brand as business bit:  What makes an ad something people want to share with others?  Is there a secret formula for making ads that are most likely to be shared?

The March issue of the Harvard Business Review included a report by Harvard prof Thales Teixeira who tracked viewers’ eye movements and facial expressions while watching ads.  He outlined five ways to get and keep people engaged with ads, including:

“Build an emotional roller coaster. Viewers are most likely to continue watching a video ad if they experience emotional ups and downs.”

The HBR recently published reactions to the report including mine:

These findings overlook two important factors in ad effectiveness:  branded recall and conversion.  If an ad is liked and passed along but the brand is forgotten or no further action is taken by the viewer, the ad may generate buzz but will do little to build the brand or the business.

brand as business bit:  I love how some of The New York Times’ best business stories aren’t found in the Business section.  Case in point:  The Sports section’s recent recap of the 76ers turnaround.   It retraces private equity titan Josh Harris’s moves to rejuvenate the august team – and in doing so, it provides helpful pointers for any business leader who’s taken up the charge to get a brand on track:

• authentically participate in the community – “…Fans prefer that owners have some allegiance to their city. [Harris] has attended nearly every home game,” and has also emphasized his family’s long ties to Philadelphia.
• use fans to create more fans – “[CEO Adam  Aron]  invited fans to apply for free seats behind the basket as long as they dress up in Philadelphia-themed outfits.”
• emphasize the brand history – “Aron even bought the court on which Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in Hershey, Pa., giving pieces away to fans on March 2, the 50th anniversary of Chamberlain’s feat.”
• personally engage with fans – “Aron regularly jousts with fans on Twitter, sending out dozens of posts a day from his account, @sixersceoadam. After a recent loss, Aron commiserated with a fan who said he had punched his wall. ‘I put a dent in my wall too,’ Aron wrote.”

brand as business bit:  There’s been a lot of activity in the fast food world these days:  Burger King just launched a new menu and ad campaign, Wendy’s introduced a new tagline and campaign, and Taco Bell is experimenting with a new menu and tagline.

My colleagues over at E-Poll and I thought it would be helpful to get a handle on just how each of these brands is currently performing.  Here are some of their research findings*:

brand awareness:

• Burger King – 86%
• Wendy’s – 80%
• Taco Bell – 79%

appeal:

• Burger King – 53%
• Wendy’s – 63%
• Taco Bell – 54%

high quality:

• Burger King – 13%
• Wendy’s – 26%
• Taco Bell – 9%

So, Wendy’s seems to be leading the pack right now.

Also, I thought the following results to the question “What is the slogan for the brand?” were particularly revealing:

Burger King

• Have It Your Way:   70% (reinstated in 2002 and used sporadically after having been retired in the 1970’s)
• Home of the Whopper:  9% (never really used as a tagline)

Wendy’s

• Where’s the beef?:   23% (used as a headline beginning last fall after having been retired in the 1980’s)
• You know when it’s real:   7% (began in Fall of 2009 and ran for 2 1/2 years)

Taco Bell

• Think outside the bun:  48% (began in 2002 and was just replaced this month)
• Make a run for the border:  21% (ran in the late 80’s/early 90’s for a few years)
• Yo quiero Taco Bell:   7% (began in the late 90’s and ran for a few years)

*results from E-Poll Market Research’s E-Score Brand service which surveyed a representative sample of 1,500 respondents aged 13+ years old in early March.

brand as business bit:  While perusing the aisles at Target awhile back, I stumbled across these really great packages of healthcare products and fell in love:

I was so pleased to read the story behind such an ingenious brand in Businessweek.   (Be sure to check out the sidebar on the playbook of gimmicks used in most drug commercials – it’s pretty humorous.)

Help Remedies has turned drug marketing on its head:

• The brand voice is clear and friendly, selling “as though it was coming from a friend, not a doctor in a lab coat—or an actor playing one.”
• Their target is “people in their 20s and 30s who are largely ignored by the big brands. That’s why, in addition to pharmacies and grocery stores, Help can be found at high-profile conferences [like TED] and in the minibars of Morgans Hotels.
• They use humor:  “‘If you try to maintain a tone of science and seriousness, it’s really alienating,’ says [co-founder Nathan Frank.] On the back of Help’s nausea medicine, the package jokes about how the pills are flavorless.  There are dozens of mock problems on their website… each of which links to a tongue-in-cheek solution.”

