A backwards glance shows seismic shift in the PR world

By Robert Wheatley

It was without a doubt one of the most powerful PR campaigns I’ve ever been associated with. An entirely new product category created from scratch off a compelling, dynamic public relations strategy. Yes, I said PR — not advertising or sales promotion. Over $100 million in sales (and that’s in 1994 dollars) was achieved and an 84% share of market within 16 months of launch. It was the introduction of First Alert brand carbon monoxide alarm products.

Recently we heard from the Wall Street Journal that futurist Richard Dawson believes newspapers will be irrelevant by 2022. The reference point for this incredible shift can be more fully appreciated by briefly looking backwards to a moment in time when conventional print and broadcast media were popular and respected sources of news, information and influence on consumer behavior and public opinion.

Here’s the story of PR campaign media strategies that were built from a full-scale deployment of earned media tactics.

• And the approach is no longer as relevant. New businesses are now developed in an interactive, narrowcast environment without push-button scale-ability

The lesson: the old rules no longer apply. New media protocols, planning processes and program strategies literally demand a transformation of our beliefs about brand building, PR strategies, how PR firms are put together. Thus how we look at messaging, outreach, measurement and evaluation of ideas is different than it was even 10 years ago.

When editorial media ruled!!

It was 1993, the firm I owned at the time, Wheatley Blair, was hired by First Alert, the leading home safety products brand in the US. They had invented the residential smoke alarm category and literally owned the retail market for them. Rich Timmons, now principal and President of Wheatley & Timmons, was the global marketing chief at First Alert – a marketer who had followed conventional paths focused on TV advertising and who was going to do something unprecedented: launch the next biggest thing to come along in his company’s history through PR.

A new category: Carbon Monoxide (CO) Alarms

We were awestruck the moment we learned that CO poisoning was the largest source of accidental poisoning deaths in America.

First Alert had created the first affordable residential detector for this previously unseen and little understood hazard that claimed at least 1,500 lives every year and injured thousands more.

The Silent Killer

How do you convince Americans to protect themselves from a hazard you cannot see, taste, smell or touch? And after all, headaches are common and ubiquitous, right? We created a theme that dramatically defined the threat.
• Poison center physicians, indoor air quality experts, leading fire service officials and others were recruited to help explain the problem and support the solution
• We built the Carbon Monoxide Information Bureau to house the scientific and medical evidence
• Brought together consumers who had lost loved ones in CO accidents to personalize and make the hazard tangible and real

Launching a Media Tsunami

Media tours were conducted with CO survivors and coordinated with local fire department representatives. We booked medical expert appearances on TODAY, Good Morning America and all of the network news programs. Placed in-depth hazard education features in national newspapers and virtually every major daily in the US. Similar treatments on family protection were secured in women’s service, lifestyle and DIY magazines. We assembled an in-house TV news production department that was producing a regular flow of 90-second video news packages.

Our tracking on consumer media impressions within six months topped 700 million and grew to over a billion. There were 6 o’clock news stories in major markets about lines outside stores exclaiming that First Alert alarm products were sold out. A major trade publication featured a quote from a senior buyer at Walmart who described First Alert CO alarms as the “cabbage patch doll of the hardware department.”

A business was created. A category established. First Alert doubled in size. Thousands of lives were saved in the process. Importantly, editorial media in virtually all channels was the instrument of awareness, education and motivation. The decline of traction, audiences and the splintering of media into hundreds if not thousands of platforms of self-interest make this story simply a reflection of a another age in media communication.

The same product launch, repeated today would be wholly different and geared to empower individuals to spread the word as much as media properties are addressed to influence the influencers.

For First Alert we constructed a media machine that hummed and produced and delivered editorial attention. That is no longer the way communication operates. Yet many still attempt to apply the old rules of quantity thresholds to a world now devoted to the quality and personalization of encounters with communication.

Nine years after we began, the agency moved on to represent Kidde, the other leading category brand. We helped them secure the number one market share position. This dramatic video PSA was part of the effort:

How would you launch the CO alarm category today?

Agencies that lead bring more value than order takers

By Robert Wheatley

Hugh MacLeod is a creative and insightful expert who regularly exposes the soft underside of the marketing world — and helps us laugh at ourselves. His thoughts, expressed as graphic images, can be down right powerful. Today’s post in some respects is a perfect foil for a few of his engaging ideas. (Check out gapingvoid.com – and subscribe to his daily image emails).

