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Archives for 2010

Are All Brands Global in the 21st Century?

globeAre all brands global?  That’s a question we could have answered easily a decade or two ago, but today, it’s not as simple.  With the growth of the social Web, tools like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and so on make the global conversation immediate.  Could it be argued that because of the power of the social Web in terms of spreading information wider and faster than ever, all brands are global by default simply because they have the potential to get in front of a global audience?

It’s an interesting concept to consider.  Brands that once had no intention of becoming global in the short term might find themselves on a global stage simply through a popular blog post or tweet.  And that means brand managers have a global image and messaging responsibility, whether they want one or not.

Even small business brands can become global brands thanks to the conversation and sharing of information that happens on the social Web, so it stands to reason that corporate-backed brands shouldn’t just wonder if the same could happen to them.  Instead, they should expect that it will happen to them and plan accordingly.  That means your brand strategies should be positioned to speak with a global audience now.  Consider how your brand promise, messages, and image will translate in front of a global audience now before you find yourself in an unfavorable position at the hands of a social Web conversation.

Many brand managers dream of the day that one of their messages goes viral and spreads around the world bringing more word-of-mouth marketing and online buzz than they could ever have hoped for.  But what if that word-of-mouth marketing and online buzz happens and you’re not ready for it?  What if your brand suddenly ends up in the spotlight of the global stage?  It could happen.  Are you ready?

Do your brand promise, image and message translate to a global audience?  It’s time to ensure that they do.

Image: Flickr

Starbucks: Full Court Press!

 

Starbucks NYT

Okay—pun intended.  But blame the New York Times for introducing basketball in its recent story titled Now at Starbucks: A Rebound.  In its Q1 earnings report, SBUX showed a net income of $241.5 million (up from $64.3 million in the year-ago quarter), revenue up 4%, and same-store sales up 4%.  After several quarters of steady declines, the new view must look just like heaven.

So what has Starbucks done right?  First let’s consider how this connects with the subject of Careers.

Back in May of 2008, when Starbucks was still assumed to be bullet-proof, HR guru Kevin Wheeler wrote an article about employer branding titled Why Google or Starbucks? In it he wonders what makes people especially eager to work at certain companies, and decides:  “More people are attracted to causes than things.”

We could argue whether this is still true in times (like now) of high unemployment.  But let’s say for the moment that Wheeler’s proposition is at least basically true.  He sees Google’s “cause” as free information, and asserts that:

Starbucks’ cause is community. It’s a place, like in the old television show Cheers, where everybody knows your name. It feels good to go into your local Starbucks every morning, be greeted by a smiling barista who knows your name and your favorite drink, and to meet some friends.

That is indeed the role Starbucks plays in my life, and in spite of corporate ups and downs, my local baristas are always warmly waiting when I walk in the door—and I regard every Starbucks location as a remote office plus home-away-from-home.  But even when Wheeler was writing, SBUX was in trouble.  That same year saw the beginning of extensive store closings and layoffs, along with a barrage of downside publicity.

To the extent that their reinvention campaign is succeeding, it’s not only because of streamlining or process improvements. There has also been a focus on reenergizing employees—and Starbucks has joined the new culture of customer engagement: lots of social networking, a listening campaign, special offers, and even an affiliation with MSNBC’s feisty AM talk show, Morning Joe.

The Starbucks Career Center website now reads like an excerpt from Wheeler’s article.  The headline:  “It’s a lot like working with friends.” And the pitch:

We call each other “partners”. We respect our customers and each other. We’re dedicated to serving ethically sourced coffee, caring for the environment and giving back to the communities where we do business. And we’re still small enough to remember your name when you walk in the door.

Reinforcing the message is a festoon of employer awards, from the trusty Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For to Forbes 100 Best Corporate Citizens and Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality.  So the “cause factor” is definitely full court press.

Not that everything is perking perfectly in the inner world of Starbucks.  There are employee complaints—and because Starbucks is big, and actively represents itself as a responsible employer, those complaints get coverage.  But the percentage of unhappy workers seems proportional, and there is definitely no lack of barista wannabes.

Now for the punch line. If you compare Keven Wheeler’s prescription for establishing a strong employer brand with NYT’s account of what’s behind the Starbucks rebound . . . there is a very strong similarity.  Wheeler’s five steps to “Make Your Company Memorable”:

  1. Gain perspective and know yourself.
  2. Define the promise.
  3. Develop a strategy.
  4. Create a “buzz” to communicate your brand.
  5. Measure your progress.

In short—what works for getting and keeping employees works for getting and keeping customers.  And vice versa.

5 Tips for Branding Success

blocksBuilding a successful brand takes time.  There are no easy routes to success or shortcuts to save time.  You might get lucky and garner widespread awareness and attention for your brand, but successful brands depend on customer loyalty.  There are no shortcuts to developing relationships with consumers, creating expectations for your brand, and meeting those expectations through every customer touch point.

With that in mind, following are five factors that should always be on your mind when you’re building a brand.  They should permeate through all of your brand-building and marketing initiatives.

1. Be specific

Strong brands are focused brands.  Define your brand promise in specific terms so it stands out from the broad and vague promises of other brands.  Then make sure your brand lives up to those specific promises.

2. Be authoritative

Define your brand promise and shout it confidently to the world.  Make everyone else believe in your brand promise, too.

3. Be consistent

Define your brand promise and how you want to communicate that message to consumers (i.e., your brand message and brand image) and don’t waiver.  Conflicting messages confuse consumers causing them to turn away from your brand in search of one that makes them feel secure.  Consistency is vital to brand building success.

4. Be honest

Consumers are not naive, and they appreciate straightforward, transparent messaging.  Don’t promise the world and not live up to those promises.  Honesty trumps pie-in-the-sky claims any day of the week.

