Bill Hewlett and David Packard envisioned HP as a role-model corporation, known for progressive personnel practices, innovative and entrepreneurial culture, and an unbroken string of products that make a technical contribution.”  So they instituted many practices to manifest this bold vision – for example:

• HP introduced a profit-sharing plan which paid out the same percentage to the janitor as to the CEO and created a catastrophic medical insurance plan at a time when such actions were virtually unheard of.
• Beginning in the 1950’s, HP forsook the hiring of engineers from industry and recruited less experienced but more talented graduating seniors from respected engineering schools.
• Self-imposed rigorous standards led HP to bypass high-volume markets like IBM-compatible personal computers for a period of time because of its commitment to reject me-too or copycat new products in favor of those representing a technological contribution.

Clearly the “HP Way,” as the brand’s tenets became known, drove that organization’s learning and growth.

3.  Your brand can fuel the development of a robust organizational culture, by explaining why you do what you do in a way that gives more meaning to your relationships with customers and stakeholders alike.   After dissecting the factors that have driven the success of some of greatest organizations in recent history, including Apple and the Walt Disney studio, management author Warren Bennis concludes in his book Organizing Genius, “[They] think they are on a mission from God…they believe they are doing something vital, even holy…their clear, collective purpose makes everything they do seem meaningful and valuable.”  Your employee’s work can be transformed into more than churning out products; stakeholders can see themselves are more than functional cogs in the company wheel.  Rather, they can see themselves as contributing to something that has more substantive and lasting impact.

This motivates them embrace and execute change more effectively.  As the consultants who contributed to the late 1990’s turnaround of Best Buy explain, continuous improvement and growth flow naturally out of an emotionally satisfying culture:  “’Why is this important?   What’s in it for me?  Can I be successful?’ To be ready for change, people must develop a compelling conviction that there are positive answers to these questions,” they state.

So a strong brand increases an organization’s ability to change and improve — thus creating long-lasting and far-reaching value.

I hope this series on Brand Value Creation has been a good one for you.  By running it, my intent has been to make the case that brands produce substantial positive results for business.  And, perhaps more importantly, to present a different point of view on what a brand is:  what a company does and how it does it.

The series on brand value creation continues today with a look at how brands create value for companies in their Internal Business Processes.   Although a brand’s ability to create value from the Financial and Customer perspectives is probably the most important, its impact on Internal Business Processes is the most fundamental.

Let me back up a bit.  As a reminder, we’re using the Balanced Scorecard as a framework for identifying all the different ways brands create value for companies.  The Internal Business Processes section of the Balanced Scorecard is intended to help leaders evaluate how well their business is running and whether its products and services conform to customer requirements.

A brand lends itself to such an evaluation if the company has adopted the “brand as business^TM” management approach.

What is the “brand as business” management approach?  It is the deliberate and systematic management of the business around the brand — thinking of the brand as the business.  The “brand as business” management approach is based on using your brand as a management tool, not simply a marketing asset.  It’s about operationalizing your brand — integrating your brand and your core company’s operating system.  (The American Management Association recently published an article of mine which explains “brand as business” in more detail.)

OK.  So that was all to set up the discussion on Internal Business Process brand value creation.  When the “brand as business” management approach is employed, the brand impacts the three primary processes of any business:

• product development
• supply chain management, and
• customer relationship management

– and the resources that drive each.

Processes.  To the business processes themselves the “brand as business” management approach contributes focus, efficiency, and power.

• For example, in the product development process the brand focuses R&D on target requirements and value delivery as articulated in the brand platform.  And the brand is used as a filter at each juncture of the stage-gate process.  Evaluations of the fit and viability of new offerings happen faster and more easily with the brand providing a clear, consistent standard.

A strong brand also reduces the cost of new product introductions and improves the success rate of line extensions, cross-selling, and up-selling by stimulating trial and adoption among existing customers.  As noted in my post on Customer brand benefits, customers are more likely to try a new product if they already have a relationship with the brand.

