We all like a familiar brand, one that we recognise from years of seeing it on our shelves , parked on the driveway or in the mirror. We know the power of brand familiarity – of the logo that all teenagers want on their trainers, the prestige of the LV on a suitcase. But how much store should we as marketers put into brand insignia? And why do some brands choose to change it?
The point of a logo or strapline is that it encapsulates a brand and its values. We understand a logo quickly and doing so helps us to engage more deeply. The key to the success of any logo or strapline is that the brand delivers on the promises made by it. If done well, consumers can become comfortable with a brand very quickly, recognising taglines and logos that are assigned to it. This is when a logo is working well and this success is applicable to new and heritage brands. But be warned, as this strong reaction from consumers can work both ways - just look at how the Olympic logo went down when it launched.
However, even if a logo is well established there can come a time when it needs to be refreshed, or rebranded completely. Indeed, it is dangerous to think that any brand is future-proof. Yes, there are those that have stood the test of time and are now ingrained in the minds of consumers but any logo has the potential to become uncomfortable at some stage. This can happen for a number of reasons – it becomes outdated, no longer represents the brand effectively or could even be because it is downright inappropriate, such as happened with Robertson’s when they had to remove their logo.
Any of these reasons can make a change a valuable and genuine change for the good but it is recognising when this needs to be done that is so important. Just as it is vital that brand managers shouldn’t ignore when a change is needed, even if that does mean changing a long established logo, it should not be done lightly. You can’t just change a powerful brand asset on a whim, as a crude attention-seeking exercise. You are messing with the fundamentals of consumer identity and if you get it wrong, or change it for the wrong reasons you will only alienate a loyal customer base. If you remove brand recognition without an understandable, genuine reason you will only serve to damage the brand. A logo change should be a positive experience for brand and consumer which comes at the right time for the right reasons.
Mike Spicer, group managing director, EHS Brann
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It seems that scatter-gun emailing still a viable way to educate consumers about a brand, from the amount of irrelevant stuff that was yet again in my inbox when I logged in this morning.
Yes, I think it’s great that email marketing is on the up; brands are increasingly recognising it as a brilliant form of targeted communication that can deliver a call to action straight to your consumer. That said, any form of marketing that is mis-targeted, badly composed or difficult to respond to should be classified as junk. And unfortunately, a hefty percentage of email marketing is just that.
Email marketing isn’t brain surgery – there are simple steps to ensure that your work doesn’t end up in the deleted items, such as be clear in your subject line, deliver the best possible content and give your customers options. Your customers should be spreading the message for you. So many companies spend huge amounts generating fresh leads for their campaigns but neglect to highlight to customers they can forward the message on.
And keep your data fresh - if your emails are part of regular communications make sure users can link through to update their data. This also means you are far more likely to avoid “unsubscribe me” and the dreaded “report as spam” button.
Consumers want to be engaged, not bombarded. Engage, make it easy to respond and keep the lines of communication open, and everything else will fall into place.
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It starts with a little scamp in a flat cap purchasing a loaf of bread from a bakers. A near miss with a horse drawn cart and a healthy dose of sepia tells us we’re somewhere in Victorian England, and a midland dialect is thrown in to make us feel all warm inside. As the boy dashes home through the cobbled streets, loaf in arm, he dodges a march of suffragettes, salutes some First World War soldiers and skips past a Model T Ford. And so begins last year’s 122 second advert from Hovis, designed to chart how much Britain has changed since the company was founded, presumably in a bakery much like the one in the opening scene, 122 years ago.
The advert was the centre point of a £15m rebrand of Hovis, and proved hugely successful in attracting both sales and plaudits. Although undoubtedly the most high profile, the advert is one of a series of campaigns launched in recent months designed to evoke nostalgia and remind consumers just how long brands have been around. In difficult economic times, heritage equals reliability, quality and trust. If Hovis can soldier through two world wars and still make its way into the nation’s lunchboxes, what’s a little global economic meltdown?
You only have to switch the TV on at the moment to see just how much companies are looking backwards to go forwards. There’s M&S celebrating 125 years since beginning life as a market stall in Leeds and Sainsbury’s boasting 140 years of trading. Robinsons is keen to remind us all how its association with Wimbledon dates back to 1935, and never one to miss a trick, Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic launched a rather slick campaign to celebrate 25 years in the air. When marketed effectively, history clearly sells at the moment. As people become increasingly concerned about the future, and witness high street staples such as Woolworths collapsing, they become keener to revisit brands that were around in less troubled times.
This is all well and good for those brands that are able to flaunt their heritage, but where does this leave newer, more digitally focused businesses? If consumers are attracted to products that have stood the test of time, how are digital brands going to deliver this reassurance? What brands are aiming to do when shouting about their heritage is to play on the loyalty of their customers. If new businesses aren’t in a position to claim a historically loyal customer base, they need to go about creating one. One way of doing this is to clearly demonstrate that the brand understands what the customer needs, and set about providing it. If the customer’s needs are traced and matched in the product or service offering, the business has already laid the foundation for enduring customer loyalty.
To achieve this a clear emphasis should be placed on customer service – an area where many new businesses often fall down simply due to a lack of experience. When customers use a new business for the first time it can often be regarded as a trial purchase. If treated well and satisfied, there is no reason for them to not come back for a second, third or fourth time. Simply supplying a good product is not always enough, and the sale should never be regarded as the end of the relationship. At times like this the service invariably sticks in a customer’s mind longer, so those brands investing the necessary time and effort will be rewarded with repeated purchases. With less money to spend, consumers are looking for the very best value for every penny, and good customer service can often be the deciding factor.
Brands that fail to value their customers in difficult times will be usurped by those that do, regardless of heritage. Customers are savvy, and they know when a business values their custom. If a customer engages with a brand once and leaves satisfied, they will develop a certain expectation, and it is in the brand’s interest to meet these expectations. For digital brands especially, the risks are too great to not be taken seriously. The community aspect of the internet means that any negative experiences can quickly be shared amongst a potentially worldwide audience through blogs, Facebook groups and so on. Conversely, when negative publicity does spread through these channels, a switched on brand has the opportunity to act fast and turn this into positive publicity, demonstrated with the recent M&S bra story.
As integral to a brand’s success as great customer service is, the business needs to attract those customers in the first place. This message of quality needs to be evident through every stage of the customer’s journey, from the first piece of direct mail that lands on their doormat through to what they are greeted with when they first log on to the website. Consistency of messaging is vital, and encourages the customer to buy into the brand’s culture as soon as possible. By achieving this the business is ensuring that the customer’s experience goes beyond simply receiving the product, and greatly improves the chances of them returning. In the current climate it’s also vital to remember that people don’t necessarily want to spend less. In truth, they want to maintain their current lifestyle, just at a more reasonable cost.
A good recent example of a brand that has recognised this is value supermarket chain Aldi, and it’s ‘don’t change your lifestyle, change your supermarket’ campaign. Although not a new brand, Aldi cannot begin to compete with the likes of Sainsbury’s when it comes to heritage, and as a result has provided a great example of how intelligent messaging can help attract new customers.
There are always competitors out there looking to attract the attention of your customers, and right now businesses are scrambling for custom like never before. Pushing heritage to the front of marketing and advertising campaigns appears to be the favoured strategy of late for many brands. But for those businesses unable to point to history, going that extra mile to encourage brand loyalty right from the very formation of the brand is the smartest way to success. Brands that do will enjoy not just the immediate profit that comes with pleasing a first time customer, but they will also maximise revenue in the long term.
It really amazes me that there are still so many sloppy emailers that think they can apply the same strategy to their international campaigns as they do their UK campaigns, and use the same content and creative. Just last night I received an email from an Australian winter sports travel company telling me it was ‘dumping with snow and to come skiing this weekend’. It also thanked me for my previous booking OR enquiry. Firstly, they should know from their data capture form that I’m in the UK, where it’s not snowing (ok it might be raining constantly but it is our summer time), and popping off for a quick ski down under just isn’t feasible. And secondly, surely they should know if I’ve booked a trip with them before or if I’ve simply enquired with them so they can tailor the email accordingly?
Communicating to customers on a global level requires more time and thought than simply translating your campaign and firing it out. The other day this article reminded me just how dangerous sloppy translation is. If your brand has global reach, or you want it to, then some thought needs to go into how you make it relevant to different markets. Personalisation is key, and tailoring to local changes isn’t difficult if you use sophisticated but user friendly email broadcasting tools available such as eC-messenger, followed by testing (and more testing) to see which generates the best response.
On top of this brands need to be aware of both serious issues like abiding by foreign laws, and simple ones like being aware of different time zones and when emails will be hitting inboxes, to create an effective global campaign that resonates with a global audience.
Too many brands make the mistake of just seeing the global picture when in fact they should be thinking local whilst acting global. And whilst there are a few brands that champion this approach, there are still far too many culprits of the ‘one size fits all’ campaign, and this is what is bringing the industry under the spotlight, for all the wrong reasons.