Great work falling from great ideas can transform the future direction and growth of business. Yet more often than not, by definition, it will require clients to stretch, to have faith and take risk. And none of this will see the light of day unless agencies step up to passionately support and defend solid out-of-the-ordinary thinking. This is often the price of strategic concepts that are unique, unexpected and disruptive (in a positive way).

An insightful article on this subject was published today by Cory Treffelett of Catalyst SF. You can read it here . In his excellent piece he accurately describes the difference between a vendor and partner style relationship between agency and client. Essentially the order taker vs. the leader.

Good agencies are in the strategic idea creation business. Clients make investments in programs and concepts that will grow business, build brand reputation and attract or retain new customers. No easy task. And I can recount over the years in virtually every instance of needle-busting results, innovative concepts always supplied the accelerant. Thus risk and leadership is demanded of the agency.

The path of least resistance is easily followed and at times it feels much safer to stay within the comfortable bounds of serenity — a quiet surf made calm by the absence of tough discussion that can whip up a big wave or two along the way.

Fear – collectively our greatest enemy
What stands in the way of great ideas and game-changing initiatives? It’s fear. Fear of rocking the boat. Fear of losing the account. Fear of failure. Fear of disagreement. Fear of ruffling feathers. Fear of slaying sacred cows. Fear of the unknown. Fear of folded arms and taught expressions. Fear of shaking heads. Fear not being loved. Fear of losing the budget. Fear of the boss. Fear of mistakes. Fear of conflict. Fear of perception leading reality. Fear of risk, of making the big bet. This insidious human condition interferes so many times, closing the gate on otherwise powerful moves that may occasionally require a willingness to “boldly go where no man has gone before.”

This is not a call to arrogance and conceited behavior by the way. What is in the client’s best interests at all times will be growth and development of their brand and their business results. The fact that innovation is often at the fulcrum of transformative periods only means that risk will be part of the mix in bringing these things to fruition. Clients who are challenged by their agencies to accomplish more through bolder initiatives are needed now more than ever. And are often in short supply for all of the reasons mentioned above. Just take the order, do the work and make sure everyone is happy and smiling all of the time? No great thing was ever accomplished by simply riding the existing wave. Blazing a new trail will be required of us.

Agencies and Clients Together Offer the Best Formula…
There’s an old saying, “an agency is only as good as its client.” Well in some end-game sort of reference I suppose this is true if all you ever hear is no. Should clients run from risk and punish their agency for bringing bold ideas then Houston, we have a problem!! Ultimately however, agencies have an obligation to bring this kind of thinking routinely. It should be the rule rather than the exception.

Clients can help this process by openly inviting and encouraging their agency partners to challenge them, to say no when its necessary, to think big, to look for new territory to trail-blaze. In essence to disrupt the category conventions and accepted brand behaviors that can deter major leaps ahead. Clients also acquire an obligation: to be willing to approve and fund campaigns with risk involved. And be prepared to accept a mistake along the way and learn from it.

This kind of healthy give and take — lively discourse built around discovery and epiphany — is essential if transformative programs are to get out of the developmental garage. Our daily mantra should be to make this quest genuinely a part of our culture and operating philosophy. To do less is to compromise the values and integrity of what we’re on the planet to accomplish.

What do you think?

Can we really fly blind and expect to be effective?

By Robert Wheatley

There are those great moments of clarity when something hits you. Often it can be something you already know, but your perspective and its horsepower (importance) will get injected with an entirely new level of “amen” when understanding adjusts or elevates a bit. Sorry to be oblique – this happened today while reading Brian Solis’ great book, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.” Yes, there’s a point here and a recommendation.

The emergence of social media has changed the game for PR communications, to be sure. For instance as we’ve heard from virtually every social media pundit, conversation is better than any attempted monologue in brand communication strategy. Frankly its just wayyyy more difficult these days to push messages at people and get any traction. So communication that’s truly effective is no longer one-way.

That means PR people no longer sit solely on a “dissemination” platform (press releases, editor desk-sides, spokesperson media tours) to move messages outward through various channels of non-paid or earned media.

Now relationships and dialogue with influencers and other forms of “democratized” media have to be layered into the brand outreach recipe. What over-arching strategic issue does this immediately recommend? Listening.

Let’s look at the fundamental “best practices” involved in relationship building. If the best conversationalists are always the best listeners, and if brands must form relationships with their best users based on behaviors that approach similarity to what we would call real-world friendships rather than “transactional” relationships, does it stand to reason we should be hearing our best customers?

If relationships are to work, they’re built from a foundation of shared interest. And as covered many times in this blog, we know that brand relationships are earned based on what a marketer does to correctly discern and understand the consumer’s passions and concerns. And then operate as an enabler, facilitator, educator an community builder.

