By Robert Wheatley

Brands can help relieve the anxiety

Fact: Consumer spending accounts for a whopping 70% of the US economy, according to Standard & Poor’s Equity Research. So if consumers don’t spend, well, you get the picture.

The mechanisms that work to bring consumers closer to brands are founded on emotional cues and not analytical evaluation. So it makes sense that the economic crisis we face in some respects is an outcome of a pervasive gloominess that has infected the nation as a whole. Sure there are facts arrayed around us about bad judgment in financial markets and an outsized balloon in home values that needed a correction. But the “we’re-in-no-mood-to-spend” behavior is the thing that’s sending a chill through all levels of the economy.

The recent ABC News story ‘A Crisis of Consumer Confidence’ quotes Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com, about this enveloping sense of apprehension. He says: “Consumer’s have been spending beyond their income for 25 years, and they could do it because they could borrow.” He goes on to talk about the steamroll effect of consumer insecurity, “If you lose faith you’re in a recession. And if you panic you’re in a depression. And we’re somewhere in between recession and depression at this point – and that’s why it’s so important for policymakers to act very aggressively, boldly, consistently to shore up confidence.”

What can brands do to help replace uncertainty and uneasiness with something else that more closely resembles the pillars of warmth and happiness? Here are some ideas on relevant ways to reassess your current strategies:

Generally, what can your brand do to make life easier, better, more meaningful, secure and fulfilling? Is this a centerpiece of your communications platform?

Is this a time to help enable family time and interaction?

Should you focus on hearth and home as a welcome respite from the other “outside” concerns?

Is there a role for humor? Can laughter provide a form of emotional antidote?

Are you putting a focus on the things in life consumers can control?

Is it time to align your brand communications with a higher purpose, a strategic mission that works beyond the simple message of product feature and benefit?

Are you supporting the consumers’ desire to believe in, participate in activities and passions beyond the obvious elements of commerce?

What can you convey that says you understand the misgivings and want to help? Can you offer help in tangible, specific ways?

Should we honor helping others in the spirit of “we’re all in this together”?

Are there stories to tell of courage and perseverance that serve as a guide and reminder that the current condition will pass?

Used to be awareness and implied endorsement

By Robert Wheatley

In the good old days, PR was too-often viewed within the brand marketing mix as a below-the-line bit part player that delivered relatively inexpensive audience impressions with a lovely parting gift: implied endorsement of an outside and respected third party – the editorial media.

While “earned media placement” as its called continues to be a centerpiece of client expectations from their agencies and PR staffs, the substantive contribution of PR has transitioned. Today it is most certainly an above the line strategic leader and thus is integral to generating brand growth and new product trial.

Why? The consumer mindset has changed. Dramatically. How they make buying decisions has changed. Emotionally. How, when and where they consume media has shifted. Radically. It is no longer possible to force and dictate consumer behavior through sheer tonnage in conventional ad media spending.

The incredible volume of new products (over-choice) chasing consumers in ever more narrow and specialized categories, combined with the awesome number of media and mediums (inundation) clamoring for everyone’s attention, has precipitated a near total shut-down of what was once thought to be rational buying behavior. Consumers no longer simply absorb and act on the facts arrayed near them through marketing campaigns, packaging, retail displays and other touch points. Instead they go with their gut and perceptions.

Read More»

Understanding the interplay of value components vital to sound strategy
By Robert Wheatley

In his excellent book entitled “The Momentum Effect,” author J.C. Larreche describes the unique characteristics of momentum driven businesses that seem to grow more rapidly at the top line because consumers flock to their value proposition. He says: “Momentum powered firms don’t just offer good customer value, they offer compelling value – a value so intense and personal that it resonates with their needs in a gripping and powerful way.”

