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Funny Business

There’s actually a good story about how I came upon today’s topic, but I’m going to save it for another post. (Just remember “Company A.”) For now, I want to zip right on to the silly stuff!

Or let’s put it this way: Given the proposition that recruiting should express a company’s personality—how do you deal with a corporate image that’s quirky, or even downright comical? Should you embrace the humor, play it straight, or go somewhere in between?

(And in case you’re thinking “if only that were my problem,” don’t stop reading. There are some lessons here for seriously dull businesses as well.)

Jack

Let’s start by looking at two companies that put a lot of money into making people laugh at their brands. Ask most people for one word about Jack in the Box commercials, and the answer will be “funny.” Same thing for Geico. When job-seekers go to those company sites, they take the humor association right along with them—and it may be a bit of a turn-off if they find an impersonal, unfunny page.

But neither company is recruiting for comic talent, and job-hunting is not by nature a humorous topic. So the key would be to bring the brand together with the mission. Enough Jack, but not too much. Just a touch of Gecko. And the balance needs to fit the business.

For the sake of full disclosure I’d better report at this point that I’m in the tank for Jack. If he’s on TV, I stop to watch, and I never get tired of analyzing the really great Jack moments. (Hint: It’s all about the mouth.) So I’m happy to report that Jack hits the mark on recruiting, with a site that perfectly captures “his” personality through conversational text and iconic illustrations.

jack-topper

Three things to notice: First, attention to detail. For example . . . in some browsers, when you hover on a navigation tab, a Jack antenna-topper pops up above the tab and starts turning his head back and forth. Yes, really! (All across JITB messaging, details sustain the illusion that Jack’s world is an actual place, which is a large part of what makes it all so funny.)

Second, appropriate balance. The “Why Jack” page is LOL funny–I’ve read it about five times now—but it also delivers some solid points. The trick is skillful comic writing that combines tongue-in-cheek delivery (“This is the big time.”) with substantive messaging (“from the first breakfast sandwich to the first portable salad to the most innovative food safety advancements in the industry”).

The “FAQ,” “Benefits,” and “Roles at Jack” pages are written in a crisp, direct style that signals serious business, but each one has a Jack photo, so everything fits together. And notice that every photo on the site neatly fits its page, to reinforce the key message. So Jack’s a high-flying executive on the “Roles” page (read: road to success), but on the “Benefits” page, he’s fly-fishing (read: quality of life).

Finally, the third thing. As they say in show biz, if you want to get around an inconvenient or unlikely plot point, “hang a lantern on it.” So JITB gives the Careers section a special header: Jobs. This is where Jack in the Box gets serious. And that neatly resolves the dissonance problem.

Geico

All right—now what about the Gecko? Over at Geico, they have a different set of constraints than JITB, since you just can’t be as playful about car insurance as you can about fast food. So the site itself is stick-straight. But on the landing page—exactly in the very center—there he is. And wouldn’t you have been disappointed otherwise?

Some takeaways for the rest of us:

  • Be true to your brand personality.
  • Be consistent across pages, but don’t be boring. Use appropriate variety.
  • Remember these famous last words, even though no one can remember who said them: “Dying is easy. Comedy–that’s hard.” It may be okay to add a touch of humor to your site, but make sure it works!

Are Your Sub-brands Embarrassing Your Primary Brand?

scionOn Saturday morning, I opened the Yahoo! home page and saw a featured article about celebrity children who tarnish their parents’ names.  I had to take a look and see who the writer tagged as the biggest embarrassments to big name musicians.  I couldn’t help myself.  As I looked through the list of less-talented offspring, I started to think about how the same thing could happen to corporate brands. 

Are your sub-brands embarrassing your primary brand?

Of course, the first rule of branding is consistency, but sometimes a well-known company brand can support a wide variety of sub-brands successfully.  However, what if a sub-brand fails to perform well?  And what if that sub-brand draws a lot of unflattering publicity?  The answer is clear if that sub-brand is not bringing in the revenue the company needs, but what if that sub-brand is driving huge profits?  Does the company protect its main brand and let go of the sub-brand, or does the company keep the sub-brand and let the chips fall where they may? [Read more…] about Are Your Sub-brands Embarrassing Your Primary Brand?

