Brands Help Organizations Transcend Product Categories

Have you heard of Smith-Corona? If you are my age or older, you have. If you are 25 or under, you may not have. They made typewriters, a product format that became obsolete with the advent of personal computers.

Kodak was associated with photography and film, but mostly with film and film processing. Canon, Nikon, Olympus and others were better known in the camera space. It was easier for film-based cameras to translate to digital cameras than for film to translate to digital images in people’s minds. Film became obsolete with the advent of digital photography, something that Kodak created. And the decline of film brought about Kodak’s decline. Admittedly, it is easier for a large ship to avoid an iceberg than for Kodak to switch from chemistry-based operations and personnel to digital (software) based operations and personnel. But, what if Kodak had proactively and aggressively sought to broaden its brand’s meaning well beyond film many years ago, not only with marketing communication but also with products, services and other proof points?

I spent 15 years in marketing at Hallmark. While heading up brand management and marketing for Hallmark, my personal goal was to get its management team to view the brand beyond greeting cards to include all forms of maintaining and building personal relationships. We redefined the brand’s essence as “caring shared.” This expanded brand meaning would allow for “just a little something” gifts such as candy and flowers. It would allow for electronic greetings, romantic cruises, experiences as gifts (romantic dinners, balloon rides, spa treatments, etc.) and other new products and services. And, most importantly, it would allow for the brand’s survival and growth as greeting card usage declined. I am not sure how aggressively Hallmark pursued this path, especially after I left the company.  If it had, its revenues would have grown well beyond the $4 billion level that they were at when I left the company. If not, they are likely to have declined.

Defining its essence as “fun family entertainment” has allowed Disney to offer a wide variety of products and services (movies, theme parks, themed cruises, themed communities, etc.) that make sense to the consumer.

I have worked with Bush’s to expand the meaning of their brand beyond “baked beans.” Methodically extending into other types of closely associated products and uses will allow for years of additional growth for them.

Defining your brand as meeting a specific set of customer needs or delivering specific customer benefits or even as living by a certain set of values allows the brand to transcend historical product categories and therefore extend its life indefinitely. Brands don’t have to fade away. They only fade away if they are too closely tied to one or more product categories that may one day prove to be obsolete.

What Do Upscale Consumers Want?

• High quality including choice materials, fine craftsmanship and superior aesthetics
• Outstanding customer service including attentiveness, respect, courtesy and civility
• Exclusivity, rarity and unique privilege of ownership
• Brands that confer status
• History, pedigree and a well told brand story
• Minimized risk

(c) 2014 by Brad VanAuken, excerpted from Brand Aid, second edition, to be published in December

Creating a Robust Brand Identity System

When most marketers think of brand identity systems, they typically think of visual identities – the logo or wordmark, the logo lockups, the color palette (primary, cool, warm, jewel tones, pastels, etc.), the type fonts, the typographic treatments or styling, a consistent image style and the controlled graphic elements. But people should not forget the name itself and the brand’s tagline or slogan. Also, the graphic elements can include specific textures, color blockings, document orientations, styles of photography or artwork and a general feeling (whimsical, professional, warm, avant garde, dreamy, cheerful, serious, juicy, etc.). Some brands make it mandatory that some combination of specific elements always appears with the brand. These elements could even be water or flowers or humans or sunsets or beach scenes.

But many brands look beyond the visual identity in developing their system. Harley-Davidson bikes have a unique sound. Leo Burnett consistently integrated subconsciously recognizable music into the Hallmark Hall of Fame commercials. The music created a sense of tenderness and built to an emotional crescendo. Cinnabon baked goods have a unique scent. And some brands even have unique textures. So brand identity systems can include elements that address every sense organ. But, beyond that, brands can have distinctive voices. With what voice does your brand speak? Is it authoritative? Friendly? Down-home? Eloquent? Affected? Reassuring? Intellectual? Overly familiar? Hip? Who could be a spokesperson for your brand? Alistair Cooke? Wilford Brimley? James Earl Jones? Sally Struthers? Ricardo Montalb’n? Orson Wells? Alan Alda? Or someone else?

The more elements you are able to incorporate into your brand identity system, the more rich, flexible, distinctive and recognizable it can become. Creating a rich integrated system of brand identity elements that is flexible enough to address every conceivable use and situation is not as easy as it may appear to be.  Often systems with a large number of elements can become too rigid. Believe me, this is not an exercise for amateurs. Rely on highly experienced brand identity professionals to help you create the optimal system for your brand.

Brands and Storytelling

Recently, I was drawn in again by a street person’s story. It is not the first time. If the story is good enough, it tugs on your heartstrings. While, as a marketer, I am always leery of being taken in by total fiction, at the same time, if the story is good enough, it doesn’t even matter if it is true. It has entertained me. I give the person some money. Several times a week my wife and I get phone calls from various not-for-profit and political organizations asking for contributions. Again, there are stories. What will happen if they don’t get enough money. What will happen if they do. The telephone solicitors are scripted to paint a compelling picture with words. Don’t religious leaders do the same thing? How many of Jesus’ parables are recounted in the Bible? And there are Hindu and Buddhist and Native American and Taoist and Sufi and Hebrew parables and stories. I can’t think of a religion or a culture that doesn’t have its stories. I even hear stories from people who want to sell me investments, stories of people getting rich. They paint a picture of how I will significantly increase my net worth too if I invest in what they are selling. And how about the stories told by places? Come to our country or city or resort and have this type of experience.

