Brand Voice

Your brand's voice is comprised of its tone and its word choice among other components. Together with your brand's archetype, personality and visual style, your brand's voice helps you to personify your brand. 

Any or all of these might be components of your brand's voice:

• Tone
• Accent (socio-economic, regional or foreign)
• Young or mature
• Vocabulary (frequently used words and phrases and never used words and phrases, grade level of vocabulary)
• Syntax - the structure of the words and other linguistic elements
• Verbose versus concise (length of sentences, use of parenthetical phrases)
• Use of slang, jargon or buzz phrases
• Use of analogies, metaphors and other figures of speech
• Coining a new phrase unique to the brand
• Sense of humor
• Sonic qualities (including volume, pitch, male versus female)
• Tempo and cadence (lilting?)

When thinking about different brand voices, consider Faulkner versus Steinbeck. Or Alister Cooke (Masterpiece Theatre) versus Tom Bodett (Motel 6: "We'll leave the light on for you."). Consider GEICO's gecko or Ernie the pistachio-loving elephant. Or even consider Columbo the unassuming but shrewd homicide detective with seemingly incoherent circumstantial speech in the television series of the same name.

The following are different tones of voice that you might consider:

• Friendly
• Sincere
• Accessible
• Authoritative
• Sophisticated
• Professional
• Erudite
• Informative
• Wise
• Lively
• Energetic
• Laid back
• Folksy or "down home"
• "Every man" or "every woman"
• Cute
• Quirky
• Soothing
• Soft spoken
• Nurturing
• Aspirational
• Upbeat or optimistic
• Uplifting
• Passionate
• Self-depreciating
• Terse
• Poetic

And following are different tones of voice that you probably want to avoid:

• Arrogant
• Pompous
• Sophomoric
• Pedantic
• Ignorant
• Clueless
• Distracted
• Self-absorbed
• Mean-spirited
• Uncouth
• Impatient
• Ditzy

Sometimes, it is easiest to point to a well-known personality who embodies what you want your brand's voice to be. Perhaps you would use that person as a brand spokesperson or at least as a shorthand for what you want your brand's voice to be.

If you do not have one marketing agency presenting your brand across all media, you should consider  including a detailed description of brand voice as a part of your brand positioning statement. This may include a brand voice dictionary of frequently used words and phrases.

The more you are able to personify your brand in a unique and highly compelling way by defining its archetype, personality, voice and visual style, the more your brand will come to life as if it were a person. If you need more help in this endeavor, contact us about our brand voice (and visual style) worksheet(s). Good luck.

Ten Ways to Successfully Position Your Brand in Overcrowded Markets

Today, brand managers are increasingly at a loss about how to differentiate their brands. In most product and service categories, every unique and purchase motivating position has been claimed by one or more brands. Product and service categories have matured, brand research has gotten sophisticated and competitors have successfully filled all of the brand positioning niches. So what is a brand manager to do to discover a new unique and compelling brand position?

Here are some ideas:

1. Identify, create and own a new "category of one." The Strong National Museum of Play did this by repositioning its brand from a children's museum to the only museum of play. 
2. Through qualitative research, discover one or more compromises all of the brands in the category are making with their consumers and then design a business model and brand to overcome these compromises. CarMax did this vis-a-vis traditional used car dealerships and Uber did this vis-a-vis traditional taxicab companies. 
3. Choose a valued benefit that has never been a part of the category. Apple did this with the introduction of smartphone apps. Southwest Airlines did this by owning "fun."
4. Add an element to the brand that no other competitor in the category has added. Opaque did this. It introduced the concept of dining in the dark. 
5. Make an outrageous version of a traditional product. Check out Loudmouth Golf for wild clothes. 
6. Combine two or more products into one or two or more functions into one product. Victorinox Swiss Army was one of the first to do this with its knives. 
7. Focus on a niche market or on one market segment. Orvis and lululemon do this, as does Lane Bryant. 
8. Create a character that gives the brand a distinctive personality. Kellogg's Tony the Tiger was one of the first, but GEICO's gecko,  Progressive Insurance's Flo and Jamie and Pistachio's elephant, Ernie are also examples of this. 
9. Go left when everyone else is going right. Naomi Klein did this with her No Logo book when everyone else was writing about the power of brands.
10. Use a new material or technology that no one else is using. SmartSolve has created environmentally friendly dissolving paper, pouches, labels, thread, tape and adhesive. 

What do all of these approaches have in common? Out-of-the-box thinking.  None of these brands would have become what they became if their managers had applied linear or incremental thinking. 

