Is social media a new phenomenon, or one that’s been around for centuries and is simply being fueled and shaped by the latest technological developments?  In today’s interview, Jonathan Salem Baskin offers his point of view.

Jonathan is a global brand strategist, leading a global network of partner companies in the Baskinbrand Alliance and managing North American business for the global marketing consultancy Futurelab.  He’s also an author, having written the book Branding Only Works on Cattle, as well as the newly-published book, Histories of Social Media.

In Histories of Social Media, Jonathan analyzes two thousand years of history to uncover ideas and tips for today’s work with social media. Reading it is an interesting, provocative, and sometimes humorous “back to the future” kind of experience.

You can learn more about the book and its companion blog through the website www.historiesofsocialmedia.com and you can learn more about and contact Jonathan through his website jonathansalembaskin.com .

Take a listen and let me know what you think.

related interviews:

• john gerzema on how to connect with today’s consumer
• andy beal on the social web and brand building
• scott goodson on cultural movements

Brand value is all the buzz these days, thanks to the recent release of Interbrand’s Best Global Brands report.  I preempted the action with a post a few weeks ago called “The Problem with Brand Valuation.”  In it I took issue with a specific aspect of most valuation methodologies — a factor to account for the impact of brand on purchase decision which gets applied on a category basis to each company’s market value.

This is just a quick follow-up to pass along 2 additional perspectives that I thought you might find interesting:

1.  2010 Best Global Brands – The Stock Market & Risk — a post on the blog of digital agency Sparxoo by David Capece.  The piece does a deep dive into the market performance of the “best” brands to answer some really important questions about the real, uh, value of brand valuation:

• Do changes in brand value predict changes in stock value, or merely reflect information that is already priced in?   Apparently they have in all of the past 10 years except 2010.
• Do the brands with the strongest momentum hold up in recessions? The answer to this question is a little more involved:  Yes, the largest brands tend to retain their brand value over time.  But it also appears that those brands that had the strongest momentum leading up to a peak are the very ones which performed the poorest immediately into the recession.
• Can the Best Global Brands report provide insight into the broader market? David makes some really interesting observations about what the relationship between past brand performance and value indicates about the current market.

Check out the entire post — it’s really informative.

2.  Interbrand’s Rankings Are Nonsense — a post by brand strategist, author, and speaker Jonathan Salem Baskin.

While I have to respectfully disagree with some of Jonathan’s more provocative statements like “brands don’t exist” and “there are no brands, just constant acts of branding,” the post offers up a very compelling alternative model for measuring brand value.  It incorporates measures like:

• efficiency — a company’s ability to create things not just faster, but more economically than lesser-known names
• risk — a company’s ability to produce lower insurance exposure and higher business performance expectations, and
• sustainability – a company’s ability to endure a product failure, corporate crime, or other negative impact.

I find a lot of merit in this way of thinking about brand value.

I hope you get as much out of reading different perspectives on brand valuation as I do.  Please share the resources you have on the topic on the comments here!

related posts:

• the problem with brand valuation
• best global brands dos and don’ts
• brand value creation — financial

Now that summer is officially here, I wanted to take a look back at the past 6 months and see what kinds of conversations had been sparked by brand as business bites. The following are the top posts from each month in terms of number of re-tweets, comments, or emails they generated – I’ve also included some of the commentary.  I’d definitely like to hear more, so please take a look and then add your voice to the conversation by clicking on the “comments” link below.

January

Brand impact in 2010 – I started off the year with a post of three key areas that I predicted brands would have an immediate and significant impact – M&As, social media and networking, and workforce engagement.  Apparently this last point resonated with quite a few folks – including:

Jacco DeBruin:  Great points and couldn’t agree more. Especially the “workforce engagement” is often undervalued but essential since it is all about delivering and exceeding (high) expectations in this transparent era. Happy new year!

Ray Hartjen:  Interesting thought on workforce engagement, and really important for companies and employees to fully understand and embrace. After all, the brand is really nothing more than a reflection of the people of an organization, both past and present. Good post, DLY.

February

The post, in csr, nike just does it, praised Nike for its Corporate Responsibility Report FY07-09.  My read of the extensive report led me to believe Nike is giving CSR more than lip service.

