brand as business bit:   Here’s a quick add to my previous critique of this year’s Super Bowl commercials.

Making a Super Bowl ad involves a level of innovation, strategy, and skill that rivals what goes into making the advertised product itself.  So it’s helpful to see what can be learned from those in a similar business of creating desire:  movie trailers.

An article from Bloomberg Businessweek couple of months ago discusses how making movie trailers has become as important, rigorous, and competitive a business as making films themselves:

Trailers have begun to resemble tone poems selling a taste of how a film will feel rather than showing audiences everything they will see.  Mark Woollen, award-winning trailer editor, explained his approach:  “What we felt from the movie, that’s the big thing, and seeing if we can communicate that in two minutes…One of the things to figure out is at what point do we leave off, where you’ve ramped up the anticipation enough to do that.”

Marc Weinstock, president of worldwide marketing for Sony Pictures, said: “We don’t want people to think, “Maybe I’ll see that movie the second weekend.’ We want that trailer where people go, ‘I have to see that movie now!’”

The key to success and survival…is to constantly defy convention.  Last year’s innovation quickly becomes this year’s cliché.

[all emphasis mine]

So movie trailers – and perhaps ads – are about conveying emotion, creating anticipation that prompts an immediate response, and doing something completely new and different.

Change happens.  That’s not just a bumper sticker slogan; it’s the state of business today.  Mastering change requires new ways of thinking, talking about, and doing business.

I believe the leading companies in 2011 and beyond will distinguish themselves by embracing these five ideas:

1.  value and values
Over the past decade, we’ve seen the pendulum swing from a focus on businesses’ value propositions to a focus on the company purpose.  Many companies have eschewed a hard core sales- and shareholder-driven mission in favor of one which emphasizes a nobler purpose.  Case in point:  Last month, Ad Age recapped the annual Association of National Advertisers conference with the headline “Purpose-Driven Marketing All the Rage at ANA.”

But to emphasize a company’s purpose over its business proposition neglects the fundamental driver of business – filling a customer need well.  Smart companies understand that it isn’t an “either/or” – it’s a “both/and.”  They must offer value and operate with values.

So they base their brand platforms on both the unique value they deliver to customers and the unique way they do business which reflects their values and purpose.  They are as rigorous as about what they do as how they do it.

2. experience channels
A key component of any business model is distribution channels.  Traditionally businesses have been designed around delivering goods and services to customers through channels – whether through retailers, wholesalers, distributors, or more recently direct channels.

But the different ways customers do business with companies is growing explosively – mobile, click-and-pick-up, co-ops and buying collectives, etc.  And the way customers are using these channels is also changing.  In addition to researching and making purchases, they’re comparing, sharing, collaborating on designs, customizing, giving feedback, subscribing, and exchanging.

Leading companies are changing the way they think about, develop, and use channels.  They’re making them open, flexible, and engaging two-way exchanges.  And they’re partnering with suppliers, media, affiliate, and customers themselves to offer differentiated and compelling customer experiences through them.  No longer a simple distribution point, a channel is an experience.

3. customer engagement measurement
While business gurus have been preaching the importance of customer engagement for years, few companies have embraced it as the primary way of thinking about and valuing their customers.  Most are stuck in the mindset of customer acquisition and retention – how can they get more customers?  And, once they “have” them, how can they keep them?

The reality is that companies no longer “acquire” customers because today’s customers can’t be owned.  In this age of access, very few monopolies — even perceived ones – still exist.  Customers often use multiple brands in a single category, even in B2B markets.  And customer loyalty may be fostered but the bonds of loyalty are no match against deep-discounting, breakthrough innovation, and simple customer wanderlust.

Companies wanting a more accurate and appropriate measure of their customer efforts look beyond customer acquisition and retention to customer engagement. They quantify and track the extent to which customers are engaged with the brand — in terms of depth (emotional commitment), breadth (range of products, services, touchpoints), and length (amount of time). They use these measurements to develop and optimize their customer strategies and to track the true health of the business.

4. advocate relations
Leading companies are also challenging the notion of media and public relations. After all, the lines between traditional media and social media have become blurred and an influential blogger has been proven to be able ignite or crush a story more powerfully than many reporters.

