furtherandfaster

Brands and what lies behind them...

I was running a branding workshop today for a research agency - service brands are always a very different kettle of fish because you need to get to grips with the culture -otherwise you are stuck with generic best of breed service yada yada yada. To get the ball rolling I showed these  pictures of Carol Smillie the TV presenter as permitted by her publicity agent. And then one of her as captured by Hello magazine - Carol on the beach without the benefit of the airbrush. Then Carol back in the 1980s trying to make it as a glamour model.  So many attempts at brand onions start with the brand image which is like pointing a mirror at a mirror. A service brand has to be true to what it actually is before you can get to work with the airbrush and start carving off lovehandles. Service brands are no different.

We used this as an exercise to think about what the agency was capable of when it started and what it is capable of now.   As a footnote I had to work SO hard trying to find the alternative images of Carol. Clearly her agents take the trouble to sweep the web and remove material like this. Because its bad for her image <sigh>

Induction and the power of a history lesson

I've just got a new responsibility on the board of trustees for a particular organisation - I shan't name drop - its a bad habit of mine anyway I must learn to drop. And as part of my induction I have been given a history to read - the organisation is 200 years old and I have discovered I am in rather funky company - other board members have included William Wilberforce and the Earl of Shaftsbury (he namedropped). It gets better and better even if the details year by year are a little tedious. But it struck me how useful history is as a way of telling us what to do and not to do - or at least what the rules are. There are principles here from 1818 - which won't be challenged not now or in the future. One of the problems with brands is the way the advertisng centric treatment of them puts them in a kind of eternal present. Actually most products and companies have a history - and if someone bothered to write it down there would be more than enough material to establish the core values and they quite often wouldn't be based on category values as most brand values inevitably are.

I phone resistance - whose phone is it anyway?

I saw the Iphone today for the first time where I could get actually get my hands on one. I'm an O2 customer and I'm out of contract. So did I get one? Nope. Its a beauty to look at. But I'm getting riled by the behaviour of Apple. designwise they're stunning. Culture wise they're as controlling as Sony.  I don't see why I should have to use Itunes to upload my tracks. Why they have disabled bluetooth to stop you putting your own content on without their permission.  I don't like brands telling me what I can and can't do.

So I went back to Nokia - and bought the N95 which can sing and dance and tell you exactly where in the world you are.  Last year was a big disaster phonewise. I bought an all singing all danceing XDA and hated it. It had to be repaired twice. So for the last 6 months I have been using a 3 year old mobile perfectly happily. Old isn't always bad. Old is familiar and usable. And it works - better than the latest kid on the block who needs support websites and phonecalls.

Luxury Briefing

The luxury briefing is a monthly news service which seems to have aggregated the luxury brands around itself very effectively. Today I attended their annual conference - no 13 I believe with 150 delegates. I was sitting next to Ann Marie and Sanford the CEO of Hot Diamonds. With the delegation from Tiffanys on my other side. I had a word with Peter Wallis/York of SRU who was also close by. He commented that if you tried to specialise on the luxury market you'd have problems because they never had any money for marketing or research. What they do of course is do partner promotions and PR like crazy.  So everyone knows everyone else and the trick is to pick up the smell of the hive and look as if one has been steeped in luxury before birth. I confess I wore a better watch for the day. Well it looks better even if its impossible to tell the time on it. But that's luxury for you.

I would like to take far longer than I have time to do to cover the main features of the conference. The theme was Web 2.0 - very interesting because most luxury websites look like a cross between magazine page (but not as good as a real one) and a catalogue based ecommerce site (but not as nice as a printed catalogue). And Web 2.0 is of course about the inmates taking over the asylum, customer blogs and social marketing. Which if you think about it is the last thing that luxury brands want - they want compliant customers who accept their editorial - so the day proved to be very interesting as speaker after speak tried to engage with Web 2.0 and tried not to look like a Web 1.0 luddite control freak.

After a research presentation which demonstrated that the rich are getting richer (good) and so are the rest of us (which is where the real money is) there was a panel run by Saul Klein - He was talking to the 2 CEOs of Astley Clarke, and Koodos and was supposed to be talking to someone from Stardoll. It was a shame that the Stardoll person couldn't make it because using cutouts of dolls to sell designer gear to 8 yearolds is a classic example of how web 2.0 should work and the other 2 sites weren't particularly adventurous.

Claus Sendinger of Design Hotels then did a very stimulating session on  how to make hotel websites look different from their competitors by looking at some of the latest ideas from  developers and tourism.  A simple point and well made - don't follow the category because there's really no need to.

The second panel featured Theo Fennell, the ceo of the  Rug company and the marketing director of Paul Smith. The moderator Michel Gutsatz hounded them somewhat because he was very clear what Web 2.0 was and it became equally clear that they were having none of it. The Rug company won't even sell to you online - you have to get them to your house to ensure that the rug will match.  Paul Smith is apparently flirting with posting films but is basically flogging product. And Theo Fennell  jewellers editorialise - and don't plan to do a lot else in the near future.

Brent Hoberman - yup the one from lastminute then came on to be rather coy about his new online venture mydeco which he couldn't tell us much about because he hadn't launched it yet. It is an interior design aggregator which allows you to 'try' out the products in a model of your home.

