Corporate Eye

...compare, compete, excel

Archives for September 2011

Short Savings Brand Slogans Boost Sales

A short and focused brand slogan is almost always better than a long, wordy, broad brand slogan. Short messages are easier to digest and remember.

Don’t believe me? Think of some of the slogans you can remember. How long are they? Check out some of the most iconic brand slogans of the past and present below to see what I mean:

  • Just Do It. – Nike
  • The Real Thing. – Coke
  • Save Money. Live Better. – Walmart
  • Have It Your Way. – Burger King
  • Think Different. – Apple

Each of the slogans listed above communicated the brand promise in a succinct and memorable way. For some brands, like Walmart, the slogan becomes part of the logo and is integrated into the corporate identity at every level. Is your slogan good enough to be part of your logo?

Just having a slogan isn’t enough though. Your slogan needs to tell part of your brand story and communicate a benefit to consumers. For brands that promise value for consumers’ money, including a savings message within the slogan can actually boost sales.

A study published in the Journal of Consumer Research in 2010 cites a series of consumer tasks conducted to gauge consumer perception and action based on learning how sales were impacted for brands associated with saving money. The results showed that consumers who were presented with just a brand name were likely to spend half the amount that consumers who were presented with the brand name and a money-saving slogan were likely to spend.

A separate study reported in the same paper in the Journal of Consumer Research found that consumers who saw a savings slogan were likely to spend more than when they saw a luxury slogan. So while money-savings slogans are typically used to attract new customers and increase foot traffic, they’re also very good at increasing single visit sales. That’s something to consider when you develop your own brand slogan.

Of course, the savings message needs to be appropriate for your brand, and the actual price-to-value ratio needs to consistently meet or exceed consumers’ expectations or they won’t believe your slogan for long.

What do you think about brand slogans? Leave a comment and share your thoughts about what works and what doesn’t.

Tablets Prompt Website Redesign

Tablet devices like the iPad and smartphones like the iPhone have ushered in a new online user experience for consumers. Traditional websites are boring in comparison to the touch screen look and feel that consumers love. Some companies and brands are noticing the shift in user experience preferences and taking action.

For example, the BBC launched a new version of its homepage that simulates the look and feel of the touch screen user experience. The homepage is in beta, but initial reactions to it are positive. It includes sliding screens that fly across the screen much like apps like Flipboard provide on the iPad and other mobile devices. More importantly for the BBC, it allows more content to be highlighted on the homepage in a friendlier manner that’s easy to navigate. Visitors can personalize the homepage to feature news and information that matters most to them such as local news.

In a BBC press release, it was explained that the new homepage beta will be released in stages:

  1. Visual release of new carousel format with color coding and icons to represent categories of content.
  2. Simple filters that visitors can personalize pages based on their interests.
  3. Sliding drawers that reveal details about popular content across BBC Online and real-time BBC TV and Radio listings.
  4. At-a-glance views of news, sports, weather, lottery, and travel along with index-based navigation for easy look-up of information.
  5. A single nations’ homepage that offers local and national information based on a person’s chosen location.

The BBC homepage design is also expected to help the BBC provide greater value for its license-fee payers. As explained in the press release, “by repurposing its products for four screens, the new BBC homepage will be subsequently optimised for mobile and connected TV devices.”

The BBC is thinking ahead and recognizes that traditional website design and content delivery isn’t going to cut it in the near future. Of course, there is much testing to be done and changes will undoubtedly be made, but this represents an important step in companies and brands marrying the mobile opportunity with their online efforts.

What do you think? Have you considered redesigning your website to provide a user experience that simulates the growing popularity of the touch screen? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: BBC

Putting it all together | Renewing CSR 3/3

This is the final instalment in this brief series about renewing CSR.

The first part looked at the beautification of business.  Currently all business is seen as being rather utilitarian.  Their purpose, especially in a capitalist consumer-led economy, is simply to get money out of the hands of consumers and into the pockets of shareholders.

It’s not that I agree or disagree with that .. it’s just that all the alternatives to it are similarly utilitarian.  So you have philanthropic or resource-based measurements all of which are about usefulness and efficiency, if in slightly different directions.

Why not, I asked, aim to have businesses which were beautiful as well, businesses which we valued for some kind of intrinsic reason as well as because they produced or consumed something at a certain rate? [Read more…] about Putting it all together | Renewing CSR 3/3

Bloggers Give Brands Sales, Promotion, and Publicity

It’s no secret that influential bloggers can motivate their audiences to think or act in certain ways. That’s why brands are starting to embrace bloggers as vital to communicating on a more personal level with their target customer audiences.

In fact, Erin Griffith of AdWeek goes so far as to call fashion bloggers “the future of fashion branding.” It’s probably safe to say that influential bloggers are the future of most consumer brands, not just fashion brands.

Bloggers give brands direct access to engaged and interested audiences of people whose demographic profiles can usually be discerned fairly easily. Brands as diverse as Valentino to Juicy Couture have successfully worked with fashion bloggers to reach their audiences. Whether the goal is to promote events (like Valentino) or massage brand perceptions (like Juicy Couture), the results are the same — relationships are built between brands and key audiences.