Plus communicating to the broader public is important to only the largest, mass brands. For all others, targeting interested parties and influencers is more efficient and effective.  Developing relationships with the select people who will spread the word on the company’s behalf is far more productive than reaching out to all those who can.

So instead of media relations and public relations, companies on the forefront of communications are working on advocate relations.  Advocates are bloggers, experts, social mavens, and other thought leaders who wield strong influence within the company’s target audience.  Like journalists, advocates are proactively enrolled to communicate messages to the broader audience without compromising their integrity – but unlike journalists, they can be openly biased in their communication of that message, praising a company or a product which resonates with them.

That’s why advocate relations is becoming a priority.

5. content supply chain
Several of these ideas speak to the growing importance of content.  Twitter streams, mobile applications, e-newsletters, online videos – these new communications are as valuable to customers as a company’s products and services.  They’re the way companies do customer service, sales and user support, corporate news and information, public education, community relations – oh, and yes, promotional marketing.

But content has clearly become more than a marketing function — content has become a product in and of itself.

In fact, content development has become a core competency for leading companies.  They’re investing in the production and coordination of content development to ensure its quality and consistency.  And they ensure they have the process and systems in place to produce content efficiently.  They have developed and actively manage a content supply chain.

As these five ideas demonstrate, business as we know it is changing. Companies can either lead the change or follow it.  Thinking differently and challenging the norms have always been the hallmarks of leading companies.

All the hubbub surrounding Chevrolet’s new tagline, “Runs Deep,” is a bit puzzling to me.

In my mind, a tagline is like any other creative expression.  And evaluation of any creativity is highly subjective.

So it’s no wonder that some people like Justin Hyde call “Chevy Runs Deep” “the worst ad slogan ever,” and on USAToday’s site Fred Meyer says “’Chevy Runs Deep’ sounds a little like Chevrolet makes torpedoes”;  while a commenter on one of the many articles and blogpost about the line named Syke counters “A bit about ‘we’ve been here for years, and we’re going to continue to be here’ doesn’t hurt.”  And others have even chimed in with their own suggestions, including “You had Chevy’s back, now we’ve got yours” from commenter Robert Walter.

In a world where it seems everyone is a frustrated copywriter, taglines make good fodder for people’s opinions – and that’s simply what they are – opinions.

A few months ago Forbes published a list of what it called the “Best-Loved Advertising Taglines.”  To create the list, it tapped a group of 10 CMOs and advertising experts, including Barry Judge, chief marketing officer of Best Buy; Michael Mendenhall, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Hewlett-Packard, and Gerry Rubin of advertising and marketing agency Rubin, Postaer and Associates.

The article didn’t specify the criteria by which the panel made their picks, so I suspect it was quite a subjective exercise.  But no matter, the list they compiled included a line-up few could argue with:

I was curious to see if there were any characteristics or unifying themes which distinguished these taglines, so I ran a couple of different analyses:

• industry category – I categorized the lines by company industry, thinking that categories which were used more universally might have taglines with greater appeal.  But what I found was a broad range of categories – everything from automotive to technology to food, and even a corporate line (GE’s).  So it doesn’t appear that category type correlates with great taglines.
• type of appeal – Then I thought perhaps that the type of the appeal, or the message strategy, might have something to do with it.  So I classified each line by whether it was a message about general product or service quality, or whether the message distinguished the product in some other way, or whether it was an emotional appeal (there was also an “other” category into which the PSAs and a couple of other lines fell.)  But again, I found no pattern.  Ten of the lines were emotional appeals but the rest fell into the other categories.  So no meaningful conclusion from this perspective.
• subject – Finally I looked at whether the tagline was a statement about the brand (e.g., Avis’ “We Try Harder”) or one about the customer (e.g., Virginia Slims’ “You’ve Come a Long Way Baby).  Fourteen out of the 25 were “about us” statements; 11 were “about you” – so this analysis was inconclusive as well.

What this all tells me is there are no clear rules for creating effective taglines.  And what makes a great tagline is more art than science.

That’s not to say strategy isn’t important.  Obviously taglines like any brand communication must emanate from the brand platform and align with the communication objectives.  But how that strategy is expressed is a creative judgment – just as how well the tagline is liked is a creative judgment as well.

