The Intrinsic Value of a Brand

What's in a brand? We hear the term tossed around cavalierly in business conversation all the time. It's become one of the many misunderstood, overused and therefore diluted terms in the marketplace.

Among the many wrenching stories about our economy over the past several months has been the corporate shattering of General Motors. The venerable GM has suffered tremendous public humiliation during the recent economic crisis and now stands at a crossroad. It has made some tough choices and has many more to make before the ultimate fate of the former giant is known.

One such decision is the choice to eliminate the Pontiac brand effective with the 2009 model year. Not that this is the first time. You might recall that Oldsmobile was the first of the GM brands to be shuttered in the new century in an effort to focus its resources on its more popular brands. And admittedly, at the time, GM was weighted down in the midsection with little differentiation between the Olds and Pontiac brands.

But I've been struggling with the decision to throw Pontiac under the bankruptcy bus. Does this really make sense? Pontiac was the "we build excitement" brand: youthful and muscular. The Grand Prix, GrandAm, Firebird/TransAm, cars run as much on adrenalin as petroleum. I couldn't — and still can't — for the life of me figure out why GM would choose to kill the "excitement" while keeping the Buick nameplate alive.

In my personal experience, developed throughout decades of absorbing advertising slogans and just looking around, it's clear to me that Pontiac really does reflect a more youthful, vigorous aura ... while Buicks appear to be the cars of old age (and company cars). Yes, I know this is a gross generalization based on my "gut." but seriously: when was the last time a 20-something or 30-something told their buddies excitedly about their new Buick? Perhaps somewhere amidst the intricate number crunching at GM this choice makes sense, but it sure doesn't to me. (Transparency disclosure: I have owned a few Pontiacs — in fact, my very first car was a GTO; and my parents have driven Buicks since they reached their late 60s.)

Does this matter? Should the suits at General motors care about the gut feeling of an ordinary consumer, albeit one who happens to know a thing or two about brands? Apparently not, since a thoughtfully analytical eMail sent to senior officials when the decision was merely in the rumor stage received a "how nice of you to share your irrelevant opinion" reply.

But here's the thing: Whatever definitions are used in B-schools and marketing classes, a brand is what consumers think it is. The new Buick promotions say "Everything you thought about Buick just went BOOM. Take a look at me now." Clever, in a way — a blatant pander to the baby boomer generation they apparently hope to seduce. This approach clearly indicates that they know that they're selling the brand from a position of weakness, and it's a position they put themselves right into. Why? Again, maybe there's a secret in the numbers that we mere mortals don't understand. Or maybe there's a ghost in the Buick attic that must be ameliorated.

Of course, we also need to keep in mind that this is one of the arrogant American behemoths that ignored the writing on the wall when Japanese manufacturers came ashore in the 70s with their compact, economical, high-quality vehicles. So it would not be surprising for this to be yet another enormous, stinking error.

It's far more difficult to try to change public perception about brands than to leverage those perceptions to your advantage. What GM is doing is simply counterintuitive. And I don't think it's going to fly. I'll be watching to see what happens. And since we Americans now own a stake in the company, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

How do you see it? Am I blinded by my own myopic view? Share your thoguhts with me below —

As always, thanks for participating.

Jan Thomas
The Communication Heretic

Pretty Tricky, These Advertisers

As a lifelong marketer, I know I pay a lot more attention to the advertisements I see around me than most people. Recently two TV ads in particular have attracted my interest and inspired me to the topic for this post.

Wow — triple hops!
The first is this ad for Miller Lite beer. Anyone who watches television must certainly have seen this by now as they have been everywhere with it for a number of months. Their information made me curious, so I searched for online information about the role of hops in beer — and learned that hops are almost always added three times, that this is the standard for brewing.

While Miller manages to make it sound impressive, the truth is, that’s just how you make beer. In fact, John Palmer’s book about brewing, How to Brew instructs readers to add hops three times during brewing because hops are divided into three different types: bittering hops, flavor hops and aroma (or finishing) hops.