If you are interested in this topic, here are some other blog posts that might be of interest to you:

• Branding in Highly Competitive Categories
• Differentiating on the Unexpected
• 50 Ways to Differentiate Your Brand
• 6 Powerful Ways to Differentiate Your Brand
• Sources of Brand Differentiation
• Creating "Category of One" Brands
• Creating "Category of One" Brands
• Breaking Customer Compromises
• Branding Water
• Just for Fun - The Loudmouth Brand

By the way, the Interceptor vehicle pictured above is a car, boat, plane and helicopter all in one, applying idea #6 above.

Brand Personality as a Point of Difference

Southwest Airlines is one of the earlier high profile examples of this. Co-founder and former CEO Herb Keleher, pursued a leadership style based on values, attitudes and culture and created a no frills airline that was fun. He believes in "hiring for attitude and training for skill." He has also said, “A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear.” 

GEICO has its lovable, charming gecko. Which led to more insurance companies trying to create their own personalities through advertising campaigns and their characters, such as Progressive's Flo.

As I recall the brands I have worked with over the years, brand personality has been an important part of several brand positioning projects. Here are some examples of that.

• I worked with a federal credit union whose mantra was "simple, easy, fun." "Fun" was clearly differentiating in their category but we had to define how that personality attribute would play out at each point of customer contact.
• We worked with a watch brand that was a symbol of its wearer's hyper-competence and hyper-confidence. 
• I am currently working with a reinsurance company that is known for having a "sense of humor" because of a previous leader's personality. We may adopt that as a permanent part of that brand's DNA.
• We positioned a health care system as being serious. It's point of difference was that it was a serious place for serious, complicated diseases and injuries. 
• We helped a golf brand take on the personality of a serious, skilled, competent player so that the brand could be worn as a badge by people who were serious about golf.
• I worked with a property management company whose primary point of difference was its friendliness and responsiveness to renter's needs.
• We helped an insurance company adopt a set of values that is based on Christian values, generosity and caring for one another as a community.
• When I was at Hallmark, the company's mission was to help people share their feelings and nurture relationships. We decided the brand's essence was "caring shared."
• I worked with a continuing care retirement community that decided to focus on "family" including the love of family and family relationships.

While brand personality can be the result of a carefully crafted advertising campaign, more often than not, it becomes part of the brand's DNA. It becomes institutionalized and internalized by each employee. It even becomes part of the hiring criteria and performance appraisals. Consider choosing a unique and compelling brand personality as a part of your brand's unique value proposition.

Great Television Ads

While I mostly focus this blog on brand and marketing strategy, today I would like to share some of my favorite television ads. 

The first one that comes to mind is the Chase ad - two confident retirees prepare for their retirement. It has real breakthrough value with its cute pet pig, distinctive music and mod couple. Here it is.

Another set of ads, which are now completed, are Dos Equis' Most Interesting Man in the World commercials. Here, he is embarking on his final adventure. Adios Amigo. Stay thirsty my friends.

And, of course, there are GEICO's gecko ads, like this one here.

Or, there are the whole series of Dove's real beauty ads. This one is entitled Change One Thing. It is about how girls perceive themselves.

When I was at Hallmark, we ran some wonderful ads that we played during Hallmark Hall of Fame programing. While vintage, this one is one of my favorites - Mrs. LaGow's Gift. Notice the signature piano music and its role in setting the tone of the ad.

Nothing beats a well crafted ad that breaks through the clutter, draws one in, involves one emotionally and powerfully makes the key point on behalf of the brand. 

A Brand's Most Important Quality

I have worked with more than one hundred brand leadership teams to carefully craft their brands' personalities as a part of our brand positioning workshops. The four most chosen personality attributes are "innovative," "trustworthy," "reliable" and "responsive." For a full list of most chosen personality attributes, go to this blog post. 

But I would contend that the most important brand personality attribute is "likable." If you like a person or a brand, you are more likely to listen to them. If you like them, you are more likely to do something for them including purchase something from them. The most successful salespeople are likable. Yes, they need to be hard working and competent, but most importantly, they need to be likable. 

Consider the appeal of the Pillsbury Doughboy. How about Tony the Tiger? Consider how likable GEICO's gecko is. Progressive created its own character Flo. And Aflac has its duck. 

A key component of the Southwest Airlines brand is its fun employees. Delta Airlines took a cue from Southwest and created its own fun safety videos. 

Research has shown that a sense of humor/makes me smile/makes me laugh is one of the most important attributes in choosing a life partner. 

