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Archives for 2009

Nissan – A Lesson in Creating a Brand Image, Message and Promise

Hats off to the ad campaign pictured below from Nissan, which provides an excellent example of how a few words of copy can create a complete brand image, message and promise.

Take a look at the first ad in the campaign below. In just 11 words and with a great black and white image, the audience relates the Nissan brand to owning a dream.

nissan-dream

The second example below is equally powerful.  In just 9 words, the audience relates the Nissan brand to freedom and escape.

nissan-getaway

And my favorite ad is below.  In 12 simple words, the Nissan brand means inspiration.

nissan-inspire

With the simple tagline, “The Joy of Driving”, accompanying each ad, Nissan means so much more than just a car.

Can you make your brand mean more than the tangible product or service it provides?  It’s a powerful accomplishment.  Kudos to TBWA Toronto for a great campaign.

Images via AdsoftheWorld.com

A Tale of Two Booksellers

It’s no secret that Borders has been struggling.  Top competitor Barnes & Noble has been a bit savvier (for example, selling off its mall-based stores sooner rather than too late), so it’s in relatively better shape.

But the reality is–traditional bookselling has been hit hard by a variety of economic and cultural factors, and the whole business model is in the midst of a huge, painful, and irreversible shift.  The market for CDs and DVDs, formerly a staple at both chains, is declining rapidly; downloadable books a la Kindle are on the ascendency; and the old, centralized publishing industry is rapidly being overtaken by a diffuse, diverse assortment of alternative publishing strategies.

So what’s the good news?  Not much yet.  But necessity is indeed mothering up some invention in the book world, and that’s a good reason to take a look at the Career sites of the two largest booksellers in America.

It’s fair to say there is no comparison.  B&N is bookish and buttoned up, while Borders is salsa-dancing hot.  Seriously.

b-n1borders2

Unfortunately, I  couldn’t find out when this design was implemented at Borders, so there’s no way of relating it to their overall business situation or marketing approach.  However, last year Borders took back its online operations from Amazon (after 17 years), and the Careers area may have been updated when the retail site was built.

Also unfortunately–there’s no way of knowing whether Borders gets better/more applicants through its site than B&N.  But for what it’s worth, they’ve done the right things at a fundamental level:  highlighting special opportunities (front-page AARP feature) and culture (front-page diversity feature); offering substantive information on benefits, as well as detailed position descriptions; and providing a seamless search-and-apply process.  (Barnes & Nobles does not have online search and application–listings are outsourced to HotJobs.)

No bells and whistles–videos, Flash, etc., at the Borders site.  A nice look and feel, though, suitable for a book business trying to reinvent itself in the digital age.  I had the impression that job-seekers are being invited along for an interesting adventure.

On the other hand, I definitely prefer the design of the customer-facing pages at Barnes & Noble over Borders.  So one wonders:  Is B&N behind the Careers curve because of complacency?  Do they have something new in the works?  Or . . . ?

To end on a high note, here’s a book-related reward for reading all the way to the end of the post!  A link to Librarians Gone Wild.  Yes, it’s highlights of the Golden Book Cart Drill Championships–and if you need further enticement, I’ll just mention that there are swords involved.


France’s Crédit Agricole a Website to Bank on

Don’t know how I missed this one, but Crédit Agricole is the largest retail bank in Europe. Their website suits this status. In the Profile section, click on Organization and access an informative visual that gives the visitor a quick view of how the company and its components are organized.

Credit Organisation

Next Economic Research is a major navigational component and for good reason. This section contains a robust supply of economic information on a very wide array of subjects.

Credit Eco Research

In the upper left navigation box, you have access to–

  • Perspectives

A quarterly publication setting out the Crédit Agricole scenario for the economy, interest rates and currencies in the main economic regions, ie, the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Aperiodic publication – Tabular data for Crédit Agricole economic and financial forecasts.