We finished the morning with a great rant from a self confessed luddit Jeffrey Miller from New York. He put in a plea for keepin luxury off line and exploring values such as intimacy as well as lofty talking down to customers as being just as important in the luxury space.

After lunch Tyler Brule the founder of Monocle magazine dazzled by talking about how he launched a magazine when print was supposed to be over and the web the emerging medium. A really interesting presentation about how to make offline magazines engaging while providing online content and promotional material to get his subscription base into the content. They are putting 30 second commercials on the site for the main magazine stories. Made for a fraction of the price of offline commercials but working as headers to engage people in print stories. Very interesting. The magazine also uses 5 different kinds of paper stock - in other words turning up touchy feely values and collectability. One of the highlights of the day

The second panel featured Amanda Gore of PSFK, Jason Campbell of the JC report and Tamara Heber Percy of mrandmrssmith.com Of all of these PSFK is the closest to web 2.0 because at least they have harnessed their subscriber base in rating news items and also meeting simultaneously round the world to brainstorm emerging trends. Great stuff. Tamara was scandalised that some Welsh subscribers of hers were opting to meet each other and to review and sample local restaurants and hotels. Not much chance of Web 2.0 happening with mrandmrssmith any time soon!

Dee Salomon  from Condenet  gave what was a thinly disguised sales presentation for the Conde Nast online presence. There was a lot of good thinking but in the end I wish her casestudies had been Conde led ones because I foudn the advertiser led examples rather predictable and safe. It rather sounded as if Conde Nast would have done a better job with some online advertorial.

James Ogilvy the publisher of the Luxury Briefing and chair for the day interviewed Natalie Massenet founder of netaporter.com.  She had  spoken in 2000 at an earlier luxury briefing conference when she was just starting up the site.  So it was an interesting contrast now the site has become one of the leading fashion sites selling designer clothes to women  round the world - they claim 70,000 sales a month.  I'm not sure I learned that much from what she said about why she had been successful when  most similar attempts have failed.  Again netaporter is happy that there are half a dozen netaporter groups on Facebook but it doesn't intend to facilitate them any time soon. So no marks for Web 2.0

The day closed with a presentation and summary from the Future Foundation - they were pressed for time and we were tired so I feel that a lot of good things were said but didn't necessarily stick because of the timing pressures.

All in all a good day. A little crowded for my liking - if you knew lots of people no problem but we seemed to spend much of the day negotiating 2 flights of stairs to get in and out of the presentation room. I think the most interesting idea came from Jeffrey Miller. Luxury doesn't have to be about talking down to people - it can be about intimacy too. And with the mobile phone (barely mentioned during the day) becoming a mainstream communications channel it is essential that a brand gets the focal distance right - this is a personal device. People pay premiums for privacy and personal services - they don't just pay for posh.

Take that M&S outfit - out of the BBC

Was it just me or did I spot a breach in the code on the Jonathan Ross show?  I have no idea if he was primed to mention that they were the face of M&S - upon which the boys started fidgeting with their clothes - so its OK to namecheck brands on the BBC now is it? Promoting your latest book is one thing. But making it abundantly clear who is dressing the stars - well done whatever stylist or PR got that one through: 15 minutes of brand association. On non commercial TV.

Taking a little of my own medicine - writing a creds deck

Coo its a right old caper isn't it this branding lark. It seems very straightforward when you're doing it for other people. But having to sit down and work out what your own proposition is and why a brand manager should buy it - its like pulling hen's teeth! Spending a few happy days assembling casestudies and getting the ducks in a row....

Media brands - spot the difference

Today I was running the propositions and positioning course at the IDM for the 7th time. What was different this time was that all of the delegates came from the same company - a newspaper.  It became evident in the exchanges how different media companies have become. None of them was involved in the selling of advertising but all in the marketing of ancillary products and services clubs and what have you.  And there's really no reason more non media brands couldn't start to behave the same way. Why sell one customer one kind of product at a time when you could sell them 3?

Good Brand makes good after 10 years

I could only spare half a day to attend the Making Good, the 10 year anniversary of this CSR consultancy. But it was well worth it. Held at the Welcome Foundation a range of speakers from Good Brand and their associates unpacked what CSR is turning into.

I was particularly interested in the two casestudies of Nespresso and Danone's feed a child programme in Poland. Because it was clear that the governance structures were carefullly thought out. Partners included NGOs to keep the initiatives honest. And metrics were a lot more than the hardline on increased sales on the one hand or fluffy feelgood on the other. I was interested that Danone had gone out of their way to keep their branding off the programme. The only way you knew they were involved would have been through word of mouth - of one of the volunteers involved which ultimately would have been more powerful if you were close enough to one of them or the company to hear it on the grapevine.  There was also an interesting balancing act in the example of Nespresso - Increasing the quality of the raw coffee product doesn't of course lead to a rise in prices but since access to Nespresso is limited to those who have bought the coffee maker and signed up to receive the coffee by mail order they have found a way to build a connection between quality and fair trade on the one hand and premium delivery at the far end even though these don't necessarily belong together. They had even got agro tourism together so affluent Europeans could find out where their coffee came from.