But what most distinguishes Help is that they are in drug category in the first place:  “Everybody in branding starts snack food and beverage businesses,” says [co-founder Richard Fine.] “They chase after these categories where there’s already a lot of brands…there’s 8,000 small beauty brands out there. In pharmaceuticals, you have the big companies, and then you have us.”

Love the zag!

brand as business bit:  Tucked away in last week’s New York Times automotive section was a great piece about advertising.  The subject was Ed McCabe (of Scali, McCabe, Sloves fame) whose  iconoclastic approach to advertising etched into our brains safety as Volvo’s brand identity.  Three points  about Mr. McCabe’s strategy really resonated with me:

“Volvo’s reputation for crash safety…was solidified with a compelling statistic that Volvo used in its advertising for nearly two decades under Mr. McCabe’s direction: ‘Nine out of every 10 Volvos registered in the U.S. in the last 11 years are still on the road.’ Nowhere in that simple statement is safety mentioned, yet, according to Volvo, modern buyers overwhelmingly identify safety features as their No. 1 purchase reason.”

That speaks to the power of a simple statistic – sometimes you don’t need to explain it.

“’The client comes to me and says the dealers want to do an ad about colors to compete with Chevy’s many color combinations that existed at the time,’ McCabe said. Mr. McCabe pointed out that Volvo had few choices compared with Chevy‘s selection of more than 50, but the client was undeterred. The day was saved with a headline that shifted the focus to a different Volvo trait: ‘Volvos come in blue, green, white, yellow & red. No rust.’”

What a brilliant way to turn a competitive disadvantage on its head!

“’Weak advertising tells people what you want them to know,’” McCabe added. “’Strong advertising gets people to conclude what you want them to know.’”    [emphasis mine]

‘Nuff said.

brand as business bit:  The folks at UpMo, an employee-centric career management company, asked me to contribute to their blog, the upMover.   I thought it was the perfect opportunity to share about something I’ve been thinking about for awhile now:  the power of storytelling to engage employees.

Companies often use advertising and social media to share rich and compelling stories with their customers and then revert to PowerPoint presentations and strategy documents for internal communications.  But employees need to be inspired as much as – if not more than – customers.

In my post, Once Upon a Company, I convey how business leaders can use stories to convey their company’s vision, reinforce its values, and inspire connections among its people. I’d be grateful if you would take a click over to my piece and let me know what you think.

(Check out my latest “brand experience brief” — a report with insights and analysis of new and interesting restaurant and retail concepts.)

Fast fashion retailer Uniqlo is on a roll.  I visited the company’s Herald Square location, one of three stores it has in New York City.  Here’s what I thought of the brand experience there:

more brand experience briefs:

• REI in SOHO
• The Habit Burger Grill
• Patagonia’s Tin Shed

brand as business bit:  In Fast Company’s recent write-up on Red Bull, Red Bull Media House managing director Werner Brell is quoted as saying:

“[Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz] knew that success would be in how you market the product as much as the product itself.”

It reminds me of a favorite quote of mine from Geoffrey Frost who held the CMO position at Motorola and Nike. His approach to marketing:

 “Your ads are the most pervasive products you make.”

The FC piece outlines how Red Bull has embraced this notion and transformed content from a marketing tactic into a business unit and from a loss leader into a profit-center.

(Here’s the latest in a series of “brand experience briefs” — reports with insights and analysis of new and interesting restaurant and retail concepts.)

The Habit is one of the many “better burger” chains generating a lot of buzz these days. Although its charburgers do taste good, the company needs to work harder to differentiate the brand from all the other options.  Here’s why:

DLYohn Brand Experience Brief: The Habit from Denise Lee Yohn on Vimeo.

more brand experience briefs:

• Steak ‘n Shake Signature
• ihop express
• Subway Cafe

On the eve of a special Apple event, it seems the allure of the Apple brand is as strong as ever.  “We have something you really have to see. And touch,” declares the invitation to the March 7^th media event.  Quite a buzz has been building up!

I don’t know if tomorrow’s announcement will impress or disappoint – nor do I know how long Apple will continue to rock our world.  But I remain fascinated by what I can only describe as the magical appeal of the Apple brand.  To try to understand the magic, I looked for clues in Walter Isaacson’s biography, Steve Jobs, and put together this slide show of what the book teaches about brand-building: