Hacking up a brand

It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt... or loses billions of dollars.

People used to talk about the web in utopian terms as a source of pure information, unfiltered by the biases of editorial boards in the news media. Then something like this happens.

Now it's a source of pure disinformation, spreading rumors, innuendos and lies faster than pictures of Anthony Weiner's weiner.

If you're not ready for this new world, too bad. It's here. Deal with it.

1. If you have accounts monitor them constantly. As the AP hacking proved, waiting just a few minutes to react can be devastating.
2. If you aren't on social media, monitor your brands to make sure no one is using your name in vain.
3. Have a plan in place for when your accounts are compromised or a fake account is created in your name.
4. Don't leave your social media efforts to interns. It must be in the hands of people you trust.
5. While one person should be directing your social media efforts several should have access in case your primary contact is unavailable or – and yes, it happens – the source of the malfeasance.

Digital communications are powerful tools. They can be used to create great value for a company. But they can destroy your reputation even faster if they're not managed professionally. And even then, bad things happen.

Good luck. 

I still prefer the original mobile device

Clearly, I'm old.

While I participate in social media and have many friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter and connections on Linked In, I'd still rather get in my car and go meet them for lunch, a round of golf, coffee, a ballgame or some other activity where face-to-face social interaction occurs.

My first mobile device was my brother's ratty, midnight blue 1969 Camaro RS with a 327, Weber carbs and a Hurst 3-speed that we used to cruise around Northern Michigan.

Today's generation lusts after an iPhone 5 with 64GB of storage, retina display and 8-megapixel iSight camera that shoots 720p HD video. 

This is a problem for carmakers.

Kids are getting behind the wheel later and getting a driver's license is no longer the rite of passage it once was. The passion for both cars and the act of driving are fading from mainstream American culture. The less people care about a category the more commoditized the products become. Thus the car is fast becoming a glorified appliance.

Is it any wonder then that in trying to reach out to teens, Toyota has developed a campaign that focuses on safety...

No wonder no one writes songs about cars anymore.

A funny fail

As I stare out over the water at yet another incredible Wisconsin sunrise from the serene and sandy shores of Lake Michigan, I have only one question.

What they hell were they thinking?

Behold the latest effort from the Travel Wisconsin, my adopted home state's marketing arm.

Directed by Wisconsin native and master of low-brow comedy, David Zucker, the spot is filled with all the slapstick mastery he has displayed in his films Airplane!, Naked Gun, Scary Movies 3 & 4, and BASEketball.

Having been raised on the Three Stooges, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and other slapstick masters, I can tell you that aside from a few continuity errors, this spot is actually quite well crafted. The appearance by Airplane! star Robert Hays is a nice touch.

But does this little comedic gem convince people to spend their hard earned travel dollars in Wisconsin? I'd argue no, and that's not the director's fault. It's the agency's.

Advertising isn't that hard. It really needs to do just three things, two of which this spot does well.

First, great advertising has to grab your attention. Check.

Next, it must be memorable. Check.

And finally it must communicate a message that is relevant to the target and different from the competition. Fail.

The message I get is "any idiot can have fun here."

I'm not sure whether the idiot featured is a native or a visitor, but in either case he works against the objective.

If Mr. Hays is supposed to depict a hapless tourist, then the creators of this spot are making fun of the very people we'd like to come visit. (A quick advertising 101 refresher: never insult the people you're trying to separate from their money.)

If Mr. Hays is supposed to be a Wisconsonite, then he's doing a great job of portraying residents as drunken, simple-minded buffoons with a total lack of self-awareness.

I know the argument will be that the spot is generating a lot of buzz. But as we learned from coca cola yesterday; if you're counting on buzz to make the cash register ring today, you can plan on filing for bankruptcy tomorrow.

It isn't the real thing

If you're counting on online buzz to drive sales, you might as well bet on the Cubs to win the World Series this year.

Yesterday at an Advertising Research Federation conference in New York, Coca Cola – a company that measures just about everything it does – had this to say about the connection between online "buzz" and business results...

We didn't see any significant relationship between our buzz and our short-term sales.