Suffice it to say that for your brand to be as successful as it can possibly be, it needs to be likable. Do you know how likable your brand is? What are you doing to insure that your brand is likable? 

Trademark Law

As a brand steward, you must be aware of the laws under which legal protection is available. First, trademark law protects a brand’s identity. That is, it protects names, titles, taglines, slogans, logos, other designs, product shapes, sounds, smells, colors, or any other features that distinguish one source of products or services from another. Trademarks that protect services are often called service marks (“SM”). There are also “collective membership marks” (e.g., Boy Scouts of America) and “certification marks” (e.g., UL approved). Harley-Davidson filed to federally register the sound of its motorcycle engines. Dirt Devil vacuum cleaners are strongly associated with the color red. Geico owns the gecko icon. 

Trademarks, like brands, build in strength over time. The test for trademark infringement is “confusing similarity.” Put another way, if the average consumer believes both products to have come from the same source, there is infringement. Obviously, the more a consumer is familiar with a particular brand, the more defendable its mark. That’s why it behooves a company to do the following:

• Choose a distinctive mark, including a “coined” name. As I mentioned in the chapter on brand identity, brand names range from generic and descriptive to suggestive and arbitrary or fanciful (“coined”). Obviously it takes longer to build meaning for coined names, but they are also more distinctive and easiest to protect legally. Kodak, Xerox, and Exxon fall in that category. Suggestive marks are the next most protectable. Examples include Coppertone, Duracell, and Lestoil. Even common words can be used as trademarks as long as they are not used descriptively. These common words/phrases are also suggestive marks: Amazon (big), Twitter (brief and chatty), and Apple (different, offbeat). Descriptive marks are not protectable unless the brand creates a secondary meaning for the word, such as Weight Watchers, Rollerblade, or Wite-out. Generic marks, such as Shredded Wheat and Super Glue, are not protectable at all.
• Avoid geographic names as a part of your mark—they can be the basis of trademark refusal.
• Register the mark.
• Be consistent in the use of the mark.
• Create strong trade dress (as discussed later in this chapter).
• Widely advertise and distribute its trademarked products.
• Do all of this over a long period of time.

Because the strength of a mark is dependant upon consumers’ familiarity with it, it is much easier for a competitor to neutralize your mark soon after it has been introduced than after it has been in use for a long period of time. Courts use the following tests to determine infringement:

• Strength of the trademark claiming infringement.
• Similarity of the two marks.
• Evidence of consumer confusion.
• Care a consumer takes in comparing products.
• Intent of the organization in using the potentially infringing mark. (Some drugstores and grocery stores use generic brands that emulate a leading brand’s package shape, colors, typestyle, formulation, etc., and display the product side-by-side with the leading brand to imply that there are no differences between the two, encouraging consumers to purchase the lower-priced generic item. In this situation, there is clearly intent to emulate the leading brand and reduce the perceived differentiation and value advantage of that brand, but it is not clear that there is intent to deliberately cause confusion as to source.)
• Relatedness of the two businesses.
• Overlap between communication and distribution channels.

By using the mark in association with your products and services over time, you gain trademark protection. Registering your mark (marks can be registered at the state and federal levels) provides additional protection. Although common law and federal trademark statute protect an unregistered mark, registering your mark transfers the burden of proof to the second comer in challenging a mark’s registration. With federal registration, you can sue infringers in federal court. Also, after five years of registration, the mark becomes incontestable. Federal trademark registrations last ten years and can

be renewed every ten years ad infinitum.

You can acquire trademark rights in one of two ways. To acquire trademark rights based on use in commerce, you must be the first person or organization that uses the mark in conjunction with the products or services for which trademark protection is sought. To acquire the mark base on intent to use, you must apply to  register the mark through the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Before choosing a trademark, first conduct a simple search to weed out marks that are not available. This search can be done online for free (for a list of online resources go to www.brandforward.com). After that, for the remaining candidates, conduct a full search through a law firm specializing in trademark law or through an experienced trademark search firm.

Strong brands run the danger of becoming category descriptors. Always use trademarks as adjectives, not verbs or nouns. If your brand is in danger of becoming a category descriptor, consider talking about your brand in the following way that differentiates the brand from the category. For example: “Jell-O® gelatin,” “Kleenex® facial tissue,” and “Xerox® photocopier.”

Note: I am not a lawyer and this blog post is not legal advice, but rather is meant merely to help you consider the legal issues in brand management. When actually dealing with any specific issues in this area, please consult with lawyers who have an expertise in intellectual property law.