5. Be relentless

Persistence will be rewarded.  Get your brand messages out there and then get them out again and again.  Consumers see and hear a myriad of messages everyday, and it’s easy for yours to get lost in the clutter.  Don’t give up too soon.

Image: Stock.xchng

Mobile Apps are Hot – Does Your Brand Have One?

A recent study by DM2PRO and Quattro Wireless reports that mobile apps are going to skyrocket in popularity in 2010, so while less than 50% of companies surveyed for the study invested in mobile apps in 2009, the majority plan to do so in 2010.  That’s a significant shift in investment strategy.

Most companies surveyed in the study claimed that they invest in mobile apps to increase customer engagement, connect with targeted audiences, expand their marketing reach, and keeping their brands in front of consumers.

Where are all those dollars being invested?  Check out the chart from eMarketer below to get an idea of where marketers in North America used mobile/social apps in 2009 to get an idea.

mobile_apps_sites

Facebook and iPhone apps clearly lead the pack in terms of where investments in branded apps are channeled, and I don’t suspect that will shift much in 2010.  However, it’s expected that more companies will invest in mobile apps than social media apps in 2010.

What is particularly interesting in this trend is the fact that there is more standardization in apps today, so investment costs are actually decreasing in many ways.  Hopefully, that will lead to more advancements in terms of capabilities and functionality.  ‘Plain Jane’ apps could be usurped very quickly as the world of mobile apps morphs before our eyes.

This is a fast paced environment, and the truth of the matter is that many brands may have trouble keeping up and staying relevant, particularly brands backed by large companies that have to wade through corporate bureaucracy to make decisions and move to action.  This could actually be a good thing for consumers though, as smaller companies that can move faster jump in and seize opportunities, but will those smaller companies stand a chance in the long run?  Or will we have a fast rise and faster plunge similar to the dotcom bust in the 1990s?

Regardless, it’s an exciting time to be a marketer!  Does your brand have an app yet?

What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 10: A Graph is Worth a Thousand Data Points

At the heart of understanding a company is the ability to parse the financial statements, which are chock full of great information. However, one of the problems with the financial statements is that the information is scattered among the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow statement. A further problem with the financial statements is that they are often considered as stand alone documents, with very little interaction of the information between the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements. A final issue of the financials is that they are data-dense, and don’t easily give a clear picture of inter-relationships of the data and the evolving picture over time.

This is where graphs come in. Properly constructed graphs can show not only what has been happening over time, but also how various components relate and interact. So it is surprising that so few companies have web sites that help investors construct graphs from the financial data. I’m not quite sure of the reason for this. It could be that companies figure that professional investors with expensive subscription services to data have the ability to do this on their own, or it could be that they simply haven’t thought about it. In either case, I believe they are missing a great opportunity.

EADS_1smClick image to expand

By making graphing capabilities easily accessible to web site visitors, companies can make life considerably easier for investors and highlight areas that they consider important. For example, EADS, the defense contractor, creates a section on their web site entitled “Key Figures”, a screenshot of which is on the right. As you can see, the page contains plenty of data, but unless you are prepared to do a bit of analysis, either with a calculator or by reentering the data into a spreadsheet, it’s tough to get a clear picture of what is going on.

EADS_2sm

Fortunately, EADS has a function on the page called “Interactive Chart Generator” which helps. If you go to the chart generator, you can quickly construct graphs such as the one here, showing the relationship between EBIT and R&D in order to see if EADS continually reinvests for the future or whether they cut back in the tough years.

Another favorite of professional investors is to look at free cash flow generation as a double check on net income. I was able to construct the graph below with about six clicks of my computer mouse.

EADS_3smClick image to enlarge

All things considered, the Interactive Chart Generator is a very effective tool to help your investors quickly understand some of the key trends in your financial information.

In this series:
Previous post: Provide context
Next post: Interim results

A Brand Restraining Order for a Comparative Advertising No-No

valerie_bertinelliDid you know that one brand can get a restraining order on another brand?  Now, before you say, “only in New York,” let’s take a look at all the facts.

  • Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig are intense competitors in the weight loss industry.
  • Jenny Craig (owned by Nestle) released a television commercial that claimed people who use the Jenny Craig weight loss system lose twice as much weight as people who use the Weight Watchers weight loss system.
  • In the Jenny Craig ad, celebrity spokesperson Valerie Bertinelli read a script that stated the comparison claim was based on a scientific study.
  • Weight Watchers filed a lawsuit stating the Jenny Craig claim is false and citing evidence that the claim was based on two different studies (which both intended to research something different than a Weight Watchers comparison), conducted 10 years apart and based on an ‘older’ Weight Watchers weight loss system.
  • The court ruled in Weight Watchers’ favor believing the Jenny Craig claims ‘were not supportable’ and gave Weight Watchers International a temporary restraining order against Jenny Craig.  Weight Watchers wants the ad pulled and seeks monetary damages.
  • We can assume an appeal will follow based on a precedent-setting case in 2009 related to false claims about Activa in Dannon Yogurt, which was settled for $35 million.

So those are the facts.  What do you think?

There is no doubt that comparative advertising can work.  It’s been around for a long time.  In fact, today’s comparative advertising is tame in comparison to claims from half a century ago (or more).  Of course, not all comparative advertising is equal.  In fact, some of it is quite extreme (‘attack advertising’).  You can read more about my views on comparative advertising in this post on Corporate Eye.

The bottom-line is this: now that the precedent has been set, I think it’s safe to assume that the number of brand or advertising restraining orders could grow.  It’s certainly food for thought when creating your own ad campaigns.  The long term damage that comparative advertising can cause to your brand just might outweigh the short term gains.

Image: Flickr