Count me as one of the least surprised people in the world.

Coca Cola has 99.9999999% awareness. I know where to find it. I know how much it costs. I know how refreshing it is. But somehow the expectation by the advocates of buzz is that I might see a post about Coke on a friend's Facebook page and Twitter feed and suddenly decide to go buy one?

I think not.

After this news and yesterday's post, I hope this signals a return to sanity in marketing where we'll focus more on using the tools for selling rather than just making noise.

Geico gets it

I spend a fair amount of time – maybe too much – pointing out the inane, misguided attraction some marketers have to shiny new things and the ridiculous language they use to justify their infatuation.

Not today.

Because today I want to share an interview with you from a marketer who has thrived in the brave new worlds of interactive and social media without adding to the froth and blather.

Ted Ward is the CMO of Geico Insurance and a very smart marketer.

How do I know he's smart? Well, first of all, he agrees with me.

Actually, this interview in Advertising Age is one of the best examples I've read from someone who understands that the tools of new media are just that, new tools, and do not change the fundamental principles of marketing. This quotation really stood out to me.

There is a reason it is called social media and not business media. There is much less control over the inputs and outputs, and the metrics of success are not as closely tied to direct business results.

It's not that Geico doesn't use social media. It's not that they aren't heavily invested in online marketing. It's just that Mr. Ward and his team know that online and social media all part of a mix and without data proving the efficacy of their activities, all the buzz in the world doesn't matter; an attitude sorely missing in many marketing departments these days.

More of the same

Well, that was fast.

Commonwealth is no more. Goodby is leaving Detroit. And McCann now controls 100% of the Chevrolet business in the U.S. and around the world.

This news is not that surprising. In fact, it was inevitable once Joel Ewanick and GM parted ways.

The only question that needs to be answered now is, "Will the work get better?"

Chevrolet marketing and advertising has been suffering through a miserable dry spell. Nothing created by either agency was particularly effective or memorable. Even with a new Malibu, Sonic, Cruz and Spark, Chevrolet is selling fewer cars this year than both Toyota and Ford.

Will having all the work consolidated under McCann change that?

We shall see.

What I do know is that GM needs to settle its marketing and advertising issues quickly so it can concentrate on the business of selling cars.

Yes, it's our fault

The trouble with academics is they occasionally confuse correlation with causation.

That's the case in this study in which researchers have determined that food advertising causes obesity.

Food advertising, when done well drives preference and purchase intent. What causes obesity is consumption, specifically over-consumption and a diet that includes too many unhealthy options.

A billboard for a Big Mac Extra Value meal doesn't make people fat. The fact that some choose to make it a staple of their diet makes them fat.

A commercial for Mountain Dew doesn't make people fat. The fact that many people in urban neighborhoods don't have access to grocery stores makes them fat.

A coupon for Palermo's Pizza doesn't make people fat. The fact that a two-toed sloth is more active and burns more calories than most people, makes them fat.

There are a lot of contributing factors to the deteriorating health and increasing waistlines of the American people. Food advertising is the least of them. 

Unfortunately it's the easiest target.

The long view

Most marketers are more interested in becoming a brand than building a brand. They trot out a new campaign every year hoping that the latest one will finally stick.

Branding doesn't happen overnight.

It's not the result of one great ad, product or charismatic executive.

Brands are built over time. They are the result of meticulous planning, flawless execution and a bit of luck.

I know we all want to get rich quick. We all want the stock market to reward last quarter's performance. We all want a big bonus this year. Unfortunately too often those things happen at the expense of the long-term health of the brand.

That promotion you're planning to reduce inventory will cheapen customers' perceptions of your brand, making it harder for you to charge full-price after it's over. Cutting your R&D budgets so you hit Wall Street's expectations will make it harder for your products to be competitive next year and the year after that. Staffing your front-line sales force with minimum wage temporary workers will ensure your guests have a mediocre experience at best, giving them little incentive to come back.

Every action has a consequence. Focusing on the long-term consequences of our actions is how great brands are built.

Kohl's gets caught

Somebody at Kohl's has some 'splaining to do.