Which brings me back to the commentary on “Runs Deep.”  I count all the comments as  entertainment but nothing more than that.  And I hope the folks at Chevrolet do the same.  Gap’s recent logo shenanigans demonstrate the consequences of crowd-sourcing creative (see great this POV on the Gap logo retraction.)

related posts:

• what at&t could learn from mcdonald’s
• would “just do it” still cut it?

Last week Ad Age announced that Anheuser-Busch InBev is holding an online contest in China in which consumers can pitch ideas for a Budweiser TV spot which will run during next year’s Chinese New Year.  The only brief to the aspiring ad-makers:  the commercial must include ants (a recurring theme for the brand’s Chinese New Year ads.)  I’m liking this idea as much as I did when these so-called “user-“generated content first emerged as an advertising approach a few years ago – which is to say, not much. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against engaging consumers in conversations about brands as a way of stimulating word of mouth.  And surely content that brand fans create can be powerful expressions of the brand.

What concerns me is established brands actively soliciting “user-“generated commercials in widely publicized contests.  A few years ago I wrote a couple of pieces explaining my concerns about and words of caution for such an approach (one published by brandchannel.com; the other by imediaconnection).  Here is a recap of my main points:

•    lack of brand consistency. Branding 101 says brand strength is developed by expressing and delivering the brand promise consistently across all touchpoints and over time. A clear, specific strategic brief is the tool that delivers such consistency.  When a marketer invites different people to create ads without such a brief, isn’t brand inconsistency sure to result?  And just so we’re clear, I don’t think requiring the use of ants counts as ensuring brand consistency.

•    not demonstrating brand leadership.  The TV ads everyone points to as having been the most disruptive, and therefore the most successful, are ones that represent the thought leadership of the brand. Think Apple’s 1984 commercial and Nike’s original Just Do It campaign (p.s., if you know where i can find this online, please let me know). No consumer, no matter how talented or cool or brand fanatical, would have ever come up with those ads.

This is because consumers only know what they know at the moment—e.g., they know why they like a product—but they don’t know the vision of the brand. They don’t know the company’s dreams and aspirations for the brand, and so they lack the insight and foresight to realize an ad’s full potential. Their ads may be entertaining, but they won’t further brand leadership

•    missed opportunity to foster internal brand integration and alignment through the creative development process.  I fear ad contests cheat the companies that run them. Part of the benefit of the creative development process is the internal discipline it requires and the unity it creates. A team that takes the time to develop a campaign (to do the hard work of distilling down everything that could possibly be said about a brand into a simple, single message) and to search for a way of expressing the message that is worthy of the brand is all the better for it.

The debates and trade-offs inherent in the creative process result in a clarity on and commitment to the brand. This clear, consistent, common understanding of the brand serves the company well in everything else it does. Companies that side step this valuable process and simply screen consumers’ ads like judges of a beauty contest are cheating themselves (and all their stakeholders, including customers) out of the critical benefits of internal brand integration and alignment.

•    not real consumer engagement.  The ads that win these contests and get exposure are rarely created by regular users of the product. They’re made by aspiring filmmakers and “pro-sumers” looking for their lucky break. Case in point: the Doritos contest winner whose spot aired during the 2007 Super Bowl is not a consumer. He is a partner at a firm that specializes in creative video production.  According to Doritos’ website, his firm was “looking for any opportunity to launch the company into the public eye.”

This last point actually leads to my overarching point of view about “user”-generated ad contests.  I believe consumer-generated content is most effective when it happens organically – that is, when real brand users feel so strongly about a brand that they take the initiative to create something which expresses their feelings and then share it with their friends and, sometimes, the world.  The authenticity of such content makes it a much more effective promotion for the brand.

Do you disagree?  Please share your point of view.

related posts:

• my super bowl was filled with guacamole
• creative brief template

Next week I’m speaking at the Digital Symposium at the Westin New York on “Using Internet Technologies to Operationalize Your Brand.”

The basis of my talk is the difference between expressing your brand and operationalizing it.

Most of the buzz about new internet technologies is about expressing your brand — that is, using new technologies and innovative techniques to communicate with consumers about your brand.  Groundbreaking initiatives like bud.tv fall into this category — as do engaging campaigns like last year’s Doritos Super Bowl one (remember they solicited entries from unknown music artists and invited the public to vote for their favorite who ended up starring in a spot during the big game).

