Corporate Eye

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Archives for January 2009

Toyota Looks to the Next Generation Brand Champion

On Tuesday, Toyota made a move to leverage the power of a brand champion by naming Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the company’s founder, as the company’s new president.  Brand champions such as Hugh Hefner for Playboy and Steve Jobs for Apple can play a powerful role in developing and promoting a brand image and promise.  Brand champions become living embodiments of the brands they advocate and protect, and often become celebrities for no other reason by their role as the face of those brands. 

For Toyota, which posted its first loss in 2008 since the company was started in 1937, naming Toyoda as the new president could provide a perceived sense of security to consumers and stockholders who associate the brand champion’s last name with the company’s success.  Of course, Toyota doesn’t operate based on the word of its president.  Instead, it’s very much a consensus organization, but nevertheless, Toyoda brings a sense of heritage that harkens back to a time when the company could do no wrong. [Read more…] about Toyota Looks to the Next Generation Brand Champion

Funny Business

There’s actually a good story about how I came upon today’s topic, but I’m going to save it for another post. (Just remember “Company A.”) For now, I want to zip right on to the silly stuff!

Or let’s put it this way: Given the proposition that recruiting should express a company’s personality—how do you deal with a corporate image that’s quirky, or even downright comical? Should you embrace the humor, play it straight, or go somewhere in between?

(And in case you’re thinking “if only that were my problem,” don’t stop reading. There are some lessons here for seriously dull businesses as well.)

Jack

Let’s start by looking at two companies that put a lot of money into making people laugh at their brands. Ask most people for one word about Jack in the Box commercials, and the answer will be “funny.” Same thing for Geico. When job-seekers go to those company sites, they take the humor association right along with them—and it may be a bit of a turn-off if they find an impersonal, unfunny page.

But neither company is recruiting for comic talent, and job-hunting is not by nature a humorous topic. So the key would be to bring the brand together with the mission. Enough Jack, but not too much. Just a touch of Gecko. And the balance needs to fit the business.

For the sake of full disclosure I’d better report at this point that I’m in the tank for Jack. If he’s on TV, I stop to watch, and I never get tired of analyzing the really great Jack moments. (Hint: It’s all about the mouth.) So I’m happy to report that Jack hits the mark on recruiting, with a site that perfectly captures “his” personality through conversational text and iconic illustrations.

jack-topper

Three things to notice: First, attention to detail. For example . . . in some browsers, when you hover on a navigation tab, a Jack antenna-topper pops up above the tab and starts turning his head back and forth. Yes, really! (All across JITB messaging, details sustain the illusion that Jack’s world is an actual place, which is a large part of what makes it all so funny.)

Second, appropriate balance. The “Why Jack” page is LOL funny–I’ve read it about five times now—but it also delivers some solid points. The trick is skillful comic writing that combines tongue-in-cheek delivery (“This is the big time.”) with substantive messaging (“from the first breakfast sandwich to the first portable salad to the most innovative food safety advancements in the industry”).

The “FAQ,” “Benefits,” and “Roles at Jack” pages are written in a crisp, direct style that signals serious business, but each one has a Jack photo, so everything fits together. And notice that every photo on the site neatly fits its page, to reinforce the key message. So Jack’s a high-flying executive on the “Roles” page (read: road to success), but on the “Benefits” page, he’s fly-fishing (read: quality of life).

Finally, the third thing. As they say in show biz, if you want to get around an inconvenient or unlikely plot point, “hang a lantern on it.” So JITB gives the Careers section a special header: Jobs. This is where Jack in the Box gets serious. And that neatly resolves the dissonance problem.

Geico

All right—now what about the Gecko? Over at Geico, they have a different set of constraints than JITB, since you just can’t be as playful about car insurance as you can about fast food. So the site itself is stick-straight. But on the landing page—exactly in the very center—there he is. And wouldn’t you have been disappointed otherwise?

Some takeaways for the rest of us:

  • Be true to your brand personality.
  • Be consistent across pages, but don’t be boring. Use appropriate variety.
  • Remember these famous last words, even though no one can remember who said them: “Dying is easy. Comedy–that’s hard.” It may be okay to add a touch of humor to your site, but make sure it works!

Are Your Sub-brands Embarrassing Your Primary Brand?

scionOn Saturday morning, I opened the Yahoo! home page and saw a featured article about celebrity children who tarnish their parents’ names.  I had to take a look and see who the writer tagged as the biggest embarrassments to big name musicians.  I couldn’t help myself.  As I looked through the list of less-talented offspring, I started to think about how the same thing could happen to corporate brands. 

Are your sub-brands embarrassing your primary brand?

Of course, the first rule of branding is consistency, but sometimes a well-known company brand can support a wide variety of sub-brands successfully.  However, what if a sub-brand fails to perform well?  And what if that sub-brand draws a lot of unflattering publicity?  The answer is clear if that sub-brand is not bringing in the revenue the company needs, but what if that sub-brand is driving huge profits?  Does the company protect its main brand and let go of the sub-brand, or does the company keep the sub-brand and let the chips fall where they may? [Read more…] about Are Your Sub-brands Embarrassing Your Primary Brand?