  • Eco News

Eco News is an aperiodic publication providing up-to-the-minute analysis of a current topic.

  • Eclairages

Monthly Eclairages

Éclairages is a monthly publication featuring a series of articles addressing a single issue from a range of different viewpoints. The core topic is examined according to the different specializations of teams from the Economic and Banking Studies Department: macroeconomics, country risk, banking and finance, and economic analysis of individual sectors.

Eclairages Emergents

Eclairages Emergents is an aperiodic publication offering a series of articles addressing emerging economies or an emerging region from a variety of angles.

  • Eclairages Research

Eclairages Research is an aperiodic publication providing in-depth analysis of a specific topic.

An impressive menu of information and research offerings. Each topic can be viewed as a summary so you can decide if you want to download a PDF. Better if it was available as HTML and an option to download. Note the effective use of Tag Cloud that links to various topics.

My favorite section of this site is the Shareholders Corner. A link to this section is prominently displayed under the major navigation link Finance & Shareholders. This is the company’s unique method of communicating with its shareholders. What a great idea!

Credit Corner

Skeptics might say that this is nothing new since most companies already provide this type of information. This is only partially true — Crédit Agricole goes the extra effort to provide a section that makes easy access to relevant shareholder information on one page. Note how resources are organized and see the upper right Direct Access navigation. Then there’s the Shareholder Club and Consultative Committee.

To develop close relations and regular dialogue with shareholders, Crédit Agricole S.A. set up the Shareholders’ Club in June 2002. Its main purpose is to inform shareholders, helping them understand the company, its organisation and businesses, to learn about the stockmarket and finance, and to provide them with our analysis of the economy.

The Club provides information, publications and other resources to what appears to be investors with modest holdings. Another good idea. But the pièce de résistance is the Consultative Committee —

Crédit Agricole S.A. set up in 2003 a Consultative Committee to help the company communicate as effectively as possible with its retail shareholders.

Members of the Committee are judiciously drawn from representative geographic areas —

Credit Agricole

Brilliant!

Crédit Agricole clearly is an example of how to engage a company’s most important stakeholders — Investors, including those with modest holdings.

Brands Spending More Than Ever on Word-of-Mouth Marketing

word-of-mouth-marketing-reportThere is no doubt that word-of-mouth marketing on the social web can have a significant effect on a brand.  That effect has not gone unnoticed and according to a new report from PQ Media with the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), brand spending on word of mouth marketing in 2008 grew by 14.2% to $1.54 billion.  The growth is expected to slow to 10.2% in 2009, but that’s still a strong double-digit growth rate.  Clearly, word of mouth marketing is taking a chunk out of some other traditional marketing tactics.

It’s important to understand that word of mouth marketing spending still only comprises a small fraction of overall brand marketing spending, but it also represents a shift in marketing investments that is not likely to stop growing anytime soon.  Connecting with consumers on websites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter is the low hanging fruit that every brand manager wants to pick but still hasn’t found the way to detach from the branch.  That makes the shift in marketing investment from traditional tactics to online word of mouth marketing a scary one, and that’s a risk that many executives still aren’t prepared to make.  It’s a shame really.  The opportunities are so great.

With the growing importance of word of mouth marketing, consultants are reaping the rewards.  In fact, PQ Media reports that the word of mouth business grew by 18.7% in 2008 to $197 million.  There are even awards and recognition for word of mouth marketing campaigns like the WOMMY Awards.

Interest in word of mouth marketing is coming from all sides these days.  It’s not surprising.  Consumers are tired of being spoken at and want to be spoken to.  With the economic client failing them, they have lost trust in brands and look to people they know more so than ads and traditional marketing tactics to get information and make purchase decisions.  The only question brand managers and executives should be asking themselves is how much can we invest in word of mouth marketing this year?  If they’re still wondering if they should invest in word of mouth marketing at all, then they’re in trouble.

Your thoughts?