But Miller counts on the average beer drinker not actually knowing very much about beer. Some beer-fan blogs have pointed out the truth, but the broader consumer world is quiet on the subject. And they're still running the ad.

No wonder they call it the cheesiest
The second spot that has more recently caught my attention is for Kraft's ubiquitous macaroni and cheese, the favorite of kids everywhere. For years — more than I can recall — Kraft has used the branding tagline, "the cheesiest." Now they've performed a brilliant sleight-of-hand maneuver and expanded that tagline to "No wonder they call it the cheesiest!"

But who is the "they" in this statement? The company themselves! They've called their product "the cheesiest" for so long they hope none of us notice that the designation is really just a part of their own advertising armory! In fact, a quick glance at the official ingredient panel for the product proves that there is truly precious little cheese int he product, as most adults have known since we were old enough to think about it.

Now, as a marketing professional, I acknowledge that a lot of what is said in advertising falls within a broad expanse of "what you can get away with." In both these instances, the companies have shown sharp wits in selecting their themes and building on them: making statements that sound larger than they are and assuming no one will think very deeply about the meaning of the statements themselves. So I'll give them props for that ... but with a wink and a nod, because I can see the magician's secret.

What ads attract your notice as slick twists of reality? I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for participating.

Jan Thomas
The Communication Heretic

The Future of Marketing

I recently read an online article, The Future of Marketing by Gareth Kay, at TalentZoo that I simply have to share ... because while the propositions made by the author are dramatic (within the marketing microcosm, that is), I sincerely hope he's right. You can read the piece yourself here.

Kay begins by referencing the vast amount of discussion we hear about new technologies for communication:

Pick up any of the trade papers or read any of the marketing blogs recently and you’re likely to notice Amara’s law at work: “We invariably overestimate the short-term impact of new technologies while underestimating their long-term effects.”

... and then observes, "but there is precious little conversation about the impact technology is having long-term on culture, and how this might challenge some of the assumptions we have built marketing programs on for the last few decades." He then notes four interesting signs of where be believes marketing may be headed:

1. Brands will be built on cultural and social missions, not commercial propositions
Marketing historically has been obsessed with the concept of positioning — how you are different to your competitors in your category. Increasingly, great brands are realizing that people don’t see categories and don’t obsess about them. What actually matters is having a point of view on the world, a cultural mission to ask people to rally around. You can begin to see this come to life in marketing ideas like Dove’s ‘Campaign For Real Beauty’ and, more importantly, embedded into the very DNA of businesses. Howies, a UK clothing brand is a great example. As its founder Dave Hieatt said, “We’re not trying to sell things. We are trying to make people think about stuff.” That belief (make people think about the world around them) is self-evident in everything from the materials they use to their design to their catalogues to store design.

2. Marketing will be about what you do, not what you say
Marketing has for far too long been built on the notion of saying things at people, rather than doing things for or with people. Great marketing will increasingly be about what you do, not what you say. And that means that rather than being a silo within a business, marketing needs to be an ethos pervasive throughout an organization. Great marketing ideas today and in the future are as likely to be ideas that ‘live’ in operations (think Zappos unannounced upgrade to overnight shipping or Amazon’s one-click shopping), retail design (handheld registers in Apple stores to cut down queues and increase staff/customer interaction) or HR (the Zappos culture book).

3. Lots of little ideas, not one big idea
The future of marketing lies in breaking the tyranny of the big idea for two reasons.

First, while marketing (and brands) exist for a commercial purpose, they live in a cultural space. And culture is far richer, deeper, complex and nuanced than 99.9 percent of marketing. Marketing will be more culturally interesting if it is made up of lots of coherent ideas than repeating consistently one idea.

Second, given our inability to predict the future (despite the fortunes spent on research) it makes much more sense to start lots of fires to see what takes hold and place lots of small bets, rather than putting everything on black 35. We need to think about investing lots of small bets, learning from them and then scaling up behind the ideas that seem to be working. (It’s worth noting that this has been made practical by the fact that the internet is reducing the cost of failure to almost zero).