On the right is the logo and poster for the indie band, Yacht.

On the left is a t-shirt Kohl's is selling.

This ain't no coincidence folks.

I have news for the designer who "created" this shirt, changing three words from the work of another doesn't make it original. It's time to start looking for a new job, if not a new career.

To the higher ups at Kohl's, if you want to do the right thing before the lawyers get involved, pay the band the profits from this shirt and a little something extra to show you're sincere. I'd recommend you do it in person in front of thousands of their fans at the Treefort Music Festival in Boise Idaho on the 23rd of this month at 7:00. 

It might be a good idea.

Branding versus fame

Building a well known company is not the same as building a brand.

Toshiba is an electronics company I am aware of. Apple is a brand.

JC Penney is a retail company that I am aware of. Walmart is a brand.

Atlantic City is a destination where I can gamble. Las Vegas is a brand.

Reebok is an athletic shoe company I am aware of. Nike is a brand.

Koss is a headphones company I am aware of. Beats is a brand.

Jim Beam is a whiskey I am aware of. Jack Daniel's is a brand.

A great brand is more than just a name I recognize. It's a name I know something about. A name I care about. A name that evokes images and associations that enhance the products to help lock its position in my brain and my heart.

Great brands stand for something and they deliver on it time and time again in their products, their policies, their actions and their communications.

That's why it's easy to become famous, but hard to become a brand.

The real purpose of marketing

In today's Ad Age, Rance Crain's pens an excellent editorial on the folly of companies that have tried to use "purpose marketing" to create advocates for their brands.

Amen. It's been a long time coming.

The "purpose" of marketing is to sell stuff. If that's beneath you, if you'd rather create art, if the thought of getting your hands dirty to help your clients make money doesn't appeal to you, there are other jobs or non-profits that could use your help.

That doesn't mean you have to produce ugly ads filled with starbursts. Nor does it mean the main tools in your marketing arsenal should be bogos and rebates.

Just find out what's important to potential customers and communicate it in an interesting way, like these guys did:









Pepsi, P&G, Burger King and others have watched their sales slide while they tried to have "conversations" with "engaged advocates" about their "their brand's purpose." In the meantime, Coke, Unilever and McDonald's and others were promoting the relevant features and benefits of their products and kicking ass.

Sell your product proudly. Let us know why it's better. Do it memorably. Do it on the web, on TV, in print, on Facebook, wherever we happen to be. If it works and we buy your product, then you have a chance for us to become something more.

There's only one way to get customers to become advocates: Sell them a great product and then treat them like they matter.

It never works the other way around.

Watered down advertising

While Anheuser-Busch fights charges in state courts across the country that it has been watering down its beer, it's waging a much more important battle in the court of public opinion.

If round one is any indication, they may want to pick a new strategy.

The ad on the right, which appeared this weekend in the New York Times and Houston Chronicle where stories appeared, is, ahem, weak tea.

The visual only reinforces the charges in the suit. Yes, the copy talks about all the water A-B donates to the American Red Cross, but we all know most people don't read the copy. If they do, however, it leaves so many unanswered questions – like why is A-B talking about water? – that people may actually go looking for the story.

Bud shouldn't ignore the story. In fact, on the PR side they're saying the right thing through their VP of brewing and supply: 

"The claims against Anheuser-Busch are completely false, and these lawsuits are groundless. We proudly adhere to the highest standards in brewing our beers, which have made them the best-selling in the U.S. and the world."

It's easy to get too clever in ads like this. Now is not the time for clever. Now is the time to clearly state that nothing is more important to the company than the quality of its products and that you would never do anything to jeopardize that.

Unless, of course, you are.

A Groupon goodbye

If you haven't read Andrew Mason's resignation letter, you should.

It is the perfect mix of humility and hubris. It explains why Groupon became such a phenomenal success and misguided underachiever.

His ability to pinpoint his own failings in this moment of self-reflection are admirable. It's refreshing to see him accept responsibility and know that his presence will only prevent Groupon from moving forward.

The lesson here is that great idea people are not always great leaders. And, sometimes the noise of "experts" can cause you to lose sight of what got you to where you are.