Image: PQ Media

A Branding Debate from the Swiss Army Knife

swiss-army-knifeI read an interesting article on the BBC website this week about the history of the Swiss Army Knife.  Here’s a product that started 125 years ago from humble beginnings and grew into an iconic product.  It could be argued that the term “Swiss Army Knife” has become generic to mean any kind of pocket knife — similar to how Kleenex and Band-aid have become generic terms.  But how did a simple pocket knife become so ingrained into cultures around the world?  And how can your brand achieve similar success?

There are actually two valid arguments — one for and one against — building a brand into a generic term for a product or category.  First, the pro side — a brand that becomes a generic equivalent for a product or category holds tremendous value as it’s the brand thought of first and always.  Next, the argument against — a brand that becomes a generic equivalent for a product or category loses value by becoming more of a commodity that is easily interchangeable with other brands which offer the same benefits to consumers.

So which side of the debate are you on?  Certainly, a brand like Band-aid reaped the rewards from its “generic” status for many years, and today, brands like Google are becoming generic terms (“you can Google it”) that competitors are blatantly trying to counter (e.g., Microsoft’s Bing — have you heard anyone say, “you can Bing it” yet?  Microsoft hopes you will).  I think the value of a brand becoming the generic term for a product, category or action (as in Google’s case) outweighs the longer term negatives of commoditization.

However, the problem is less in commoditization than it is in retaining a brand’s position once it becomes a generic term.  I think once a brand becomes the generic term for a product or category, the powers that be become lazy and sit back to enjoy the ride as the leader having cornered the market, so to speak.  There is the inevitable comfort that being the leader that no one can touch creates within the ranks.  That’s the danger.  Consumers move quickly these days, and a brand that becomes a generic term for a product or category must stay on its toes to continue leading the way and earning consumers’ trust and choice.

What do you think?  Is having your brand become a generic term for a product or category a win or a problem?

Image: Flickr


Private Label Brands Show Impressive Growth

equateAccording to a U.S. study by Mintel, private label food product introductions in 2009 made up 25% of all food product launches.  In 2005, they only comprised 13% of all food product introductions on retail shelves.

In 2008, private label food sales grew by 9.3% versus 4.5% for branded food product sales.  Mintel reports that private label food sales are expected to grow another 8.1% in 2009.  Should branded food products be worried?  Is this a trend that could (or already is) spilling over into other categories?

Certainly, the recession drove some of the shift from branded to private label food products among U.S. consumers.  The question is whether or not consumers will be satisfied enough with private label brands to stay loyal to them when the economy recovers.

The other factor to consider is the amount of information consumers have access to in the 21st century.  There is less risk associated with purchasing a private label brand for the first time because consumers have learned that often the difference between private label and branded products is negligible or doesn’t exist at all.  For branded products that are competing directly with private label for the same consumer dollars and retail shelf space, this is a problem area.  Suddenly, branded products must find ways to differentiate themselves as truly better than private label products or as offering a distinctly superior value than similar private label products.  It’s a competitive factor that most branded product managers could ignore ten years ago.  Branded products still held a perception of superiority in quality a decade ago.  That perception has all but disappeared in 2009.

A third factor to consider is the variety of private label products that are available in the 21st century.  As CSNews.com explains, private label products are being introduced as more than just copycats of existing branded products.  Today, consumers can find a wide variety of private label products to choose from that often meet perceived needs that branded products don’t cater to.

Finally, private label products today are not quite as “private” as they once were.  Brands like Sam’s Club and Equate are accepted as viable competitors to consumer brands that have been around for generations.  A private label brand that has a direct association with a well-known brand (e.g., Walmart or Target) can offer the same sense of trust and security to consumers making purchase decisions without the advertising dollars backing them.  It’s an interesting challenge for branded products, and it’s one they’ve never really faced before.

When the recession fades, will consumers remain loyal to private label products?  My guess is yes.  What’s your prediction?

Image: Flickr