Honda is a Doer

This looks and feels like Honda: Simple, positive and inspiring. Honda was always a brand that walks the walk, not focusing on talking the talk. The doer theme is a perfect match. Another homerun from W&K.

As you might remember, I didn't really care that much for the puzzle creative but the new commercial is a homerun. I was looking and hoping for an online extension, to no avail. If you find it, please send it to me.

Relaunch

Starbucks Nation is in uproar because their beloved Java won't be available this pm. I don't care about Starbucks, prefer really good coffee like Intelligentsia. (Best coffee I ever had.) But I think it's a good move by Starbucks.
Instead of just changing out some advertising or signage, Starbucks signals very strongly that they're willing to change. Works better than any new tagline or fancy ad. I might even give them a chance again.

Obsession with customers

Joe Nocera, of NY Times fame, yesterday wrote a piece about Amazon's obsession with customers and his personal experience with their service.

He questions Wall Street's obsession with short-term goals:

"Maybe, just maybe, taking care of customers is something worth doing when you are trying to create a lasting company. Maybe, in fact, it's the best way to build a real business - even if it comes at the expense of short-term results."

And he concludes:

"There is simply no question that Mr. Bezos’s obsession with his customers — and the long term — has paid off, even if he had to take some hits to the stock price along the way. Surely, it was worth it. As for me, the $500 favor the company did for me this Christmas will surely rebound in additional business down the line. Why would I ever shop anywhere else online? Then again, there may be another reason good customer service makes sense. “Jeff used to say that if you did something good for one customer, they would tell 100 customers,” Mr. Kotha said.

I guess that’s what I just did."

Customer experiences become more and more important: Thoughtfulness is on the top of my list. Two examples:


My wife and I used to have a mortgage with Citibank and switched a few months ago to ING Direct. What a dramatic change:
The ING Direct web experience might be the best I've ever encountered. It takes less than 30 seconds to pay the mortgage, everything is superbly organized, no unnecessary paperwork. A pure, minimalistic experience. Exactly what I'm looking for when dealing with a mortgage company. The brand promise. Overdelivered.



Second Example: You know the situation: It's a dark bar, you get the check, it's hard to read and even harder to write down the tip and total, sign it. This bar and, dare I say it: Camel, improved my overall experience by offering the first back-lit bar check.

Bruce Temkin spoke on his blog about ten customer experience resolutions for 2008. All brands should have those resolutions posted in each room and our sites. And by all brands, I mean all brands. When a bar can delight you with something besides cheap and stiff drinks, you know that every brand can make my life better.

I want a scarf for Christmas

Moving Brands, an innovative corporate identity design agency out of the UK, developed a fascinating project focused on one idea: Fashion should be done by the people and not just a few select fashion designers.

Introducing Weare, an outstanding idea that merges fashion and technology with social networking.
As the Weare site explains:

"Last Christmas we set up a screen made of fairy lights in the Moving Brands window.

We then invited people to send messages and drawings, via a simple web-interface, to be shown in sequence in the window. The window was captured by webcam and broadcast live to the internet.

We stored everything sent to the window in a gallery, and the full sequence has been used to create this scarf."


You can buy the limited edition scarf online through the site or in selected shops in London. I tried to purchase it but since I live in the US, I wasn't able to input my info.

And, while you're shopping, you can create the next Weare product by contributing designs or visuals. And vote for what the next Weare product should be. I contributed an unrecognizable heart and smiley face. Props to me!

So simple and fascinating. I wish I would have come up with this idea.

Hat tip to Russel Davies.

Brand Extensions

Most companies still don't understand that each interaction with their brand and people determines the value of their brand.

I meet with Sales Reps almost every day: Sites, Emerging Media, Technology Providers, etc. More than 50% of these brand ambassadors feel like a brand mismatch: There's the sales rep for an emerging media company that relies on print-outs for his presentations, the rep for one of the hottest sites on the Internet that doesn't know what Web 2.0 is all about and and and...

One of my job duties is to evaluate all opportunities and generate recommendations/strategies for our clients. Since many of these opportunities revolve around Web 2.0 and Emerging Media, I don't have tons of data to determine my recommendations. I have to rely on basic data, overall match for respective brand and the sales rep to offer me additional insight to support my case when I go back to client.