Good luck in your quest to lose that Groupon 40. Pritikin has worked well for a few of my friends. I look forward to seeing what you come up with next.

Good humor

After watching the commercials on this year's Super Bowl, I was reminded that not all advertising that tries to be funny actually is.

Here's a campaign that is.



Domtar Paper and their agency in their continuing quest to remind us that life without paper is not a life worth living, has crafted a very nice series of spots that focus on the little moments when paper might be important.

These work because there's truth behind each situation, the actors play it straight, not for yuks, and the technique does more than just get attention, it actually sells the product.

I wish all advertising were this good.

Yesterday's news

The next couple of days are jam packed here at OBX Thinking's global command center, so rather than letting the blog lay idle for a couple of days I'll be reposting content from a few years ago. Today, we revisit the evolution of obsolescence.

In the 1950s designer Brooks Stevens coined the term "Planned Obsolescence" to describe the fundamental underpinning of our burgeoning consumer economy. Companies were deliberately designing their products in such a way that within a few years – thanks to ephemeral style, technology or performance – people would be forced to buy new stuff on a regular basis.

My, how things have changed.

We've gone from a time when companies felt they had to design obsolescence into their products in order to guarantee future sales, to one where global competition is so intense that people are afraid to buy the latest computer, cell phone, car or fashion item for fear that it will be out of date by the time they get it home.



We're living in the era of "Forced Obsolescence." No one has the luxury of allowing products to become obsolete on their own timetable. The competition will do that for you.

If this had been the '50s, Apple would have launched the iPad and milked that platform for a few years before making significant investments in changing it. Instead they knew that competitors would quickly enter the marketplace and the iPad 2 was launched with more features, more functionality and an improved design for the same price less than a year later.

Apple knows, and hopefully your company does too, that today you have to eat your own young before the competition does it for you.

The power of love and hate

In an attempt to reignite the fire that grew the sport to unprecedented popularity in the 90s and 2000s,  NASCAR has hired Ogilvy NY and launched a new ad campaign.



As someone who spent a lot of time at Daytona as creative director for Chevrolet motor sports back in the late 80s, I applaud the effort. The drivers and their personalities are the sport. As nice as the campaign is, I don't, however, expect it to have a whole lot of short-term impact on either race attendance or viewership.

That having been said, I expect this weekend's Daytona 500 to do incredible numbers for one reason: Danica.

She's the lightning rod. The driver who is both beloved and hated at the same time. For the detractors, her fame far outstrips her talent and the opportunities she's been given. For her fans, she's battled the old boy network every step of the way and achieved success in spite of the obstacles. After a few lackluster finishes running a partial schedule last year, she was in danger of becoming irrelevant.

All that changed in 45.817 seconds.

Danica winning the pole at Daytona is not just news, it's the story NASCAR needed to get back on the radar. It gives those who love her a reason to crow and those who hate her a reason to get their bile up a little more. It also gives a lot of other people who don't particularly care about racing a reason to watch.

NASCAR thrives on love/hate relationships. It succeeds when its stars clash. It's better when the young guns antagonize the old guard. It's a sport that's powered by stories, not gasoline.

For their sake, I hope they put on a good show this weekend because thanks to Danica, the world will be watching.

Just a bit off the mark

Here's a tough one.

You make a product that's hot. So hot that you can't keep up with demand given current capacity. You have a choice, alter the product in an almost imperceptible way so you can stretch your supply or leave sales on the table. Maker's Mark choose the former and the outcry was as loud as it was predictable.

After sales increases of 14% in 2011 and 15% in 2012, last week it was announced the Beam Inc. super premium bourbon brand would lower the alcohol content of its product from 90 to 84 proof in order to have enough to meet the burgeoning demand. While they claim there was no discernable difference in taste, regular Maker's drinkers saw it as an attempt to "water down" the product. They shared their displeasure with the decision through Twitter, Facebook and email and within days Bill Samuels Jr., the Chairman Emeritus of Maker's Mark reversed the decision.