Mark Anderson agreed:  As a prior VP/GM of NIKE Swim and NIKE Inneractives (intimates – Brandy Chastaine – world cup), I can tell you that NIKE practices what they preach and they were on the sustainability bandwagon way before it was the popular thing to do!  They did it a long time ago because it was the right thing to do – not because it would make them look like a participant to their consumers.  NIKE doesn’t just promote sustainability issues – they invest in it – considering it their responsibility and they employees are inspired by the commitment that they witness day in and day out.

Jonathan Salem Baskin didn’t:… I still don’t buy it (it’s still marketing hype). The reality of its business model is 1. Producing products in Third World factories is cheaper than doing so in factories closer to the markets it serves…If Nike cared about doing the right thing it would make gym shoes in Maine (or something), but that would never happen. 2. Shipping products around the world, which is probably one of the most environmentally wasteful/damaging activities any company can do… 3. No number of partnerships with special interest or single-issue pressure groups erases the simple fact that doing the right thing is about business practice, not how Nike chooses to narrate it….

And Tom Asacker left the cryptic comment:  Reality is the name we give to our disappointments.

March

Having completed an extensive retail audit for one of my clients, I wrote a post to share my thoughts on six best practices in retail.   I wrote about great retailers like Wegmans and The Container Store which have distinctive brand personalities, offer 2.0 cross-channel shopping experiences, and reflect strong organizational culture and values.  It got bounced around the Twittersphere a bit, thanks in part to John Moore.

It prompted Marc Rullo to ask:  While the retailer, any retailer is a brand destination unto itself, how does the assorted brands within that retailer (brand destination) fair?…Once upon a time a retailer was defined by the brands they assorted and the expertise they provided to support those brands to the end user.  Then the value of retailers brand (differentiation) and their house brand became much more paramount based on volume and obvious margin opportunities compared to historically established recognized brands with less direct margin opportunities.   These are elements of the bundle of attributes as well…..

Janet Morgenstern Passani commented:  Enjoyed your retailer post. IKEA’s out-of-box campaigns inspire consumers to be bold w/ their purchases. http://bit.ly/9Klpi1

April

Marketing myopia was a post I wrote after reading an op-ed written by Larry Light, marketing guru and former McDonald’s CMO.  Larry had argued that marketing “needs to assert its rightful role making it the central force of brand-business management.” I questioned if the issue is whether marketers should try to increase the marketing function in the organization — or whether they should try to increase the marketing capability of the entire organization.

Craig Hoffman wrote a couple of thoughtful responses – excerpts:  I’m a firm believer in making the marketing pervasive in an organization!  It only helps spread the message and reinforce the benefits of buying a product if everyone who comes in contact with the company gets a similar feeling… its up to management to keep the focus in the right place.  I think management has a role to create a belief for all employees about their company that makes them want to “sell” their company from all angles…I think companies who get this right will be more successful at generating and sustaining revenues with stronger margins, allowing for greater possible profits to retain!  Companies that “live their brand” come to mind – Google, Apple, Gore, Lululemon all come to mind as examples.

Ric Brockmeier added:  Well thought argument Denise. It’s critical for companies 2 see that they must be marketing driven not just have a mkt dept

Pierre Loic-Assayag offered a different perspective:  Marketers see the future of their contribution being jeopardized, squeezed between Executive Management slashing budgets and customers much more vocal and opinionated about “owning” the brands they care about.  As a recovering marketer, my sense is that the marketing function probably has a very bright future but it needs to be fundamentally redefined. Successful marketers won’t be defining the brand they represent but rather make themselves an indispensable resource to fans and brand advocates who will be the ones shaping the brand and probably products/services.  Twitter, Harley Davidson, Trader Joe’s are some very interesting examples of fans taking over brands and very skillful marketers trading control for greater brand equity.  Food for thought…

May

In May, Rich Thomaselli from Advertising Age called me for some comments for an article he was writing, “If Consumer Is Your Agency, It’s Time for a Review.” The piece turned out to be a great analysis of how the use of John Q. Public to develop ads has “jumped the shark” (as Rich refers to it).   It sparked a lot of commentary on AdAge’s site:

Richard Todd Aguayo wrote:  Give a million people a shot at making a hole in one, you’ll surely have a winner. That doesn’t mean you bet on that winner to win the Masters.  Professionals are called such for a reason.

