When The Buzz is Gone

How can you tell when a brand is vital and on the rise? Conversely, how can you tell when a brand and its equity are fading? Buzz. That's right, buzz.

Remember when Amazon.com was first launched? Remember all of the buzz around Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com? And Jeff Bezos still receives a huge amount of buzz. Fortune magazine featured him as Lord Vishnu on its January 2016 cover. Or how about Elon Musk and Tesla Motors? And then there is Donald Trump. Commentators frequently talk about how he sucks all of the oxygen out of any room in which he speaks. And news networks have been blamed for focusing the vast majority of their political news on him. Wegmans gets endless free publicity as towns and municipalities beg to have one of its stores located in their burgs and especially when one does arrive in their communities. Dove received endless free publicity with its "real beauty" campaign. Google continues to receive a lot of buzz, as does YouTube. Apple is still up there as is Samsung and Android.

On the flip side, have you heard anything about these brands lately? OfficeMax. Dress Barn. BlackBerry. Nokia. Volvo. SAAB. LivingSocial. MySpace. Sony. Sears. Radio Shack. A&P. Quiznos. Old Milwaukee. Michelob Light. Quicksilver.

I didn't think so.

Do you want a quick read on the strength of a specific brand? Think about its buzz. Does it have any? Is everyone talking about the brand or have you not heard anyone talk about the brand in years? Perform a Google search on the brand's name. How many entries does it have? Are they recent? Have major publications written substantial stories about the brand? Has it been featured on their covers? Are news networks talking about the brand? Have you talked about the brand today or in the past week?

Buzz is a simple indicator of brand strength.

Breaking Customer Compromises

In 1996, Harvard Business Review published an article entitled "Breaking Compromises, Breakaway Growth." In it they cited many brands that built successful businesses by identifying compromises that resulted in customer frustration and latent customer needs. By studying and then addressing those compromises, those brands were able to achieve industry distinction and noteworthy growth and profitability. 

I think it is time to address that concept again. In every industry, there are dominant business models to which most or all brands subscribe. Those business models sometimes leave something to be desired from a customer perspective. Perhaps, the businesses are only open 9 AM to 5 PM Monday through Friday. Or perhaps the prices are prohibitive for a large number of customers. Or there is no financing readily available for purchases. Or the products are not intuitively easy to use. Maybe quality is not up to par. Or perhaps assembly is time consuming, frustrating or even nearly impossible. Perhaps there are safety or environmental concerns. Maybe the sizes or quantities are not optimized. Maybe the products do not feel good in a tactile sense. Maybe the look or colors are wrong. Maybe the batteries run out too fast. Maybe certain customer uses are not well understood or addressed. Maybe customer or technical support are abysmal. Maybe customers cannot easily find answers to the questions that they need to have answered before they can decide on a specific product or brand.

Brands that carefully listen to customer complaints through online product/brand rating websites, customer service departments, technical support departments, salespeople, customer research and other methods are able to identify areas for improvement. Instead of ignoring areas for improvement because "it is just not possible," "our business model would not allow it," "or production methods cannot support it" or "no one else in the industry is doing it," perhaps the right approach is thinking through how your products and brands can break those customer compromises to create a super solution. 

It great to get positive brand feedback. It is even better to receive negative feedback because that is the feedback that might result in breakthrough solutions and highly differentiated products and brands.

For more information on this topic, read about it in Brand Aid, second edition, available here. 

The Key Elements of Successful Marketing Campaigns

Today, I want to step back and think about marketing at a fundamental level. What are the key elements of a successful marketing campaign?

• Knowing who you are targeting
• Understanding their beliefs, values, attitudes, fears, anxieties, hopes, needs and desires - deep customer insight through marketing research
• Being very clear about the marketing objective(s) - What are you trying to accomplish? What attitudes or behaviors are you trying to encourage? 
• Picking a brand message that is unique, believable and purchase motivating to the target audiences - brand positioning
• Building emotionality into the brand and the message
• Identifying the most effective and efficient ways to reach the target audiences - choosing the right mix of media and communication vehicles
• Building viral qualities into your communications 
• Repeating the message often enough to finally register with the target audiences - frequency - generally people need to hear something seven to twelve times for it to "break through" to them
• Measuring the results of your efforts - Did they accomplish what you hoped they would  accomplish? Did your marketing investment create a positive return on that investment?

Sponsored by Brand Aid, available here.

Repositioning RCI

Part of Wyndham Worldwide, RCI is a global leader in vacation timeshare exchange networks. Interval International is its primary competitor. While smaller than RCI, Interval International had successfully positioned itself as the “quality” vacation timeshare exchange network. RCI retained us to help reposition the RCI brand. After poring over the research, it became clear that the category’s primary benefit is choice. People who invest in timeshare exchange networks do so to expand their choices. It also was clear that RCI offered significantly more choices in more places around the globe. Furthermore, RCI offered many more different types of properties not available through competitors. We helped the company see that “maximum choice” was the benefit to own in the industry and that it had unmatched proof points against this claim. We knew that “maximum choice” would trump “a smaller number of high-quality properties” for most people (and affiliated resorts) when selecting a vacation timeshare exchange network (partner). We also worked with RCI to identify ways to expand the company’s choices and to rectify system and process barriers to offering greater choice.

