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For Your Consideration
Today, I’ve put together a collection of some of my favourite thoughts on branding and advertising - ideas that can apply to any form of communication, really. Some are obvious, some are not, but they all share the same fundamental Truth: they are both intelligent and tested. Wherever possible, I’ve tried to attribute their authors. I’d recommend checking these personalities and blogs out whenever you get a chance.
1. There is no tribe of normal
People don’t coalesce into active and committed tribes around the status quo.
The only vibrant tribes in our communities are the ones closer the edges, or those trying to make change. The center is large, but it’s not connected.
If you’re trying to build a tribe, a community or a movement, and you want it to be safe and beyond reproach at the same time, you will fail.
Heretical thoughts, delivered in a way that capture the attention of the minority—that’s the path that works.
- Seth Godin http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
2. Relevance and credibility are the matches and gunpowder of advertising.
Relevance is a glowing promise that can ignite the flame of desire.
Credibility is quiet power: Details. Facts. Proof.
-Monday Morning Memo http://www.mondaymorningmemo.com/
3. Don’t try to please everyone
4. Create a culture of wonder
5. Be willing to fail
6. Give your tribe a badge
7. Don’t give up so easy
8. Don’t worry too much about conventional wisdom.
A caution here: know what rules of wisdom to break and which to revere. This is incredibly difficult to manage.
- Sean
Facebook and Your Brand
Think. launched the new K96.3 Kelowna’s Classic Rock Facebook Page this past Monday. With custom graphics and multiple-page content, K96.3 is poised to take advantage of the incredible opportunity Facebook now offers businesses to build their brand in an authentic and sincere environment.
Check out their page here.
Think. can help you and your organisation maximize Facebook’s opportunity. Contact us for details.
- Sean
Squeeze Me, Please!
The story of the ketchup squeeze bottle is an interesting one. Particularly, from the perspective of brand.
Ketchup has been popular in North America for nearly 200 years, and today is consumed by over 90 percent of the population. The ketchup market is definitively dominated by the alpha-dog brand, Heinz.
Founded in 1869 by Henry John Heinz, the Heinz brand commands the ketchup market (registered sales were over $260 million in 2005) and has achieved a 60 percent share of the category.
In addition, the Heinz name has achieved iconic status in itself and become one of those rare brands that single-handedly drive a category. A study in 2005 evaluated the lifetime brand value for Heinz at more that US$ 20 billion. In 2008, Heinz ranked first in an overall brand equity study from EquiTrend, which evaluated more than 1,000 brands across 30 categories.
So, with such one-sided dominance in the category, what type of marketing is necessary for the top brand?
Well, in the past 10 years there was one significant development and push in the ketchup market, led, as you may suspect, by Heinz.
The story goes, in the late 1990s, one of the Heinz product engineers was eating french fries with his young children. He noticed that his kids, although they were very young, were very insistent that they put their own ketchup on their french fries. In fact, the more he thought about it, the engineer recognized that this use of condiments was actually a reflection of his childrens’ independence from their parents. It was one of the first foods that they were able to use on their own, without their parents’ help.
He also recognized that there was one problem with the product - the glass bottle.
The glass bottle was notorious for getting stuck and becoming difficult, if not impossible, for the kids to use without their parents’ help. The design of the packaging of the product was undermining its functional role in the child’s assertion of independence.
Thus, the plastic squeeze bottle was developed.
Soft enough so even young children could use the product with relative ease, still maintaining the iconic look of Heinz ketchup, the plastic squeeze bottle was introduced to market in 2002 as the inverted squeeze ketchup bottle - the Heinz Easy Squeeze, and has become ubiquitous and synonymous with the condiment experience over the past decade, as it has become the preferred delivery vehicle of choice for condiments from mustard to mayo to salsa.
What the developer of the Heinz squeeze bottle keyed into was not driven by product - the ketchup never changed. However, it was the brand experience of one of its key consumers - children - that motivated the development of this key piece of technology. Although the packaging benefits every consumer, it is the importance of the experience of the young consumer that makes this development so vital to the brand in the long run. For every child that uses the product on their own, integrating the brand into their familiar development of independence and self ensures a lifelong affinity for a brand, translating into long-term brand equity.