Carl Hartman agreed:  Crowd sourcing is the same as Craig’s List or any of the sites that cater to freelancers. It is bottom feeders looking for a great deal, without regard to the quality of the message. Crowd sourcing is like using a shot gun to shoot down a jet flying at 30,000 feet. – Rarely, you’ll hit something. Usually a bird or one of Dick Cheney’s friends – but it won’t be the real target.  Everyone wants it cheap. The cheapest way is always the most expensive. — It is not about cost, it is about value.

Brian McMath dissented:  …Will UGC ever reach the ultra-polished, slick-as-hairgrease production quality that today’s average 30-second TV spot exhibits? Of course not. But why should it? That’s not what it’s for. Contrary to what the author thinks, these people are not out to replace you. UGC is just one more way to get people to engage with a brand, to open up that all-important dialogue with the consumer…

I wrote the consumers as creatives post to explain some of my thoughts further and to pass along the comments which ended up on the editing room floor.

June

Reposition? just do it was a post contrasting two big and juicy brand repositioning projects I’m working on.  I predicted one is going to be successful and the other, not, or at least less so, and explained why.  Essentially it comes down to whether or not the company leadership will decide that taking on such the risk of a significant repositioning is the right thing to do, and if they’re going to do it, to decide to “do it anyway” and to “do it well.”

Mark Gallagher commented:  As always, you make a great point. Fear of change is often the single biggest obstacle preventing companies from reaching their goals. However, what impresses me most about your post is your honesty. Not many consultants would preemptively state that their client was likely to fail. Usually that sort of talk is reserved as an excuse for why the new direction didn’t work, AKA “the client failed to properly implement the strategy.”  Your honesty is as refreshing as your insights.

Thanks for making it a great first half of 2010!

Today I’d like to do a little experiment.  I have an idea for a new brand tool but my thoughts aren’t fully fleshed out.  So I thought I’d use this blogpost as a way of reaching out to like-minded folks who might be interested in refining and fleshing out the idea.  The following post outlines my idea as well as questions and points for feedback.  I hope you will be eager to participate and actually read this as invitation to collaborate on something that could be quite exciting.

Background. I recently attended the Planning-ness conference.  It was a conference for account planners (for those of you who aren’t familiar with what an account planner is:  at advertising agencies, the role of the strategist is usually called an account planner.)  Although I am no longer an account planner and haven’t attended a planning conference in ages, the speaker line-up and workshop format were a draw for me.  The conference was expertly curated by DDB’s Mark Lewis and turned out to be a fantastic opportunity to engage with brand strategists about big ideas.

One of the common themes that arose from the different sessions I attended was the importance of narrative – that is, using story as a method of communicating persuasively.  For example, one of the speakers was a documentary film maker.  As he talked about his process of creating a documentary, it was clear that although the purpose of documentaries is to expose a truth, there is a storyline that is woven through the film that makes the point and enables the film maker to accomplish his objective.

Likewise, we heard speakers from Organizing for America, Obama’s grassroots field organization.  They emphasized the importance of a personal story as a way of connecting with others and enrolling them your movement.

One of the highlights of the conference was the presentation by Rob White and Adrian Ho of Zeus Jones, a new kind of agency based in Minneapolis.  I’ve been a fan of ZJ ever since I found about them earlier this year.  They seem to share a similar approach to me as far as brand-building is concerned.  They call it “modern branding” and they contrast it to “classic branding.”

ZJ explains that, in the past, brand-building was about communicating ideas.  But in the current environment of so much fragmentation in media and competition in products and services, brand-building is about beliefs. Brands are not about a promise, but what a company believes.  And everything that a company does to build its brand is about proving how strong its beliefs are.

They talked about how modern branding is such a sea change from the traditional branding approach that the traditional tools and constructs that brand-builders have used in the past are no longer relevant.  One example is the brand pyramid, which is a strategic framework that is often used to flesh out and dimensionalize the values and attributes of the brand.

Rob and Adrian suggested the pyramid is no longer applicable in modern branding because the brand is less about the attributes that you profess and more about the user experiences that you create.  They asked us to form break-out groups to develop new tools for brand-building in this modern branding world.

