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Posts from the ‘Positioning’ Category

Jun 25

What the most valuable brands in Cannes have in common

IBM, Intel and Coca-Cola.  Three brands that won Grand Prix and Special Awards at Cannes Lions last week, that also appear in all of the world’s most valuable brand rankings.  What can we learn from this juxtaposition of creativity and value?

Stay simple and stay the course.

You can associate all of these brands with one word that defines what they stand for.
Coke: Happiness.  IBM: Smarter.  Intel: Inside.

While all three expand on these notions when they articulate the core of what they stand for (Coke’s purpose is ‘to inspire moments of optimism and happiness’, IBM are ‘driven by the idea of building a smarter planet’, Intel invite us to ‘Look Inside’), they consistently, relentlessly, creatively, use the ideas and literal words of ‘happiness’, ‘smarter’ and ‘inside’ in their marketing efforts, as exemplified in IBM’s Grand Prix-winning ‘Ads with a purpose’.

(Even their advertising is smarter, and asks for smarter ideas to help to build smarter cities).

What they also do is stay the course.  They have built brands from these simple core ideas for years.  IBM established the Smarter Planet initiative in 2008.  Coke have talked about happiness for decades, and explicitly unveiled their ‘Open Happiness’ global campaign in 2009.  The ‘Intel Inside’ cooperative marketing program (and associated branding) launched in 1991.  Their multiple Grand Prix Cannes Lions wins for ‘The Beauty Inside’ last week celebrated the ideal that – with humans and computers alike – it’s what’s inside that counts.

Although Intel wavered in 2009 (they rebranded around the idea of Sponsors of Tomorrow (which was geared to last for three to five years and serve as an overarching theme for all of the company’s branding efforts)), they (re)launched a new brand ‘theme’ of ‘Look Inside’ this year.  As Deborah Conrad, vice president and chief marketing officer at Intel stated,“ ‘Sponsors of tomorrow’ didn’t leverage our heritage as much as ‘Look inside’ does. ‘Look inside’ is a call to action, and ‘Intel inside’ says, ‘Hey, here I am.’ ”.

Whilst it’s very difficult to ‘own’ a simple idea, there’s money (and possible glory) in trying to do so.  A spate of one word rebrands in 2012 suggests that other brands aspire to a similar goal.  Pepsi: Now; Jaguar: Alive; BMW: Joy: Mahindra Group: Rise; Commbank: Can…It will be interesting to see whether they can stay the course, and climb the value rankings.

Mar 20

Does Your Brand Need A Spring Clean? Declutter What You Stand For Before It’s Too Late

Seven of the world’s top 33 brands fell in value last year.  The one that declined most was HP; down an average of 23% across BRANDZ, Interbrand and Brand Finance’s valuations.

HP are in the second year of a five year business revival plan, implemented by Meg Whitman, chief executive.  When asked in an interview last year, “Does the HP brand need major rehabilitation and repair or more of a polishing?”, she replied:

“I think we need to tell people what we do, so I think that’s more of a polishing… In my view we just need to tell people who we are, what we do and the value that we bring.”

I would argue that, more than a polishing, the brand needs a thorough spring clean.  Consider what you can find when you look at how they define what the organization stands for.  A vision; corporate objectives; purpose; brand story; brand essence; character differentiators; shared values (employees); shared values (brand); behaviors: cultural behaviors, communications behaviors, and  design behaviors.   That’s twelve categories.

The rest of the top 33 brands use an average of three.

Perhaps HP went too far in their ‘branding’ efforts, or perhaps different parts of the business ‘owned’ different articulations of the brand.  It is not unusual, even among the leading brands of the world, to see cases where a previous CEO may implement a vision, a new one defines a purpose, the marketing department want a brand positioning, no-one wants to change the founder’s values, so they add behaviours instead…  It’s all too easy to add new definitions, but unless you clear out the old, you can be left with confused employees, inconsistent stories and a disconnected brand and customer experience.

In June last year, HP launched another articulation of what they stand for, “Make it Matter.”  Meg Whitman explains,

“As I began to understand HP, I said that it hasn’t been very good at telling its own story…So I thought we needed to tell our story better. … So we got the 50 marketing executives in a room and started to think through what is unique and different about the company and we came very quickly to “Make it Matter.” Because in fact what we do makes it matter. It matters to the International Space Station or the Department of Works and Pensions or the U.S. Navy or Alianz or Deutsche Bank or Facebook. It matters what we do.”

She goes on to say that all business units, and corporate wide, everyone will “tuck under that messaging”.  At the same time as tucking in, I hope they are wiping out the legacy elements, to create a simpler, linear story to help HP to return to brand value growth.

Feb 25

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To create leading brands, breadth is best

bl_webimage_01.pngMy first post, for my new company and blog.  Daunting. Exciting.  Why am I doing this?  (Have I not got enough to do with a 4 and 2 year old?).

I had two realizations once I’d ‘made it’ to the role of senior brand strategist within the WPP network.

1. Breadth is best

I only felt like a valuable brand strategist once I had amassed a heap of diverse experience on brands.  It is relatively easy and quick to understand the nuances and depth of a category and a brand’s direct competitors.  But if you are tasked to help a client lead their category, ideas and inspiration for change need to come from elsewhere.   Start with a deep, linear understanding, but for inspiration you need to think laterally.

2.  But no one has time for it

I have worked with some astoundingly smart people whose appetite for knowledge, ideas and thinking is voracious.  But no-one has time to satiate this.   When you are working on a branding/rebranding/ refreshing program, you are scrambling to quickly get a handle of a new client’s business and industry, understand their target audiences and needs, carve out some head space to develop a new idea of what their brand should stand for, and ensure it is differentiated within their business’ competitive set.

What you don’t have time to do is assess that idea in the broader competitive context – the world of brand ideas as a whole – to consider it against all other brands who claim to stand for ‘connection’, to consider whether it is truly a different space, or whether you are  competing in people’s minds against the 86 other brands who claim to enrich lives/help you succeed/see new possibilities.

My mission with Brand Lateral is to bring a more expansive perspective to conversations on what brands should stand for; looking at the world of brand ideas, across categories and countries, to help the people I work with create more competitive, leading and valuable brands.