I had an interested exec with an Asian PR exec about vountarism and what it entails.  I had some experience of this when researching volunteers for VSO a few years ago. The concept is culturally loaded. Charity, what it is, who does it and who to and why are culturally loaded concepts.  In a multicultural society it is going to get even more confusing. She told me a great story about prioritising a sponsored walk over a festival where her duty lay in going to the big family get together. It was no conflict of interest for her - but she had to argue her corner when she got back home.   

It was a vivid reminder that CSR has really moved on a long way from the early days where it was little more than patronage.   Here's an animation which they started the day with. And the presentations films are due to be posted soon.

Wanna set of brand tarot cards? I'm dealing

  John Grant's most recent book is the brand innovation manifesto which features a table of innovation ideas that can be used by brands. They have been turned into a pack of cards which you can use in workshops and by yourself. To date John has had lots of enquiries and no success in taking money and sending them out.

So he's asked me to sort it.  And at last I've managed to. Planningaboveandbeyond.com goes ecommerce enabled - you'll need paypal.  Point your browsers at www.planningaboveandbeyond.com and head for the shop. The URL will take you straight there.  a pack of cards will cost you £25 including VAT and postage and packing. I've used them in workshops meself and they're worth every penny. Though buying a copy of the book might help as well. So I've shown you how to do that and there's also a video interview with John Grant on the same webpage talking about the book and the cards. And I attach a jpeg of the table of elements to whet your appetite. When you're using the cards you don't want to be fooling with the book.

The wrong trousers - bad judgement

Yesterday the court case of the lost pair of trousers was concluded when the judge found in favour of the hapless dry cleaners. If you want to pick up on the details of the story then here's the conclusion as reported by the BBC. It has been one of those funnies which the UK newschannels and papers like to report because suing for $54 million dollars because the dry cleaner lost your trousers appeals to our British highly developed sense of the absurd and also reinforces our smug superior belief that the USA takes litigitation to artistic levels - isn't every second American a lawyer?  What caught my attention in this item was the call by the Labour Relations Board to have the man who brought the case disbarred. Because it turns out that he was a judge by profession who had spent no less than 1400 hours preparing the case. A case which hung on the argument that his human rights had been breached. And they think he brought the law into disrepute.  They're not wrong.

Our culture celebrates any extreme endeavour. The Guinness book of records is proof of that. Only yesterday the Germans took the crown for the largest mass rendition of Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water off the Americans who are expected to compete to win back the title - with over 2000 guitarists taking part.  You really can be famous if you obsess enough.  And this has become a trap for brands who indulge in displays of obsessive behaviour.  - when a lot of brand behaviour is frankly quite odd anyway. Go on. Make a grand gesture - it'll get you noticed. Yes it will. But the point of celebrity as Posh Spice signally failed to understand is not just to be famous (she once said she wanted to be more famous than Persil) but to be famous for something. Lily Tomlin wisecracked 'I always wanted to be somebody. I guess I should have been more specific'.  Us communication professionals may get somewhat bashful for getting lost in our brand pyramids and onions (what do you mean you think of brand x as kumquat?) but at least its an attempt to ensure that fame has a point.  The wrong kind of fame is worse than no fame at all - which is the ignominious fate of most so called brands.  Storytellers need to write good stories not just sensational ones.

May you live in interesting times..

goes the Chinese proverb and so Saturday proved to be with the Interesting 2007  sellout meet for 300 lucky prompt bookers in the Conway Hall in Holborn.  Jon Steel planning supremo of the WPP group told me earlier this year - 'Russell has turned himself into a brand'.  And so he has. Although Russell  wasn't onstage for as much as 15 minutes of the event which lasted 7 hours, his signature was all over it. Which of course is why we were there. I was privileged to be sitting with a party of Romanians - yes people were really flying in from that far away to attend. Some of the items were so eclectic it was clear that they were putting it down to British eccentricity. A lot of the energy of the event came from not knowing the parameters or the boundaries - every speaker felt like a surprise. 

Other blogs will cover the details of who spoke, and what the highlights were.  I want to comment on what a very good example this is of how an editorial brand works. Most brands are executive brands - in other words they get on stage, hog the mike and talk about themselves and continually reference themselves.  Russell didn't need to be onstage. His curation was much in evidence but there was no visible means of control other than comperes keeping speakers to time. And of course the more varied and dazzling the content and eminent the speakers the more brightly brand Russell shone. If only more brands could take some of the same medicine, become less executive and more editorial. A brand which editorialises uses content to mediate. This in turn encourages those who pay attention to engage and contribute because it isn't a vacuous exercise in self promotion.  Real value is created because when it is given away (by consenting third parties) and because there is no overt attempt by the brand owner to control the outcome. Quite how it came about is still a mystery to me but I find it extraordinary that a bloke books a hall to invite people to come and sharing interesting things and draws a worldwide audience to pay attention. Supported by among others Innocent and the King of Shaves. Weidens supplied ..... scones and jam, Sledge laid on the tea. We live in interesting times - I just hadn't realised quite how interesting they are.