Furthermore if the media landscape is littered with self-published content created by customers, then it only makes sense to know what they’re saying, good or bad.

So listening jumps to the front as an integral part of fundamental PR strategy in the digital age. Right? Yet more often than not it is at the tail end of consideration in plans and sometimes the first to fall off the budget truck when pressure builds to make some cuts.

Of course formal Web-based listening tools should be employed and made integral to PR plans. They should also, however, receive the priority they deserve to be preserved when sacrifices are targeted on the spending front. This takes understanding on both the agency and client sides of the table about the value of it. To do less in some respects is to say that pushing messages outward remains the first and most important path.

Relevant communication springs from understanding. And that’s an outcome of getting quiet for awhile, and paying close attention to the conversations going on all around.

I for one will feel more comfortable as we work harder and with greater resolve to build the listening tools into the front end of the campaign strategy, and not a final layer that almost invites elimination due to its perceived lack of priority.

What do you think?

By Robert Wheatley


This is the story (heads up this is a feature-style post) of crazy commitment, of all-nighters and pushing beyond the limits we often place in front of ourselves. The effort delivered success for a brand and taught a person (me) what you can accomplish when you’re willing to dispense with fear (and sleep) to do something big.

It was 1990 and I had just walked off the edge of the cliff. For 11 years, ten of them in a relative state of happiness and personal growth, I had been working for Ogilvy & Mather – a wonderful firm that invested heavily to teach its emerging talent how to create powerful communications ideas and how to run profitable agency businesses. My last year was not so fun, filled with trepidation around a career move I did not want (so ordered by my boss) to a city I had no plans to live in (sorry Windy City but at the time I was living in LA and had client roots there) doing work that was not so challenging (vast difference in point of view between West Coast group I ran – progressive – and the Chicago office of Ogilvy – conservative).

And then it happened. After seven already unhappy months Ogilvy was sold in a hostile takeover to Sir Martin Sorrel and the final unraveling began in earnest. By March of 1990, after just 15 months in Chicago, I resigned from the place I thought I would be for the rest of my career and started a firm from scratch, working out of my partner’s storage room in her apartment.

We had just convinced Sara Lee to take a big risk, too. To hire a brand new agency to represent this venerable and iconic business at a moment in its 50-year history when it was most vulnerable. Years of share and profit declines had finally caught up and the brand was on the ropes. We had been talking to Sara Lee about a relationship while at Ogilvy but a conflict arising from the New York O&M advertising office stopped the conversation dead in its tracks.

How to resolve a client conflict? Surgically remove the conflict by starting a new firm (thus producing said cliff to jump off of). Our deal with Sara Lee was unique: they would literally own our firm for a year as we agreed not to solicit any new accounts. In return we got the business and a healthy budget to get our agency in motion. What got us to the deal table? A very BIG idea — one that involved risk all around but had the potential to arrest Sara Lee’s decline.

This is the PR business, and if you want to secure the kind and quality of media coverage that can transform your business outcomes, you need to go big. Events make news. And we were about to do the mother of all media events.

Something extraordinary and disruptive for a brand that had been around since the late 1940’s: in six months time we built The First International Symposia on Dessert. We had struck a moment in food brand history when dessert was getting hit right and left by news of new reduced fat products and technologies, coalescing over concerns that dessert was a major contributor to growing American waistlines.

People decided certain kinds of sweets (baked goods for one) were bad and stopped buying them. While new brands were emerging with low fat technologies to cut calories. Sara Lee was left flat-footed in this time of “no thank you” to dessert options and so-called “full calorie” products.

So, with a portfolio of new reduced fat products in the wings, plus an agreement to bring the real Sara Lee out of obscurity to become the face of the brand (named after her by her father when she was nine years old), and a strategy to revitalize and re-stage Sara Lee as a relevant and contemporary brand — we set in motion a major media experience…

Vienna, Austria: land of dessert, palaces and Mozart

Our event concept was predicated on capturing the hearts and minds of top food media from the US and Canada. To do this, we needed to give them content that was unique and compelling in a setting that would engage their imagination. We were determined to “own” them for at least three days time, away from their offices and schedules in an environment we controlled.

Vienna is the dessert capitol of the world. Dessert as we know it (cakes, pastries) was invented here. To be an acclaimed pastry chef in Vienna is to achieve our equivalent of culinary superstardom. We brought the idea to the Viennese tourism board, the Austrian economic chamber, Imperial hotels and Austrian Airlines. All bought in to the opportunity to host a large contingent of US food media, knowing the coverage opportunities this could offer. In return we got access to palaces at no charge, free ground transportation, cheap airline tickets and hotel rooms.