Create Visibility and Increase Your Business

Without a doubt, the one thing that any company, corporation or business wants is visibility. Exposure to the masses and the being seen by thousands, or even millions of potential customers is a dream come true for some. But just how is it that a company is supposed to get this “visibility” and make it work for them?

When the internet became available for business and consumer consumption, many jumped on the bandwagon, hoping to find their way to a glorious road of fame and riches. The dot com events of the late 1990s proved unfortunate for some, as they were simply relying on their name and reputation to create instant success. What they weren’t prepared for was orchestrating a way for that success to translate into actual business dollars. It failed miserably.

Visibility is a concept that is neither bought, sold nor translated. It is created. It is a form of art, if you will, that shapes and molds a company or an idea to formulate a process in the potential customer’s mind. In other words, if you can get them to think it, perhaps you can get them to buy it.

One example of a niche market that maximizes its use of visibility is the sports arena. Most everything in sports has a sponsor, a logo or printed advertising. From the Michael Jordan Nike swoosh symbol to the Saucony running shoes worn by triathlete Lance Armstrong. Although these companies do pay to have their brands plastered across the athletes backs, what they can’t pay for (so to speak) is the lasting impressions and thought impressions that their brands leave in their mind. Think about it: how many times have your kids said they want “Skechers” or “Nike” shoes and not the no-name, cheaper brands?

Some may argue that this is branding or perhaps advertising. But while that may hold credence, I maintain that it is definitely visibility, and that visibility is what makes customers remember you and want to buy what you have.

No matter what the size of a company is, they can create visibility for themselves, especially online. How:

1. Be everywhere. Interact on social sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace. When people start to see you and your company everywhere, all of the time and interacting with others, they will become curious and go check out your site. After all, that’s what you want, right?

2. Ask questions. Not chiding questions, but genuine questions. Ask for others opinions, input and feedback. Show customers that you really don’t know it all.

3. Give back. Offer something of value back to your online followers. Be generous with your information and share how-to’s, resources and tools.

When you employ these strategies, who do you think readers will turn to when they need advice? Who do you think they’ll remember when they have to make a decision or choice and you just wrote an article or blog post on the subject?

What can you or your company do to create more visibility for your service or product? What creative ways can you find to share what you know?

Lessons from the bleeding edge

What if . . . you were trying to recruit new employees for one of the most famously failing companies in America?

Not a day passes without news of the American auto industry teetering on the brink—and commentators frequently point out that consumers won’t buy cars from a company that’s inches away from bankruptcy. So you have to wonder whether job-seekers might not see Toyota as a better bet than Ford!

On top of that, since Ford, Chrysler and GM are under intense pressure to improve their PR, corporate messaging is now heavy on thriftiness and repentance. Good-bye perks and fat salaries, hello humility! But will the best workers be attracted to a company that apologized in print for being stupid?

Although your company may not be in quite such a fix, odds are that the economic downturn is already having an effect on recruiting, with budgets shrinking and applications increasing. That expanding pool of job-seekers may include high-value employees set adrift by failing companies—but you have to attract them and identify them.

To get an idea of how the auto companies are approaching this problem, I visited the “Careers” pages for Ford, GM, and Toyota. All three offer intro videos, but the videos create very different impressions. At Ford, the video starts automatically, and the message is all about F-A-S-T, with lot of zooms, cuts, and sound effects. The visual focus is mainly on cars—inside, outside, upside down. There is no text message, just instructions for searching the job posts.

GM Careers

Over at GM, on the other hand, the opt-in video feature rotates through clips highlighting diversity, NASCAR, day-on-the-job, etc. The text component is short, but hits the right note with this sentence: “Experience the next GM. Whether it’s battery powered, hydrogen fuel cell or the latest hybrid vehicles, we’re committed to putting cars on the road that meet the needs of the world.” Message? This is the next GM. Not the problem GM you know about now, but the one that’s about to emerge—and you can be part of this rebirth!!

