Category Archives: Branding

Marketing Plots: the About You/Us Myth

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(Previously published on the Landor Blog as “Knowing me, Knowing you.”)

“Is our brand more ‘about us’ or ‘about you?’”

Agencies and clients alike, we all love a good positioning matrix.

To begin with, they are dangerous creatures, as their seductive powers come from the brain’s cognitive preference for clear cut dichotomies, and life isn’t always black and white. Taking two dichotomies and using them together is that power squared, but so is the danger.

Love, respect, and fear them—they’re not going anywhere any time soon. However, it will be useful to start rejecting some common false dichotomies that tend to make reoccurring appearances.

The one I want to mention this time is when one axis (usually the X) talks about the difference between "talking about us" (the company/brand) and "talking about you" (the audience/customer).

Usually the assertion will be that the brand is too inwardly orientated, talking about the detail of the products and the history of the company instead of the needs and solutions of the customers, audiences, or stakeholders.

Time and time again?I’ve seen it used as a central dimension to the analysis of positioning, often favoured by research agencies.

The bias is in the question itself, compounded by a guilty residue from an era before customer-centricity. A concept that is now hygienic to every industry (at least as an ambition).

Beginning with the question: the world we live in is just not like that. Most of the best brands you could think of will be neither. Apple talks about its products and culture, but is a brand that cares deeply about meeting needs and ease of use. The same can be said about Google. Coke is very much about the product and the myths that come with it, it’ll be tempting to position them opposite to Pepsi and say that Pepsi is more about its drinkers and Coke more about its own brand. But in truth: 1) Coke has adapted its myths to centre on changing lifestyles time and time again. And, 2) Is it really that helpful to put them on this axis to begin with?

The best brands are both about themselves and about their customers. Apple, on different analysis pieces I’ve seen, is placed on either end of the spectrum—being "about Apple" to differentiate from and "about the customer" as a pointer at the important-but-generic-for-the-last-30-years (at the very least) practice of customer centricity.

Going back to the bias in the question: If you ask customers in focus groups or individual interviews what they prefer, what do you think they’ll answer? Of course they will say: "Me! Me! Talk about me!" But we know that in the mysterious mix required to make them pay attention they also want to know who "you" are and why is it worth paying attention to what you have to say.

So can we just stop using it and pretending that it adds any meaningful insights?
Thank you.

One word (equity) is not enough

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"Could you define the brand in one word?"
In one word?  How about "No."

Albert Einstein was quoted saying: "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."
I don’t know any worthwhile stories or conversations that contain one word, or that focus on just one word. Any brand needs more than that to craft its narrative.

I’m tempted to say something like "The age we live in is very much about creating (new) meaningful connections." but actually, that’s what life’s about, isn’t it?
Well, no connections if there is only one thing. Two are a minimum requirement, and you need a third one if you want movement. The math of stories, one could say.

And if you do take one word and try to use it to link yourself and your audience – you already have something that goes beyond this single word, just by making that connection, you have three points of reference. If that’s the case, you’d better have a better idea of what it might be. And an attempt at articulating it, not necessarily only with words.

If your team or agency get only one word, what they get is a wide open brief to do almost anything with your brand.
Sure, great brands become iconic. Talking about one word alone may give an iconic impression. But being iconic is a result, not a cause.

And if you tell me you want to "own" something, then I’m really going to reach for my gun.

Marketing Plots: The ends/means fallacy. Bare assertion and the world’s most common strategic error.

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I have named my pain. At least one frequently reoccurring pain. It’s time I’ve put it in writing.
Here is the world’s most common strategic planning error. It is simply this:

Confusing a goal with a strategy.

One can call it an error, but the error, if to be honest, is seeing strategy where there is none.
In the philosophical study of logic, there is a logical flaw called "The bare assertion fallacy". This is the fallacy behind playground sentences like "I am right because I am.". The end/means fallacy works in a similar way.

It is obviously clear to the reader, that the sentence "I will become rich by making a lot of money."  does not cut it as a strategy for becoming rich, yet so many so-called strategies I comes across, especially brand strategies, and specifically "strategic" creative briefs, will have elements of Bare Assertion naively woven into them.