We worked literally around the clock to do all of this within six months of our being hired. We constructed a three-day schedule of seminars, events and hands-on experiences we knew would supply editorial angles appropriate to an array of food media from Good Housekeeping to Associated Press. Also ladled in was entertainment for the editors on a scale that we knew would trump anything they had seen previously. This included an exclusive concert with the Vienna Symphony just for them in the very palace where Mozart performed his first concert when he was six years old.

In total 56 editors and writers went to Vienna. All of this would be carried off by our team of six people, plus the master pastry chef from Sara Lee. Adding to the pressure was the CEO of Sara Lee Steve McMillan, the head of marketing and the founding Lubin family all in attendance.

You just push yourself…

We recruited the top seven pastry chefs in Vienna to create new recipe ideas for home cooks using Sara Lee products as a base. We secured a dessert psychologist from the University of Vienna who did a remarkable presentation on the psychology of eating dessert. She spoke poetically about the guilt issues Americans experience that is absent in the European mentality about sweets consumption. The Viennese by the way are not fat even though the pastry shops outnumber McDonald’s.

We brought a US food historian to chart the evolution of baking and sweets in our nation, including the birth of Birthday celebrations and our cake traditions. A special seminar on chocolate was held in the oldest operating bakery in the world, opened originally in 1535. We introduced the editors to the real Sara Lee (they were awestruck), launched a new line of desserts at a dramatic “dessert fantasy” reception inside one of the most important palaces in Vienna.

We designed the Symposia to cover every aspect of dessert, why it matters in the American diet and to rekindle our love affair with the sweet tooth with a nod towards balance and moderation.

We positioned Sara Lee as the expert brand on the evolution of dessert in America….

To do all this required total commitment — mind, body and spirit. Nights, weekends leading up to the event were spent creating materials, securing editor attendance and handling the logistics of moving a large group of people from venue to venue flawlessly. Hotel rooms had to be meticulously selected based on editor preferences and personal needs.

The editorial concept development work was a monster, creating angles appropriate to each title and editorial slant, while developing supportive materials and sources for each one. Once in Vienna we had 56 editor “stars” to watch over and then our top client executives to boot. I did not sleep at all for four days. We worked around the clock making sure every detail was handled without mishap.

I distinctly remember sitting on the bus next to the Food Editor of Bon Appetit as we took them to the airport for their departure back to the states, literally zoning in and out of consciousness as we talked about her experience and story plans. It was a monumental undertaking and a huge homerun in the making. The media coverage coming from this event was unlike anything the brand had ever seen in its history. The turnaround was launched.

It was an experience I will never forget. There were moments along the way when you would hit the wall and declare, “I’m just done.” But you go on, knowing what’s at stake and push yourself a little further. I would not recommend this as a way to live your life on an ongoing basis, but a few of these experiences along life’s trail can elevate your game a bit — for a lifetime. Yes, its scary and yes you may tell yourself there’s just no way to do something of this scope in six months time with a small staff – and then you muster up the courage and press on.

We helped restore luster to an iconic American brand, and that was worth every minute. The only way to know what you’re really capable of is to test the limits and then go past them.

By Robert Wheatley

There’s not a moment to lose. Your brand, your budget and outcomes are at stake. The world of communications has changed, and your PR strategy and tactics must evolve with it. Or be prepared for little to no bottom line benefits from your spend.

Why does this matter? Being in the presence of a message (PR driven or otherwise) does not mean any useful interaction has actually taken place. Your goal is to impact consumer behavior. But there’s a vast difference between communications that is built correctly to accomplish that vs. messages “out there” in media that perpetually circle the engagement airport — never quite landing.

Here are the key questions you should be asking yourself right now…

1. How does the PR strategy connect and align our brand in a relevant and meaningful way with the lifestyle interests and passions of our core customers?

Relevance is key to securing engagement — so consumer insight and understanding is a precursor to building effective communications. There must be clear and specific linkage between PR programs and the consumer’s self interests that position the brand as an enabler, supporter, educator and facilitator of your consumer’s lifestyle passions. Otherwise she’s not going to pay any attention to what you put out there.