And that’s invaluable work by an upside-down bottle.
-Sean
It’s okay to play around!
Think. just launched a website for Play Golf Kelowna! Being a golfer myself, it was a pleasure to work on. We provided them with a new logo, website and print materials. We’re especially proud of the new tagline… “It’s okay to play around.”
Play Golf Kelowna (formerly Golf Kelowna) offers the most popular and flexible access packages to 5 local golf courses and 4 practice facilities… equaling 1 incredible value! Check them out out playgolfkelowna.com
- Mike
Think. partners with Site 360/MMM Group to deliver an interesting, creative and dynamic RFP to the City of Fernie.
Today, Think., along with new partners Site 360/MMM Group, delivered a creative, interesting and dynamic proposal to the City of Fernie to design and implement a consistent brand and signage strategy.
Offering our extensive branding experience alongside the equally impressive and experienced landscape architecture and wayfinding expertise of Site 360/MMM Group, our proposal creative was led by this exciting cover page design.
This first project represents a burgeoning strategic partnership between Think. and Site 360/MMM Group, pairing Think.’s branding and creative strengths with the planning and landscape architectural strengths of the global company, MMM Group.
We are extremely excited about this new partnership and look forward to many more projects together in the future.
HARD CORE!
We just launched a really cool new site for the Central Okanagan Rugby Enthusiasts, aka: CORE. You can visit the site at www.corerugby.com
It’s a fully content managed, highly searchable website that also allows rugby enthusiasts to become content contributors. This keeps the site fresh and most importantly, builds the rugby community throughout the Central Okanagan.
Along with the Photo Gallery, Games & Events, and Team pages is a really cool feature of this site… the “Legacy” section. Here the past comes to life with great rugby photos and information from days gone by.
The site itself is the product of Kelowna local Doug Manning, whos company “LegacySite” offers the same solution for any sports team or organization interested in a website for the yesterday, today and tomorrow of their particular sports community.
![What’s in a Brand or The Worst Bland Blunder of All Time
On July 11, 1985, Roberto Goizueta, then chairman of Coca-Cola, announced at a press conference, “We have heard you,” and surrounded the podium to the company’s COO to announce the return of original Coca-Cola and the end of the short-lived New Coke. Thus, ended “the biggest brand blunder of all time.”
As G.Singh writes in World’s Biggest Brand Failures:
“After decades of losing market share to rival Pepsi and several brands under the Coca-Cola umbrella, such as Sprite and Diet Coke, Coca-Cola had decided that something needed to be done to combat these losses. As the Pepsi Challenge had highlighted millions of times over, Coke could always be defeated when it came down to taste. This seemed to be confirmed by the success of Diet Coke which was closer to Pepsi in terms of flavour.
So in what must have been seen as a logical step, Coca-Cola stated working on a new formula. A year later they arrived at New Coke. Having produced its new formula, [Coca-Cola] conducted 200 000 taste tests to see how it fared. The results were overwhelming. Not only did it taste better than the original, but people preferred it to Pepsi as well.
However, if Coca-Cola was to stay ahead of Pepsi it couldn’t have two directly competing produts on the shelves at the same time. It therefore decided to scrap the original Coca-Cola and introduced New Coke in its place.
[Unfortunately,] soon as the decision was announced, a large percentage of the US population immediately decided to boycott the new product…a few days later the production of original Coke was stopped…Sales of New Coke were low and public outrage was high at the fact that the original was no longer available.”
What happened? Why did millions of dollars of research and development, taste tests, focus groups and some of the greatest strategic marketing minds all result in a colossal failure?
Donald Keogh, the COO who announced the return of Coca-Cola and the end of the failed New Coke experiment offered this explanation at the press conference:
“The simple fact is that all the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on the new Coca-Cola could not measure or reveal the deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people. The passion for original Coca-Cola – and that is the word for it, passion – was something that caught us by surprise…and you cannot measure it any more than you can measure love, pride or patriotism.”
In other words, Coca-Cola had learnt that brand is about much more than product. The majority of tests had been carried out blind, and therefore taste was the only factor under assessment. The company had finally taken Pepsi’s bait and tried to fight them on their playing ground, conceding Coca-Cola’s key brand asset: originality.