4. People first
Marketing in the future will be about putting people first. This may sound ridiculously obvious, but too often marketing is about convincing people how great you are rather than working out what people are interested in and how you might be able to help or add value.

A great example of this was the Tate Tracks campaign created by Fallon London for the Tate Modern gallery. They needed to increase the number of under-25s visiting the gallery and quickly realized that the conventions of gallery marketing — show the art on display — was unlikely to change behavior. So instead they thought about what this audience were passionate about — music — and created a campaign around art inspiring new, exclusive music.

If I had to sum it up I think the future lies in realizing that creating cultural value will create commercial value. Whatever the future may bring, it’s certainly an exciting time to be in the industry.

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Those of you who know me or have followed my posts will quickly recognize why I am so enamored of Kay's Four Predictions. These are precisely the kinds of ideas I have been promoting in this blog and, in fact, in my conversations and other writing. Marketing — and communications in general (whether internal or external) simply MUST become more about "the other" than about ourselves. We must acknowledge our place as small atoms in the tremendous cultural entity and contribute to the environment in which we live rather than merely attempting to suck energy from it.

And now, an apology balanced by some good news:
My dedicated readers may have noted a recent absence of new posts from the Communication Heretic. A family emergency took me away from my desk for several weeks, but I promise to be back more frequently in the coming months. And thanks to those of you who inquired about my absence. I appreciate your loyalty and concern! Until next time —

Thanks for participating.

Jan Thomas
The Communication Heretic

Theories of evolution

Earlier this month the world observed the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth — coincidentally, or ironically, the same day as Abraham Lincoln's. As a communication wonk, I of course immediately began thinking about the evolution of language.

A website that I enjoy visiting when I have the time is Pain in the English, where users submit questions about usage or grammar issues to receive input, suggestions, answers and comments from others. However straightforward a question may seem, it is always illuminating to see how many different perspectives various respondents post. The most common — and certainly the most popular, or controversial — threads tend to surround changing usage of the language. Everyone has an opinion, and the opinions are strongly held, sharply articulated and fiercely defended. The discussions are interesting, enlightening, sometimes amusing and often engaging. It is difficult to sit on the sidelines as passionate people debate the pros and cons of common evolution — some would say devolution — of the language.

I'm certainly no stick-in-the-mud. I grew up in the '60s so change, even dramatic change, comes naturally to me. In communication, I am enthralled by the new possibilities supported by technology. And I welcome changes that simplify and clarify communication. But I also see a great many lazy shortcuts that diminish, rather than enhance, the message. I see slang and crude-speak making their way out of personal chats and onto the main pages of cnn.com and other mainstream news sites, and I don't see the benefit. I see our societal vocabulary shrinking and cannot help but imagine that the eventual result will reduce the clarity of our communications.

Of course, the sky is not falling. But bits of it do seem to be eroding, a piece here and a chip there. Can't we find a way to move forward — to evolve — in our language without diminishing it?

I wonder what Darwin would think...?

Thanks for participating.

Jan Thomas
The Communication Heretic

Is it truth or is it marketing?

While multitasking on Inauguration day — flipping among three TV networks' live event coverage, rotating among several news websites' coverage, turning to Google to supplement the occasional "I wonder if ..." or "I wonder what ..." trigger arising from the coverage, and working on a consulting project — one of those paths led me to an interesting guest commentary by Wynton Marsalis at cnn.com.

In general, the post concerns the role of culture in our society. But it is one comment in the midst of the piece that I'd like to talk about today. He says —

"At the root of our current national dilemmas is an accepted lack of integrity. We are assaulted on all sides by corruption of such magnitude that it's hard to fathom. ... Almost everything and everyone seems to be for sale. Value is assessed solely in terms of dollars. Quality is sacrificed to commerce and truthful communication is supplanted by marketing."