These are compelling ways to express the brand but they differ from operationalizing the brand.  The dictionary defines operationalize as ”to put into operation, start working.”

To operationalize a brand is to use it — to drive your business with it and develop an organizational system for delivering brand values and attributes.  One company that uses new internet technologies to operationalize its brand is eBags.

eBags is the world’s leading online retailer of luggage, handbags, business cases, backpacks etc.   They’ve experienced 30% annual growth year after year for the eight years –-  and they’ve been named “Website of the Year“ five times by Multichannel Merchant Awards.  I had the pleasure of working with the company last year.

The eBags brand platform is based on the idea that eBags is your “perfect bag” expert –- meaning they help you find the absolutely perfect bag for you.

Instead of spending a huge marketing budget on a brand campaign that says to people their brand stands for being your perfect bag expert, they channel most of their resources into being your perfect bag expert.  For example, they have 1.5MM customer reviews and testimonials on their site so buyers can know every possible thing about a bag before they buy it.  Their bag finder employs sophisticated filtering technology to make personalized recommendations -– e.g., put in the laptop model you have or the dimensions and it lists all the bags that your laptop will fit it.  You can share, digg, RSS, and comment on most of the content on their site.

eBags demonstrates the power of internet technologies to do more than express your brand.  Certainly a brand is strengthened by what you say (what and how you communicate with customers) –- but it is primarily what you do (what and how you provide to them) that drives value creation.

I hope my talk next week will help people undertake efforts to operationalize their brands.  If you’re interested in getting a summary of my presentation, just shoot me an email — mail at deniseleeyohn dot com.

NY Times’ Stuart Elliot recently reported about dueling efforts between Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s to lure back reluctant shoppers.

Saks is expanding the availability of video clips on its website saks.com, offering a virtual version of its catalog.  Bloomingdale’s, has launched a new music-oriented campaign in its advertising and will feature live music performances in store.  The two approaches provide a great contrast between developing a brand value delivery system (Saks) and simply developing creative brand expression (Bloomingdale’s).

Saks’ new video clips allow viewers to engage with and better understand its products — how they look on a live model (as is the case in videos for new designers’ wares) or how they work (as is the case for beauty care products.)  As such, they are providing additional value to customers and increasing their brand equity.  Denise Incandela, president of the Saks Direct unit, explains, “For luxury goods, there’s an expectation of a higher level of service,” she added. “This is a way we’re trying to accommodate that.”  What Saks has done is an example of a brand delivery system — the identification, prioritization, and implementation of programs and initiatives to deliver the brand (in this case, luxurious service) through a core operating system.

In contrast, Bloomingdale’s new effort seems nothing more than a cool ad campaign.  Although associating  with the likes of Joshua Bell or Wyclef Jean may make the brand seem hipper, the retailer isn’t using its brand to drive its business forward.  And while some may argue that the live music performances will enhance the brand experience, I don’t think the lack of a cool shopping experience is what is keeping people away from luxury retail.  These days, I think people are concerned about making smarter choices and getting more value.

Certainly a brand is strengthened by what you say (what and how you communicate with customers) –- but it is primarily what you do (what and how you provide to them) that drives value creation.  This is what I mean by “brand as business” –- brand as business is a management approach that involves the deliberate and systematic management of the business around the brand.

Saks gets “brand as business.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, Jerry Seinfeld has signed on as pitchman for Microsoft’s Vista.  The $10MM deal is reportedly part of a $300MM campaign from Microsoft to counteract the damage to Microsoft’s image resulting from Apple’s “Mac vs. PC” ads that trash Vista.

The news has set the blogosphere ablaze with criticism.  Gawker.com says “using Seinfeld humor in ads was already considered tired three years ago.”  BusinessWeek’s David Kiley questions the logic of the move, pointing out that in his sitcom Seinfeld always had a Mac on his desk.

Timing is the issue for Bob Williams, CEO of Burns Entertainment and Sports Marketing, the company behind such great brand/celebrity match ups as Jenny Craig & Kirstie Alley and Hanes & Michael Jordan.  He remarks, “Having Jerry Seinfeld promote Vista now is a curious move.  If industry reports are correct and Windows 7 is going to be out early next year, why spend $10MM to promote Vista now?”