2. What proportion of your budget is dedicated to Web-based communication vs. mainstream media?

We have ample evidence that word of mouth drives business results. And now we know that Internet based communication is increasingly the genesis of influence, conversation and discussion about businesses and brands. Yet old habits (always hard to break) push spending and programming frequently down the well-worn path of conventional print and broadcast media. It’s not that these channels don’t matter, they do. But the poor red headed stepchild in many cases is the very media channel that can activate conversation and buzz. So is it time to re-configure the proportional spending to place more assets in web-based media channels? Yes.

3. Social media may no longer be a tertiary place to participate, but are you creating scale underneath your social media strategy?

Unlike any other media property that has come before it, the unique characteristic of social platforms is quite simple: they ALL begin with an audience of zero. It is your content strategy that can help aggregate an audience over time. How well you do this will impact the overall value and benefit of social media investments. Achieving scale is a combination of building and distributing useful, entertaining and valuable multi-media content (read video) along with special offers and benefits – and then integrating social media through every consumer touch point in your marketing communications toolbox.

4. To what extent are you now investing in creating media that fuels the budding relationship with your core users and brand fans?

“Owned Media” is now the third “core” leg of the media communications stool alongside earned and paid. Brands are now publishers and content producers themselves. The Internet has enabled cost-effective distribution. However PR campaigns have historically been built around enticing and convincing third-party editors and gatekeepers to do a story (earned media). And coverage certainly comes imbued with the associative value and credibility from implied third-party endorsement. Equally important however, brands can now talk directly to consumers through custom editorial content thus assuring the message remains unaltered or diluted. Have you launched your video channel yet?

5. Look before you leap. To what extent have you refined your listening tools to be sure you understand what consumer’s are saying to each other about your business?

Pushing messages at people doesn’t work any longer. Relevance is king. And part of the equation is honing your listening investments to be sure you fully understand the conversation that’s taking place around you. There are online-based tools both quantitative and qualitative that serve this purpose. A full suite of listening platforms should be “always on” with analysis following closely behind to assure you’re aware of what’s being said, by whom and where. You can’t effectively engage without this knowledge.

These five areas are vital to effective PR strategy and tactics, tied to your ability to impact behavior. They act synergistically to make communication effective. In the absence of these tools and approaches, you’re resting outcomes more on hope — and hope is never a strategy.

What do you think?

Gold Sabre finalist rounds out heady award season…

Wheatley & Timmons took home two Silver Trumpet awards this year from the Publicity Club of Chicago annual campaign competition. The winning work was for Sargento Foods in the Sponsorship category for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival product launch of their Artisan Blends Authentic Mexican cheese; another Silver — this time in the New Media (as in social and digital) category — for the MOTHERHOOD program on behalf of Thermos brand.

What’s more, the Sargento work was also named one of five finalists for the coveted Gold Sabre – our industry’s top award, also in the Sponsorship category. Unfortunately the final nod went to Procter & Gamble for their Swiffer brand effort, but it was a remarkable achievement to make it through the hundreds of top-level submissions to hit the finalist “best-of-the-best” group.

We don’t by nature, personality or belief look at client work as a means to secure awards or generate a pat on the back. Rather we enter periodically to see how our strategies fare against other top-flight efforts in an independent review. So we thank the judges but even more we thank our great clients and our terrific staff for the work well done. Sargento kudos and recognition belongs to Kerri Erb, Carrie Becker, Krista Cortese and Jill Delaney. The Thermos triumph comes from the star quality efforts of Betsi Schumacher, Mary Clare Middleton, Krista Cortese and Jill Delaney. Bravo!!!!

In the end the final judge of our strategies and ideas is the consumer and their willingness to buy more of our client’ products more often. According to IRI’s April numbers, Artisan Blends continues its rise, up 135% overall in a tough, commodity category. The Thermos program was their first foray into social media and beat all of their objectives for audience building and engagement. So we’re especially happy with that – and pleased that our industry peers found the work laudable too.

Cheers…

By Robert Wheatley

Image c/o Getty Image

When I first got started in the PR business, I was impressed with our unique ability to bring a higher standard of proof, credibility and demonstration to new products and brand promises. But additionally I was concerned by an all-too-frequent focus on tactics (read: publicity) and what appeared to me to be an absence of connecting the dots between our work and business strategy. You know the old saying, “if the only thing you do is a hammer then the answer to every problem will be a nail.”

Just seemed to me that a stronger business proposition was to help client’s better understand their barriers to growth and success – before applying the cure. And in doing so to make sure the remedy laddered back to specific business outcomes, not fuzzy claims of “increased awareness.”

My first attempt at changing the view that PR was the province of press releases came in the form of a brand guidance plan developed for a regional food company called Nalley’s Fine Foods, based in Tacoma, Washington. My client didn’t ask for the plan, instead I treated this as “extracurricular” homework that might open the door to a larger playing field for our firm. It did.

