Brand Central Station

Every now and then, I just have to rant a little bit. My appologies to those of you who have heard this before.

I find it a bit unfortunate that today’s marketing communications profession seems to treat brands and “branding” like some newly discovered silver bullet. The fact is, what we call “branding” today is not anything more than a shorthand description for the way human beings store and process information in order to make quick decisions and act on them. In effect, “brands” have been around since the dawn of man – or, more likely, before.

After all, even some animals are able to tie experiences and “knowledge” to symbols and act in ways that result in some end benefit to them whether it’s receiving a food treat or avoiding electric shock.

So if brands and the process we call “branding” (which is really behavioral training and reinforcement) have been around forever, why is it a revelation that methods outside of mass media are so powerful when it comes to building brand equities?

I suppose it’s because too often we allow people to define the action of slapping a corporate logo on an item as “branding.” That’s tattooing, not branding. Don’t get me wrong, consistent application of identity standards is important to establishing continuity behind a brand (an important value), but it is not, in itself, “branding.”

In the work that I do with clients, I take a much broader definition of “branding” and refer to it as “brand building.” In short, I say you build a brand via a two-step process: first, you make promises about the company, product or service the brand represents; then you deliver on those promises and meet or exceed the customer’s expectation. (Note: the term “customer” refers to the person to whom the promise has been made, not necessarily a consumer – more on that concept some other time.)

This two-step process of promise-making and promise-keeping builds trust and respect between the brand’s sponsor (the company behind the brand) and the customer – and, as a result, builds familiarity and value. People tend to gravitate towards those things they know, think they understand and trust. As a result, the customer’s behaviors tend to favor brands with which they have the strongest relationships.

Take this broader view of brands and the brand building process and you start to see this dynamic in effect in all relationships (because it is). In this model, “Mom” is a brand (usually a highly trusted and highly valued one), “the boss” is a brand (many times not as highly trusted or valued as “Mom”), as are girlfriend, wife, ex-wife, co-worker, roommate, etc. Ideas and concepts are often “branded” as well: “education” may be highly valued by some and less so by others, the resulting effect driving decisions related to going on to college or not.

Bring this all back to marketing practices now and you may start to see the power and value of an integrated approach to building brand value over one or more single-media efforts. Integrated brand-building efforts that work on either making promises or keeping those promises or both tend to compliment each other and build one message on top of the previous. Single-media efforts operating independently of one another either don’t break the sound barrier (and don’t get noticed) or worse, lay contradictory information in front of the customer. The damage of this? Think about how we react to people or institutions that keep changing their story. We call them liars, don’t we? We don’t trust them, do we? We avoid them at all costs.

Behold the power of “branding.”

Before we get into hypothetical situations, realize that we all practice brand building techniques in our every-day relationships and that what we have to sell is taking those techniques to a commercial level in ways that are interesting, relevant and effective.

brand central station

Without the hype or interest that usually precedes these things, Virgin announced their intention to enter the digital music business and take on the Apple jugernaught.

Hahaha. Who would have ever thought Apple would be described as a jugernaught?

Truth be told, there are a lot of people looking at the whole iPod thing and scratching their head, wondering how scrappy little Apple could have found such a big, juicy leftover on the technology table.

Richard Branson and his merry band, however, are not about to cede that market to Steve Jobs and the team at Apple. In fact, the Business Week story attached to this journal entry is quite interesting on a number of accounts. Read it for yourself and then let me know if you agree with these predictions:

1.) The cost of digital music – and more importantly, digital music players – is about to come down. Dramatically. Welcome to commoditization, Apple. The lucrative iPod market is about to come under seige from a very hip competitor who is trying to go after Apple’s Achilles heel (so to speak). By adopting the WMA standard (Windows media) and ignoring the iPod, Virgin seems to be ready to focus on a hand-held device they already have in distribution: the mobile telephone.

The result will be instant access to millions of customers and in order to achieve similar saturation levels, Apple will have to sell iPods by the bushel basket. Expect the prices for the regular iPod and mini version to fall dramatically. The same will hold true for digital music. I think you’ll see prices fall from $.99 to $.05 or lower in the next eighteen months.

2.) Apple will underestimate Virgin and commit the “original sin” of marketing – not recognizing your competitor’s capabilities by understanding their brand in a world context. Does Steve Jobs realize he’s going up against a guy who got naked inside a giant, inflatable phone in London in order to introduce his mobile telephone service to the UK? What’s Jobs done for us, lately (besides finding Nemo)? By the way, thanks for Nemo, Steve.

3.) Apple fantatics will do what Apple fanatics do best – go into denial. Rather than competing, Apple and its loyal minority will insist on their product’s superiority, their business model’s loftier goals, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile the rest of us will get our Virign music players for free when we sign up for their cell phone service and we’ll be downloading hits at a fraction of the price and, more importantly, we’ll be able to congregate at Virgin megastores for special events, etc. Apple, of course, jettisoned its retail locations long ago.

4.) Finally, things will get really hairy for a while when one more player tries to intervene in this marketing allegory. Wal-Mart. Yeah, that’s right. Old-man Walton’s retail operation is the USA’s number one seller of CD’s and seem to be interested in this whole “online-electric-music-thingy” as they say down in Arkansas. The major problem Wal-Mart faces here, however, is that online music seems to be antithetical to the Wal-Mart brand.