It has been a while since a creative treatment has really made me stop and look again and again - the last one that really took my breath away was the Sony Bravia bouncing balls.
This really feels that it is in that class, an absolutely beautiful stop-motion piece for Olympus for their Pen camera. 60,000 pictures and 9600 prints developed to tell the story. Reminds me of this very cool piece on YouTube done by a graffiti artist.
It's not really interactive, it's not social, it's not mobile. It is a 3 minute story beautifully told.
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It has been a long time coming, but finally it appears that the supernatural are embracing digital technologies too. According to a news report on CNN, a Saudi family are suing a Genie for harassment. The interesting bit is that the genie appears to have embraced our love of mobile phones, and is accused of stealing their mobiles and also of leaving threatening voicemails.
When Google Wave was released at Google's I/O Developer’s Conference at the end of May it sparked considerable excitement. Now the novelty factor has worn off it's time to start considering the potential of this revolutionary communication tool. The application itself is impressive, but the use of its API in allowing the possibility to create bots/extensions is what could really pave the way for a new ’wave‘ of web applications, and even the advent of Web 3.0. Google Wave is a real-time collaboration tool, where you can experience changes to a conversation, character by character, by multiple users and with added functionality through extensions. It falls into the ‘collaboration tool’ category due to the many uses it offers - from straight communications such as email and instant messaging - to installing the wave on sites like wiki's, forums and blogs, creating content and encouraging interaction. So rather than having a set of emails, threads or instant messages; there will be just one ‘wave’. A good way of describing how you would interact with these waves would be to imagine you’re sharing a word document with some of your friends simultaneously, where you can edit an itinerary, decision or line-by-line conversation with them - in real time. Doesn't sound too revolutionary does it? Google has put their own spin on it though, by introducing intelligent formatting, real-time translation, and integrating external tools like Google Maps, images, and soon, developer’s own creations. It wasn't so much of a product launch, but rather an API launch so they could educate the developers that will be producing these extensions for when Google Wave is officially released later this year. With these extensions, users will be able to simultaneously run a 'wave' on a blog/forum/site and see changes made both in the application and the external locations simultaneously. If the take up of Google Wave is as substantial as expected, the way that content is delivered to web pages will be completely changed and with potentially dramatic repercussions elsewhere. For search marketing, with Google Wave providing updates within a conversation on external sites in real-time, the content will no longer be reflective of the last time it was indexed, thus rendering search results and even text ads irrelevant. If a destination page's content changes, the ad will be less relevant and subsequently affect detrimentally the quality score and CPC price. Advertisers that would be susceptible to this would need to commit to increased levels of budget to ensure they maintain their positions if their quality score does fluctuate. This would obviously affect certain websites more than others though and for search engines to produce relevant results, they will need to continually update and index sites. To take search to the next level, you would need the results to be switching positions in real time, as sites become more relevant than others. For website owners, Google Wave could cause a change in the way users view their content - for example, being able to view articles, comment, take part in polls and interact, all through a Google Wave bot without even visiting the site. Google wants Wave to not only be the hub of all their products and communication, but also the hub for experiencing and contributing to content from the rest of the Internet. This could have a grave effect on display advertising, a crucial source of income to the running of many websites - and would prompt a sweeping shift of business models towards subscription models where users pay for content. Google Wave will prompt a notable change in the way search engines index sites and produce results, simply because they will have no choice. Obviously, currently channels such as forums and wiki’s are changed often, but as Google Wave becomes widespread, search engines will have to think about how to adapt to these constant changes. With Bing taking a couple of bites out of Google's market share and Twitter indexing updates, search technology over the next year could produce something of a cold war. Google has already started making changes to its search functionality including "search options" and Google Squared, and this will escalate between Yahoo, Google and Microsoft as the full launch of Google Wave approaches later this year. Bing's "decision engine" has woken Google up from a distinctly average innovative few years on its search front. All of this has ramifications for companies using natural search, since to optimize their “crawlability” on Wave, sites will need updating once a day or even more. Of course the scale of these changes is dependant upon take up, though anyone who has watched the Google I/O developer’s conference video would be surprised if Google Wave doesn’t become the next focus of online communication and collaboration and have a huge impact upon digital marketing.
Author – James Glick, Media Account Manager, CheezeDMG Follow Cheeze on Twitter.com/cheezedmg
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Change management is no mean task, whatever your business. Established organisations often have entrenched processes and are riddled with idiosyncrasies perceived as the bedrock of successful trading. Altering mindsets, and oiling the wheels of corporate change, is never simple.