(c) 2016 Brad VanAuken. Reprinted from Brand Aid, second edition.

Sources of Brand Differentiation

Brands benefit from a wide variety of sources of differentiation. While many components can contribute to the differentiation, often there are only one or two dominant ones. For instance, Absolut vodka benefits from its unique bottle shape and the promotion of that unique shape. GEICO insurance benefits from its huge advertising budget and it unique and quirky advertising including its charming gecko character.  On the other hand, Amazon.com benefits from from being one of the first brands to adopt the online retail model, including its very powerful search and browse technologies. Also, the fact that it plows all of its profits back into business improvement. Uber benefits from a breakthrough business model and the technology that supports it, which drives costs down substantially while improving the customer experience. Robert Graham clothing benefits from its bold product designs, coupled with its highly unusual product features (i.e., custom designed Swarovski crystal buttons) and its interesting tagline - Knowledge, Wisdom, Truth. Tesla Motors automobiles benefit from a visionary product concept (all-electric luxury car), supported by leading-edge high quality luxury features and a relentless pursuit of excellence. Opaque restaurants benefit from a unique restaurant concept - dining in the dark.

While all of the benefits listed above might be classified as some combination of functional, emotional, experiential or self-expressive customer benefits, those benefits derive from different sources. In some instances, it is the result of product design, marketing strategy or advertising genius. In others, it is the result of radical new business models or organizational cultures driven toward excellence.

The point of this is that sometimes marketers create the primary source of differentiation, while in many instances it is something that is typically outside of the marketer's control - visionary leadership, business model design, product design, organizational design, the organization's culture, etc. - that leads to the brand's differentiation.

Think about what differentiates your brand. Visionary leadership, disruptive technologies, radical new business models and cultures of unrelenting excellence often can have a much greater impact than what a marketer can control. What do most all of these have in common? They are are based on a design and innovation mentality, whether it applies to business model design, organization design, product design, product packaging design or marketing strategy/tactic/campaign design, there is some level of design and innovation in each of these examples.

Brands and Happiness

One lens through which you can view your brand is, "How does my brand bring happiness to people's lives?" Does your brand make people happy? Does it make their lives easier? Is is surprising or unexpected in some way? Is aesthetically pleasing or beautiful? Is it charming? Is it amusing? Is it funny? Does it help people save time or money? Is it an indulgence? Is it quirky? Is it intuitively easy to use? Does it convey status?

Consider GEICO's gecko. Or Apple's product design. Or Dos Equis' Most Interesting Man in the World. How about iPhone's Siri? Or the scent of a Cinnabon product? Or the anthropomorphic M&M characters? Or the latest Hermès scarf design? Or the feeling of driving a brand new MINI? Or Harley-Davidson bike? Or even the simplicity of Swiffer house cleaning products? Consider the friendliness of your local Starbucks barista. 

How does your brand bring happiness to people's lives?

Taking Risks

Southwest Airlines tried something new when it decided to create an airline based on a new low cost model and employees who were cheerful and funny. Amazon.com took risks when it created an all online mega store. eBay was also an entirely new concept. Industry insiders laughed at GEICO when it began advertising so heavily with a gecko spokesperson. Uber thought out-of-the box when it created its new model for paid vehicular transportation. Wegmans has a history of constantly trying new things and integrating them if they work and abandoning them if they don't. Tesla started a new car company based on the concept of an all electric luxury car. And they decided not to sell through dealerships. CarMax created an entirely new model for selling used cars. Abercrombie & Fitch repositioned itself from a staid century-old upscale sporting goods store to a hip clothing store targeted at the teenage market. 

Not all risks pay off. Saturn was a different kind of car company and a different kind of car but when it got integrated back into GM mainstream, it began to fail. Song Airlines, a Delta Airlines startup, was designed as a lifestyle brand targeting stylish hip professional women and focused on creating a new culture in flying. It started at the worst possible time for airlines, post 9/11.

My point with each of these brands is that wildly successful brands (and some that fail) usually step out of the box, break the industry mold and take risks. As a brand, you cannot win by doing what everyone else in your product categories is doing. 

I can't tell you how many clients have said to me, "But if we do that, we would be taking huge risks. No one else in the industry has ever done that before." I have also heard the following: "We just don't know how to do that." "That is not our area of expertise." "But then we would be entering a new product category." "Our shareholders would not allow that." "That is just too risky. What if we fail?" Gambling establishments are quick to point out that "you can't win if you don't play." The same holds true for brands. If you are unwilling to take any risks, it is almost certain that you will not stand out as a brand. In fact, every single brand that was successful over the history of commerce took a significant number of risks to achieve their success. That is just how it works. 