I thought that worked really well under the circumstances, but had to wonder whether the approach was purposeful or just an accident. So I jumped on the Wayback Machine (aka Internet Archive), and found that the GM Career page one year ago featured a diversity snapshot, with this text: “The cars, trucks and SUVs we build are as diverse as the talented individuals who come to work here. And that’s why people from every background continue to choose GM as a great place to build a career and pave the road to a bright future.” Now that’s the voice of a company well pleased with itself . . .

Finally, at Toyota there’s a feel-good video about great cars and great people. No text message, but—and here’s the stroke of genius—a “What’s New” section, featuring press releases on Products, Environment, and Corporate (yes, that’s sales reporting). What does this feature signal? “We’re honest with you.” And we can afford to be honest with you, because the Toyota “news” is not nearly as bad as what’s happening with the Big Three.

Well, it will be interesting to see if there are more changes on these sites. But for now, the takeaway is . . . think seriously about the approach you want to take in this economic environment, and if you haven’t adjusted your site to deliver the most effective message, now might be a good time!

Investor Relations Objectives and Measurement in 2009

As the new year begins, many departments and individuals within those departments have either looked at their performance for the previous year, or will be doing so soon.  Additionally, the same should be looking forward into 2009 and developing objectives and goals, as well as the means to measure their achievement.

Not long ago, the powers that be measured the success of an Investor Relations department by the stock price.  That is a little bit like measuring the quality of the physics department by the success of the marching band.

While the IR department can certainly influence the perception people have of the company and the news surrounding it, it cannot directly influence the actual events.  Imagine measuring the performance of a bank stock’s IR group by its stock price performance.  Not pretty.

IR Not PR

Just how to measure IR success is a bit of a mess.  We have already noted how measuring success as a function of the stock price isn’t an useful measure.  The other commonly implemented measurements aren’t necessarily pretty either.

There is the school of thought that advocates Public Relations style measurements.  This could be something along the lines of counting the number of positive press stories and comments versus the negative.  Of course, this is not tidy even for PR divisions who also need to deduce the “value” or “impact” of those items so as to not overweigh insignificant events by using just raw numbers.  It is doubly difficult for Investor Relations departments who would also need a way to quantify just how “investment related” each story was in addition to how big the story was.

More importantly, there is some disagreement as to just how much IR is like Public Relations.

Consider that most public relations departments are expected to build up relationships with individual members of the media, as well as with various media outlets.  These relationships can then use leverage both to spread information on behalf of the company and to get an “advanced” notice of information that may be forthcoming regarding the company.

But, most investor relations departments are actually tasked not with building relations with the media, but rather with shareholders and analysts.  Because the fundamental goal of each department’s relationship building is different so too should the measurements be different.

goal-gold-starMeasuring IR Effectiveness

In what way can the success of an Investor Relations department objectives be measured?  The answer lies within the objectives themselves. 

Ironically, it seems that the overall department objectives can be fuzzy at certain companies, but the objectives for specific positions within the IR department are relatively firm.  A review of recent high-level IR postings on Monster.com reveals several common themes.  From those, we can extrapolate meaningful benchmarks and measurements of effectiveness.

Common IR Objectives:

  1. Respond to requests from Investors and Analysts for information and data.
  2. Develop and implement investor materials and events including presentations, releases, fact sheets, investor events, conferences, and web events.
  3. Develop and distribute analyst materials including data, press clippings, fact sheets, and other relevant information.
  4. Develop and implement competitive intelligence and information as it pertains to publicly reported financials, the press, ratings, and public comments.
  5. Track shareholder ownership and IR contacts with major/important shareholders.
  6. Track and analyze analyst’s reports, models, and projections.
  7. Promote the purchase and retention of the company stock.

To effectively measure the performance of an IR department then, is to measure the effectiveness of the unit at carrying out these various tasks.  At first, this may appear as nebulous as before, but relatively hard data can be easily obtained by breaking down the objectives and determining what a positive outcome would look like.