You wouldn’t expect big corporates to fall into such a simple logical pit, but here are some examples of bare assertion coming out of the woodwork, or at least telling sympthoms:

"to become the world’s top/best/ best known/most loved/leader…".
Mission/Vision/Positioning statements that are completely wishful thinking:  Don’t get me wrong, having a goal is important, but having an ambition does not solve the question of how to achieve said ambition. And I’m sorry, even if you’re one of the gullible many who believe in "the law of attraction", we cannot develop creative according to that.

"This brand will be cool, young, fun and fashionable. "
Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, but if we want to have a strategy to make that happen, then no number of result-orientated aspirations, masquerading as brand values, drivers or attributes, will tell us what makes a brand all those things.

"Our strategy is to become customer centric / human touch champions / design driven / insight driven."
As opposed to all the brands out there who try to achieve the opposite?

"This is about encouraging brand love and speaking with an authentic voice."
"Love marks", is nothing more than branding rebranded, "be yourself" is useful only if you know yourself.

"Our goal in this project is to redefine the brand and maximise value to increase return on investment."
In other words, we want to succeed and get our money’s worth. Thanks for that valuable insight.

Building a brand is a long, trying, quest. Dreaming of the grail feels nice, and, yes, it might be useful to remember why we’re on the road in the first place, but seeing only the grail instead of keeping our senses open to the road  – that’s deadly. We have promises to keep.

P.S.
Don’t be confused by the lack of insight in the examples to think that’s the solution. Insights alone do not make a strategy either, but that’s another story.

Waiter! There’s an X(xx) in my logo

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It happens every time. You finally get a brand identity approved then someone comes back, pale as sheet and says "Well we just showed the new logo to [ anything from CEO to wife to janitor], and s/he said ‘don’t you think it looks a little like an X’"?

Some points regarding the concern that people may have irrelevant (obscene or other) associations for the new mark:

1. Graphical marks always appear in context. There is no situation in which the mark appears totally alone and without any context. When the mark is given in context the chances of such associations prevailing are practically none-existent.
Any graphic brand in the world, when taken out of context can be read in some negative way.

2. The human brain is always happy to give significance, even when there isn’t any context. When abstract shapes are seen, people will always find imagery in them. They will do that even if these are random: ink blots, cracks in paint or mould stains on the ceiling. The difference is that some people are aware of doing that, and others can see only their own interpretation. In reality – it doesn’t happen thanks to context. And even if a couple of times it does, it doesn’t "stick".

3. The only acceptable type of design research is a "disaster check", you present it to people of different age groups and backgrounds who are asked to free associate about it, unless the same negative connotation keeps coming time and time again – you’re safe. The question is not "Is it possible for a person to see THAT in the mark?" but "WILL people likely see THAT?".

The answer is usually – They absolutely will not.

(Oh, and people will make parodies on the net anyway…)

Marketing’s last stand: evolve before media-spend implodes

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(Originally Published in Hub Magazine, this article led Landor’s Perspectives anthology in 2011 and was highly commended at the same year’s Atticus prize)

They say time flies when you’re having fun. Perhaps it flies even faster when you’re confused. Even though the first commercial website, O’Reilly Media’s GNN, launched nearly two decades ago, in August 1993, the marketing community’s attitude toward the Internet is still split between two mutually exclusive attitudes, which eye each other suspiciously.

On one side we have the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed evangelical digital radicals, declaring digital to be the end of marketing as we know it, if not the end of marketing, period. On the other side, glaring at them with contempt are the traditional conservatives who declare “people are people,” gripe that it’s all hype, and say: “Okay, okay–maybe we’ll give the ad agency a tiny sliver of the budget to experiment with this ‘online.’”

In their heart of hearts (as it is no longer acceptable to admit this out loud) the conservatives simply do not understand the excitement. The radicals say that the conservatives have not seen the–no doubt, electric blue–digital light.

While digital marketers’ fascination with the latest and greatest does make them susceptible to hype, the old-school camp’s resistance holds back progress. Dare we say that even when “markets are conversations,” it doesn’t mean “branding is dead?” Maybe it’s just branding as we know it that should die.

Surprisingly, if one examines the three fundamental tensions that make the Internet such a challenging medium for marketing, the seemingly conflicting agendas of the old and new schools of marketing are reconciled. Within these three tensions lie valuable insights into the future of marketing. Continue reading →