That phrase — "truthful communication is supplanted by marketing" — is a stinger that should disturb everyone who communicates on behalf of any corporation, product, service, organization or cause. Here, in an articulate discussion of America's cultural roots (literature, poetry, music, dance, art), one of our nation's most respected cultural icons applies a comparison that, outside the marketing arena, requires no explanation.

All readers knew exactly what Marsalis meant. Professional marketers who read the piece almost certainly bristled. I wonder whether they recognized anything of themselves in the comment; many of them probably should have. I've been doing PR and marketing writing and campaigns for (gasp) more than 30 years, and I know that in more than a few instances truth was supplanted by marketing in my own work. As I've grown and become more seasoned, this dissonance gradually began to inform my work, and I now subject all my promotions to the "oh really?" challenge — does this proposition, claim, description really stand up to scrutiny? Is it defensible? Is it authentic?

All organizational communications — internal and external — is filtered by those who receive it based on their own experience and expectations, often cynical. And it's no wonder — we ourselves as professional communicators have driven people away, have too often made it impossible to believe that what we say can possibly have a thread of truth. Of course we're all proud of our companies, our products and services, our causes, and of course we reflect this in our communications.

However, if we don't filter our enthusiastic communication with a "oh really" or similar filter, it simply perpetuates the notion that "marketing" and "truthful communication" cannot possibly be the same. Surely this is not the legacy we want for our profession. And only we can change the perception.

Thanks for participating.

Jan Thomas
The Communication Heretic

A disturbing analogy

It occurred to me during one of my recent daily walks — while listening to the excellent audio book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us (available at Amazon or downloadable at the iTunes store) by Seth Godin — that my primary rant about communication has direct application in our personal lives as well as in business. That rant, in case you've somehow missed it, is that communication — both internal and external — demands that you actually BE what you SAY you are.

Here's an example that may seem painfully familiar to many of my readers: online dating. How many of us have developed an online relationship with someone whose description of either their physical attributes or other characteristics turned out, after meeting them in person or even simply talking on the telephone, turned out to be shockingly misleading?

I'd guess that nearly anyone who's single and tech-savvy in the 21st century has had this experience — and I'm also guessing that you didn't like it. You felt disappointed at the very least and possibly even betrayed, angry, vengeful. Countless folks who perpetrated such false identities have been flamed across the internet in the past decade, demonstrating the power of the reaction felt by those who have been misled.

Even if it hasn't happened to you, I'm certain you're familiar with and can empathize with the experience.

So it shouldn't require a tremendous leap of imagination to transfer this illustration to the business environment. Does your organization promise more than it delivers? Once your customers have actually worked with you, would they still agree with the glowing phrases you used to characterized your organization while building the initial relationship? Does your website present you in one way while the reality is different in ways that would distress a prospective customer? Do you profess values you do not live?

This is the crux of my core belief: If you're painting yourself as handsome, tall, fit, 40, successful and interesting, but you show up at the first date disheveled, inarticulate, humorless, egocentric, unclean, and woefully out of shape and out of touch, will you get a second chance? What about your business image? Does it match reality?

If not, I earnestly suggest it's time to bring them into harmony. Why? Only by truly being what you say you are can you ever hope to succeed, either personally or professionally.

Thanks for participating.

Jan Thomas
The Communication Heretic

Winnie the Pooh Communications

This week brings an extremely short post. Take a few moments — make that a single moment — to check out this brief post at B.L. Ochman's What's Next blog.

Ms Ochman's "favorite thing a PR person ever told her", it turns out, is a simply awful example of what happens when we have someone either insufficiently educated or woefully incautious communicate on our behalf.

(Note that I'm affording the benefit of the doubt here, assuming that no truly professional communicator would make such an error, so the message must surely have been sent by someone in the modern version of what used to be called the typing pool.)

As she so succinctly reports, she received a PR pitch concerning a topic she simply does not cover — there's the first mistake — and then, when she pointed out this error, she received the gloriously amusing second error — a return eMail from the PR rep saying,

"I apologize for the incontinence and will make the changes in our media list."