For example, the first objective is to respond to requests for information.  A simple tracking system that logs a timestamp for the request, as well as the response (and if necessary, the follow up) allows an at a glance look at how timely responses are.  Are investor emails answered within 24 hours, or within one week, or maybe never?  Are analysts requests for data responded to within hours, days, weeks?  Does the response satisfy the inquiry, or are additional inquiries regarding the same information made, suggesting that the response was not fully adequate?

Investor materials can be archived and reviewed periodically to see how they not only provided the relevant education (surveys of those who received the materials can be helpful for determining this), but also how they compare to similar materials distributed by competitors and other publicly traded companies in general.

Analyst materials can be judged by observing analyst pronouncements and releases and then asking company insiders what if any information they think is flawed and what data would, if provided, counter-balance such claims.  If IR indeed provided the data or materials (whether the analyst took them into account or not) this would justify positive marks.  While the failure to include such data would justify the need for improvement.

Competitive intelligence could be judged similarly by noting where competitors are perceived as being more or less superior to the company and then ensuring that materials that weaken the ‘more superior’ argument are indeed within the materials while those that justify the ‘less superior’ areas are included.

The remaining three objectives are less promising ways of finding “hard” objectives, but are useful none the less.  Did the IR department maintain the acceptable frequency of communications with important shareholders whether they did or did not take any actions regarding the stock?   Were large changes in holdings sufficiently anticipated by the IR group?  Were analyst actions anticipated or were the company and its investors blind sided?

High performance on these benchmarks, by definition, connotes high performance in the duty to promote the purchase and retention of company stock regardless of the share price.

So, as the year begins, take stock (Hah!) of your department’s goals and objectives, as well as your own and strategize for the coming year.  Which of these objectives currently lacks a reportable metric?  Which of them are not tracked at all?  Improve on the goals and objectives and improvement within IR will follow.

Corporate Social Networking and the Obama Campaign

In less than a week, the citizens of the United States of America will have a brand spanking new president. President-elect Barack Obama will take the helm for the next four years (at least) and attempt to steer the country, the economy and the people in the right and in a productive direction. It’s quite a task to take on given the state of affairs that Obama is walking into. There are economic pressures, diplomatic peace talks, un-balanced budgets and educational issues to muddle through and create some semblance of order for things that have become chaotic. But nevertheless, despite the cards that he has been dealt, he must persevere through them and simply get things done. He has got a lot on his plate and really, a short time to get it all fixed – – which is why I wondered today, “why does he keep emailing me?”

Yes, Obama (or at least his camp) keeps emailing me to give me updates on things he’s working on and sometimes ideas that he’s got in mind. I don’t get these emails very often, but often enough to make me wonder why isn’t he out fixing our country instead of emailing me with his “to do” list. No, I’m sure I’m not the only one that Obama is emailing. That clue came when I talked to some peers in my social networks who said that they had received the same email as well. I’d still like to think that I was the only one though. The emails sometime come from him, and sometime they come from Michele. They’re always friendly, they always address me by my first name and they always make me feel like I’m the only one on their email list. No doubt that I do flatter myself.

Obama’s team has managed to do something in his campaign that no other presidential candidate has done, and that has been to garner unprecedented online support through social networks and platforms. He’s on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others. I’m a follower on most all of them. His strategy worked and it worked well. He has set a standard that I’m sure will be followed by many more candidates in the future.

Now, the reason I find this all fascinating is because Obama won the race, right? Yes, but even after he won, he still maximizes the leverage that he has acquired via social networking sites. Updates, quick hellos, short memos and sometimes even family photos are what Obama uses to stay “connected” to the people and to engage them even further into his political world.

Key word = Engage.

That’s what business have to do in order to stay ahead of their competitors and stay in the mind of their buyers. Engaging your audience, connecting with your customers, sharing, giving, and asking. These are all key areas of effective communications and powerful social networking that get results.

Just ask Obama. It’s working for him.