DUO:Design and Marketing

Tell a story, create a brand.

"Marketing is telling a story that sticks, that spreads and that changes the way people act."

This comment in Seth Godin's blog is so, so true. Marketing is telling a story that is authentic (i.e not a work of fiction) and compelling (i.e exciting, emotional and enticing).

Simple and yet, for some reason, we have contrived to make marketing a complex art that more often than not sells features by shouting AT people rather than captivating them with a story that holds a 'Big Idea'.

Every person has a story which is unique and, when you really listen, it is usually pretty inspiring. Every company has been created by people who had an original vision and the undaunting spirit to make that vision a reality. This story is important and more often than not is intrinsic to the success of the brand.

It seems though that, often, as companies grow and change over time this legacy story and set of 'original' values gets lost on the way so that eventually the company brand becomes a parody of the norms in that business sector rather than a Unique Selling Story (USS). Bradford and Bingley and Northern Rock, I think,  are a good examples of this. Brands that lost their way and lost their shirt because they forgot where they came from.

A matter of trust

If business and a growing economy is about 'confidence' then effective branding, whether personal brands or company brands, is about TRUST. When this diminishes, either by neglect or by a lack of integrity, then brands decline and are then very difficult to resurrect. A few months ago the intangible 'goodwill' value of HBOS and Northern Rock would have been worth billions. Now they stink. People feel let down by the arrogance and lack of due care of these organisations. The trust that was there has disappeared. Indeed the trust in banks generally that they will act responsibly has gone and now this has been replaced by 'Government Insurance' which we as tax payers and customers will have to pay for.

If a lack of trust is a big issue for businesses how can trust be built in these difficult and challenging times? Here are some thoughts from Jeffrey Gitomer, who wrote the book 'The Little Teal Book of Trust'. He gave ten suggestions for building personal trust which are relevant to business as well:

• Tell the truth. This is the number one element of trust and
relationships.

• Do what you say you will do. This is a test of being
trustworthy and reliable.

• Communicate in a timely manner. This shows you are
responsible, on top of it, and that you care.

• Bring value beyond your product or service. What you do to
help others be more successful is a true reflection of your
character.

• Be on time. Being on time shows you respect the other
person’s time.

• Be friendly. Smiling people are the gateway to open
communication.

• Be sincere. This can only come from belief in what you do,
loving what you do, and caring for others.

• Show and say genuine thanks. Be grateful for the
opportunity to be of service.

• Be consistent. I believe this element of trust is the most
difficult to master because it combines all the other elements.

• Give trust. You become trustworthy by giving trust.

Taking this last point, I wonder if the banks trusted their people and their customers more with the background to their complex financial arrangements, when they started out, whether the same risks would have been taken.

What’s your Profile? A guide to Personal Branding

Reading the ‘gloom news’, which is endemic wherever you look, you might be thinking ‘crikey, it’s going to get tough to move on or get a new job. Well certainly there might be a period of consolidation in the recruitment market, but as always in times of adversity, the strong will out the weak. Now is the time to be very conscious about your offer and the Personal Brand that will define and support your ability to create value for prospective employers. In times of heightened competition, it’s even more important that the image you present is authentic (coming from the heart with passion) and is distinctive and influential (you stand out in a crowded marketplace).

Whether you like it or not, everyone has a Personal Brand. You can choose to manage this in a strategic way or you can allow it develop of its own accord. But given that your career depends on your ability to market your ‘ME brand’, day-in and day-out, I believe Personal Branding is far too critical to leave to chance.

To complicate matters still further, we live in an increasingly transparent world where ‘Googling’ often acts as the first reference point for information on individuals. In 2006, a survey by Execunet in the USA found that 77% of recruitment consultants Google candidates to find more information. And up to 35% remove candidates from consideration based on what they discover.

As Jonathan Winter, Founder of Career Innovation argues in the Guardian, "NetRep" - or someone's internet reputation - will become much more important as workers will increasingly be rated in a similar way to how buyers and sellers are rated for reliability and professionalism on sites such as eBay.

"As the workplace becomes more agile and people move between projects or organisations, people are going to need to own their internet reputation in a way that is more credible than in the past," Winter predicts. "How people are endorsed and their international profile will have a real power and influence."

Why not try putting your name into Google and see what happens? Does the search reveal you or someone else? Does what comes up support your offer or is it trivial and undermining to your brand? This is difficult to manage, but not impossible. You may also want to try visiting http://www.zoominfo.com/ and similar sites to check what information is openly available on the internet about you. It will be enlightening! Later in this article we will explore some rudimentary things you can do to help support and develop your online ME brand.

Many people see Personal Branding as another term for ‘selling myself’ – the brand is what you sell.  In my view, this misses the point. If you are in an interview and you have to ‘sell yourself’ then you are probably going for the wrong job. If your brand is clearly defined and you exude this with passion and desire then the assignment will almost certainly find you. Your authenticity as a leader and driver of business value will be so obvious it will be blinding.

How then do you define your Personal Brand? Try answering these questions as a starting point.

- Who am I and what do I stand for
- What do I believe in and would never compromise
- What makes me special
- What do you I want to achieve
- What do I want people to say about me

Now write the answers down to create a short mission statement – a ‘ME brand’ statement.
Once you have done this test it out with your mentors, friends and colleagues. Do they find it compelling and true? If not, try again and ask them to help. Remember this is the foundation, the soul and fuel of your brand. If you point your career towards satisfying your personal mission then your ‘ME brand’ will be authentic and soar in value.

Now that you have defined your core purpose, what can you do to communicate it and find like-minded businesses and people that will respect your value? Networking and giving of yourself is the key. Here are a few pointers to help you in this process.

• Constantly look for ways to expand your social and online network. Join clubs or societies that fit your purpose, offer to give speeches and get on the Conference Network, get out and meet people and when they ask you what you do, give them your elevator speech that encapsulates your purpose or mission.
• Create a CV that is precise, on-brand and distinctive (not gimmicky).
• Manage and foster your online profile (recruiters really do check this out) and make sure it fits your ‘ME brand’.
o Join appropriate business networks such as Chambers of Commerce or sector specific societies or professional networks.
o Develop web content by being actively involved with professional debates on websites or blogs.
o Write articles on specialist subjects that you are passionate about. Contribute to blogs or even create your own (easy to do, just go to www.typepad.co.uk). How about your own website (you can now buy your own personal domain such as www.johnsmith.me). A blog or personal website would provide tangible evidence of your expertise and achievements. People want to see that you are on top of the issues in your industry, that you are well connected and have solved challenges that are similar to theirs.
o Review books at Amazon or elsewhere and link these reviews back to your blog or website.
o Use zoominfo.com, Ziggs.com, and LinkedIn.co.uk to make sure you have relevant and up-to-date profiles and networks.
o Check your social networks such as Friends Reunited, MySpace and Facebook, to ensure the content fits your brand (sometimes it might be surprisingly embarrassing).

Now, more than ever, is the time to ensure your on- and off-line ‘ME brand’ helps you to win in the highly competitive marketplace. It could be the difference between a successful, balanced career with purpose and passion or not.

ME+ME+ME+ME+ME…. = YOUR BRAND

Here we take a look at the importance of Personal Branding and the impact it can have on individuals and the businesses they work for. Introspective reflection is not something that many of us are comfortable with, but knowing your ‘ME’ brand can be powerful when it comes to that essential fit between you and your career. And companies that understand their brand are more likely to find like-minded individuals that will deliver competitive advantage.

As people, we often seem to devalue ourselves – we readily place a value on a product or service but not on the human capital that drives success and wealth creation. A cost accountant will be able to tell you the net profit on an iPod but could he tell you the value of the people that inspired its success - Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO and Jonathan Ives, the director of Apple’s Industrial Design Group to name a few? Could he tell you what a £-value would be on the Steve Jobs brand and its ability to create value and lead change via his strength of personality, intellect, knowledge and personal ambition. The Apple brand is valuable but it is defined by the sum of the individual and unique brands of its people that, in turn, reflect the humanistic requirements of its customers. Apple is not about technology, it’s about human touch and ease of use –  attributes that have not traditionally been associated with the computer sector.

Over recent years, product and service brands have come under increasing competitive pressure and consumer scrutiny. People question their uniqueness, their value and ultimately the trust they place in them. We feel cheated when we read about the use of slave labour in emerging economies. We feel frustrated when we find that supposedly ethical brands are not so worthy after all. Managing brands is incredibly difficult – your weakest links will be all those individuals in your organisation that, for whatever reason, do not care or have opposing beliefs. Maybe because they have not identified their value or their abilities are being misplaced, maybe because they feel used and their future is uncertain. Whatever the reason, a product or service brand’s value will ultimately be dependent on individuals and the decisions they make everyday. These decisions (good or bad) will reflect the ‘ME’ brands of every individual in your organisation.

So, let’s take this a step further. If we are saying that the value and strength of any brand is based on the cumulative value and integrity of everyone’s ‘ME’ brand, why do we then not evaluate the people we propose to recruit based on their ‘fit’ to the corporate brands vision and values? Traditional recruitment is all to often based on HR’s assessment of qualifications and experience rather than ‘fit’. Because someone has the right title after their name or has worked for one of our competitors we assume they will ‘fit’ and that a quick run through of the company induction manual will mould them into a good brand citizen. What we should be doing is looking for people that share our brand’s vision, purpose and values. If we recruit these people, they will be more motivated, more loyal and less likely to let you or your brand down.

Perhaps HR’s lack of focus on the ‘ME’ brand is a reflection of their poor understanding of the corporate brand. To match an individual’s ‘ME’ brand with a corporate brand assumes that the people doing the matching truly understand the essence of their own corporate brand and why it is so important. It assumes that the companies themselves have defined and articulated the answers to the following questions;

- Who are we and what do we stand for
- What do we believe in and would never compromise
- What makes us special
- What do you we want to achieve
- What do we want people to say about us

Too often companies provide very shallow answers to these questions, which result in a veneered brand pledging competitive advantage that is distinctive only at the design and advertising level. This is not authentic branding but a façade that is seen through easily by those within the company and often by those on the outside too – your customers. Banks are an archetypal example of this approach; profaning care and understanding but practising the opposite. There is a famous supermarket that says; ‘One of our most important values is to treat people how we would like to be treated’, and yet sells chickens for £2.99 knowing that there is little goodness in them.

Likewise with Personal Branding (the ‘ME’ brand), a term invented by Tom Peters in 1997, if this is not authentic, based on your true character, then unfortunately you will be found out or worse you will end up in a career or an assignment that creates continuous disharmony with your beliefs and sense of purpose.

So, if you are looking for a job or you are about to be interviewed, think about your ‘ME’ brand first. Try answering the questions above on a personal level and decide whether you feel they match the values of the company that wants your drive and energy. If the answer is negative, then you might be best to focus your passions elsewhere.

Lost in translation…

DUO has recently been commissioned to carry out an internal communications audit for Wates, a large, £750m Construction Company. Wates is a proud, family owned business that uniquely is trying to be the first construction company to deliver all its projects on-time and on-budget. They recognise that to achieve this, 100% of their people need to be engaged with their vision, focused on the right issues and be highly motivated. They see this as a leadership responsibility and a first step to the creation of a strong brand within their rather disrespected sector.

We all know that a motivated work force is critical to business success and yet I was astonished to read some research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development that noted that if Britain at work was a marriage, it was ‘a marriage under stress, characterised by poor communications and low levels of trust’. Only 38 per cent of employees feel senior managers and directors treat them with respect and 66 per cent do not trust them. Around a quarter of employees rarely or never look forward to going to work, and almost a half are leaving or trying to.

In another survey, Gallup’s Employee Engagement Index found that only 16 per cent of UK employees were positively engaged whilst 24 per cent said they were ‘actively disengaged’. Gallup estimated that the cost to the economy of active disengagement was £40bn, as employees express their disenchantment by going sick, not performing or delivering poor service.

Who is to blame? Well clearly if the role of management is to lead vision and motivate achievement, there is something going wrong. The starting point for putting it right begins with some ‘honest listening’ from within. So often the messages you want to get through to your people are not the ones that hit the mark. Testing the gap between vision and reality is an essential starting point for any brand review or change management programme.

Astro rubbish

A bad idea is always a bad idea but in America it seems they do them in mega proportions. KFC have just spent an inordinate amount of money to create this 87,500sq feet image of Colonel Sanders in the Nevada desert that is only visble by satellites and Martians!. The purpose is to re-launch the KFC logo.

To substantiate the ill-conceived idea this is what was said "This change gives us a chance not only to make sure we stay relevant, but it also communicates to customers the realness of Colonel Sanders and the fact that he was a chef." Do people believe that because the recipe for KFC chicken was developed by an old man dressed as a chef that this makes it real and authentic?

I understand that the creation of the 'astrovertisment' is a PR stunt but what a pointless exercise this is. Marketing is about communicating a message but where's the message here. I am sure the martians think we have gone mad as well.

Building a brand with a motive beyond profit

This is a great example of an authentic marketing concept for what is essentially a commodity. The organic milk brand, White & Wild* (web address), plants a tree for every 20 two litre bottles of milk purchased. The Tree Appeal will plant a broad-leaved tree thereby reducing our carbon footprint and creating space for wildlife. To-date the brand's sales through Sainsbury's has already allowed for the planting of over 25,000 trees.

The packaging makes clever use of Bill Oddie who is a trusted and respected environmental and wildlife campaigner.

*White & Wild Farmers are members of OMSCo Organic Milk Cooperative, who have committed to wildlife friendly organic farming practices laid down by the Soil Association.

B2B branding - not a soft issue.

Anyone leading a business that sells to other businesses should read this article below. It is a useful reminder as to why businesses should not ignore branding and reputation management. Some people describe these as 'soft issues' but it is our belief that these are the hard drivers of sustainable profit and competitiveness.

Its a fact: Strong brands Drive B2B by Kevin Randall (see Brand Channel )

To stay alive and flourish in highly competitive environments, business-to-business (B2B) companies spend more time and money on R&D. Suppliers focus on making their products smarter, faster, and smaller, and more cost-effective and reliable, than the competition. They also find ways to improve and add services so that they provide customers with a complete and satisfying experience. Marketplaces are constantly changing, so companies have to adapt in order to stay ahead.

But how can these B2B companies truly differentiate their offering and be relevant to customers over the long-term? This is where brands come in.

Brands matter in B2B markets. In fact, they may matter even more in B2B than in B2C.

Cut though clutter
Brands matter because the B2B marketing communications world is characterized by numbing sameness, commoditized feature wars, and laundry lists of product benefits. In other words, there is a sea of noise, parity, clutter and dullness. Branding—going all the way back to its origins with Norse livestock herders—allows a producer or owner to distinguish his/her goods or services. Branding today is a strategic tool that helps the supplier cut through the morass of the market, get noticed, and connect with the customer on many levels and in ways that matter. A strong brand becomes the customer’s “shorthand” for making good choices in a complex, risky, and confusing marketplace.

Tap into emotional drivers
Brands matter because companies act just like people when it comes to evaluating what products or services to buy. Along with a number of explicit rational criteria, a powerful irrational impulse is always present to influence the purchase decision. A strong brand with an effective positioning strategy speaks to and taps into the totality of these buyer needs.

Facilitate delivery of promise
Brands matter when supplier teams are doing business with buyer teams. Through effective internal branding efforts, the brand becomes the “glue” that binds the supplier culture and organization together, enabling the brand to make good on its external promise. Enterprise customers will reward a brand which delivers a unified, consistent and satisfying experience with repeat business.

However, common beliefs in the B2B marketing universe overlook the importance of brands. Consider the following thoughts:

Consumer brands are defined and presented largely based on emotive appeals—“warm and fuzzies.” In B2B, products and services, rather than “brands,” are pitched, sold, and transacted through cold logic.

Consumers are drawn to brands’ irrational benefits (status, prestige, affinity, self-security). Business customers specify and purchase based on rational drivers (pricing, specifications, product performance, metrics).

Such thinking by B2B marketers is not only naïve (and defies logic) but also undermines their ability to drive incremental business value and ROI.

As the following examples show, brands drive B2B. Those who recognize this fact and leverage their full brand assets will create a true, strategic competitive advantage.

