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Design as a Catalyst for Brand-Building

A recent article about Procter & Gamble published by Advertising Age, tells the story of the company’s new focus on design as a catalyst for shaping marketing strategy and building consumer products brands.  The new design focus seamlessly integrates product, package and marketing for a stronger presence at the store-level rather than relying on a silo approach that was no longer working.

P&G invested time and money into research, design, and execution to revive many of its brands, and the results so far have been very positive.  The company’s new direction requires that every marketing idea can prove its potential for success at the shelf-level before it is pursued.

It’s a bold shift in thinking that feeds off of 2009 research by Nielsen Co., which reported that half of respondents (who came from six developed markets, including the United States) to the Nielsen survey claimed that they learned about new products in-store while just one-third reported television as the place where they learn about new products.  Furthermore, 71% of the consumers who reported that they learn about new products primarily in-store cited seeing a product on the store shelf and its package as the source of their awareness.  According to these results, in-store promotional displays have clearly been trumped by package design.

Many of P&G’s new design efforts haven’t launched at the store level yet, so results are forthcoming.  However, the company can cite a 2-point market share increase for one of its brands since implementing a redesign effort for it.

shampoo_store

Overall, P&G’s efforts sound positive, primarily because they’re attempting to listen to consumers throughout the redesign process to learn what consumers truly need and want from P&G products and brands.  We’ve all been to the supermarket and stood in front of shelves and shelves filled with shampoo trying to find the brand we prefer.  And once you find your brand, you need to carefully read each label to ensure you select the formula or scent that you like.  P&G is finally accepting that shelf clutter isn’t boosting sales and market share.  For example, the company is redesigning its Pantene hair care product line by cutting 25% of the items in the line and adding an easier to read color-coding design to its packages to help consumers find the specific item they want faster and with less frustration.

When was the last time your marketing team took a look at your package design and evaluated its real performance on the shelf?  Are you sure your design is working?  Consumers’ tastes, needs, and wants change faster than ever these days.  Brands need to not only keep up with those changes but also to seek out every possible way to gain even the slightest advantage over the competition.  Packaging and design just might be the catalyst for your own brand building efforts.

Image: Flickr

The Importance of Internal Brand Advocates

One of the concepts I teach in my books and at speaking engagements when I’m asked to talk about branding is the importance of creating internal brand advocates and giving them the freedom to talk about the brand they love and believe in.  Your employees are your most powerful brand advocates.  If they don’t believe in your brand promise, why should consumers?  Companies need to make sure their employees are not only educated about the brand image, message and promise but also that those employees have a reason to believe in it and want to talk about it.

I read an article from Ad Age today that talks about this very concept and it’s shocking to me that companies don’t understand that building internal brand advocates should be a strategic imperative, not just a social media marketing tactic that’s getting some buzz of late.  This is something that should be ingrained in the company culture, not an afterthought.

How many companies can you think of where the employees will not only talk about the company they work for but advocate it, defend it against negativity, and evangelize it?  There may have been a time when companies like Google might have been able to make such a claim, but it would be challenging to name good examples of companies that cultivate a sense of internal brand advocacy in everything they do today. While companies like Pizza Hut, Overstock.com, and Kraft have been using employees in commercials and marketing initiatives lately, how many of those employees are truly brand advocates?  That’s the real question.

So think about your own company and how much more powerful it could be if your employees truly believed in the brand promise.  The word-of-mouth marketing true internal brand advocates could generate is exponential.  It’s amazing all companies aren’t on the internal brand advocate train.

What do you think?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts about developing internal brand advocates.

Image: stock.xchng

Apple and Google – Friends or Foes?

iphone_droidThere was a time, not that long ago, when Apple and Google could nearly be called friends.  In a recent article on Ad Age, Danny Sullivan describes the partnerships the two companies shared, and it’s an interesting read.  However, it looks like things are changing.  Google launched the Droid, which competes with Apple’s iPhone.  Google launched it’s own Internet browser, Chrome.  Apple already had Safari.  Google is the preferred search engine for both Safari and the iPhone.  Or at least, Google was.