Sometimes this familiarity must be challenged for a business to modernise and move forward. It's easy to get wrapped up in seemingly slick ways of doing things. But by making progressive decisions you can prove to all your stakeholders, and the wider industry that you operate in, that change is a good thing.
When taking the reins of a business for the first time, or assuming the mantle of change manager, one of the first things you need to address is ‘mythbusting': what is the external perception of your organisation? Take the NRS as an example. A straw poll of media agency attitudes towards the survey data, if not the publishers and trade body partners which fund our operations, would probably return adjectives including ‘slow', ‘outmoded' and ‘volatile', and the accusation of being the poorer cousin of ABC. In reality, there is real depth, scale and quality to NRS data that makes it as vital to planners and buyers as ABC, TGI and Touchpoints data.
The next stage is a root-and-branch review of internal systems. Bringing a new broom to a business offers the chance to sweep away time-wasting practices and build in new efficiencies that will benefit everyone. At NRS, we have finally cancelled the standard issue data volume that was sent subscribers twice a year. All data will soon be available digitally via the website.
We also have a new board in place, representing all of our stakeholders and giving focus to the business. The board will meet every two months, thrashing out issues and giving more structure to the NRS agenda in a way that has not been possible in the past. This will result in better communication internally between all facets of the NRS, as well as externally among partners and users.
While all this is going on within your walls, you must consider equally the end user. Have they become blasé about your business? If so, it's time to re-engage them. Do they get value for money? If not, go back to your processes and build in efficiencies. Have they got enough support, and do they ultimately feel an important part of your business model? NRS is unveiling several end-user innovations. A major development is the inception of our User Advisory Panel. The group will meet regularly to discuss NRS-related issues, the survey's place in the industry, and is made up of agency, brand and publisher stakeholders who are not necessarily advocates of our product; it should be a fascinating debate.
Another important facet is the organisation's public-facing image. It may cost extra budget, and can even be a drawn-out process, but sometimes a brand overhaul is essential to bring the business up to date. NRS has moved to refresh its image by appointing a new branding agency and completely redesigning its website to make it more user-friendly. These changes will be unveiled during the summer and mark the culmination of a six-month brand review that will bring new energy to the business and hopefully engage users.
So far during 2009, NRS has reintroduced itself to industry colleagues and sought to build greater links where relevant, for example a closer relationship with ABC. Of course, as with all change management, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. A change programme is only successful if the benefits are felt by customers, colleagues and the company as a whole.
The adage that “nothing is certain but death and taxes” is true when we consider those businesses that do well during a recession. But beyond funeral homes and accountants, there are a few other industries that will weather the current crisis better than most.
However, the positive we’re experiencing from this negative situation is that more businesses are focusing on the effectiveness and targeting of their marketing and as a result recognising the importance of customer data.
This focus capitalises on the changing perceptions of brand marketers towards data-driven marketing, seen in recent years. There is now a much greater acceptance that data is a central component of successful marketing, and as a result demand for clean and up-to-date data has increased.
In fact during these difficult months we’ve seen a marked increase in the numbers of businesses investing what budget they have on data-driven marketing. Marketers from across all different industries are telling us that it is the accountability of data-driven approaches and its proven ability to deliver results that is inspiring them to invest.
In the b2b world we’re always aware of the ever-present issue of data decay and the serious impact it can have on the success of any data-related activity. And now, especially as every penny of budget spent needs to be accounted for, data quality is a very relevant issue.
Compounding this further is the origin of data. The increase in data usage over the last few years has affected the balance between demand and available data sources. As a result, data can become over used and thus identified contacts less responsive to marketing approaches. So in theory, knowing where data has come from can be an important part of the puzzle.
The origin of data is obviously dependent on how it’s acquired. Some business may collect data themselves, from ongoing conversations with existing customers. The main issue here will be a standard one; that of the regency of data, and the need to put in place robust processes to keep this information and insight up to date and accurate.
However, acquiring data externally – generally through the purchase of lists – causes other issues to come to the fore. Available lists may have been used by other business may times over. Therefore the question of how up-to-date and accurate the data is should be supplemented with a consideration of how many times and by whom the list has already been used. Otherwise how can the business truly know whether the data it’s purchasing hasn’t already been ‘burnt out’?
The solution is a simple one. When purchasing data businesses should be interrogating their data suppliers. They should be asking where the data originates, and demand assurances that it is not only fresh, recent, and checked at regular periods, but that it is not over-used and therefore of less value than ‘exclusive’ data that has been sourced for one single user.