The Idea. The idea I have arose from the break-out group that I participated in:  We talked about how to replace the brand pyramid.  Clearly there is still a need to articulate what the brand stands for and how it is positioned, but a static diagram on paper is equally clearly not the answer today.  Because we had spent the prior day and a half talking about the importance of narrative, our group immediately gravitated toward the use of stories as a way of expressing the brand.  Ultimately we came upon the idea of developing a brand documentary.

The break-out group didn’t get to flesh out the idea much beyond a few initial thoughts, but I’m really interested in the potential of a brand documentary as a new brand tool and so I want to outline it further and get your feedback.

A brand documentary would be a film to communicate the brand strategic platform. The objective would be to tell the truth about the brand the way most documentaries seek to tell the truth about a particular issue.  Importantly the documentary would not be your typical brand manifesto video or some other type of inspirational treatment.  It would be truth-oriented and fact-based, as opposed to vision-oriented or an aspirational promise.

This idea leverages something Jonathan Salem Baskin the author of Branding Only Works on Cattle and the Dim Bulb blog talked about recently.  That is, in brand-building today, the approach shouldn’t be to promise something and then hope that you can deliver on it.  Rather, it should be to deliver an extraordinary experience and then narrate what happened.  In that way, a brand documentary would seek to narrate the examples of how the brand is actually experienced.

For example, the film might include clips of actual customers experiencing the brand and show the reactions and interactions that the customers have with the brand.  It also might include excerpts from interviews with people who work for the company who have either done themselves or have witnessed their co-workers or strategic business partners doing something that exemplifies the brand.  Or perhaps the film would chart the history of a particular project or company initiative that advanced the brand platform.  It also might include news items or coverage in the media that discuss what the brand is doing.

All of these clips would be assembled into a documentary-style film that then would be used as a tool by all brand stakeholders to use to enhance their brand understanding.  It would probably be approximately 10-15 minutes so that it is accessible and digestible to all who would use it.  The role of the tool would be similar to the brand pyramids of the past, but the depth and richness and most importantly the reality of the brand is what would be captured in a brand documentary.

Feedback. So the feedback I’m looking for is:

1.    What do you think of this idea generally? Is this on the right track?  Do you think that this is an improvement to a current approach (whether that be brand pyramid or some other tool that is used to enhance brand understanding among stakeholders)?

2.    Do you have any ideas to improve the idea or to build it out further to make it an even stronger tool?

3.    Also what other types of content should be included in a brand documentary?

4.    Finally, if we were to create one of these brand documentaries as a test, what resources would you recommend — specifically:

• people who would be interested in working on this type of project (film makers, editors, writers, etc.)
• examples of documentaries or films that would inform our understanding of how to do this kind of project well
• potential clients who would be interested in experimenting with this brand tool for mutual benefit in a shared cost relationship

I really hope that you will take the time to give input on this.  I open this up as an invitation for anyone who wants to participate and I am sure that the idea will only get stronger because of it.   Thanks — and I’m listening!

This is a continuation of the debrief from the Brand Managecamp conference.  In my last post, I relayed insights about Innovation from the “elite conference on branding” that I attended in Las Vegas last week.   Today I’m covering the 2 remaining themes that arose – both fall under the category of “stuff that matters”:  Substance (meaning, mission, authenticity, integrity) and Results (ROI, accountability, behavior, reality).

Substance
In an age when “branding” is often associated with nifty social media campaigns and cool logo designs, it was refreshing to hear many of the conference speakers emphasize the Substance of brand development:

•    John Gerzema, Chief Insights Officer of Y&R and author of The Brand Bubble, explained emerging cultural values that call for more substantive management approaches.  For example, the rising emphasis on ethics and fair play requires a consumer strategy rooted in empathy and respect.  Therefore the management principle is to deliver both value and values.  John pointed to BMW which has adopted a strategy of “design in the context of modesty” and GoreTex which operates a very flat organization – both are producing products that are more in line with today’s consumers’ expectations of authenticity and integrity.

•    Marketing legend and Kellogg professor Phil Kotler introduced “Marketing 3.0” aka Value-Based Marketing and the following grid that outlines how a company engages customers on all levels (mind, heart, and spirit) through its mission, vision, and values.