What’s next for the Apple and Google relationship?

Well, Google recently launched its own social network, Google Buzz (available through Gmail, Google’s email application), and rumor has it, Apple is hoping to launch its own social network, iGroups, through the iPhone.

What strikes me as particularly interesting when looking at these two brands is the disparate brand promises.  Google promises first and foremost, the best search tool, and secondarily, a Web application or tool for everything you can image.  True, Google isn’t there yet, but the company certainly seems to be moving in that direction.

On the other hand, Apple promises first and foremost, cool technology and gadgets, and secondarily … well, I can’t really think what Apple promises secondarily.  Regardless, these two companies offer very different brand promises, but with the desire to expand their brands, they’re encroaching on each other’s territory.

And looming in the background trying to expand and steal market share of its own is Microsoft whose successful launch of its Bing search engine has drawn some attention back to the company that seemed to be missing the boat for a long time.  Microsoft’s brand promise of delivering the software people need to do their jobs must seem too constraining these days.

In fact, the current environment between these companies seems to foster brand expansion, while most other industries are realizing the benefits of brand contraction and focus.  This is an interesting competition to watch.  Who will end up on top?  Will one company take the lead or will the varied players each remain with their own niches of strength?  One would expect the latter to hold true, but you never know with these three companies.  What you expect to happen might not happen at all.

One thing is for certain.  As Google, Apple, and Microsoft battle it out and redefine their brand promises in keeping with coming expansions, consumers are getting access to more useful and cool products faster than ever.

Image: Flickr

Brands Invest Big Bucks in Google Advertising

Even big brands invest in pay-per-click advertising on the leading search engine, Google.  According to statistics from Kantar Media, as reported by Ad Age, June 2010 spending on Google pay-per-click search advertising through the Google AdWords program  was dominated by online retailers and BP, a brand desperately trying to win back favor in consumers’ minds following the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a month earlier.

All Google pay-per-click advertisers weren’t included in the report, but of those that invested heavily in June 2010 on search marketing, the following companies stood out:

  • AT&T Mobility = $8.08 million
  • Apollo Group = $6.67 million
  • Expedia = $5.95 million
  • Amazon = $5.85 million
  • eBay = $4.25
  • BP Corp = $3.59
  • Hotels.com = $3.30 million
  • JC Penney = $3.30 million
  • Living Social = $2.29 million
  • ADT Security = $2.19 million
  • YellowPages.com = $1.2 million

Brands spending less than $1 million on Google AdWords in June 2010 included Apple and Intel, and brands spending under $500,000 included GM, Walt Disney, Eastman Kodak, and BMW.

However, looking at these results from some different perspectives, consider this — AT&T is the third biggest advertising spender in the United States, spending $2.8 billion in 2009 on measured media according to Ad Age.  The $8.08 million spent by AT&T in June 2010 is just a drop in the bucket and helped drive marketing efforts related to the launch of the iPhone 4.

In fact, the top 10 Google AdWords advertisers only accounted for 5% of Google’s U.S. revenue in June 2010 as reported by Ad Age.  Of the biggest advertising spenders in the Google AdWords program, only a small percentage spend over $100,000 per year.  The bulk of Google’s revenue from its search advertising program comes from a huge pool of smaller investments by smaller advertisers rather than the larger investments made by advertisers with deeper budgets.

Is your brand represented in Google search advertising?  If not, you might want to take a look at the ads consumers are presented with when they type keywords related to your business into Google’s search box.  It doesn’t take a huge investment to be represented.  As the statistics from Ad Age point out, most large and small businesses invest only a small percentage of their overall marketing budgets on search advertising, but at the very least, they are represented.