1. Brands produce economic value in the B2B marketplace. According to the 2005 Interbrand/BusinessWeek “Best Global Brands By Value” ranking, IBM, GE, and Intel, largely B2B-focused brands targeting sophisticated enterprises and “technical buyers,” are among the most valuable brands. Their intangible asset of “goodwill” drives billions of dollars in value and market capitalization. IBM’s 2005 brand value is US$ 53.4 billion (GE $47.0 billion, Intel $35.6 billion). Their brands, not their products, are their differentiators that lead to competitive advantage. Brands drive value for small business-to-business companies too (see Acme Brick story in Did You Know?).

2. Ironically technology has led to brand importance in the B2B world. The growth of the Internet and e-marketplaces along with accelerating technological product obsolescence has resulted in a hyper-informed and commoditized B2B marketplace. Buyers are overwhelmed with myriad logical choices, features, benefits, information, data, metrics—parity and clutter. They want to make an easy, safe, and right choice. Thus, “brand” becomes the compass or default for navigating the purchase process.

B2B customers often evaluate potential suppliers according to numerous, rigorous criteria—a “scientific” RFP process. But does anyone really think a multi-million dollar decision will come down to a numeric score or check list? How does a supplier even make the RFP list? You guessed it: Through their recognized brand.¹

Strong B2B brands benefit from organically created, branded, Web-based communities of loyal customer-advocates who evangelize the brand while providing it with new product or service ideas. As Chuck Feltz of Deluxe financial services notes, “if we can create more consciousness around the experience, it has ROI.”

When it comes to marketing technology products, marketers all too often ignore the full package of customer benefits and instead focus only on rational product features. Mohanbir Sawhney, Professor of Technology at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, argues that there are three dimensions of benefits upon which technology firms should build positioning platforms:

 

• 1st—Functional (what the product does)
• 2nd—Economic (what the brand means to the customer in time and money)
• 3rd—Emotional (how the brand makes the customer feel)

Brands that deliver beyond the functional and economic levels with emotional benefits will command an incremental price premium and create strong competitive advantage and customer brand loyalty.

3. Emotive propositions resonate in B2B markets whether customers admit it or not. People say that they are not influenced by advertisements but data and client spending suggest otherwise. In the early-to-mid 1980s, IBM did not have the best computer systems or pricing. “Big Blue,” however, became the enterprise systems market leader because you never got fired for buying IBM (same with Cisco today). IT Directors “bought” a relationship, company, reputation, service, people, assurance. In other words they bought goodwill or the brand.

Recent advances in neuroscience support the notion that buying decisions in B2C and B2B spheres are largely based on irrational impulses often unknown to the buyer. For example, the IBM customer was strongly motivated by job security and peace-of-mind. Today’s B2B customers may articulate their need for ROI, higher performance, a better mousetrap. Yet, they really want: to avoid doing business with “an Enron”; a name or people they can trust; to buy from a “leader.” Strong brands play to these important drivers.

4. Successful B2B brands require one voice. B2B transactions often involve large amounts of lots of money, complexity and people. Corporate teams sell to corporate teams. OEM engineer or professional services clients interact with an array of supplier professionals (sales to marketing to senior management to support). Customers who have a brand experience that is integrated, consistent, easy and expected will more likely become customers again. Loyalty drives brand economic value according to leading marketing and brand valuation experts. With the objective of unifying the brand and improving the customer experience, Caterpillar has educated and trained over 10,000 employees through its “OneVoice” program on how to communicate and demonstrate CAT’s singular brand personality and values to the marketplace.²   

5. Strong B2B brands are branded from the inside-out, top-down and bottom-up. Aligning the whole organization from customer-facing reps to factory floor employees with the corporate brand strategy is crucial to driving brand value and customer loyalty, especially in the B2B world. For example, if every employee at a $500 million electronic component manufacturer or mid-market professional services firm did not “live” the brand strategy, then the firm may face lost sales and unhappy customers. On the other hand, if every Procter & Gamble employee who worked on Ivory Soap did not understand its brand promise, there may be minimal negative impact on sales and consumer satisfaction.