He used S. C. Johnson as an example of a company who has transitioned to this more meaningful approach, wherein their mission of “Contributing to the community well–being as well as sustaining and protecting the environment” is more than the corporate social responsibility platform — the “soul of the company is concerned with the shape of our world,” explained Kotler.

•    Even Guy Kawasaki’s presentation on intrapreneurship touched on the importance of Substance.  Guy advanced the notion that companies that want to make “meaning” are more successful than those that only want to make money.

Results
To complement the qualitative “Substance” topics of the conference, several speakers covered the more quantitative theme of Results – that is, how to measure and manage brand development in order to produce quantifiable results:

•    Kevin Clancy, of Copernicus Marketing Consulting, started things off with a great soundbite:  “The way to reset business is not to change tactics (e.g. going from traditional media to digital); we must change return on marketing investment and change brand strategy.”

•    Jonathan Salem Baskin, author of Branding Only Works on Cattle and the Dim Bulb blog, advocated for a behaviorally-driven approach to brand development.  He spoke of brands as transactions of reality – after all, consumers live in reality and decide what to buy/do/make/etc. in reality – and argued that brand equity should be measured transactionally.

A couple of his 10 Rules for Branding in a Post-Brand World:

• Understand ‘What’ Before ‘Why’ – that is, understand what makes consumers act.  Instead of promoting “virtual consumption” (a term coined by former Coke leader Sergio Zyman to describe a shift in consumer attitude but not behavior), a marketer’s approach should be to understand the things that lead people to buy the product and then to do more of those things.

• Conversation Needs a Purpose — despite all the hype about the conversations that social networking tools make possible, conversations themselves are agnostic – it’s how we use them that makes them valuable.  We should use them to drive behavior – and we should measure their value by how they impact behavior.

Jonathan ended with the call to action: “Doing is the new thinking.”

•    Prophet CEO and Chairman Michael Dunn shared principles for measuring results from his new book, The Marketing Accountability Imperative.  He explained that marketers must establish clear, logical, and increasingly defensible  financial linkages between marketing investment and two outcomes:

• in period sales response – the incremental sales driven by a particular marketing activity

• brand/customer equity impact – a reservoir of perceptions and beliefs to draw from to grow sales and/or to stem a sales decline

As such, we need to:

• measure what matters – which requires us to deeply and fully understand what drives sales

• focus on decision-making – change the conversation between marketing and finance – replace the typical silo-based view of investments with the tools and language to allow all senior players across functions to engage in the debate about marketing investment.

Michael advocated being disciplined about articulating a clear path to value – from marketing  intent to value creating behaviors to present and future business results – and briefly described approaches for doing so.  I’m sure his book provides great advice and instruction on this, so I can’t wait to read it.

Hopefully that gives you a good sampling of the great content from the Brand Managecamp conference.  I encourage you to listen to the podcast below to hear actual excerpts from these presentations.  I’m still processing all that I learned so you’ll probably see the themes of Innovation, Substance, and Results in future posts — but for now, comments are open for feedback and questions.

related post:

• fresh thinking from brand managecamp

Jonathan Salem Baskin recently posted an “open memo to Blockbuster’s agency” (DDB Entertainment) congratulating them on their recent win of the account — and warning them that their client’s CEO plan to “transform the Blockbuster brand into an entertainment provider” is doomed.  Jonathan’s post was so insightful and provocative (what else would you expect from him?!) that it prompted enough thoughts for me to write this post.  So I hope you — and Jonathan — and Jim Keyes (Blockbuster’s CEO) don’t mind me jumping on the bandwagon and offering some of my own points.

Before I do, though, I have to explain that my perspective on Blockbuster (and most any retail business for that matter) is biased — in that I really want to see them succeed.  Despite the plummeting sales experienced by so many retailers lately and the forecast of continued doom and gloom in the sector, I am a big fan of retail — and in this case, I’m referring to good old brick and mortar, foot (not click) traffic retailers.

Why?  Because, despite doing a large percentage of my shopping online, I’ve found there is nothing like soaking in the sights and sounds of a well-designed, stimulating space, being served by salespeople who really know their stuff and want to help you, and experiencing all the innovative products and services that a great retail brand has to offer (please see my post about best practices of retailers.)