For those of you who might miss the headline reference, Winnie the Pooh is referred to as "the bear of very little brain." I'm personally relieved that I do not know the identity of the individual whose incontinence is now being discussed widely across the internet.

Thanks for participating —

Jan Thomas
The Communication Heretic

Why is PR writing so atrocious?

I've just read a terrific post by Mark Ragan at the Ragan Report by the title above. Briefly, Ragan decries the dependence on a simplistic "template" for writing news releases that has — for a whole array of reasons — become the norm. The original article (dated Nov 24 08) is compelling enough, but the 50+ comments it has attracted so far add breadth, depth and texture to the issue.

Ragan and the discussion he triggered are right, of course, that news releases are seldom news and for the most part atrociously presented. The writers either know too little about the true objective of public relations, too little about what publications want, too little about their clients, and too little about how to balance all those elements. PR agencies are too dependent on the income provided by each client to educate those clients when they demand news releases with no news value or jammed with jargon and corporate narcissism. They assign junior writers to crank out releases because they have stopped realizing the potential power of a truly well thought-out and well crafted release and so have come to think of this is as an appropriate task for agency newbies. Even on the rare occasion when someone more closely involved with the account (and with more experience and understanding of the targeted media), the results may be equally flat as "just get it done" seems more important than "do it well."

Like many of those who commented on the Ragan post, I too was at one time an editor, which has always colored my approach to news releases. It's even why I don't call them "press releases" — which to me smacks of the old-line publicist cum snake oil salesman; besides, when we call them "news releases" I believe we're more likely to remember that the point is "news" — if it's not news, it shouldn't become a release at all.

Yes, I've had to wrestle the issue with many a client, but with a reminder of the big-picture goals and emphasis on the pure waste of resources that a vacuous release represents, I usually get my point across. The conversation usually ends with the client and me discovering something with actual newsworthiness that we can write and pitch in a way that will actually mean something to the client's audience and, therefore, to the editors who will receive it. They, after all, want to provide information to their readers that means something.

So why don't we always do that? Why don't we stop and think before we write and distribute a "template" release that says nothing better than —

name of company, the leading solutions provider for the name of industry announces the appointment, purchase of, merger, etc of name of another company, the leading provider of name of product or service

I doubt many of us communication professionals came into the business to create junk. Let's pledge today to get back to writing news releases that mean something to the audience. Let's find genuinely interesting information, present it in a reader-friendly way, and stop spamming editors with junk.

Ultimately we'll enjoy better relationships with those editors — and that will get our clients more ink (and better ink) now and in the future.

Thanks for participating.

Jan Thomas
The Communication Heretic

Welcome to The Communication Heretic

Welcome to The Communication Heretic, where I will regularly discuss issues regarding communication from a variety of perspectives — communication within and from organizations — issues regarding today's traditional and new media, political and other cause-based communication, even interpersonal communications.

As an individual who often finds myself internally responding to things I see and read, I have in recent months decided to move that internal soliloquy to an external forum, a place where I can draw public attention to the quirks and quandaries of professional communication — public relations, marketing, media, advertising and other forms — and initiate what I hope will be spirited dialogue around the issues I find.

Through three decades of professional involvement in the broad range of strategic communications — visioning, planning, implementation and oversight — I have come to deeply comprehend the true power of communication to inspire, inform, advocate, educate ... and to explode in devastating failure.

I have learned (among many other epiphanies) that communication — if strategically based and consistently internalized deep within and broadly across the organization — can drive the success and growth of any organization of any kind. In its simplest terms, this means if you truly ARE what you SAY you are, both internally and externally, you will succeed. (It sounds simplistic but is shockingly uncommon.) That concept is at my core, and holds particular relevance in this period when many organizations are facing difficult decisions about mission and priorities that are affecting every internal and external stakeholder.

I hope my blog will interest, inspire and sometimes inflame you, and that you will both READ and COMMENT often.

Jan Thomas
The Communication Heretic