Infineon, a German-based semiconductor company spun out of Siemens in 1999, recognizes the power of branding as a guiding principle for both internal and external audiences. Led by their CEO, 25,000 employees were engaged in the process of the initial brand launch. The company continues to conduct periodic studies to chart perceptions of both employees and customers in order to make sure the Infineon brand promise is fulfilled by the organization and that the brand is aligned with market values.³

There is a proven link between internal branding and the bottom line—across B2C and B2B markets. Companies like Pitney Bowes, Wachovia, Symbol Technologies, Itron, Hewlett-Packard, and William Blair have implemented CEO-sponsored “brand assimilation” programs that resulted in improved performance in internal and external brand measures. Effective internal brand-building and communications efforts result not only in higher employee job satisfaction, improved morale, lower turnover and enhanced productivity, but also increased worker motivation, focus, engagement and conviction in the brand enterprise all of which leads to higher employee and organizational performance. A recent Watson Wyatt study showed the earning per share performance of companies with high employee trust levels outperformed companies with low trust levels by 186 percent.

Brands drive B2B. Because not all B2B marketers embrace or grasp this notion, there is a real opportunity for the enlightened B2B brand strategist and marketer to achieve real impact.

A brand we admire for its authenticity

A brand that we all admire at Duo is Howies www.howies.co.uk – they make inspiring and edgy leisure clothes. Just look at what they say about their T-shirts.

The average 100% cotton T-shirt contains only 73% cotton. The rest is made up of chemicals and resins that were used to grow and make it. Yet, we all think cotton is one of the most natural things around. The truth is, it's not as nice as we'd all like to think.

Indeed, cotton is the world's most sprayed crop. It uses over a quarter of all insecticides used today. The way they grow it isn't good for the farmer's health, the water table's health, the factory worker's health, the river's health and eventually the sea's health.

That's why we use organic cotton. It costs us 30% more than normal cotton. It means our products cost a little more, but we think it's worth it. After all, you wear your T-shirt next to your skin for 10 hours a day. (Just think how Nicorettes work). Source: Howies website

When you read this you soon realise it is worthwhile spending a few pounds more for a Howies T-shirt. This is a brand that is genuine and honest about what it does. It is also incredibly successful.

Branding starts within.

Branding is the truth made exciting and compelling.

Many start-up businesses, whether a social enterprise or not, take an approach to marketing that is more akin to a ‘devine faith’ in success. They take the view that ‘if I build it, people will come’. Unfortunately no matter how worthy or inspiring a venture is, if potential customers do not know about it or do not understand your value proposition then the businesses life will be short.

For many, branding is something that is bolted on -  a window dressing process that can be thought about at another time. Something that is expensive, time consuming and possibly for some social enterprises a dirty word linked to greed and the diminishment of choice.

This is far from the truth. In our mind your brand is the foundation, the core of everything you  wish for, dream of and believe in. It is the starting point, not the end point of a cynical make-over resulting in a pretty logo.

A brand is defined by everything a company, product or service is, what it says, how it says it, what it believes, who it associates with and of course how it looks. As brand consultants we sometimes struggle to get our clients to understand this; what they want is a brand but often do not appreciate the fact that this comes with a responsibility beyond the ‘look of the logo’. The logo certainly needs to look intelligent, distinctive and interesting but it also needs to convey a foundation proposition that communicates a unique offer or experience based on truth and integrity.

Brand = Identity +beliefs+ behaviour

Brands will only survive if the behaviour their customers experience has a powerful sense of truth and integrity. And this integrity cannot be skin deep. Social enterprises can use this to there advantage. After all a compassionate belief in social justice and a value of integrity is often the catalyst for many businesses of this kind and should be exploited to define a point of difference and achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

This means that when you define your brand start by thinking about your customer’s experience of your product and service. Does it feel authentic and are you communicating, with integrity, the added social value of that experience?

A brand that we respect immensely is the Fifteen Restaurant chain run by Jamie Oliver. His aim is to inspire disadvantaged young people – homeless, unemployed, overcoming drug or alcohol problems - to believe that they can create for themselves great careers in the restaurant industry. He has achieved this whilst creating an eating experience with integrity that competes with the finest restaurants in the world. His brand does not force feed social justice but rather it focuses on delighting customers and making them feel good about spending £100 on lunch.  The outcome of this is a profitable business that can sustain its support of disadvantaged young people.