So, while Blockbuster’s Keyes may want to evolve the business from a video-rental chain to a full-service media delivery company, I would recommend he put more focus on reinvigorating Blockbuster as a retail brand.

And Keyes knows how to do this — really well.  He signed on to head the movie rental chain after a 21-year stint at 7-11 and is credited with turning around that brand, producing record sales and profits.

Three moves from his 7-11 turnaround playbook might actually serve Blockbuster quite well:

1. 7-11 instituted new retail systems technology to improve product assortment decisions in every store.  In the same way, Blockbuster might tailor its product line to sync with local preferences or to suit the shopping environment — and be able to develop different store concepts to match demand.  For example, a store in the Mall of America might focus on offering up a broad array of family entertainment while a kiosk on a college campus might feature a more eclectic and limited selection.  Doing so would enable Blockbuster to create more impactful customer experiences because they’re more targeted and specialized.  That would certainly fulfill Keyes’ vision of “transforming the relevance to the customer by the way we reach out to them in their daily lives.”
2. At 7-11 Keyes collaborated with manufacturers to develop new products like new Slurpee flavors, taquitos, and special sandwiches.  It’s easy to see how a similar approach with movie studios and content producers could yield custom products like exclusive boxed sets or compilations — thus generating a constant stream of new news that in turn generates regular store traffic.
3. 7-11 developed new in-store electronic services like kiosks for cashing payroll and personal checks, purchasing money orders, and paying bills.  In Blockbuster’s case, perhaps their services could be:

• self-service stations where people can access and pay for content and load it onto their personal electronic devices in one easy, convenient, super high-speed step
• or Genius Bar or Geek Squad-type services provided by experts who troubleshoot problems and offer consultation
• or even concierge-level services for people who want to simply say the word and have their desired content available wherever/whenever they fancy — there are a lot of people, and not just old ones, who want to access all the great content that’s out there but don’t want to deal with the hassles of electronic media delivery
• or maybe all 3?  The point is, despite what seems to be a wholesale migration of content to online, there is still a lot of added-value Blockbuster can deliver in-person through their stores.

So, rather than trying to reinvent their brand, perhaps they should embrace it.   As Jonathan states, “There’s no Blockbuster without the geophysical stores and physical merchandise.”

Importantly, this suggestion doesn’t solely come out of my usual advice to brands to “stick to your knitting” (i.e., remember your brand values and attributes and focus on executing the heck out of them) — it also comes from a true belief that there is still a need for a entertainment content retail concept and that Blockbuster is in the best position to fill it.

So, Blockbuster, I say, keep the faith — don’t stop believing in the power of retail.

This is one in a series of posts about brands have failed to live up to their potential — from Jonathan Salem Baskin, author of Branding Only Works on Cattle, the “dim bulb” blog, and Ad Age/CMO Strategy column.  Jonathan has taught me a lot through his insightful analyses of brands and businesses — and he’s entertained me with his dry wit and occasional rant.  What I appreciate most is that, along with his critique Jonathan provides thought-starters for how to do things better — his post below is no exception.

I’ve asked Jonathan to share his thoughts on a brand disappointment  — he chose Facebook.

From Jonathan:

I know, I know.  You’re already thinking that the Facebook brand is a poster child for the social media movement.  Everybody and their brother (or third-cousin, or that dork from high school who needed to be avoided like the plague) has a page, and probably checks it at least somewhat regularly.  Also, founder Mark Zuckerberg is a famous brand, right?  Like a post-bust market proto-Steve Jobs, or something.

Only I say not really, and so what?

Functionally, Facebook is a glorified address book combined with a chatroom, allowing for incessant updates that create an experience of intrusion that is glowingly labeled ambient awareness.  It’s great, for sure: I post my daily Dim Bulb essays, created a page for my new book, and I occasionally comment on news from a friend (or get a funny little comment on mine).  I was particularly involved right after I first opened my account, trolling my address book and failing memory to reconnect with all of those names from my past that had otherwise slipped from my daily life.  Done.

Now, I’m sort of running out of things to do.

There seems to be a usage curve based on social media functionality, and I’d suggest that it’s the inverse of 1) total participation numbers, and 2) number of functions or add-ons.  It was fun the first or second time I was gifted or poked, but now I just ignore that stuff (and usually de-friend whatever numbnut bothered me).  I’m ambiently aware of the things people I barely know are doing, but for the life of me, I can’t see any reason why I should care.  Awareness is certainly not the same thing as recognition, let alone relevance.