When Coca-Cola was launched in the 1880s it was the only product in the market. As such, it invented a new category and the brand name became the name of the product itself. Throughout most of the century, Coca-Cola had capitalized and branded itself on its “original” status, calling itself “the real thing.”
Its authenticity was the key feature of the brand experience, referenced as far back as the 1950s in this quote from Pulitzer Prize winning editor William Allen White: “Coca-Cola is the sublimated essence of all America stands for – a decent thing, honestly made, universally distributed, conscientiously improved with the years.”
To confine the brand to a question of taste, then, was completely misguided. To claim it was “new” was to subvert the consumer’s experience of the brand as authentic and original, and was pure heresy.
The lesson? Brand is not product. Brand is experience.
At Think. we understand this fundamentally. We sell creative and strategic thinking around brand; however, this is not the Think. brand. Our brand is about passion, creativity and intelligence. It is the experience our clients have from the moment they walk through our doors – it is not about what we sell.
All too often, digital production companies pretend to offer brand services, rolling up some basic brand ideas into their production services – creating websites, logos, graphics, etc. – as if a brand is just another product. They masquerade as brand strategists, clearly recognizing that brand is an integral element for marketing success (otherwise why would they sell it as a service), but not understanding its supreme reign over tactical engagements, so they relegate their amateur efforts to a few questionnaires, at best.
We distinguish ourselves at Think. because we understand brand is supreme. Every tactical decision must be made through the screen of brand, in order to ensure the best chance of success in the market, and we follow this with no exception.
Too bad Coca-Cola didn’t come to Think. first.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lg084uUJNV1qdshw6o1_400.jpg)
What’s in a Brand or The Worst Bland Blunder of All Time
On July 11, 1985, Roberto Goizueta, then chairman of Coca-Cola, announced at a press conference, “We have heard you,” and surrounded the podium to the company’s COO to announce the return of original Coca-Cola and the end of the short-lived New Coke. Thus, ended “the biggest brand blunder of all time.”
As G.Singh writes in World’s Biggest Brand Failures:
“After decades of losing market share to rival Pepsi and several brands under the Coca-Cola umbrella, such as Sprite and Diet Coke, Coca-Cola had decided that something needed to be done to combat these losses. As the Pepsi Challenge had highlighted millions of times over, Coke could always be defeated when it came down to taste. This seemed to be confirmed by the success of Diet Coke which was closer to Pepsi in terms of flavour.
So in what must have been seen as a logical step, Coca-Cola stated working on a new formula. A year later they arrived at New Coke. Having produced its new formula, [Coca-Cola] conducted 200 000 taste tests to see how it fared. The results were overwhelming. Not only did it taste better than the original, but people preferred it to Pepsi as well.
However, if Coca-Cola was to stay ahead of Pepsi it couldn’t have two directly competing produts on the shelves at the same time. It therefore decided to scrap the original Coca-Cola and introduced New Coke in its place.
[Unfortunately,] soon as the decision was announced, a large percentage of the US population immediately decided to boycott the new product…a few days later the production of original Coke was stopped…Sales of New Coke were low and public outrage was high at the fact that the original was no longer available.”
What happened? Why did millions of dollars of research and development, taste tests, focus groups and some of the greatest strategic marketing minds all result in a colossal failure?
Donald Keogh, the COO who announced the return of Coca-Cola and the end of the failed New Coke experiment offered this explanation at the press conference:
“The simple fact is that all the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on the new Coca-Cola could not measure or reveal the deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people. The passion for original Coca-Cola – and that is the word for it, passion – was something that caught us by surprise…and you cannot measure it any more than you can measure love, pride or patriotism.”
In other words, Coca-Cola had learnt that brand is about much more than product. The majority of tests had been carried out blind, and therefore taste was the only factor under assessment. The company had finally taken Pepsi’s bait and tried to fight them on their playing ground, conceding Coca-Cola’s key brand asset: originality.
When Coca-Cola was launched in the 1880s it was the only product in the market. As such, it invented a new category and the brand name became the name of the product itself. Throughout most of the century, Coca-Cola had capitalized and branded itself on its “original” status, calling itself “the real thing.”
