I don’t tend to get stumped by very much – I mean, stumped to the point where I just don’t know how to respond, but a few days ago that very thing happened.  I was on a meeting with a company about a re-branding initiative, and four individuals on the client side were united in wanted to kick off our discussion of their brand by analyzing their mission statement.

Starting a re-branding effort with a mission statement is like building a car and being more concerned with the color of the fuzzy dice than with the body, the engine or the fuel efficiency.  It’s a cute accessory, but it’s hardly going to get the car built or move it forward.

Companies often put way more emphasis on crafting their mission statements than the practice deserves.  In fact, fine, I’ll say it – mission statements are pretty much pointless crap. At least, I’ve never seen one that makes sense to me or rings even remotely true. Most of them don’t say anything meaningful at all, and just use standard marketing buzzwords that could just as easily relate to any company.

Take this charmer from Aflac:

To combine aggressive strategic marketing with quality products and services at competitive prices to provide the best insurance value for consumers.

Are they serious? What’s the point of that? All they did was take a bunch of the most important words in marketing (or what are often considered to be the most important words): “quality,” “products,” “services,” “prices,” “best,” and “value” and string them together in a sentence. It doesn’t say anything useful to anybody, doesn’t make any bit of difference to how they do business, and, if the word “insurance” were removed, could just as easily apply to any other company regardless of size or industry. Plus – and I don’t want to argue semantics, but I will – that’s not really their mission anyway. Corporations aren’t that altruistic. Their mission is to make money. Look at this mission statement for AGCO, a leading agricultural equipment manufacturer:

Profitable growth through superior customer service, innovation, quality and commitment.

At least that’s honest! Their mission is to achieve profitable growth. Everything after the word “growth” simply states the means by which they plan to generate that growth.

The standard argument in favor of mission statements is that without them, brands are left without goals to strive for.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  There’s no question that goals are an absolute necessity for a company to be successful, and those goals need to be stated outright, and whenever possible, numerical in nature.  Numerical goals are the best way to monitor progress and know whether or not the efforts that are being taken are actually working.

But “mission statements” as they are typically used don’t achieve that. The “mission” of a company is to make money, improve shareholder wealth, increase market share, etc.  It’s not to provide the highest quality product, new technological advancements, exceptional customer service, etc. – those are the methods that the company will take to achieve their mission (of generating a profit). And even those methods of achieving a mission are weak because they’re intangible and vague – “exceptional customer service” doesn’t say anything useful that a company can measure success by. Is exceptional customer service achieved with an 80% consumer satisfaction rating? Does it need to be 90% to reach the goal? To reach a goal, there needs to be a definitive line in the sand: “We want to improve our customer satisfaction rating by 10% over last quater” is a definitive goal.  Vague generalities never help any company achieve very much.

Just read an article that the USP is dead. Seems to me that all they did was change the acronym.

But it still begs the question: do brands need to have a USP (Unique Selling Proposition)?  Do they matter?

Yes, but let’s be clear about the what it means to be “unique” and determine how unique a quality has to be before it really makes a difference to the consumer.

To my knowledge (and some scientist somewhere could possibly prove me wrong), no two things can be 100-percent identical. Geography alone would make each of them unique, in that two entities can’t occupy the same exact space at the same exact time. Even if you clone a dog, with the original and the copy completely the same from a genetic standpoint, the dogs would still be unique based on the fact that at any given time, they would each standing in different places.

The same is true for companies. Take two competing comic-book stores in neighboring towns, for example. As chance has it, both are run by nice guys who are very passionate about comic books, both have exactly the same inventory of comic books, both present each comic book in the same way, and both charge the exact same price for each book. For all intents and purposes, both stores are the same. Their only real difference is geography, so it stands to reason that consumers will simply shop at whichever store is closer to them. Proximity to the consumer makes each store unique enough.

But now let’s place those stores across the street from each other. Now, even geography doesn’t make a difference. They’re competing for the same pool of customers. The natural tendency of each store owner would be to take some action – lower prices, offer a comic book delivery service, hold in-store comic book art workshops, or what have you – that makes his or her store unique so that consumers will have a reason to choose his or her shop over the other.

So what happens when geography isn’t a factor? The same basic principle holds true. Take competing brands of soap. All manufacturers ship to the same supermarkets, so it doesn’t matter to the consumer where their offices, factories, or distribution centers are located. The competing products are on the shelf next to each other. If all these bars of soap were exactly the same, then the total market would simply be divided equally among them. But again, the natural tendency of competing companies is to try to stand out among their competition in order to draw in a larger audience, and to build a brand based on their unique qualities.
So the answer to the question “Does every brand have to have a unique selling proposition” is yes, they do. Without one, the company might survive, but not the brand. But what really matters is the relevancy of this unique quality. In the case of soap, if one company simply decides to carve an X into the center of each bar, it may make those bars unique, but not in a way that consumers will care about – so it won’t help build the brand. Instead, these manufacturers must instill unique qualities that are more relevant to the market – scent, size, price, shape, or something else along those lines.

As I do pretty much every morning, I was reading AdAge.com earlier and found this article on Microsoft’s effort to market Bing.  If you don’t want to read the entire article, the spot for their new engine is below:

As an outspoken critic of Microsoft’s marketing in their fight against Apple (http://bit.ly/1aspFs), I have to say I’m actually a little impressed by this first Bing spot. It’s creative, eye catching (maybe a little too manic at times), and while I’d prefer some more information on what Bing actually does (we’ll see how they focus on that in later spots), I think at the very least this commercial injects Microsoft with some much needed brand attitude and personality.