I’m reminded of the fun I once had receiving and then forwarding jokes and funny video links via email.  It was a blast…and then it got old.  For that matter, I remember the thrill of downloading every song I could even think of via Napster.  Finally, I owned that Bay City Rollers song I’d remembered from high school, although I’d lived a productive and fulfilling life without ever hearing it again thereafter.  So I proceeded to continue ignoring it on my hard drive.

I worry the trend with such functionally-based technology tools is to skew heavily to the ambient part, and not so much on the awareness end.  The functional attributes of the Facebook brand could become a part of the background of my day, just ahead of the buzzing I hear from my fridge when I choose to hear it.  What makes the brand unique?  From an functional perspective, not much.

Conceptually, the Facebook brand is even more dicey.

It’s original brand proposition was that it was only open to college students, so it provided some protection from the vast wash of numbnuts who might otherwise want to look at your pictures, or chat with you.  But now it’s available to anyone, or to anything, as corporations can issue pages, run promotions, etc.  Lurkers are still somewhat stimied, but commerce isn’t.  Facebook’s owners are madly trying to figure out how to exploit…er, monetize…its members, just as some members are already working hard to exploit one another.

So is the Facebook brand about being safe, or transparent, or useful, or responsible, or what?  I’d suggest that there are no obvious or meaningful brand attributes that differentiate it, or that preclude it from slipping into the miasmic muddle of purposelessness that embraces MySpace, Second Life, and most other mainstream social networks.  It’s WOW without trolls, or Eve Online without spaceships.

It doesn’t have to be this way, however.

Facebook could adopt and promote specific behaviors that define its brand, and establish a framework for its user participation and future growth.  It’s not a marketing or branding challenge, per se, but rather a business strategy question: how to create, via real commitments and actions, a brand purpose that defied the general trend toward becoming generic (and losing out to the next tool embarking on the same path)?

Here are four starter ideas to illustrate what I mean:

Become a truly user-controlled referral community: Instead of selling commercial conversation to businesses, why not let users own it, a la eBay?  People could recommend things to one another, and receive credibility rankings (or some other accrued value).  Members could opt in or out of such activities.

Provide platforms for multimedia: Go one step past YouTube and merge membership with art, thereby creating user-controlled channels for original music, video, and audio works.  Make Facebook the brand that excludes professional art; make it the tool for everyone else to use.

Give up management authority to the collective: Transform Facebook into one gigantic town hall, and give members the responsibility (not just the opportunity) to vote on activities, allowable tools, functional additions, etc.

Monetize membership, not eyeballs: Figure out ways to make members want to pay (or subscribe) to Facebook, instead of trying to exploit their visits.  Think public television…what would the brand have to deliver/stand for in order for it to be valuable to people?

Fundamentally, though, the business would have to function differently in order to claim and substantiate its branding.  There’s little evidence that such actions are likely.  It’s just too easy to quip about members and time spent on the site, and relegate the issue of finding a sustainable, long-term business proposition to some future inevitability.

But that future is not a guaranteed outcome; in fact, the evidence is that, without real brand behaviors, the Facebook brand proposition has already reached its peak (and perhaps passed it?).

Now is the time for it to put a stake in the virtual firmament, and make the brand stand for something(s) real, different, and meaningful.

Good stuff, Jonathan — thanks for your post.  I’m particularly intrigued by the membership monetization idea – I’ve often thought that the problem with sites like Facebook is that they’re free, thus falling squarely in the category of you get what you pay for.

Jonathan and I would love to hear your feedback — and next Monday:  John Moore offers his thoughts on another brand that has failed to live up to its potential — can’t wait!

What do Lindsay Lohan,

the universal remote,

and the Bush administration

have in common?

They are all examples of things that could have been great but have ended up not living up to their potential.

Many brands have also turned out to be phenomenal disappointments.  The list of brands that fall into the category of wasted potential is longer than the list of Lohan’s missteps — and the reasons behind brand disappointments are as confounding as why someone never developed a universal remote that people could actually use.

