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Archives for 2011

British Airways Brand Campaign Launches with a Showcase of Heritage

This month, British Airways launched its largest brand advertising campaign for a single decade as part of a 5-year business investment plan intended to benefit consumers. To kick things off, the company designed an updated, 3-dimensional version of its coat of arms, which is being reapplied to all planes in its fleet and will be used extensively in advertising going forward.

The launch includes a significant social media piece with YouTube video content that is being cross-promoted on the British Airways Facebook page. You can see a video that highlights the British Airways coat of arms heritage and update process below.

The new brand campaign focuses on the To Fly. To Serve. tagline in an effort to bring the needs of customers back to the forefront of the brand’s promise. As part of the overall business investment to benefit consumers, British Airways plans to introduce new planes, special cabins for World Traveller and World Traveller Plus passengers, an updated First Class experience, improvements at the Gatwick Airport, and upgraded lounges in airports throughout the British Airways network. Furthermore, a British Airways press release explains that investments will be made in better catering and technology enhancements to make traveling more convenient and comfortable for customers both in the air and on the ground.

British Airways is running print ads and a 90-second television ad to promote the initiative, but for the first time in the company’s history, that commercial debuted on the social web on the company’s Facebook page. You can see the commercial below.

There is no doubt that British Airways wanted to roll out this brand campaign and significant business investment with a bang. Now, the company has to live up to the big expectations it’s creating for consumers. Can they do it? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on the British Airways brand initiative.

10 things a sustainability website should show | Part 1 of 2

I’m not a betting man .. I get far too emotionally involved in things to be able to be objective enough.  For example: Oxford will *always* win the University Boat Race.  Always.  This is everything to do with me being brought up in Oxfordshire and nothing to do with anything else.

However, if I were a betting man I would put a small wager down that you’ve never heard of the Network for Sustainable Business (NSB).  They’re a small Canadian non-profit which produces and promotes academic research for sustainable business, with a whole slew of PhD types producing content on topics as varied as supply chains, climate change, consumerism and organisational culture.

NSB recently produced a neat four page document entitled “10 things new sustainability managers need to know“.  With a little bit of massage this can easily be morphed into “10 things a sustainability website should show”.  After all, and in the interests of transparency, if a sustainability manager knows these things then surely the company should communicate them?

[Read more…] about 10 things a sustainability website should show | Part 1 of 2

It’s Not Easy Being a NED

I suspect that many people have no idea what a big impact non-executive directors (NEDs) can have on an organisation.

If anything, the man on the Clapham omnibus probably thinks of non-execs – if he’s heard of them at all – as white men with grey hair who get together every so often for a quick meeting and a decent lunch, in exchange for a sizeable chunk of change.

Although Boards are struggling with many issues – and diversity is one of them – this is a very outdated view of a NED. A good NED can be an extremely valuable (if often unsung) resource for the Board and for the business as a whole, and the role of the NED has become increasingly significant in recent years.

NED responsibilities include contributing to developing the corporate strategy, ensuring that reporting is accurate, and checking that the risk management system for the company is robust and comprehensive. They also work on remuneration and succession planning for the executive team. They have a role in assuring compliance with governance codes, ethical standards and best practice, as well in protecting shareholders’ interests. And because (if independent) they have no financial stake in the business other than salary, they should be able to provide an objective view.

NEDs should be able to contribute their expertise in other companies and other industries, enabling the Board to see different perspectives. Because of their experience ‘from elsewhere’ they may be able to see risks and opportunities that the executive team has overlooked. But they need to understand this business well enough that their advice doesn’t have a negative impact…

And while the Board should function as a team, executives and non-executives together, the NEDs are also expected to monitor the behaviour of the executives, and to challenge them on their decisions.

All this is a difficult balancing act; the executive team probably hold their roles because they are highly competent, strong-minded and forceful characters, with a great deal of expertise in their areas. A good NED will be able to provide a counterpoint to the existing team, while not being drowned out by it.

Why mention this? Well, the NED awards are coming up again, with awards available in 5 different categories: FTSE 100; Not-for-Profit or Public service; Quoted; AIM companies; and unquoted companies. And there’s an overall winner too: last year this was Mary Francis, Senior Independent Director (SID) at Centrica, who was commended for her role as SID and as Chair of the company’s Corporate Responsibility committee.

There are just over 3 weeks left to nominate before the October 21 deadline; is there a NED you feel has excelled this year?

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