Most influential bloggers with large audiences are very particular about the brands they’ll write about, talk about, endorse, or help to promote. These bloggers are likely to turn down lucrative advertising offers that could damage their own brands in their readers’ eyes. Therefore, when a trusted blogger does endorse a brand, it gives the brand a vital boost of credibility that advertising alone can’t buy.

Griffith describes the blogger opportunity like a celebrity spokesperson endorsing a brand but better. She writes, “[Fashion] brands could hire a celebrity spokesperson. Instead, they’ve hired a celebrity spokesperson who has her own distribution channel.”

For brand managers who are still wary of working with bloggers, it’s time to move out of your comfort zone and start building relationships with the people who already invested the time, money, and sweat equity to build relationships with your target audience. I’m talking about bloggers whose readers match your target customer audience. The best bloggers are ready to talk to brands about strategic goals, audience demographics, conversions, click-through rates, and all of the other metrics you need to nail down before you can invest in a new marketing tactic.

This is no longer an audience of people blogging in their spare time. Many of the best bloggers view their blogs as businesses and their readers as customers. Often they’re fiercely protective of their readers, and its those bloggers who will give your brand the type of positive exposure it needs. Take the time to do your research and find the best, influential bloggers who have the attention of your target audience. Don’t force your brand on the blogger or their audience. Instead, look for ways to partner with bloggers to improve both your brand and theirs.

Image: felixo2

Brands Not Impressed with AOL-Microsoft-Yahoo Ad Sales Consortium

This week, AllThingsD broke a story that made media buyers sit up and take notice. However, not all of the noticing was positive. It seems that AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo! are planning to ban together. In an effort to compete against Google and ad networks, AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo! are rumored to be planning to sell each other’s display advertising inventory

In a nutshell, if one of the three companies receives a display advertising order that it cannot fulfill, its salespeople will fill the remainder of that order with display ads from the other two partners’ inventory rather than going through third party ad networks. The deal should help AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo! retain more ad revenues than they do when they rely on third party ad networks to backfill incomplete orders.

The three companies also hope that the new partnership will make it more attractive for advertisers to buy ad space directly through them rather than through ad networks. Of course, AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo! make more money when they cut out third party networks, so the partnership has the potential to benefit all three companies if it actually works. Remember, these are three large, slow, and challenged companies. Can they work together successfully?

On the other hand, AdWeek reports that brands and advertisers are not as excited about the new AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo! consortium as the three companies might have hoped. Media buyers wonder how the new partnership will actually help them. They question whether the benefits are strictly going to come in the form of increased revenue for the consortium or will buyers receive added value beyond the “convenience” of buying through a single source. For large media buyers, that “convenience” isn’t a big selling point.

AdWeek also provides insight from Forrester Research  analyst Joanna O’Connell who believes the partnership is just a short-term step that is more of a band-aid solution rather than one that holds great strategic potential.

At this point, AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo! aren’t talking. They haven’t confirmed their partnership plans, so media buyers, advertisers, brands, and competitors can only speculate. The question everyone is waiting to get answered is will these three companies be able to successfully pull this partnership off and how will advertisers and media buyers benefit from it? We’ll have to wait and see what the answers to those questions are once AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo! come clean with their plans.

What do you think of the rumored AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo! consortium? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: ilco

Which Are the Most Active Companies and Brands in Social Media?

This week, Dachis Group unveiled its Social Business Index which ranks 20,000 companies and 26,000 brands based on their social media activities. The companies and brands in social media ranking is updated every 15 minutes and a rolling ticker on the Social Business Index website displays real-time stats just like Wall Street stock prices.

The Social Business Index allows users to sort the ranking information by company, brand, industry, region, business size, ecosystem (i.e., two-way conversations), and subsidiary. For quick updates on the big movers and the top performers at any given moment, the site’s home page offers quick snapshot lists. Of course, you can also dive in deeper to get more data and slice and dice it for your own analysis.

The rankings are determined using publicly available information as well as data that Dachis Group purchases from other companies. As you might expect, big companies and brands in the online and social media space like Facebook and Google rank high. However, as you dig past those big names, you can find some really interesting information in the Social Business Index (you do have to register for a free account and sign in to see the full list).

As I write this article, the following companies and brands hold the top 20 spots as the most active in social media:

  1. Facebook, Inc.
  2. Google, Inc.
  3. News Corporation
  4. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
  5. Coinstar, Inc.
  6. Time Warner Inc.
  7. Adidas AG
  8. The Procter & Gamble Company
  9. Whole Foods Market, Inc.
  10. Nike, Inc.
  11. The Walt Disney Company
  12. Buffalo Wild Wings, Inc.
  13. H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB
  14. American Eagle Outfitters, Inc.
  15. Best Buy Co., Inc.
  16. Burberry Group plc
  17. Forever 21, Inc.
  18. Nokia Corporation
  19. PVH Corp.
  20. Industria de Diseno Textil, S.A.

Some industries rank better overall in the social business index than others. Internet content providers, Internet search and navigation services, book publishing, media, and movie theaters take the top five spots in the ranking by industry.

This is a great tool to track which companies and brands are doing great things in social media. You can zero in on your industry or region and benchmark companies and brands that rank high on the Social Business Index. Keep in mind, the Social Business Index just launched, but with Dachis Group behind it, I suspect it will grow and get even better in the near future.

Image: DarkSide