But, for this, the inaugural post in a series of brands that have failed to live up to their potential, I’ll offer up a single example — GNC.  Yep, the brand of those 1500-square foot strip mall stores that sell vitamins, supplements, and sport nutrition products.

It’s no secret that demand for products that support a healthy lifestyle has skyrocketed in recent years — global nutrition is now a $228 billion industry.  And GNC Corporation, the company behind the GNC brand, says it’s “dedicated to helping consumers Live Well.”

But, what does GNC stand for?  I mean, I know the letters stand for General Nutrition Center, but what does the brand stand for?  The company has over 4800 retail locations in the U.S. alone, and yet the brand doesn’t seem to offer anything differentiating or compelling.  The shopping experience is unmemorable, the little advertising and promotion they do is generic, and other than a private label product line that offers common products at a discount, their product assortment lacks uniqueness.

It seems drugstores and warehouse clubs have taken over the mainstream vitamin market and Whole Foods has become the outlet of choice for specialty health and wellness products.  Even grocery stores now carry more power bars and protein drink mixes than my local GNC.

This has left GNC without a reason for being.  And it’s such a shame because the company has the history, focus, and distribution to be a great brand.

I’ve invited brand experts to contribute their thoughts on other brands that have failed to live up to their potential.  In the coming weeks, you’ll hear from luminaries like:

Jonathan Salem-Baskin (author of Branding Only Works on Cattle, the “dim bulb” blog, and Ad Age column),

John Moore (former Whole Foods and Starbucks marketer and now of Brand Autopsy fame),

Tom Fishburne (Brand Camp cartoonist and UK Managing Director for method products),

and others.

I’m so looking forward to learning from — and commiserating with — these folks about brands that could be really great.  I’m sure there will be lessons for all of us to learn.  Please check back next Monday for the next in this series on brand disappointments (I’ll still post other stuff during the week.)

Last week’s Ad Age juxtaposed 2 pieces worth noting:

First was an excerpt from David Aaker‘s latest book, “Spanning Silos:  The New CMO Imperative.” Its main thesis was, “Autonomous silos defined by products, countries or functions, often operating in isolation if not in competition with each other, are no longer a viable option…However, that does not mean the answer is to blow them up, or even that the goal of the organization should be to centralize or standardize. Rather, silo-driven problems should be addressed using a variety of approaches, each geared to the context at hand.”

It went on to provide recommendations for addressing silos such as “One route to getting the CEO onboard is to align the role of marketing with that of the CEO’s priority agenda” and “Another route is to use hard numbers to show the relationship between marketing and financial performance.”

While I agree with these points, I found them quite intuitive and was left wondering what the big “a-ha” is.  I am a big fan of Aaker’s (his Managing Brand Equity and Building Strong Brands texts have largely shaped the thinking and practice of my 18+ year career in brands), so I’m taking a risk by questioning what’s the news here.

But I do hope the book provides more prescriptive and specific advice, and gets into what the piece features as its last sentence “The key is to provide the freedom that will empower the silos to hit home runs and give the organization communication and sensing power to identify great marketing when it does occur; and the process power to test the ideas and roll them out.”  Learning how to do that would be great.

The second of the 2 Ad Age pieces was a commentary by Jonathan Salem Baskin, author of “Branding Only Works on Cattle.” I’ve only recently gotten to know Jonathan, but the more I learn his POVs, the more I really value them.

His piece discussed how Steel City Re developed an innovative way to objectively measure their brand’s value.  Their methodology, Jonathan explained, “quantifies ‘reputation’ as the sum of non-balance-sheet assets that can be managed and changed — that is, the business processes that drive quality, affirm sustainability, create security, ensure safety and promote integrity.”  For a company like Steel City Re, their “reputation” functions like their brand, so essentially they’ve developed a forward-looking management tool that helps them assess and manage risks to their brand.

Jonathan ended his column by saying, “Thinking of brand as the outcome of business performance rather than what’s applied to business performance would open up both resources and ideas (and not just nice words and images) that should be applied to the dire challenge of selling stuff.”  Wow — that’s a big idea!

And it’s a great answer to the challenge to “reframe marketing as strategic — a driver of the business strategy instead of a tactical management function” which Aaker issues in his piece.  Thanks, Jonathan, for outlining one way to make “brand as business.”