So why didn't Maker's do what other companies do when demand exceeds supply and just raise the price? Beam uses the popularity of Maker's as leverage to get distributors and retailers to carry its other brands like Basil Hayden's, Booker's, Bakers, Knob Creek, Laphroaig, Connemara, Ardmore, Effen, Sauza and more.

In essence they're saying, "You can't have our most desirable product, unless you carry a full line of our other products."

It's a good strategy until you kill the lead dog and the rest of the pack has no one to follow.

So what could Beam have done? It takes six years to make a batch of Makers at its current strength so they can't distill more and have it on the shelf tomorrow. In this era of social media and transparency making the change unannounced would have been a flat-out disaster.

In this case the best course would be to take the long view and build the business through a combination of activities. First, increase production capacity so in six years Maker's can meet the global demand. Second, select other bourbon or spirit brands from the portfolio and invest in them, creating additional leverage points with distributors. Given the fickle nature of trends in this business, that strategy also has the added benefit of providing options if and when consumer tastes change. While there's no guarantee of creating a blockbuster like Maker's out of the other brands, at least they wouldn't be devaluing any of them.

Ultimately the lesson here is: more sales aren't always good sales.

Tesla fails the test

There's an old saying that goes, "Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel."

As Elon Musk is finding out, it's now "Never pick a fight with anyone on the internet"

If you're not aware, New York Times reporter, John Broder recently drove a Tesla S from Washington, D.C. to Milford, Connecticut. Unfortunately the drive did not go as planned. What followed was a less than glowing story about the journey, a data-filled diatribe by Mr. Musk accusing the reporter of sabotaging the test, and the reporter's response to Musk's allegations.

Defending yourself is one thing. Providing data that supports your claims is okay. But questioning the integrity of the author of the complaint, whether it's a reporter for the New York Times or a songwriter from Canada will only result in the story growing and bad publicity expanding.

I don't know why the Tesla did not perform as the company's published data would lead you to expect, but I doubt very seriously that John Broder set out with the intent of trashing the car. After all, this is the New York Times, the "left-wing media elite" that its critics claim has a pro-government, anti-big business slant. You'd think they'd be all for an underdog entrepreneur like Elon Musk who's fighting big oil.

What I do know is that Mr. Musk's response is costing him. If he really believes the test was conducted unfairly, then offer to repeat it. Do it with three cars not just one. Prove them wrong.

Or if there's a problem, fix it.

Accusing your accuser of lying won't make the story go away.

Brands with benefits

Apparently my message isn't getting through to some people who manage brands in this country. I realized this when I read this article about Panera Bread's new "Purpose Marketing" campaign.

Purpose marketing, conscious capitalism, cause marketing, or whatever you want to call it, is essentially building the social values and beliefs of your target into your business and focusing on them as a key component of your marketing. It's a great strategy and it works when your purpose is a feature of your product and relevant to your customer.

So what's my problem? This quotation from Mandy Levenberg, VP and Consumer Strategist for the otherwise very cool and useful research company, Iconoculture:

"Consumers are seeking authentic emotional connections with brands."

No, they're not.

People are looking to make choices they can feel good about. They are looking for brands that reflect their values. They are looking for emotional benefits. What they are not looking for is an "emotional connection" or relationship with the brands they buy.

It may be a fine distinction, but it's an important one. Because the minute you think they want a relationship, you start thinking about consumers as friends instead of customers. You start asking what they can do for you, instead of what you can do for them. You start taking them for granted, instead of serving them.

Your social responsibility platform – whether it's paying a living wage, feeding the hungry, using natural and organic products, supporting veteran's organizations, etc. – is a benefit, just like good fuel economy, great taste or low prices. In many cases it is a powerful emotional benefit that tips the scale in your favor and provides context for all the other benefits you offer, as is the case with Chipotle.

It is not the foundation for a relationship.

Your relationship with your customer – and I use that term purposefully as the only business relationship that matters is one in which people trade money for goods and services – is this: Give them a product that works with relevant functional, emotional and social benefits, at a price they're willing to pay and they will give you money. If you do it right they will do it over and over and over again.

Don't for a minute, however, starting thinking that the relationship is anything other than a transaction.