Making Your Web Site More Robust, Part3

In this post I would like to address things companies can do on their web sites for investors at opposite ends of the age spectrum.  As a gross over-generalization, there tends to be a distinct divide between the way younger people and older people expect to receive their information.  Younger people (and here I am basing my observations on a subset that runs from my teenaged son through my college aged daughters all the way to my graduate students) want their information NOW and in bite sized snippets.  For them, it’s all about instant messaging, twitter and getting the information in small, bite sized snippets before their attention is distracted to something else in their multi-tasked lives. 

Older people (and I place myself firmly in this camp) tend to be a bit more patient about receipt of information, but they expect more detail and context in what they do get.  This means that they expect more than the 140 characters you get with Twitter.  Complete sentences leading to paragraphs and even entire articles are the expected norm.  

You obviously can’t serve both needs with the same product or service, but you can build in functionality for both at a reasonable cost.  

Multiple Platform News and Quotes Feeds

First, for those that need their information immediately, give investors the option to access news and stock prices across multiple electronic formats, ranging from their desktop to their PDA or their mobile.  After all, what could be more immediate than getting the news sent right to your pocket?

See Aviva for a good example.  

total-shareholder-newsletter

For those investors with more patience and longer attention (and hopefully, investing) spans, companies should consider writing a periodic shareholder’s newsletter.  I currently see this only in the largest capitalization stocks, (see Total, right) but with today’s editing software and electronic delivery of the newsletter, it can be achieved quite economically.  It certainly gives companies an additional forum with which to deliver their message, in a less structured and more user friendly manner than the mandated regulatory filings.  It is certainly worth considering, particularly if it helps attract and retain that elusive beast, the long term individual shareholder.

Create Visibility and Increase Your Business

Without a doubt, the one thing that any company, corporation or business wants is visibility. Exposure to the masses and the being seen by thousands, or even millions of potential customers is a dream come true for some. But just how is it that a company is supposed to get this “visibility” and make it work for them?

When the internet became available for business and consumer consumption, many jumped on the bandwagon, hoping to find their way to a glorious road of fame and riches. The dot com events of the late 1990s proved unfortunate for some, as they were simply relying on their name and reputation to create instant success. What they weren’t prepared for was orchestrating a way for that success to translate into actual business dollars. It failed miserably.

Visibility is a concept that is neither bought, sold nor translated. It is created. It is a form of art, if you will, that shapes and molds a company or an idea to formulate a process in the potential customer’s mind. In other words, if you can get them to think it, perhaps you can get them to buy it.

One example of a niche market that maximizes its use of visibility is the sports arena. Most everything in sports has a sponsor, a logo or printed advertising. From the Michael Jordan Nike swoosh symbol to the Saucony running shoes worn by triathlete Lance Armstrong. Although these companies do pay to have their brands plastered across the athletes backs, what they can’t pay for (so to speak) is the lasting impressions and thought impressions that their brands leave in their mind. Think about it: how many times have your kids said they want “Skechers” or “Nike” shoes and not the no-name, cheaper brands?

Some may argue that this is branding or perhaps advertising. But while that may hold credence, I maintain that it is definitely visibility, and that visibility is what makes customers remember you and want to buy what you have.

No matter what the size of a company is, they can create visibility for themselves, especially online. How:

1. Be everywhere. Interact on social sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace. When people start to see you and your company everywhere, all of the time and interacting with others, they will become curious and go check out your site. After all, that’s what you want, right?

2. Ask questions. Not chiding questions, but genuine questions. Ask for others opinions, input and feedback. Show customers that you really don’t know it all.

3. Give back. Offer something of value back to your online followers. Be generous with your information and share how-to’s, resources and tools.

When you employ these strategies, who do you think readers will turn to when they need advice? Who do you think they’ll remember when they have to make a decision or choice and you just wrote an article or blog post on the subject?

What can you or your company do to create more visibility for your service or product? What creative ways can you find to share what you know?

What is Intangible Brand Value?

tylenolThere has always been a struggle between marketers trying to convince corporate senior management that the company’s brand is its most valuable asset and should be included in the company’s overall investment strategy to ensure it works its magic.  However, what do you say when the men and women in the corner offices ask you to quantify your argument for why the company should invest in branding initiatives?  The challenge for marketers has always been finding metrics to measure the value of a brand.  Certainly, one can point to brands like Apple and make the argument that the value of branding is too obvious to ignore.  However, ignore it they will unless you can prove its worth.

Next time you head into a meeting in an attempt to secure budget for internal and external brand-building campaigns, use the list below to help you make your case.  Use each item in the list below and attach at least one real-world example to it, particularly from your own company’s or your competitors’ experiences.  You might not win your first argument, but you might just open some eyes about the intangible value of a brand. [Read more…] about What is Intangible Brand Value?