• In the supply chain management process, a strong brand can give a business more negotiation power with suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors.  Having the upper hand in negotiating inventories, logistics, and payment terms is certainly a desired advantage in the constraints of the current business environment.

• Brands impact the third primary business process, customer relationship management, by helping the company to establish relationships with customers in the first place.  Over time strong brands engender trust, and when customers trust a company, they are willing to give the company information like personal data, insights about needs and preferences, and usage information which enables the company to create better customer contact and service strategies.

Those advantages then help businesses retain customers by fostering relationships which are valued by customers.  And instead of having to rely on instituting switching costs which deter existing customers from defecting to a competitor but which may also pose barriers to customer acquisition, companies with strong brands simply enjoy brand loyalty — which by definition prevents brand switching.

Brands also make customer relationships more profitable — an increase of 5% in loyal customers in some categories delivers 95% greater profitability over a customer’s lifetime, according to brand loyalty expert Robert Passikoff who founded and heads up Brand Keys, a research consultancy specializing in customer loyalty.

Furthermore, Passikoff’s research indicates it takes 7 to 10 times the cost to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.

Resources.  At the resource level of Internal Business Processes, a brand-driven management approach is about optimization.

• A strong brand optimizes your human resources, for example.  You can experience better results in recruiting because a strong brand attracts a larger and/or better applicant pool.   One fast food restaurant chain experienced a dramatic increase in responses to its help-wanted ads simply by adding visual elements from the brand identity to its advertising.

Companies which employ the “brand as business” management approach use the brand as a means for screening candidates, on-boarding new-hires, and training employees more quickly and effectively.  In “The IBM Way”, former IBM marketing executive Buck Rodgers explains the approach his company adopted, “IBM begins imbuing its employees with its…philosophy even before they’re hired, at the very first interview…Basically, anyone who wants to work for IBM is told:  ‘Look this is how we do business…We have some very specific ideas about what that means.’”

By using the brand to inform, inspire, and equip people, companies produce a workforce that is aligned, focused, and motivated.  In turn such a workforce produces more efficient operations, higher quality output, and increased employee retention.

• A strong brand also optimizes your technology resources and other tangible assets by facilitating relationships with other companies from whom you acquire or with whom you develop these resources.  The greater your brand equity, the more desirable your company is as a customer or partner to these other companies.

Internal business processes and the resources which they draw upon are beneficiaries of a brand that is well-established and well-leveraged.

Make sense?

My next post will be the last in the series — Brand Value Creation — Learning & Growth.  Stay tuned.

I’m taking a break from the series on brand value creation for a post on a topic I’ve been reading a lot about lately — saying “thank you.”

For people in general, service providers specifically, and companies, communicating sincere gratitude, it seems, is a lot more complicated than you might expect.  Here are a few perspectives on the topic:

People. William Safire, the popular verbivore who writes a very insightful and always entertaining column in The New York Times Magazine,  recently mused about how to react to a courteous act of another driver.  He was at a loss for an adequate way to communicate gratitude quickly and visually.

Apparently he was deluged with over 700 suggestions (everything from “thumbs-up” to a yoga-style “namaste”) — the most replies he’s ever received to a single question.   But the problem is, of the 10 recommended approaches he relayed in his column, practically every one had a drawback — different cultural interpretations of the “A-OK” hand signal, for example.

All of this seems to suggest that the desire to say “thank you” is universal (Mr. Safire observed the “global yearning for such a sign”) but the know-how to do it appropriately is not.

Service Providers. Another problem with saying thank you is that it inherently transfers power from you to the person you are thanking, according to Blair Enns.  Blair runs a consulting firm which helps marketing firms “transform from a high cost, low integrity, pitch-based business development strategy to one where the agency commands the high ground in the relationship and shapes how its services are bought and sold.”

I’ve been a disciple of Blair’s for awhile now and have learned so much from him, but I found myself really challenged by a recent piece of advice.  He counseled his readers to:

Please relinquish your habit of following-up on a meeting or a phone call with a client-to-be with a note that leads with the words, ‘Thank you for your time.’