In its day Nalley’s was a successful brand playing effectively in categories dominated by national stalwarts like Kraft, Frito-Lay and Vlasic – from salad dressings to snacks, canned meals, pickles and other packaged food categories. The platform I worked on was a refined recipe for go-to-market strategy and new product development behaviors appropriate for a business that sat in between generic store brand and large national players.

To get it done I had to study the categories and more fully acquaint myself with the channels of distribution and the growth drivers within each product category my client was competing in. There was no mention of PR in the brief. It was a great exercise and I learned a lot. The client was impressed that a PR guy would come to the table with this sort of perspective. Their opinion of what we did and were about changed. It was interesting to watch the transformation in their views and opinions. The experience had an impact to this day.

Wheatley & Timmons is a unique joining of similar strands of thinking – that the craft of editorial and social media forms of communication are enhanced and our value to clients improved as we marry our great creative work more closely to brand strategy guidance and the consumer insights required to make that leap.

It would probably be easier just to continue cultivating our best practices along traditional lines and devote all of our energies to being great tacticians. We think that’s table stakes. We fundamentally believe the world needs a better, more strategic PR firm and so we’re not satisfied with the traditional scope. My partner, Rich Timmons, shares this view and it’s our collective mission to redefine what a PR firm is all about. Missionary work to be sure given the perceptual baggage we carry with us — that “get me on Oprah” thing.

I couldn’t be prouder of the great people who’ve joined our team and their ability to embrace our calling and to deliver on this promise every day in the services we provide. It’s a challenge, but I think part of what makes you successful is your willingness to embrace a higher calling – to tackle something that goes beyond the communications training you’ve had. Makes you stretch.

Have we got it all figured out? Not by a long shot. Everyday is a learning experience, a chance to grow and refine our premise and our capabilities to deliver. We remain steadfastly determined on this path. Persistence can be a great ally, so we forge ahead and believe it’s by “demonstrating and doing” that all of this comes to life. This agency’s work for Sargento Foods is an example of bringing new perspective and ideas to the table about a brand’s future business opportunities in their category. Much the same as Rich and our team has done to such dramatic effect for Thermos brand and for Crescent in the art framing business.

We’re in the early stages of a new relationship with Crown Imports and the Corona beer franchise. It’s exciting. And not just because we know the beer business, but also we believe we can play a measurable role in helping improve their business outcomes and relevancy to a consumer — who is evolving right now.

The future

We believe that earned media (various forms of editorial media from conventional to digital) will continue to be vital but also see incremental growth for “owned” media – content created, published and distributed by brands themselves. Technology now allows us to leapfrog reporters, editors, producers and other media gatekeepers, to talk directly to consumers in environments that are more interactive and thus seen as honest.

Profoundly we see the mix of media solutions moving to embrace social platforms and other venues where brands and consumers can meet each other on more equal terms. Thus the over-arching need for relevancy between brand propositions and the lifestyle interests of their users.

One lesson remains true, from the days with Nalley’s to our work at Wheatley & Timmons over the next ten years: whatever we do in communications must be tied to a foundation of consumer insight and understanding. It’s what will inform our future and our ability to change and improve the growth path of the brands we represent.

I for one am looking forward to it. Cheers…

Some say branding is dead; really?

By Bob Wheatley

A recent post by Sonia Simone of Copyblogger posed a question the other day, is branding dead?. The comments that followed quickly descended down the trail to tactics and thus left the real conversation about brand value and moved on to communication.

• Many interpreted the decline in conventional media platforms as evidence that branding is indeed on the respirator in the marketing ER ward. That, I think, entirely misses the point of brands and branding.

Branding by the way is not about logos, Web sites, events, advertising or any other form of outreach. Just for fun let’s play with this a minute. If brand didn’t matter, what would? In marketing, if all products were essentially generic and stood solely on their features then lowest price would be the primary driver of commerce.

We would naturally gravitate to the cheapest car, toilet paper, jeans, beer and shop the cheapest channels, probably dollar stores. Evolution here would be 50-cent stores or perhaps the return of the old Five and Dime idea our prices are so low you have to stoop to pick them up. Segmentation would dry up as the high end falls away. Efficiency, cost effectiveness, frugality and economy would be the lexicon of product communication.

But that’s not going to happen, is it?

Last time I looked we were still human beings and thus are essentially emotional, social creatures. We love, we laugh, we cry and we care. We get mad and get even. Our lives gain greater meaning when we participate in something that’s larger than ourselves.