But value isn’t just a quick summation of benefits, features, price and the rational evaluation of those pieces. Read More»

Sound advice from the Dean…

Saw this quote the other day and thought it was worth mentioning here:

Distilling the marketing game to its core essence

We recently saw a whiteboard presentation at Tom Asacker’s web site
that’s definitely worth a look. Read More»

Identifying Brand Fans The Quickest Route to Brand Evangelism

Today Ad Age began at two-part series called “Caught in the Clutter Crossfire” probing the rampant creep of marketplace cacophony that has marginalized the effectiveness of traditional media strategies — while simultaneously giving rise to new categories of intrusion such as urban spam — toilet walls, dry cleaner bags, egg shells, foreheads, door hangers and other assorted and uninvited assaults on consumer eye balls.

“Attempts to beat clutter only yield more of it, a bitter irony bound to have dire consequences for businesses already struggling with questions of relevance and effectiveness. Put simply, the (interruption model) ad business is crushing itself under the weight of its own messaging, squeezing the effectiveness out of its product as consumers get more and more inured to the commercialization of their culture and surroundings,” writes Matthew Creamer.

It’s not only the physical ‘retention’ challenge of whether or not a consumer will remember or care about, let alone act on, any of the messages they are bombarded with everyday. More importantly it is the form of it. The “head-banging” approach that interrupts and pushes commercial communication towards the consumer is losing its grip as people tune out and drop out.

Mass communication is built systemically on shotgun theory, and even attempts at segmenting the target scope only send clutter in more directions as virtually every possible media platform is exploited – even traditional TV commercial pods are getting fatter. This model is irrevocably broken. Relationship Creation is the only viable path to igniting the fire of brand growth. This is a respectful and collegial model built on “opt-in” engagement with a consumer who is listening because they want and elect to do so. Operating principle around this model is a view that investing more deeply in brand fans will yield stronger business benefits in the long haul than casting bait in every direction hoping something or someone will bite. Indifferent consumers, in the end, buy on price and routinely switch their allegiances on that basis.

Identify the Super Target

Involved fans can drive profit and growth. The 80/20 (majority of business and referrals coming from a smaller segment of customers) rule can be developed to its fullest effect when the marketing focus is narrowed. The challenge today in brand strategy and communications is first to identify who comprises the “Super Target.” Part of the effort involves working to uncover and understand their passions, interests and desires that run parallel to (or even within) a client’s category. The top box goal: establishing a reciprocating relationship with these consumers — people who can identify so keenly with a client’s brand that it becomes woven into the fabric of how they express themselves and their individuality. The Super Targets are potential Brand Evangelists – and therefore most likely to pass along recommendations to try a product to their friends and family.

Consumers have shown they are far more likely to base their buying decisions on opinions of people they trust. Earning the respect and involvement of potential brand fans is an active, and not static endeavor. The brand communications effort must be squarely based on reaching and enrolling key influencers – we refer to them as the consumer’s “Board of Directors.” Editorial media, family members, friends, experts, neighbors, opinion leaders, educators, authors, even celebrities can be part of the Board that consumers will listen to. Most importantly, the strategies used to reach Fans and engage them run in the opposite direction from clutter.

I love this quote from Bob Greenberg’s most recent column in ADWEEK magazine: “Newly empowered consumers, equipped with all the consideration tools the new marketing era affords them, will vote irrelevant brands ‘off the island’ at a quickening pace. Avoiding this fate will require nothing short of reinvention – of brands, of client organizations and of agencies.”

Brand relevance is front and center the most commanding and also perplexing challenge businesses face. It forces us all to think differently about the roots and fabric of what a brand is, what it stands for and how it interacts with consumers.

Redefining your destiny

The pathway to relevance, I believe, begins with your soul. Yes, most brands have them, some certainly more than others. But soul is about a higher calling, a more broadly defined purpose that gets beyond features and benefits and into things that matter most to consumers. What makes life interesting isn’t so much about the goals and achievements as it is the journey itself. So what higher purpose can a brand aspire to that reaches beyond the core aspects of the product itself?

A diaper brand understands the compelling importance of successful parenting as a predominant theme with new mothers and fathers, and moves to intersect with that driving interest. The food brand sees the passions some people have for creative expression and experimentation in the kitchen, and works hard to help their consumer realize the road to tantalizing food adventures. Identifying a higher purpose is about moving the focus from navel gaze to consumer-centricity. It’s about them, not us. The more we think about them, the more we open the door to reciprocal behavior – earning the right to a relationship.