Think for a minute of the implications of this ubiquitous practice. What you are really saying is, ‘I’d like to take a minute to acknowledge that the meeting we just had was all about me and my need to sell you something. I understand that there was little real benefit to you, so thank you. I know your time is more valuable than mine, and I appreciate that you gave me a few minutes of it to try to talk you into hiring our firm….’

Blair suggests that saying thank you communicates a devaluing deference to the client and recommends alternatives such as “I enjoyed meeting with you and learning more about your business.” “I’m glad we were able to connect on the phone yesterday.”

So even if you are grateful for something, perhaps expressing it isn’t always such a good idea?

Companies. July’s installment of the Harvard Business Review included a case study entitled, “Do You Thank the Taxpayer for Your Bailout?“  The case described a bank about to receive $5BB in U.S. federal assistance (sound familiar?!)

In response, the CEO wants to deliver a positive message to customers and the market and the company’s Chief Customer Officer recommends running an ad campaign thanking the taxpayers for their “investment.”  The CFO disagrees, saying they should try to focus investors’ and opinion makers’ attention on the bank’s recapitalized balance sheet and future growth potential.

The experts who the HBR asks to weigh in give mixed advice.  One recommends the company keep their gratitude to themselves because it admits wrong-doing; another advises launching a campaign that expresses gratitude along with stewardship and transparency.

Although there is range of suggestions, they all seem to suggest that a “thank you” is a backward-looking message, whereas leaders usually want to focus on the future.

All of this points to the tricky nature of saying “thank you.”   Although I was taught at a young age to always say “please” and “thank you,” I now see that everything I needed to know, I didn’t learn in kindergarten.  Despite our best intentions, our expression of gratitude may end up offending someone or communicating a loaded message.

However there’s so much talk these days about the importance of developing relationships — brand:customer relationships, networking relationships, etc.  It seems to me that saying “thank you” is one way to walk the talk and so that’s why I still highly recommend it — whether you’re doing it as a service provider, a company leader, or just a regular guy or gal.

You?

Why should stockholders care about a company’s brand? That’s the subject of today’s post, the 3rd in a series on the many ways a brand creates value for a company.

I’ve discussed brand value creation from the Customer perspective and from the Financial perspective of  immediate revenue generation.  I also want to describe brand-driven Financial value creation in terms of market valuation.  Specifically, does a brand impact shareholder value and how?

The market share and margin benefits produced by a strong brand (explained in my previous post) certainly impact earnings, which in turn deliver dividends or distributions for shareholders.   A strong brand also increases the market value of the business to Wall Street and investors.

The evidence

Research from Interbrand, Brand Finance, and other respected brand valuation firms, as well as academics from Columbia University Business School, Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, and Dartmouth College, has proven the power of a brand to increase share price and stock valuations.

One particularly compelling example:  An investigation by Harvard University Business School and Boston University School of Management professors Thomas Madden, Frank Fehle, and Susan Fournier provides empirical evidence of the value to stockholders of a firm’s brand-building activities.

Examining monthly stockholder returns data for the period 1994 to 2001, they found that a portfolio of brands identified as strong (based on a well-known, widely-accepted methodology by Interbrand and used by BusinessWeek for its annual Best Global Brands report) displayed statistically- and economically-significant performance advantages such as stock returns and returns on equity versus the overall market. Commenting on the findings, Fournier wrote, “The effects of brands on shareholder values were powerful and dominant and far outweighed commonly acknowledged factors such as market share and firm size.”

The research even goes one step further, finding that firms which had developed strong brands created shareholder value with less exposure to risk.  The professors conclude that their results “support the role of the brand in reducing the volatility and vulnerability of cash flows.”

So it’s clear a strong brand makes a business robust for shareholders — but why?