Sure, you might have the right target audience, matching psychographics, decent reach and a good match with the brand I try to market. But many brands do. The difference between a sale and a non-sale is the sales rep. If he's really in tune with the brand, if he understands and represents the essence of the brand, lives and breathes the brand; that's where magic happens.

It seems there's a dearth of good sales people out there. And most Internet/Emerging Media companies decide to hire seasoned sales veterans. This might work once in a while. Most often it doesn't. It's not about the sales skills of the sales reps. It's about their street cred. Because most of Emerging Media buys are experimental, the outstanding sales rep has to to play a much broader role than usual: He doesn't have to be a sales person, he has to be a brand evangelist.

So, next time you need to hire someone in your sales department, forget about resumes and experience. Focus on passion. Find the person that creates a space where your brand becomes more than you ever dreamed of being.

Indifference is deadly

There are some brands that I can't stand: Best Buy comes to mind, American Airlines, Citibank, just to name a few.

I've invested a lot energy into disliking these brands. I tell people about my experiences, share our frustrations and spread the word.

Most brands make the mistake just to embrace their most loving customers: They build loyalty programs, treat them with perks and make it easy for them to stay part of the 'family'.
In addition, brands try to convince the indifferent crowd to come over to the sunny side where all the happy brand lovers are. This is mostly a waste of time since most people don't waste a second thinking about brand unless they hate or love them. Getting indifferent people excited about your brand is a sisyphusian task.

Why not embrace the haters and harshest critics instead? They invested a lot of brain power and emotions into your brand.

Offer them opportunities to express themselves, listen to them, make them part of your marketing plan. What's the worst that can happen? You gather a lot of insights about your critics. You will understand that your indifference and putting up a big walls that people can't infiltrate caused these negative emotions.

And, if you do it right and take your time, some of the haters might come over to the sunny side.

The Brand Gap

Great presentation, discussing how to bridge the distance between business strategy and design. Very long PowerPoint but it feels to the point and is very entertaining.

Your worldview

At a recent party in my house, I bought four different brands of beer: The predictable US brand, a known British brand, an unknown French beer with a cool bottle and a microbrew from LA.

I noticed that the French beer was gone almost immediately, closely followed by the microbrew. The majority of my guests didn't choose based on brand. They chose based on design and coolness factor.

If you see the world as an adventure, as something you want to experience and get the most out of it, you chose the French or local beer. If you don't like to take risks, prefer to be safe and lead a predictable life, you chose the other two brands. It really didn't matter what tasted better. It mattered how you perceived the world before you even arrived at the party.

Social Networking - Old Hat

Our brains were wired 2,000,000 years ago when we were hunters and gatherers. We sat around the camp fire, exchanged good and bad experiences, tried to keep the other tribes out.

The old media model allowed for brands to interrupt this human need and ensure that the age-old conversations were disrupted.

The fall of the TV empire and demise of mass media altogether allows people to go back to focus on their needs and desires. And Web 2.0 is just the catalyst to make it easier for customers to talk about brands/products and allows for a quick connection to a brand/product.

All the Web 2.0 of this world won't help your brand if you don't build your brand correctly. Web 2.0 supports the brand. It doesn't build it.

You say you want a revolution

When brands are just nicely wrapped sales enzymes, as many are, they often just become another nice package that screams "I'm beautiful inside."

Life beyond the package
Quite a few brands get the packaging right, become cold icons and then go into retirement. And soon after generic brands compete with and pass them by without any effort.

When you build brands, you have to look beyond the packaging. Brands own an endless space. In this endless space we try to connect with customers in new and surprising ways. Yes, the packaging is important, but it's just a small part of the brand. The main focus is to find out where the brands directs the consumer in this infinite space.

A real brand causes a revolution.
A brand is part of a bigger idea. And you need the consumers to advance your brand. They need a mission, a vision, oppportunities to connect and some direction. They don't need anything else from you. They just want you to be the leader. Not the manager. And definitely not the micro-manager.
When you build a brand, your ultimate goal should be to lead a revolution. A change, an emotion, an idea that connects and expresses the consumer through your brand. The consumer energy drives the revolution and brand forward.