Brands tell stories about their history and their heritage and their founders. They also tell stories about their heroic and other admirable deeds. Many brands like to tell stories that demonstrate their values or their legendary service.

• Every brand story requires the following elements:
• Moral of the story (central premise)
• Hero (protagonist)
• Villain (antagonist)
• Plot (tension/conflict/resolution)
• “Ah ha” moment
• Transformation

Further, you should have answered these questions before you write your brand’s story:

• What is the brand’s archetype?
• What is the brand’s personality?
• What is admirable or endearing about the brand?
• What is the context or need that makes this story relevant?
• Where should we tell this story? Using which media?

Storytelling is a strong selling tool. Every brand should have its stories. The stories should be engaging, entertaining, admirable, endearing and even purchase motivating. Does your brand have a story to tell? If your target customers heard it, would they love your brand even more?

(c) 2014 by Brad VanAuken, excerpted from Brand Aid, second edition, to be published in December

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – A Moral Message

As with any discipline, branding can be used to help people and society or it can be used in a way that hurts them.

How can branding be helpful? It can:

• Clarify or highlight a product’s or organization’s most distinctive advantage(s).
• Help attract, motivate and retain highly talented employees.
• Rally employees around and align them with the organization’s mission or vision.
• Improve an organization’s profitability, market share and market value.
• Establish a community of people with shared values.
• Serve as a self-expressive "badge" for customers.
• Make promises to or covenants with customers.
• Overlay an attractive personality on an organization or its products and services.
• Entertain customers.
• Make an organization or its products or services more likeable.
• Simplify customer choice.
• Help create healthy relationships with and the loyalty of customers.

How can a branding be used in a way that harms people or society? It can:

• Accentuate people’s fears, phobias or insecurities.
• Contribute to increased cravings or addictions.
• Sell people more stuff that they really don’t really need.
• Be the “lipstick on a pig.” That is, it can be used to dress up an inferior product or service.
• Create strong desires for products that are actually harmful to people or society.

As I think you know, branding can be a very powerful tool. I hope you will use your branding skills to benefit people and society and not to harm them.

Branding and Memory

Memory encoding and recall are key elements in creating brand associations. This becomes even more critical in today’s over stimulated world to which people adapt through selective attention.

What can help a marketer break through the clutter? Most brand identities and marketing communications consist of words and visuals. However, scent is the most powerful way to encode and retrieve memories. This is why Cinnabon takes a variety of specific actions to maximize the probability that brown sugar and cinnamon scents drift into the shopping malls in which they operate. Burger King created its Flame body spray for men described as “the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.” Sound is the next most powerful memory encoder and trigger. That is why Harley-Davidson attempted to trademark the sound of its engines and BMW (among other automakers) pursues engine-sound enhancement through its driver’s cabin speakers.

Attention is the biggest factor in memory encoding so make sure you have the target customer’s full attention when you attempt to encode the brand in his or her mind. Motivation increases the probability of successful memory recall so link the brand to something that creates maximum motivation to increase the brand’s probability of being recalled.  Emotionally charged words and concepts are better remembered than emotionally neutral words and concepts.

Associating the brand with something that has already been firmly encoded in the customer’s memory increases the likelihood that the brand will also be encoded. Related to this, the simpler the concept is to grasp, the more likely it will be encoded. Complicated concepts are much more difficult to encode. Linking the brand to something personally meaningful will also increase the likelihood of being encoded. Repetition helps in encoding, as do mnemonic devices (such as Roy G. Biv for the color spectrum).

Consistency of brand presentation also increases the success of memory retrieval. If multiple brand identity elements and their context are consistent between the moment of encoding and the moment of intended decoding, this will significantly increase retrieval success.

I wish you great success in maximizing your brand’s memory encoding and recall.

Brands and Aesthetics

Whether one considers Apple’s iPod, iPad or iPhone or Ty Nant’s bottled water or the Bugatti Type 57 SC Atlantic or Giorgio Armani clothing or the Relais & Châteaux hotels, aesthetics plays an important role in the appeal of those brands. Even the appeal of less upscale brands is often driven at least in part by their aesthetics. Consider Dove soap or the Gillette Fusion ProGlide razor or Hershey’s Kisses or the earlier version of the Hyundai Sonata that looked like a Jaguar. We sometimes help brand places. Aesthetics-related criteria rate high on residents’ reasons for choosing a place to live. Attractive neighborhoods and scenic beauty rate next after good job opportunities, low crime, affordable housing and good medical care as the top reasons people choose a particular place to live. Consider college and university brands. While many factors, including offering the right major, ranking high in selectivity, offering a competitive financial aid package, etc. contribute to brand preference, most college admissions offices will admit that once a potential student has visited the campus, the likelihood that he or she will attend that school increases significantly (assuming the experience was a good one). An increasing number of college ranking sources also rank schools based on campus aesthetics. Elon University has become much more popular in the past decade, at least partially due to its campus aesthetics. One final item of interest on building beauty into brands. Beautiful brands almost always command a price premium, generally making them more profitable than other brands in their categories.  You might want to consider how to infuse your brand with increased aesthetic appeal.

(c) 2014 by Brad VanAuken. Excerpt from Brand Aid, second edition, to be published December 2014.