The explanation

Brands produce higher market valuations due to:

• stronger customer equity (defined as the total lifetime values of all of the company’s customers) — brands are the primary conduits through which loyal customer relationships are formed, nurtured, and maintained
• development of intangibles — brands drive differentiation and perceived value to customers beyond that which a company’s tangible product or service produces
• more efficient business processes — brands optimize the 3 primary processes of any business (product development, supply chain management, and customer relationship management) and the resources that drive each (this will be discussed in more detail in my next post — I’m using the Balanced Scorecard as an organizing framework for this series and am making my way through the 4 quadrants, in case you’re wondering.)

Questions?  Comments?  Please share.

Here’s Post #2 in a series on how brands create value.  I’m using Kaplan and Norton’s Balanced Scorecard as an organizing framework and kicked the series off with the Customer perspective.  Today, the topic is Financial brand value creation.

How brands create financial value is such an important topic (it’s really where the rubber meets the road, right?!) and there are so many data points and examples to reference, I’m actually breaking down the Financial quadrant into 2 posts.  This one is about the short-term, immediate value which brands stimulate for their owners.

Many analyses have proven a stronger brand shifts the demand curve and produces gains in market share and margin. The following are a few specific data points.

1.  According to Millward Brown (MB), one of the world’s leading research companies, stronger brands enjoy higher market share than weaker ones. The firm’s analysis compared over 350 brands using two key measures:

• “Presence” — how many people know about a brand and understand what it has to offer. MB explains, “A brand with a high level of Presence will enter a buyer’s consideration set more easily than a brand with low Presence.”

• “Voltage” –  how efficiently a brand converts people’s knowledge into loyalty. “Because higher levels of loyalty are associated with increased probability of purchase, a brand with a high Voltage score is positioned well to grow its share of sales in the category.”

The result?  The average market value share (defined as a brand’s share expressed in terms of monetary units – not volume sales) of those brands that scored higher on both Presence and Voltage was 15%. In comparison, those brands that scored lower on both measures held only 3% share on average.  MB’s report concludes, “Brands are valuable to companies because they are valuable to consumers.”

Kimberly-Clark Corporation, the paper products company, provides company-specific evidence of the effects of brand-building on market share.  After introducing a new feminine care brand strategy in Korea intended to increase the differentiation of its products and to target specific consumer needs, the company’s market share in that region grew from 20% in 1995 to over 60% in 2003.

2.  A brand’s positive impact on margins is demonstrated in another Millward Brown analysis (reported in the same paper).   In this research the firm examined over 200 consumer packaged goods brands. It found that brands in the top third of consumers’ esteem (defined as “I have a higher opinion of it than others”) garnered a median price that was 11% higher than the category norm.

By generating such a substantial price premium, MB explains, brands drive higher margins. “The consumers who care about getting the right brand will pay more for it if they can be convinced that it offers key advantages over others,” according to MB.

An industry proof point for the role of a brand in driving higher prices comes from DuPont.  The chemical company conducted a price premium analysis to ascertain the value of the Teflon brand, a non-stick coating for pans and other cookware.  In a test market, the company sold two pans which were identical except one carried the Teflon brand name, the other a generic name.  The experiment revealed that the Teflon brand commanded a price premium of $2 per product. What’s more, it also achieved a higher sales volume than its non-branded counterpart.

These are just a few select analyses and examples that speak to the Financial value of brands.  In post 2 of the Financial quadrant, I’ll review the longer-term, bigger picture dimensions.

Hope this series is helpful and interesting to you — comments and questions are always welcome.

Today I’m launching a short series on brand value creation.  My intent is to outline the ways brands create value, organizing the points by the four quadrants of The Balanced Scorecard.

But let me give you the background first.  The other day, a colleague* and I were discussing the role of marketing and the bad rap that marketing and marketers sometimes get.  We agreed that certainly some people misuse marketing, using it to manipulate and deceive; but on the whole, we believe that marketing is a good thing.  “Marketing is really a service,” my colleague affirmed.