First off, it’s hip and trendy. Have you been in a Wal-Mart lately? Hip and trendy don’t even come close to describing the experience. Second, online music does not need what Wal-Mart has to provide in terms of value: low-cost distribution. After all, if what’s being sold here is an electronic file that can be delivered anywhere, instantly and at no cost – not even Wal-Mart can compete with that.

But don’t count that little, yellow, smiley-face dude out. If Wal-Mart has shown anything, it has shown a unique ignorance of its own irrelevance. Kind of like Jethro Bodine in Beverly Hills, Wal-Mart has insisted on remaining in the online space and may, eventually, carve out its own niche in the online music space.

Then again, I suspect the online music demand for Slim Whitman and Boxcar Willey isn’t going to detract Mr. Branson or Mr. Jobs from their assaults on each other’s domains.

Later.

BW Online | March 10, 2004 | Virgin May Show Apple a Thing or Two

Okay, it’s now official, Martha’s out at her magazine.

Well, kinda sorta out.

She’s still going to provide some direction as “founding editorial director” and, according to Crain’s New York Business, will “provide creative inspiration for her new product design and development,” among other things. Apparently, Martha will be doing more than making license plates while she’s in stir. Her company will have her writing books (homekeeping and baking) provide some advice on television projects and on the “continuing evolution” of the company she started.

Am I the only one who finds Martha writing a book about baking while in prison to be more than a little humorous? I can see it now: “Don’t forget to fold in this special ingredient, a hacksaw. I purchased mine at the local hardware store and, since I had a little spare time around the house, decoupaged this beautiful decorative pattern to the handle.”

Yeeesh.

There is an interesting branding question tied to all of this, however. Martha Stewart managed to create a significant impression on our minds over the past ten years. How can you think of Jadite bowls or sweet potato soup or whatever it is she highlights in “Living” and not think of Martha?

With an impending name change from “Martha Stewart Living” to “Everyday Living” I can’t help but feel someone’s making a critical error. First off, the Martha Stewart lifestyle does not reflect most people’s “everyday” life. After all, what would Martha do if I unleashed my four kids on her household? The idea of white carpeting and more than one glass per place setting at our house is laughable.

More importantly, I think it’s Martha’s tightly-wound, self-controlled world that makes her “Living” magazine so interesting. For those who can afford some of the little indulgences that she presents, the magazine serves as a kind of guidebook for a better life (and more power to ya’). For the rest of us trapped on the outside looking in, it’s a kind of escap-ism. My wife dreams of the day she can be something between Martha Stewart and Bob Villa – but that’s another column.

My point is that I think changing “Martha Stewart Living” to “Everyday Living” smells more like a lie than Martha’s trial testimony. In fact, I’m not so sure I’d even change the name if I were running the magazine. Do people really think Martha won’t have a hand in directing the publication and her media empire from behind bars?

Think about it … gangstas can have a guy capped while doing hard time in Sing-sing, what’s to keep Martha from changing mauve to taupe on a whim while she’s wearing prison grays?

And, maybe that’s a good thing.

Later.

Crain’s New York Business

I’m not a prude.

Sure, I live in the Midwest – out in farmland, actually – and I’m the father to four great kids. I’m going camping this weekend and will hopefully get back to town early enough on Sunday morning to make it to church.

But I’m not a prude. Really.

Still, I think it’s probably a good thing the House of Representatives has decided to up the penalties for those broadcasters who go the route of “shock and awe” (meant in the crudest sense possible) when they try to score in the ratings race. Thanks to Janet Jackson’s appearance as a “special breast star” at the Super Bowl, 500,000+ calls from angry constituents were registered at the House and Senate office buildings, putting a serious crimp into lunches and vacation plans for the Spring recess.

The fact is, 500,000+ pissed off people really count for something with Washington politico’s. After all, that many people could actually throw an election one way or the other. Just ask Al Gore.

But of course, most of the media and lawmakers miss what’s simmering underneath all of this. It’s the blatant disregard for common sense that many of us find so damn offensive. Do we care if we caught a glimpse of Janet’s left boob on our tube? Not me. I didn’t even see it. Halftime at the Super Bowl is my cue to take a leak, make a sandwich and find out who won the Lingerie Bowl. Okay, maybe the first two …

It seems to me that what upsets most people is how a three-hour long spectacle celebrating a sport where 300 pound men run at 20+ mph into each other could be interrupted by twenty minutes of bad lip synching, torrid arrangements of classic rock tunes from our collective childhoods and an outrageous aerobic display of bumping and grinding that belongs on a stage with a brass pole and not CBS.

After all, why can’t the Super Bowl be more like the rest of TV? You know, a murder an hour; cutting up dead bodies during prime time; brainless high school girls and clueless fathers; impossibly thin ingenues and bulky studs capable of rolling their cars a dozen times and walking away.

No, the thing that is most indecent about television (and much of the rest of media) today is the unspoken contempt for the audience. We are marketing “targets” and are often given as much respect as a bale of hay wearing a series of concentric, red rings.

I think it’s okay that the government has upped the cost of censorship on media. To tell the truth, it’s paid to well to flaunt the rules for the last ten years or so. And, more importantly, I don’t think you can get the media to change unless there is a corresponding effect in the pocketbook. But if we really want to stem indecency over the air, through the cable, in print or online, the stakes have to be raised somewhere other than Washington, DC.

We’ve got to start being as savvy about our media consumption as we are about anything else we by. Discriminating, discerning media consumers are good for the economy and even better for the integrity of the marketing discipline. It should be our job as marketers to encourage critical media and message evaluation by the public at-large.

Why do I think I’m going to be one of a very small number in taking that position?

More later.

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