The revolution wins.
Leading a revolution should be your ultimate goal. Real brands care about the packaging. But they are passionate about how to revolutionize products. Markets. And, ultimately, the world.

Customer Loyalty

Big brands love to talk about customer loyalty. Loyalty Marketing. Loyalty Life Cycle.

Little newsflash: Customer don't feel any loyalty towards corporations. And even beloved brands.
Customer prefer some brands over others for many reasons: iPod vs. Zune: iPod is still the benchmark, Apple is so much cooler than Microsoft and everybody else has iPod's. Lexus vs. Cadillac: Lexus models are more reliable, the service is exceptional and the resale value is so much better. Diesel vs. Gap: Diesel makes you look and feel so much cooler, their advertising rocks and you look like you belong when you wear them.

Customers are not loyal to brands. They prefer some brands over others. Period.

Looking at my life, I'm loyal to a few brands in my life. None of them is a corporate entity. None of them is listed on Wall Street. I'm loyal to my local videostore because I don't want my neighborhood to look like a giant strip-mall, and I don't want the store owner to end up as a Blockbuster manager.
I'm loyal to my local Farmers Market because they allow my kid to run around freely, taste new fruits and vegetables, and I know I support the local community.

Loyalty is local.
Loyalty is highly personal.
Loyalty is about relationships.
Loyalty is about responsibility.

Trust me when I say this: Consumers were and will never be loyal to a brand. Never.
They choose a brand over another brand because of A, B and C.
That's why it's so important to understand what these A, B and C's are.
Because the consumer will only choose that brand if the A, B, C's are taken care of.
That might keep you in business.

Want to grow your business? Take care of the basics and provide an experience your consumers want to share with their family and friends. Out of loyalty.

What marketers don't understand about Second Life

I'm a big believer in Second Life and the future of virtual, social networks. But I continue to be baffled by marketers transferring their advertising techniques of real life to Second Life.
Second Life has quite a few problems but also many opportunities.

The problems:

1) Technology is not user-friendly. It takes too long to get acquainted with the controls and to be able to explore.

2) The subscriber numbers are a farce. Yes, more than 5 million signed up for SL but only 30,000 are exploring SL while I type this entry.
If you take subscribers online at any given point of time and Second Life square mileage, Second Life’s density is a mere 23,000 per square mile compared to 143,000 for Manhattan.

3) 70% of Second Life residents are disappointed by the branded experiences.

And here's the opportunity for a forward-thinking brand: Don't replicate your failed marketing efforts of real life and push them to SL. Explore your brand promise and experience, and truly integrate it into Second Life. If your brand promise is to be adventurous, offer an adventurous experience. Don't just put a cool building on an island and hope for the best. Become part of the community, become a real citizen in SL. The first wave of PR coups have died down and the buildings are a sad reminder of brands not getting SL and the changed consumer landscape.
SL is all about the consumer. Only if you involve the consumer will you be successful. I'm still hoping someone will get it.

Authenticy

In my latest Imediaconnection column I write about the importance of brand authenticity.
Clearly, we're more likely to tell our friends about an authentic experience. Authenticity is important.
But, how do we define authenticity?

I would argue it's about a deep-rooted point of view. Or, in marketing terms, a deep-rooted positioning. Without it, no brand can be authentic. Without it, you don't know what matters. Without it, you don't understand what you are. And what not.


In order to provide the most efficient service to his customers, Mr. Yeganeh (the original Soup Nazi) established a set of "rules" for ordering his soup:

Pick the soup you want.
Have your money ready.
Move to the extreme left after ordering.
Supposedly, if these rules aren't followed, the offending patron is denied service and sent to the back of the line.

Al Yeganeh personifies a deep-rooted point of view. A strong, coherent view of where his business needs to go is the bedrock of authenticity.
Chrysler was a stronger brand when Chrysler was run by a Chrysler whose opinions about Chrysler could overrule any marketing study.

Unfortunately, there are not that many authentic experiences out there. Virgin. Apple.
Starbucks? Oh wait.
No soup for you.