The discussion got me thinking about the role and value of  brands — I firmly believe a strong brand is a good thing and actually have included a section in the first draft of my book about the value the brands create.  So I wanted to share my thoughts here and get your reactions and comments.

Because there are so many ways that a brand creates value, I’ve adapted The Balanced Scorecard, the performance management tool introduced 15 years ago by Robert Kaplan and David Norton, as an organizing framework.  I find The Scorecard serves as a helpful tool for identifying all of the areas of a brand’s positive impact.   In fact, examining the benefits of a strong brand across the four sections of the Scorecard — Financial, Customer, Internal Business Processes, and Learning and Growth – reveals how critical one is to a business.

Today’s post covers brand value creation from the Customer perspective (the next 3 posts will deal with the other 3 quadrants.)  The obvious impact brands have on customers makes the Customer quadrant of the Balance Scorecard the easiest of all to adapt to detail the benefits of a strong brand.

Generally speaking, brands help customers navigate the myriad of choices they face in today’s marketplace.  The average supermarket has 25,000 products on its shelves.   There are nearly 19,000 restaurants in New York City alone.   Americans have over 19,000 magazine titles  and over 115 television channels to choose from.

Here are a few ways brands simplify and facilitate purchase decisions, thus creating value for Customers:

• A strong brand gets people’s attention and puts specific products and services on their radar screen.  It helps customers find the product, service, store, or experience they’re looking for.  Plus brand awareness and familiarity alone have been shown to lead to brand liking.  As such, a brand can reduce the perceived risk of a new purchase simply by being well-known.
• Furthermore brands help customers edit their choices more easily and quickly because the associations people have with different brands help them differentiate between choices.  If, for example, you are looking for a nutritious cereal, you would look for the Total cereal brand; whereas a search for a fun, kid-friendly cereal would lead you to Cheerios instead.  You easily distinguish between these choices based on the associations you have with each brand.
• Providing reasons to buy is another way brands impact customers.  By embodying meaningful benefits that represent value to customers, brands encourage purchases.   In today’s economic environment, brands actually help customers justify their purchases — to themselves and to others. And in some cases, brands help justify paying more for something.

Some might accuse brands of having too much of an impact on customers, blaming brands for the over commercialization of our culture.  The counter argument says that brands serve as engines of our economy, driving business growth, improving people’s lives, and contributing to the progress of society. Net net, I believe the positive value created by brands for customers outweighs the negatives.

Check back in a couple of days for my thoughts on brand value creation from the Financial, Internal Business Process, and Organizational Learning and Growth perspectives.  In the meantime, I’m eager to hear your comments on how brands create value for customers.

* Thanks goes to Brad Bennett for inspiring the series — Brad is a dear, dear friend and former colleague (we worked together at Spiegel catalogs, which was my first job out of school!) Brad runs his own ethnographic research firm and is a valued strategic adviser to Kraft, Clorox, and other big brand companies.

To:  Women of America

From:  W.T.F. (We Target Females), a coalition of marketers dedicated to making complete fools of ourselves while trying to market to women

In case you haven’t read our recent press releases, we, the smart marketers of W.T. F., wanted to make sure you women of America know how cool our recent efforts to market to you are.   You might recognize some of our latest work:

-  the “Fling” from Mars – a finger-shaped confection which we cleverly invite you to “pleasure yourself” with — wink! wink! get it?!

-  Dell’s Della.com — a website for you ladies who might find it too difficult to navigate our manly Dell.com website

-  Only In a Woman’s World website from Frito-Lay — modeled after Sex and the City since we know that your lives are just like Carrie and Samantha’s

We’ve been trying to make our appeals to you as obvious as possible, but in case it’s not clear, here’s a summary of our “strategy”:

• lump all women into a single target audience — we believe it’s enough that we’re actually targeting women (you wouldn’t believe how hard it was to convince management to channel dollars to you!!), so we aren’t going to bother with identifying sub-segments within the female market and understanding different purchase drivers — we’ll just target the entire female population and hope our message resonates with more of you than it alienates
• run advertising specifically targeted to women — we believe we must dedicate marketing dollars and develop campaigns completely separate from our historically male-targeted efforts — since we’re trying to get more female customers, it would be foolish of us to try to cast a wider net of appeal by identifying platforms that resonate with both men and women
• use creative approaches that are patronizing, offensive, and/or exclusionary — it’s much easier to reinforce gender stereotypes and rely on predictable hot buttons (you like cooking, dieting, and Manolo Blahniks, right?), so we don’t think we need to expend our energy on crafting truly creative and inspired communications
• issue press releases and try to generate lots of buzz — truth be told, we’re really just looking to be noticed and appreciated for going out of our way to target you — our high profile moves are as much for the props as they are for meeting your needs — after all, despite the case studies of successes that brands have experienced when word-of-mouth has generated organically among women, we’re taking matters into our own hands and trying to force you to pay attention

Although the W.T.F. coalition has plenty of members, we have our sights set on Liz Haesler and Mary Stoddart, the gals at Best Buy who have been tapped to head up the company’s Women’s Leadership Forum.   The Forum is intended to drive profitable market share for BBY by increasing the brand’s appeal as a place to shop for female customers and a place to work for female employees.  We’re hoping they will abandon the grass-roots, community-oriented approach that has been the hallmark of the program since its inception, and instead adopt a corporate, commercial stance that is light on nuance and heavy on PR.

Then we’ll go after the folks at hp and Sun Chips, because they’ve taken a more subtle but really smart approach to connecting with women and we can’t let them serve as examples for other marketers.  After all, making a big splash is what we’re all about.

Signed,

W.T.F. — names of coalition members and their companies have been omitted since we don’t care that women value transparency

Yesterday I attended my step-brother’s graduation from the Air Force Academy.  The ceremony included a demonstration by the Thunderbirds, USAF’s Air Demonstration Squadron. The show was a rockin’ good time (if you’ve never attended an air show by the Thunderbirds, Blue Angels, or similar, you don’t know what you’re missing — really!) — and it also prompted me to think of the squadron as brand ambassadors and 3 things that great brand ambassadors do.

Importantly, I don’t mean “brand ambassador” in the way the term is commonly used by marketing agencies which, on behalf of their clients, hire people to stand on street corners offering product samples to passers-by or to go to bars and order branded cocktails in loud voices so everyone around them thinks it’s cool to drink X brand of alcohol.  Nor am I referring to celebrity spokespeople, who are contracted to promote the brand.

I’m talking about employees and others who have an ongoing, authentic, interdependent relationship with the brand and whose role is to represent the brand to external audiences in an effort to create positive brand impressions — like the Thunderbirds, brand ambassadors:

1. showcase the brand at its best — the Thunderbirds execute breathtaking maneuvers that impress their audiences with high impact sight and sound — their show demonstrates the power, precision, and excellence of the USAF “brand” — similarly brand ambassadors show what the brand looks like when its being delivered at 100% (the following is a USAF-created video of the Thunderbirds in action — I hope to upload a video I took as soon as I return to the office)
2. inspires people to join them — it’s no secret that one of the target audiences the Thunderbirds are trying to impress is potential recruits — their compelling presentation acts as a magnet and an invitation to those who may consider joining the Air Force — in the same way, brand ambassadors attract people (potential customers and employees alike) by providing a positive example of engagement with the brand
3. connects the day-to-day to the bigger picture — the show serves to remind everyone, not the least of which are the nearly 330,000 enlisted men and women in active duty with the Air Force, what the USAF “brand” is all about — of course the day-to-day reality of the Air Force surely isn’t as exciting or awesome as the show, but the demonstration makes USAF’s mission clear — brand ambassadors also facilitate the connection between prospective customers as well as employees and the brand vision and values

Brand ambassadors fulfill all of these responsibilities by embracing and embodying the brand themselves, and delivering and communicating about the brand in an an authentic, compelling way.  What do you think are brands with great brand ambassadors?