The deal doesn’t make sense from a brand perspective either.  I won’t debate whether or not Seinfeld can make Microsoft Vista seem cool — that isn’t their problem.  Microsoft isn’t cool and that’s OK.  What people need to know is that Vista works.  A Google search on the phrase “Vista sucks” delivered 230,000 results — the videos and blog posts make it clear that people want to use Vista, but they’re encountering serious and numerous problems doing so.

So Microsoft first needs to fix the product — then it should commission a campaign to convince people that it has.  Regardless of star power, even the most creative advertising is going to ring hollow if the product doesn’t live up to its promise.

But even assuming Microsoft does indeed clean up Vista, I’m not sure Seinfeld is the right association for the brand.  After all, he played a skeptical, glass-is-half-empty kvetcher for 9 years — not quite the type of positive image equity Microsoft needs to derive from a spokesperson.  Perhaps the only way to properly use Seinfeld in ads would be for him to issue challenges to Microsoft to prove that Vista works — and for Vista to step up to the plate and prove its worthiness of his esteem (a la, is Vista “Seinfeld-worthy?”)

From what is being said about the ads, however, it seems they intend to stress how Vista “breaks down barriers that prevent people and ideas from connecting.”  So I guess we’ll just have to add this campaign to the long list of efforts by companies that create a huge gap between what their brand says and what it really does.

Tonight marks the beginning of the Olympics but we’ve been seeing Olympic-related advertising for several weeks now (some examples: adidas ad ; McDonald’s ad)

What results can marketers expect from the collective $1BB in media spend they dished out on Olympic ads? As with all high profile media (e.g., Superbowl ads, billboards in Times Square), advertising during the Olympics…

Is effective at:

- generating brand awareness – increasing the number of people who have heard of the brand

- making the brand salient – making the brand stand out in people’s minds

- producing good will - generating positive feelings toward the company

Is less effective at:

- differentiating the brand – making the brand stand for something distinct

- communicating specific messaging – making a specific point about a product/service

- triggering a purchase – getting people to buy

Therefore for advertisers with Olympic aspirations, I recommend they use spots that skew toward the “entertain” end of the “entertain-inform” continuum of advertising – likeability should be a key criteria for the creative. And it should be only one element of the marketing communications mix, with other media in the mix serving to drive people through the purchase funnel.

I’m curious — which Olympic ads do you think are effective? do they seem to follow these rule of thumbs?

In preparing to launch my blog, I researched a lot of existing ones to get a sense of what works and what doesn’t.  As a brand person, I was particularly interested in whether or not brands themselves had blogs.  I looked at a sampling of the brands from BusinessWeek’s list of top 10 global brands — here’s what I found:

Coke has Coca-Cola Conversations, a blog moderated by Phil Mooney who has been the historian/archivist for the company for 30 years.  The blog started in January of this year and focused primarily on Coke history and trivia – recent posts include “When Coke Bottling Began” (1899, in case you’re wondering) and “Urban legends, Coca-Cola and the Pharaohs.”

There are about a million blogs about Microsoft – but none of them, it seems, are what I would consider a brand blog.  I’m told Robert Scoble became famous with his blog for the Seattle firm, so perhaps his was more of what I expected, but that was before my time in the blogosphere.  Now there’s Todd Bishop’s Microsoft blog, a Seattle reporter’s coverage of the company; Microsoft Community Blogs, which is a collection of blogs by Microsoft employees about their various products and technologies; and Microsoftblog, the Unofficial Pro Microsoft blog, written by folks who are “in Microsoft’s pocket” (their words, not mine.)

McDonald’s has opted to go the podcast route.  Most of their recent podcasts are corporate in nature (earnings announcements, analyst calls, etc.), but they have a series called “The McDonald’s You Didn’t Know” which features insider stories about the company.

The Disney Blog is a blog “by fans, for fans” of the happiest place on earth.  It clearly states it is in no way affiliated with the company but the content is pretty much a comprehensive resource for the brand.  Now 4 years old, the blog promotes new releases from Disney’s production companies, profiles Disney Imagineers (creative staffers), and comments on various experiences people have had with Disney.

All in all, I can’t say I was overly impressed with the results of my big brand blog investigation.  I wonder why companies haven’t taken advantage of what seems like a great way to engage the public with what they’re brand is all about.  Perhaps smaller, more interesting brands are more into blogs – stay tuned for that investigation.