We’re moving towards a regular checking and refreshing of all the data we sell to our clients, so they can embark on their marketing activity with a clear assurance that investment in data is worthwhile. And we’re also seeing a growing trend for our clients to request bespoke data, which we source for them using our in-house call centre. Here, as the data collected is tailored to the client’s own specific needs, it is often unique to them, and can deliver far greater results.
Whilst business users know that data needs to be up to date and accurate to be a worthwhile investment, the origin of data is also becoming an issue that needs careful consideration. Thankfully with the introduction of techniques like the generation of bespoke data, and with so many organisations becoming data-literate and able to collect usable information themselves, the data renaissance we’re experiencing looks set to continue. And what better way to support businesses in overcoming the recession than with targeted and efficient marketing activity.
Whether the recession is as bad as we feared, is bottoming out, or has much worse to offer, one thing is assured, most brands are financially challenged right now and looking for ways to stay profitable and deliver some good news to share holders. What happens over the next few months, and probably the next year or so, will be of critical interest to senior marketers, chief planning and financial officers, and chief executives.
Obviously, cost control will be high on the agenda for most brands and rather than making false savings that erode the brand the savviest players will be keeping up their marketing spend to become the eventual winners in the Recession Derby. But are they spending too much? Is it possible to have exactly the same marketing output for less investment?
The answer to both of these questions is a resounding yes. One thing that was learned from the last big recession in the 90’s was that controlling cost is a skill as important as great creative delivery and visionary pricing strategies. However, despite this key learning a great number of brands are currently overlooking a ‘holy grail’ solution that will save them money, one that is to be found within their own organisations.
Before I continue it’s best to have a way to describe the two main areas involved in marketing. In my view it neatly breaks down into a distinction that I started using some five years ago - “Magic” and “Logic”.
‘Magic’ is defined as the production of brilliant ideas that grow brands and businesses while ‘Logic’ is defined as project management, financial management, and other ”Supply Chain” processes that support the innovation effort and the "magic" it produces.
Our case studies show that the key to saving hundreds of thousands and possibly much more, and yet still being able to market your products with no creative delivery and brand engagement sacrifice, lies within “Logic” arena.
My advice to all ‘c suite’ executives and senior marketers is to undertake a thorough review of the brand’s marketing cost base, taking the range, scale and delivery of activities as a given and assuming that quality standards and speed to market are sacrosanct. This activity will take 8-12 weeks and can be achieved either solus with a brand’s internal procurement team or with the help of outside experts.
Following this process most brands will be able to isolate circa 30% of non working spend that is normally dedicated to campaign delivery such as a new above the line initiative or a new direct marketing thrust.
Next comes the key question of whether the 30% is capable of being broken down sufficiently to make it meaningful? For most companies the ways of assessing spend in this area are opaque to say the least, and in most instances the process for evaluating spend have not been updated for 15 years or more.
Actual agency fees will be an area that has been pored over and can safely be set aside in most cases, but paradoxically the opposite is true of the performance related elements of agency remuneration (especially media) which have been grossly neglected, poorly managed and can provide a very rich return in comparison to the efforts needed to unlock their potential “cash back” value. Here we are entering dark and largely unexplored territory of ‘Logic’ which often turns out to be the costliest link in any big brands marketing supply chain .
In addition, the areas of advertising production and the whole range of marketing materials from POS to “trinkets and trash” provide a ripe target for money saving particularly when third parties, primarily agency partners, are an integral part of the marketing supply chain.
As drivers of the relationship between itself and its suppliers, agencies will have their own methodology and rationale for billing, usually visible to the client but arcane enough to cost serious amounts of money. Simply ‘decoupling’ these relationships with billing and reporting direct to the client will often save huge amoubts of money.
How do you bring about these savings?
Usually it means improving the way that marketing procurement work together. Procurement needs to be brought up in the mix to be responsible for supplier engagement from a cost assessment and reporting point of view, in other words the ‘Logic’, leaving the marketing team to deal with the ‘Magic’ actually delivering the creative campaigns that will sell your products. All it takes is a little extra effort for the brand marketing and procurement teams to deliver huge savings on the bottom line.
The process of refining and redefining your relationships with suppliers and also changing or fine tuning the dynamics and responsibilities for marketing and procurement within your organisation will take time and may need the help of advisors who have been through the process before.
In general it will be possible to claw back between 5-6% of the overall marketing budget through streamlining non-working operational elements and in recessionary times this can mean the difference between success and failure for some brands. Just think what an extra 5% discretionary spend can do for your brand at the moment.
Surely it’s the logical step to take?
Charles Kirchner is Chairman of Marketing Supply Chain Ltd
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