Stefan's Branding Blog

Hypocrisy or not?

In the case of Dove's highly popular (and criticized) 'Real Beauty' campaign, it turns out it's hard to tell. Retouching whiz Pascal Dangin claims in The New Yorker he did his magic on the real beauties there. A lot of it:

“Do you know how much retouching was on that?”

So those looks were actually not entirely pristine, as one would have thought.

On the other hand, he's quick to note that he aimed to

"keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive."

So the retouching work didn't attempt to tell a completely different story from the rough photo shots.

Hipocrisy or not? How is this going to affect the brand's reputation? Hard call to make.

(Meaningful) Brand Interactions

Brands have always been about meaningful interactions. Actually, that's how modern-day brands have been born. As casual market interactions that gained meaning by offering security (consistent, mass-produced quality) laced with a bit of phantasy (the "secondary", intangible and otherwise arbitrary attributes attached to them through story-telling). Brands never limited themselves to products, services, logos, slogans or ads.

We now live in a time when it's a big deal to remember this basic, half-forgotten fact. Yes, brand interactions are the future. And the present. As they have always been. Oh, and I ain't talking digital only.

Accidental Branding

I like to see the idea of branding as a fair exchange of value surfacing in various places and minds (I wasn't the first one to think of it, but I love it.) I also like a nice story--or more. That's how I found myself holding my breath while reading a book on accidents. Fortunately, those were accidents in branding, in the form of brand stories told by a good raconteur (and teacher of brand-related things, just like myself) who met the respective interesting brand founders, got them talking and did his share of research on the side.

So here's a few takeaways from Accidental Branding:

1. Empathy. "Be your own customer." Either walk in someone else's shoes and do it well, or if you can't, think of something you'd use and love yourself.
2. Focus. "Don't appeal to everyone, but get delighted, raving fans." Pleasing everyone is the safest way to kill valuable ideas, products and services of any kind.
3. Trust. You can't beat the trustability of a business owner who says: "My exit strategy is death."
4. Passion. "The clerk... seemed more interested in making sure I understood how to shave properly than he was in selling me shaving balm."
5. Familiar symbols are powerful "Once people understood that a mother who was the world's most demanding boss ran Columbia, they believed that the products could be both tough and inexpensive."
6. Creative tension. "Every good entrepreneur... feels like the wolf is just outside the door, no matter how successful his or her business."

A word of warning in the end. Two, actually:

1. Only a handful of accidents are fortunate. Failure is the rule when starting a business, everywhere in the world. Be prepared to face it, if you start up something.
2. Big brands are built and driven differently. They're less sexy than many small ones, but they dominate the market--it's in the way of nature for the mediocrity to be more prevalent. Don't get carried away by the breeze after reading this book, if you're involved with a big one. But do keep that breeze awake if you dream of starting a brand of your own--it's your only chance to succeed.

On Lovemarks

A candid confession by Saatchi & Saatchi's Kevin Roberts in a Wharton article titled It's all about getting to the future first:

"lovemarks" was born really out of desperation and fear.

Fear of irrelevance and lack of differentiation. A few lines on, it's getting a bit cynical:

the only purpose to create a "lovemark" is to charge a premium. Brands were invented to charge premiums...

The latter sentence is true. But I disagree with the former. Nowadays, one builds a brand (or 'lovemark' or call-it-what-you-will) to 'lubricate' a fair exchange of value between consenting parties. Of course there's a need for a profit, but there's definitely got to be something given in exchange--something worth that profit. Looking at both sides of the exchange is what's it all about these days in branding.

But it goes on nicely, making a few wake-up calls that are never made often enough:

The power has now switched to the consumer. The consumer is boss. And the consumer really will not be talked to or controlled. She's in control.

You can't get insight and foresight from data and from analysis.

Finally, one other statement that may sound odd to many a manager or marketer. There's truth beyond an MBA, and it implies things like

mystery, sensuality and intimacy

Nice read.

How Not to Name

Mr. Shore at Landor pens a brilliant article on how not to name brands, I feel like translating it into Romanian and giving it away freely to passers by in the street. Fortunately I have some IP grooming, so I know better. But the article still rocks, and it's written with plenty of gusto.

It basically gives six great tips: a) brand naming takes serious time; b) there is no stereotypical formula for success; c) intrinsic meaning is recommended; d) not anyone is a suitable source of name proposals--in fact, very few folks are; e) brand naming is not a democratic, consensual process--only give a say to those who really matter to the business; f) test carefully--focus groups may not be what you really want.

Go read it. Oh, and I got it via Landor's small yet formidable rivals on Post St.

Mission Statement Building

Just ran across a nice lesson on building a mission statement. Brilliantly taught by one of the most influential thinkers of our time (heh, heh), it shows how important it is to sniff the bull and keep it out of your brand.

Starting from this original statement (mission was for a subsidiary):

To provide [mother company] with profitable growth and related new business areas.

participating folks were led to produce this jewel:

To scout profitable growth opportunities in relationships, both internally and externally, in emerging, mission inclusive markets, and explore new paradigms and then filter and communicate and evangelize the findings.

Sounds oddly familiar? Then you got a serious problem on your hands.

Disclosure: I like many of Scott Adams's works, including Dilbert. So I may be subjective on this matter.

Read Management

As I like to say, "if you wanna learn branding, read management". Treat yourselves with a little (free) reading from MIT SMR, a prestigious (and deservedly so) source of business wisdom.

Internal Branding: Tactics

More precisely, recruitment tactics (yes, I equal HR and internal branding). Found some nice ones on an aptly named blog, since I'm in a small recruiting frenzy myself. You may want to read and compare them with your current employer's procedures. Let me know what you get.

Branding, the Woz Way

You gotta read this interview of Steve Wozniak. My take? If you wanna create (invent, innovate, discover etc.) something (such as a breakthrough technology or an iconic brand or both) you gotta:

• be good at something. Real good. Magically so. You can't just fool the world into allowing your brand to become big and successful
• have a bit of luck (chance, accident) on your side. In the least, be in the right place at the right time
• err on the side of joking (humor, pranks, laughs etc). Important quote: "Humor is closely related to creativity."
• although it's ever harder these days, every now and then do things randomly, outside-the-rules, outside-the-pages-in-the-book
• define everyone's role very well, from the very beginning (I can tell you that worked wonders for Grapefruit, too)
• not look to hit it big too intently
• believe in your own power to (tremendously) change things as an individual, no matter how humble you appear to be in the world
• stay true to a variety of stakeholders, including yourself. It is important.
• never forget how important education is, and will be, to you and everybody else, forever
• get a shot of passion and commitment at intervals
• sometimes fight for your life, or you'll never cherish it to its fullest
• acknowledge your competition and whatever good things they do--because they do.

But maybe that's just Woz, and the world is entirely different.

Nation Branding by Flag

Just picked up an interesting viewpoint on Kosovo's new flag over at Economist.com.

Adopting a flag is one of the very first branding actions a new nation can make, so yes--I too think it's an important decision to make. But in Kosovo's case, all I see is haste, amateurism and a desire to mimic the EU.

Not to mention the fact that a map on a flag is usually a sign of trouble. Why? The only other countries that have or had such flags are Cyprus, Bangladesh and Cambodia. I'm sure you can see the link between them and Kosovo.