© 2015 Brad VanAuken

Brand repositioning case study reprinted from Brand Aid, second edition, available here.

Phrases that Sell

In creating brand copy, it is useful to be aware of words and phrases that sell. In a previous blog post, I listed some words that sell. 

Here are some phrases that sell: 

• An exclusive assortment
• From our exclusive collection
• Collector's Edition
• In a class by itself
• A modern classic
• Hand crafted
• Bespoke quality
• Locally grown
• Easy on the eye
• Handles the most difficult and complex situations
• Made to order
• Only from [us]
• A bold new look
• Understated elegance
• Lots of bling
• A refreshingly clean look
• When you want to impress
• Always appropriate
• A [product] you will treasure
• Here's the best part
• Maintenance free
• A dream come true
• A once in a lifetime opportunity
• Unleash your wild side
• Why wait?
• For those of you who just can't wait
• Bring out your inner child
• A delicious gift
• Creating lasting memories
• Perfectly enchanting
• Available 24/7
• It's an original
• A rare piece
• A world apart
• Will stand the test of time
• Be the first
• In a completely different league
• Designed for the sophisticate
• Don't settle for the ordinary
• Putting your mind at ease
• What the insiders are buying
• No two are exactly alike
• Great for everyday wear
• Highly versatile
• Simply joyful
• A true blockbuster
• A turnkey operation
• It is the NEXT thing

Exploring Retail

If you are the manager of a brand that sells at retail, you have likely studied the retail chains that carry your brand in great detail. You may also have access to store and chain-specific category management and shelf management reports. You probably also frequently conduct market and store tours.

But, just in case you are not totally familiar with the retail environments in which your brand sells, I would recommend that you visit the stores in which you brand sells and note each of the following aspects of the retail selling environment:

• Is the store a stand-alone pad store, in a strip shopping center, in an enclosed shopping mall or in some other type of location?
• What are the store's hours?
• At what time are you visiting the store?
• Is there adequate parking? Is the parking lot full, almost empty or somewhere in between?
• What does the store entrance look like? What products are featured there? What signage is there?
• Is music playing in the store? What type of music?
• How big is the store (square footage)?
• What is the general feeling of the store? Is it more like a warehouse or a quaint boutique?
• Is there effective way finding in the store? Are product categories well marked?
• How prominently are prices featured in the store?
• Is there signage indicating price discounts? How prominent are those signs?
• How is the store organized in general? How are the different product categories organized
• What is the store's traffic pattern? Can shoppers explore the store in their own pattern or is the shopping path predetermined (as in Ikea)?
• Are there convenience sections for quick purchase of staple items?
• What products and brands are featured on the end caps?
• What special merchandising sections exist?
• Is there a "manager's favorite" section?
• Where is your brand located in the store? Is it located in more than one place?
• How many skus and shelf facings does your brand have? How does this compare to the competition? 
• How many competitive brands does the store feature?
• Does the store offer its own brand in your category?
• How does your brand's range of products compare to that of the competition?
• How do your brand's prices compare to those of the competition? Are they comparable, higher or lower? Does your brand offer a comparable range of prices or a wider or narrower range of prices?
• Do you offer different sizes than the competition does? What is the reason for this?
• Which products are in the "strike zone" (at eye level)? Which are merchandised up high on the top shelf? Which are merchandised down low on the bottom shelf?
• Do some brands have stand alone merchandising? What are the features of that merchandising?
• Which products and brands are featured in the seasonal aisle? 
• What products and brands are merchandised at the check stands?
• Are your products and brands merchandised adjacent to all of the logical complementary products?
• In how many places in the store are your brand's products merchandised? How does this compare to competitive brands?
• Are your brand's products well-stocked on the shelves?
• Does your brand stand out vis-à-vis competitive brands?
• Is it easy for the consumer to make sense of your brand's range of products and what makes each sku different from the other skus? 
• Are store associates available throughout the store and in your brand's departments/aisles to answer customer questions?
• Overall, do you believe your brand has a strong presence in the store, a weak presence in the store or something in between?
• What one or two actions could be taken to increase your brand's chances of selling more successfully in the store?

For more information on brands and how to successfully manage them, purchase Brand Aid.

Branding and Scarce Commodities

In today's world, time and money are often the scarcest commodities. People try to save time or money or both. Many people do not have enough of either. Others earn and have a lot of money but find time to be what they most lack in their lives. While others may have all of the time in the world but little money. How does this relate to brands and marketing? One must realize that people behave differently depending on what commodity is scarce in their lives.

I have written before about the four generic customer segments - convenience-driven consumers, price-driven consumers, brand loyal consumers and category enthusiasts. Often people are loyal to brands because they know their quality level and can count on them. Always choosing the same brand saves lots of time and effort. So, in a way, this is an approach that values time. Convenience-driven consumers shop for items that they need wherever they can find them regardless of price. While price-driven consumers will typically hunt for the lowest prices and will go out of their way to pay less. Category enthusiasts are less sensitive to time or money because they highly value the category itself and enjoy the time they devote to shopping for new products and brands in the category. However, depending on what is scarce in their lives, category enthusiasts can display some of the behaviors of convenience-driven, and especially price-driven consumers too. 

When you create your brand and establish its pricing and distribution strategies, you should be cognizant of what is scarce in its customer's lives.