We have needs for recognition, esteem and personal pride. We feel good about successes and disappointed at times in failures. We want, we desire. We reach and dream. Some of us have aspirations and drive. Others are content to sit inside their comfort zone, hopeful that the status quo and familiar will remain in tact.

Do products and services play any role in our lifestyles, in our human-ness?

At times we literally wear brands because of the statement or cachet they imbue. Certain brands convey meaning that is at once obvious to others such as Mercedes as luxury auto. And might also suggest social and economic status messages, too.

There are brands that matter to us, that deliver meaning and therefore added benefits. Our experience with them ladders up to a form of joy. I can give you a new take, for example, on my iPhone. I love everything about it — the ease-of-use; it’s functionality and design. But when I started to add App-store games my six-year old daughter could play with glee, delight and a smile, suddenly I had a portable amusement center. What fun. Now it’s value to me has accelerated. Thus my attitude towards Apple grows thicker, closer. The extra investment cost is soooo worth it.

I will admit to a personal indulgence: I love Robert Graham shirts. They are unique, well made, stylish and fashionable. I probably have a dozen of them. They are not cheap. Oddly enough, however, when compared to designer name plain dress shirts, the Graham products are a bargain. I feel good when I wear them, sort of a signature thing. I get compliments, people notice the distinctive fabrics, even the little touches like different patterns inside the cuffs and collars

Probably all of us can tell similar stories about things we enjoy, that matter to us, that perform beyond the utility of their ability to provide warmth or sustenance. Organic Valley dairy products are more expensive. But I like their ethos of supporting family farms and the absence of hormones in the milk is something I prefer for my young daughters.

Brands are indeed conveyed by their names. Many of these ideas however require building, investing, communicating to help us fully embrace their worth and meaning. But the thing itself gains equity in our lives because of the emotions we associate with them. Mostly good feelings for the items we care about vs. the commodities we don’t and wish just to purchase cheaply.

Branding is not dead. Branding will never be dead. Unless of course we’re all replaced by robots. The intersection of commerce and humanity guarantees it. While communications techniques and media forms may indeed evolve, the role products and services play in our lives will endure. The emotional fabric that sits between us and the things we like will continue, too.

Our firm is all about brand building. (I love my work). And while what we do in PR communication is increasingly moving to social media platforms, our efforts to help clients better define brand value and positioning is as right as rain, the sun rising and the world turning.

Makes me happy. Especially because brands now grow on the basis of their ability to define, understand and mine consumer lifestyle associations. Said another way to become enablers and facilitators of their consumer’s interests and aspirations. To earn permission for a relationship. Hey, wait a minute. We just might be in the happiness business.

How about you???

Commodities can be successfully branded…

By Robert Wheatley

Ok, you can stop laughing now. No really. Yes, this is me. I said stop laughing. Anyone hazard a guess on when??

Try 1977. Hopefully that helps explain the hair and stache combo. For those of you not old enough to get the era, the look actually was fairly typical for a guy of my 25 years at the time. This was my first job in PR after a short stint promoting rock concerts. Rocker boy turned farmer? Hardly. The assignment was for the King County government – surrounding the city of Seattle. I was working on a truly innovative project that eventually helped my boss, John Spellman, get elected Governor of the State of Washington.

This newspaper story was about me and what I was up to – sort of a local boy does good treatment. So here I am, standing in a field in front of a tractor, and yes, this farm is in the city. No I did not grow up on a farm and have never milked a cow.

Preserving Urban Agriculture

Not that I’m necessarily the tree-hugging type, but I really thought this project, in its day, was innovative and certainly precedent setting. I had this idea to put a brand identity (King County Fresh) on local produce, honey, and other agricultural products farmed in the urban environs. The t-shirt I’m wearing, a sort of bright Kelly green with reversed out white graphic showcased the Fresh logo, used on POP materials, product stickers and in transit ads to promote the effort. The goal: help create a stronger economic climate that would help keep urban agriculture viable at a time when farmland was disappearing faster than you can say, “Hey, is that a new shopping mall?”

The public policy concept at the time was revolutionary, only Long Island near New York City was also on the same track – to purchase the development rights to farmland, preserving their agricultural use — thus ensuring a steady flow of fresh products into the local market place.

Brands and Value-Added Meaning

I wanted people to know about and be able to recognize locally grown products. The difference in freshness and taste is remarkable. And our research suggested that people (voters) wanted to support local farms and help preserve them. So the King County Fresh campaign was novel in its day –intended to imbue some of the emotional values of branding on commodities like lettuce, corn and melons. The end game: consumers could vote with their pocketbooks to select local products stickered with the Fresh logo or merchandised in a retail section with POP material that showcased the identity.