Its authenticity was the key feature of the brand experience, referenced as far back as the 1950s in this quote from Pulitzer Prize winning editor William Allen White: “Coca-Cola is the sublimated essence of all America stands for – a decent thing, honestly made, universally distributed, conscientiously improved with the years.”
To confine the brand to a question of taste, then, was completely misguided. To claim it was “new” was to subvert the consumer’s experience of the brand as authentic and original, and was pure heresy.
The lesson? Brand is not product. Brand is experience.
At Think. we understand this fundamentally. We sell creative and strategic thinking around brand; however, this is not the Think. brand. Our brand is about passion, creativity and intelligence. It is the experience our clients have from the moment they walk through our doors – it is not about what we sell.
All too often, digital production companies pretend to offer brand services, rolling up some basic brand ideas into their production services – creating websites, logos, graphics, etc. – as if a brand is just another product. They masquerade as brand strategists, clearly recognizing that brand is an integral element for marketing success (otherwise why would they sell it as a service), but not understanding its supreme reign over tactical engagements, so they relegate their amateur efforts to a few questionnaires, at best.
We distinguish ourselves at Think. because we understand brand is supreme. Every tactical decision must be made through the screen of brand, in order to ensure the best chance of success in the market, and we follow this with no exception.
Too bad Coca-Cola didn’t come to Think. first.
What’s in a Name? (Turns Out, It’s A Bullet)
Back in the mid-1990s, the homicide rate in the Washington D.C. area was so high due to the crack epidemic, the area became popularly known as “the murder capital” of the United States.
Partly in response to these elevated crime statistics, in 1995, Abe Pollin, owner of the Washington NBA franchise, the Washington Bullets, announced that he was going to change the name of the franchise, as he had grown increasingly uncomfortable with the implications of the name “Bullets,” given the association of crime with the area.
A contest was held to choose a new name and the choices were narrowed to a short list of Dragons, Express, Stallions, Sea Dogs or Wizards. They held a vote that local fans participated in and the name Wizards was chosen.
However, the vote was not without controversy; the most immediate being that many of the area’s majority group, African-Americans, found the name offensive as Wizard is a rank in the Klu Klux Klan.
What was most interesting, however, was revealed later when the actual results of the vote were made public.
As it turned out, that Wizards wasn’t the most popular choice. In fact, it wasn’t even second. Truth was, it was a distant third.
The winner? Well, the voters had decided, en masse, without organization, to react in pretty much the same way - they added to the ballot one of two answers: Bullets (the winner) or none of the above(close second).
They really, really liked the name Bullets.
Besides being one of my favourite dinner party stories, the story of the Bullets name change is a wonderful example of the importance of a brand’s relationship with consumers.
Back in the days before social media, when communication between brand and consumer was almost exclusively one-way, this sort of example is found throughout the tomes of business history. From the New Coke debacle to the story of the Washington Bullets, time and time again brands have tried unsuccessfully to re-invent themselves according to their own desires and beliefs, without an accurate understanding of their consumers’ relationship to their brand. In this case, it was the importance of the name Bullets to the team’s fans.
Needless to say, there was a significant drop in merchandising over the next several years and the team has gone through over 15 years of controversy and failure. Currently, rumours abound that the franchise is considering returning to the name Bullets.
This is the real power offered by the advent, and growing importance, of social media – the ability for brands to to understand their relationship with consumers, accurately and in real-time. Through social media we can engage consumers in two-way communication and manage message in ways never before possible.
And brands must listen to their consumers, and listen well.
Just ask the Washington Wizards (Bullets).
January 24, 2011, Think. Marketing. GYRstyle photoshoot. Model: Tara Wilkinson (Carrie Wheeler - Vancouver), Photographer: Shawn Talbot. Featuring GYR signature handbag designed and manufactured in Kelowna, BC.
GYR, pronounced ‘geer’, has been a client of Think.’s since fall 2010. Since then, we’ve developed a a logo and creative concept for the new brand, and are launching to market this spring. Remarkable turnaround considering the ‘big idea’ dawned on Kelowna’s Richard & Sandra Matte only six months ago. Stay tuned for more!