If you are unwilling to take at least calculated risks, your brand will never achieve the highly successful differentiation you would seek for it.

Is My Brand Boring You?

It has been repeatedly said that brands must be consistent in the execution of their identities and in their personalities and behaviors. That is, they must be predictable and reliable. This makes it easier to encode and decode brands and their primary associations in people's memories.  It also makes brands more trustworthy. After all, who wants a brand that they cannot trust?

Here is the primary problem with this mantra - most people get bored easily. They get bored of the same work tasks, the same household chores, the same weekend routines, the same foods, the same recreational activities, the same brands, the same everything.

So how then does a brand balance the need for consistency with the need to hold someone's interest? Consider GEICO. Remember GEICO's gecko? What an appealing character he was. Charming? Yes. Entertaining? Yes. And, as importantly, a device to get you to pronounce GEICO correctly. 

GEICO could have stayed with its gecko forever because he was working. But, they moved on. They moved on to other similarly amusing approaches to brand communication. No, it is not the gecko, but it is GEICO. Can they reinsert the gecko at any time in the future as often as they want? Sure, why not? Cameo appearances are fun. But, I think GEICO is on to something. Brands must evolve while maintaining their core character if they are to remain interesting and relevant. 

The trick is to determine what must remain consistent so as to maintain brand recognition and not to disappoint customers while also mixing it up so that people do not get bored with and move on from your brand.

I hope you will be able to identify and balance the right mix of consistency and spontaneity/evolution for your brand so that people will recognize it but not get bored by it.

Improving the World Through Brands

Those of us who have been entrusted with creating, growing and leveraging brands have a unique opportunity to contribute to a better world. After all, our decisions have far reaching consequences because our brands generally have very large audiences. If you had the choice of growing your brand through fear or pleasure, which path would you choose? 

I would contend that brands have always been and can increasingly become vehicles for creative expression and ushering beauty into the world. They are also sources of entertainment and a temporary escape from the demands of the day. Further, they can be sources of aspiration and inspiration.

Consider Newman's Own's charitable contributions and Dove's Real Beauty Campaign. Consider Patagonia's environmental ethic. And GEICO's ads are quite entertaining. Those ads have ushered in a whole series of entertaining ads from a variety of insurance companies.

Brands would do well to espouse values and demonstrate qualities that make them admirable. As people increasingly look to brands to serve as self-expression vehicles, brands benefit from embodying nobel qualities and standing for something admirable. 

Consider how you can lift your brand to a higher path to make the world a better place.

Great Advertising

In today's over communicated world in which people are very busy and distracted, often multitasking, advertising needs to be highly entertaining to break through the clutter. After that, it needs to have a very simple message that it quickly and consistently communicates. Only when these two elements exist - (1) entertainment and (2) quick, simple and consistent message - does the brand break through the clutter and build memory triggers and associations.

GIECO does this exceedingly well. GEICO's very succinct and consistent messages:

• GEICO - Fifteen minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.
• If you want to save 15% or more on car insurance, you switch to GEICO. It's what you do.

To see how they have succeeded with this, click here to view some of their more recent highly entertaining ads.

Brands and Memory Structures

An important role of the brand manager is to determine the memory structures associated with the brand so that marketing communications can reinforce and leverage these structures. Also, potentially useful new brand associations can be discovered in the process.

For instance, Bush beans might be associated with summer, picnics, grilling, family and Duke (the dog). Coke might be associated with its bottle shape, the color red, the beach, parties and nightclubs. A pizza brand might be associated with cheese and tomato sauce, family and friends and watching sports on television. Hallmark's greeting cards are associated with holidays, special occasions, family and friends. But they also are associated with candy and flowers among other product categories.

Everyone knows McDonald's arches and Nike's swish. Most people associate Harley-Davidson with the sound of its engine. Many people associate Tesla with Elon Musk and batteries and alternative energy. People associate Cinnabon with the cinnamon scent. Many brands are associated with fond childhood memories or with sex. What is Old Spice associated with? How about Dos Equis? ("Stay thirsty, my friends.") GEICO? 

The trick is to discover all of the items people associate with the brand so that those associations can be reinforced, built upon and used to help people recall the brand associated with not only marketing communication and the brand identity itself, but also with specific relationships, occasions, complimentary products and other memory triggers.

If you have not identified and mapped out your brand's memory structures, you need to do so. it will help with the effectiveness of your advertising and your brand's identity system.