Media got up for this because statistics revealed local farmland was going the way of the parking lot at an alarming rate. Farmers got excited because they felt it was THEIR brand. Supermarket retailers?? Whole other story because their buying systems had to be interrupted to get local products in the warehouse. Local independent markets were all over it.

It took two trips to the well with the voters, but we eventually succeeded in getting a $65 million bond issue passed to finance the development rights acquisition deal. Spellman, a Republican, got a lot of credit for this and voila, off to the Governor’s mansion, and me off to the agency business with Ogilvy & Mather in 1979.

I have never forgotten the great lesson of the moment, that a profound idea can be captured in an image and then used as a rallying platform to build business and secure fans. In this case, to benefit local farmers and eventually get voters behind an initiative that would keep the fresh cucumbers in those wonderful stalls at Seattle’s unique Pike Place Market.

So are apples, apples? Only if you let them be. Can a head of lettuce stoke emotional bonds? Incredibly, yes. Marketing and communication is such a powerful thing. It’s why I get up in the morning excited to jump into the fray.

Restaurant brands on hunt for fresh territory…

By Robert Wheatley

If ever there was a subject relevant to brands today, elasticity has to be in the top 10 as businesses work overtime to uncover new markets, segments and business opportunities while consumers remain choosy and conservative in their spending habits.

The question marketers must ask themselves – how far can you go from the center of what your brand stands for? Is there a place along the path of stretching where a brand’s core equity is diluted? How do you decide where fresh business opportunities can be cultivated without risking your franchise in the process?

USA Today has an interesting story by Bruce Horovitz that chronicles the wide array of menu moves by top restaurant chain brands to attract new customers. You start to see a sort of food form encroachment begin to develop as brands add new products, adjust mainstays and expand menus to lure in more diners.

KFC goes grilling
Pizza Hut rolls pasta
McDonald’s pours espresso drinks
Boston Market tries crispy chicken
Arby’s re-casts beef sandwiches as burgers
Dominos hits subs and pasta-filled bread bowls

Horovitz wonders aloud, “could sushi at Taco Bell be next?

Marketers may agree what distinguishes brands from one another is their category leadership and distinctiveness in the restaurant trade with a particular menu item as Starbucks is to gourmet coffee. McDonald’s believes they can be effective in this space because the brand pioneer Starbucks has sufficiently elevated the espresso experience. The democratization of gourmet coffee arrives at a moment where broad market tastes have expanded far enough to embrace the richer espresso brew.

This is tricky territory. The annals of marketing are filled with attempts by brands to expand their markets that have eventually led to various forms of implosion. Once thought to be the grand experiment in the automobile industry, Saturn – a new kind of car company – makes the error of trying to trade up from its core competency as an inexpensive entry level auto brand and thus dilutes what made it famous in the first place.

Owning the reference standard for your category…

Al and Laura Ries excellent book, “War in the Boardroom” reminds us of the fundamentals of successful positioning and the goal to own key words or a concept in the consumers mind.

Energy drink = Red Bull
Driving machine = BMW
Heavy motorcycle = Harley
Search = Google
Books = Amazon
Never loses suction = Dyson
Athletic shoe = Nike

When brands in the name of innovation move too far afield of what thy stand for, the consumer gets confused, the core equity is diluted, the brand becomes less meaningful to its devoted fans.

Navigating the call for stretch…

The starting point in this conversation begins with asking this question: what do you stand for? And within that conversation remaining clear that all things to all people is a proven recipe for trouble. The consumer world today appreciates expertise, craftsmanship and uniqueness more than they desire predictability and uniformity.

Short-term gains should never be bought by mortgaging the legacy of a strong brand. So in this conversation less will always be more. Stretches must be handled with care and once on that path great discipline will be required to steer around further moves that go beyond the arena you own in the consumer’s mind. If your path remains emotionally relevant to your core competency then consumers are more likely to accept your ability to deliver well in the new business you’re entering.

The second level of assessment has to do with credibility and believability in terms of what you do best. Will the consumer accept your playing in a new segment naturally? If it feels forced or you’re treading into waters owned by another that gives question to your adjacent category competence, it may be best to forgo the potential balance sheet pluses in favor of longer term franchise building.

The preeminent goal for all successful brands – being highly differentiated. Will your plans support that objective or detract from it over time?

What’s your view on stretching?