Will the $1800 Faulty Prius Headlight Scandal Hurt Toyota?

toyota_priusThe story that’s been traveling through online branding circles over the past several days has centered around the upgraded headlights in Toyota’s eco-friendly Prius model and their tendency to fail, particularly after the car’s warranty is over.  At first glance, this story might not seem like a big deal.  So the headlight goes out.  Head over to the local auto parts store and pick up a new bulb.  But wait a minute!  These are not just any headlights.  These are special upgrade headlights that cost up to $1800 to repair and replace when they go out.  Suffice it to say, a class action lawsuit has been filed against Toyota over these $1800 headlights.

Now, you might ask, if this is a widespread problem, why hasn’t Toyota issued a recall?  Well, despite Toyota’s reputation as being a manufacturer of quality vehicles that will last far longer than American made (I’ve heard that sales pitch at my local Toyota dealership – in fact, it was the only pitch the salesman had), the company is notoriously slow in responding to widespread problems such as this.  That slow to react approach might have a bigger impact on Toyota now for a few reasons:

  1. With economies doing poorly, consumers are ready to switch brands at a moment’s notice.  It’s not time to get slack on any kind of customer service issue.
  2. The Prius is the “it” car for socially and environmentally conscious consumers.  This is not an audience that will respond positively to a company that doesn’t do the right thing.
  3. If consumers don’t feel like they can count on the Toyota brand, then they’ll see little differentiation between Toyota and other car brands whose reputations have been tainted recently, namely, American automobile manufacturers like General Motors.

These reasons don’t even touch on the most obvious question — why does the Prius have an $1800 headlight upgrade option?  It seems excessive for a car that’s supposed to represent the opposite of excess.

So the question remains whether or not Toyota responds quickly enough to turn this black mark on its record into a minor blemish or if it will blow up into a full-fledged PR disaster.  We’ll have to wait and see.  Certainly, given the state of the world around us, one would think that a quick, customer-focused response would be the best path for Toyota to take to keep the promise its brand has come to represent to consumers.

What do you think?

Image: Flickr

Will $100 Million Give Microsoft the Ba-Da-BING It Needs to Threaten Google

What do you think?  Will a $100 re-branding and advertising push turn Microsoft’s new incarnation of its Live Search product, named Bing, create more than a blip in the radar screen of Google’s online search monopoly? 

The short answer — it’s doubtful.

The long answer — it’s even more doubtful.

Let’s face it.  Google owns the online search market.  We live in a Google world.  A $100 investment by Microsoft to rebrand Live Search and attempt to steal market share from Google seems like a bizarre marketing strategy to me.  I don’t care how much money they throw at the Bing initiative, there are too many strikes against Microsoft to become a search powerhouse at this point.

I’m not saying Microsoft’s Bing won’t do well.  I’m sure it will survive just fine, but is this really the best Microsoft could come up with to save it’s flailing brand and business?  Once again, they’ve missed the boat.  Consumer’s haven’t been asking Microsoft for the next Google.  They’ve been asking Microsoft to fix what’s already wrong with the brand, the company, and its products.  In other words, trying to divert focus from Vista wrapped in Windows 7 clothing isn’t going to fix the core brand problems. 

I know Microsoft wants to gain a stronger foothold at the Google party, but the writing has been on the wall for a long time that they need to refocus the brand first.  Google wanna-be products aren’t the remedy to re-energizing the brand.

Oh Microsoft, why do you disappoint us again and again?  Can’t you just give us an operating system that works well?  How about spending $100 million on that?

microsoft-windows-vista-error-final

I guess that’s why I finally broke down and bought a Mac last year.  I still use my Windows-based PC, but I curse out Windows far more often than I curse out my Mac.  And don’t even get me started on Internet Explorer.

How about you?  Would you trust the Microsoft brand to give you a search engine that works well given their current brand image?  Would you choose Bing over Google?  What would make you switch?

Good luck climbing the Google brand mountain, Microsoft, but my money’s still on Google.

Image: Flickr