You get me, understand me, know me

What is the happy intersection of interest, passion and compatibility? You might say it’s a good marriage, and right you would be. Not far a-field from this relationship metaphor, the same rule applies to successful brands. If a brand puts itself in a league with the interests and passions of consumers, by defining first its higher purpose, there is a shot at that magic moment when a consumer says quietly to themselves: they get me. We should all be so fortunate for this moment to occur early and often. Relevance is about knowing and maybe even loving the consumer. If we truly love them then the relationship isn’t just transactional, it’s about meaning that connects with what consumers actually care about.

Relevance, meaning and value

Remember the old retail axiom, “the customer is always right.” Stretch that a bit further, and more globally, and it should read – “the customer is it, period.” Business is no longer about sales and market share, it is about securing and keeping fans. The onus is on brand stewards to find and mine the touch points of emotional resonance that creates the basis for a real relationship.

For a fashion brand it is recognizing that powerful sense of self, expression of personal style and creativity – as seen through the eyes of those who appreciate fashion and fashion-able-ness. For an adult beverage brand it’s seeing beyond the bottle to embrace the social connections to people, relationships, laughter, memories and personal adventure that the product could help facilitate. Too often we’re down in the trench focused on ourselves and our competitors, and not enough on finding the love. Either we start investing in this kind of thinking, or as Bob Greenberg says, it’s going to be “off the island” – and sooner rather than later.

I had a V-8 moment today… Our office building sits near the corner of Chicago and Michigan Avenues, one of the busiest intersections in the retail paradise known as the Magnificent Mile. In the summer, the area teems with visitors looking to shop and enjoy the bustle and energy of downtown Chicago. It’s noisy, busy – a woman trying to get the attention and wrist of her young child yells over the din and distraction to no avail – little Jimmy just stares upward, gawking at the tall buildings. Many of us in marketing may be little Jimmy’s of sorts. A major market sea change yelling to get our attention nearby and we just don’t hear it.

In his seminal treatise about the shift in the “hegemony of the three television networks…to the more than one billion people (who are) Internet users, their lives changed forever by the sheer scope, scale and power of an IP-connected universe,” contributing columnist to AdWeek, Bob Greenburg (a remarkable intellect, visionary and insightful writer), tackles the old “TV industrial complex” syndrome found in so many marketing plans. He dissects and dismantles the myths about effective outreach to consumers who are increasingly hard to get to through conventional media platforms like 30-second spots. But, wait a minute. Is there a proverbial cart that comes before any discussion about which media horse to ride?

Yes. It’s the product.

In an article in American Executive magazine, Bob Worell, president of Worrell Design in Minneapolis talks about the seepage, the leakiness of brand franchises due to their average-ness saying, “Consumers are catching on that companies are putting attractive spins on mediocre products. And when they can buy a product that is manufactured overseas of equal or higher value for a fraction of the price, why should they pay more for the name.” Similarly, John Moore, owner of the Brand Autopsy blog and former marketing guru for Starbucks, waxes on about the passion and devotion Starbucks had in the early years about their mission to bring the world a better cup of coffee. His organization’s focus wasn’t on media platforms, brand equity strategies and TV commercials; it was singularly about the product and how to make it better. The experience was king, not the communications plan.

So many of us little Jimmy’s stand transfixed on the revolution occuring around us as word of mouth marketing gets more pundit time than ever, and old media buying philosophies are harpooned daily. Hand wringing right and left about how to reach consumers and, we think, convince them via creative alchemy about why they should prefer our client’s brand over another. What’s that sound from the wings? It’s a fundamental and elemental idea: fix the product. If it (the product) isn’t remarkable, authentically superior, demonstrably better and engaging, then all of the Merlin media magic isn’t going to help you in the end. The best story telling falls about of products that are compelling all on their own. No need for massive amounts of marketing make-up to dress-up something that doesn’t radiate charm. Think long and hard about what’s headed for the shelf and how it can be made more naturally alluring. On that foundation communications has a reasonable chance of helping close the loop and offer illumination around a brand that truly deserves the spotlight.