What I don’t like, though, is their attempt to create their own category. What are the Vegas odds that the term “decision engine” will ever make it’s way into everyday conversation? Because I’ll be first in line to bet against it. It’s not going to happen, no matter how much marketing $$ they throw at it. Anyone remember m-Life, from AT&T? No? Don’t worry – nobody else does, either. This is even worse: “search” is a one-syllable word. “Decision” is three-syllables, and not as comfortable to say.

Microsoft would be better off marketing themselves as some kind of search engine on steroids. If you’re going to run ads squaring off against Google and Yahoo, then take them on in their own space and present a better mousetrap – don’t throw a punch and then hide inside a made-up category. They’ll end up hurting themselves in the end. Play it out: they’ve got a great new product, but ultimately have to give up on the “decision engine” concept because the term’s simply not catching on. So then what? They’re just a search engine line everyone else, and consumers have no reason to think they’ve got anything unique to offer. Why set yourself up that way when there’s no need to?

Anybody who questions the power of branding won’t need to look any further than the recent outbreak of swine flu to see its influence.

While people around the world are stocking up on surgical masks and health organizations are frantically trying to keep the public calm and distribute vaccines, the pork industry has been hard at work trying to re-brand the name.  As countries such as Russia and China restrict U.S. pork imports, and prices for pork futures have dropped, the National Pork Board is doing all it can to change the name of the virus from swine flu to the more scientific H1N1.

H1N1?

That’s not very catchy.  I don’t blame the pork board for trying – apparently the swine flu is an airborne, human-to-human virus, and not brought on by slapping a few pieces of bacon on an otherwise naked burger.  But I’m not sure this particular re-branding effort will make much difference.  Part of branding is creating a vehicle that is memorable and easily recognizable.  ‘Swine flu’ just kind of rolls off the tongue.  H1N1 doesn’t.  Rather than try and change the name, I think the porky powers-that-be should be concentrating their crises PR efforts on public education so that consumers understand that they can eat their sausages in peace. Even if the new name sticks, the ’swine flu’ name will always be a close association – people have short memories, but not that short.

Maybe the effort to change the name is just a brilliant approach to helping that education process – if so, then hats off to the PR people. But if it’s a genuine attempt to re-brand a virus, that’s not a worthwhile effort.  True brand building is the development of trust, and name changes alone only mask the problem – they don’t fix it.

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The employees of the company must act as the brand police. Given that companies constantly generate new product, operations, decisions, competitive reactions, and goals, it’s unlikely that any agency would be embedded enough to see how each one of these will affect the brand, making it impossible for the agency to effectively serve as the brand police. This question leads us back to a fundamental point: If we agree that the brand is far more than marketing, then delegating the policing to an agency makes absolutely no sense as it’s not a marketing issue.

That said, if you look at policing as simply managing the look and feel – e.g., the brand expressions – then although I still say this should be managed internally, I concede that it will require agency work and support. If brand oversight is under the auspices of the marketing department, then this group will undoubtedly lever their agency relationships for opinions and guidance on any issues that are important enough to hit the radar – for example, items cooked up by product development or M&A activities. Even so, how you govern the brand guide is up to the employees of the firm and should not be delegated under any circumstances. Anyway, who would want to pay agency fees to police creative?

Internal employees and business requirements drive this creative development, and it’s important to hire internal talent who can both guide communications and police creative execution. Ideally you’d like every employee to be a member of the brand police[md]that would be powerful. (Can you imagine having articulated what the brand stands for so clearly that even the newest hire would know if an action isn’t brand-aligned?) So those of you readers who work on the client side, get out your badges and have at it. You probably have permission to police far more than colors and fonts, so don’t limit yourselves to creative.

Marketing types, especially on the agency side, can be so full of crap we could be repackaged and sold as fertilizer. Advertising body copy is filled with useless words and phrases that mean absolutely nothing to anybody, including classic gems like “Our company stands for quality, or “We work to serve you,” and don’t forget the age-long favorite, “We always put our customers first.” Please. This sort of fluffy filler copy has never helped sell a single unit of any product, but marketers continue to litter their advertising and collateral with it.

Consumers aren’t the only ones who are subject to rhetorical bullshit. Brands have to fend against it as well when they’re dealing with their agencies, who feed them lines like they’re hot chicks at a party. “Our agency has over 120 years of experience…” (yeah, 10 years of experience for each of a dozen employees) or “We’re a results-oriented agency, focused on providing you with a positive ROI,” and my personal favorite, “From concept to completion, we have the resources you need to get the job done right, on time and under budget!” Can someone just shoot me if they ever hear me say anything like that to a prospective client? And then there are the less sales-y, more pressure-driven lines, like “We’ve got a pretty big project getting started next month…I’m worried that if you don’t sign now, we may not be able to fit your project on the schedule and meet your deadlines.” Yeah, right.

So there it is – I’ve ’fessed up. I admit that yes, there are instances where agencies speak just for the sake of hearing ourselves talk or because we think this stuff may actually work on people with an above-moron IQ. But when it comes to branding, the emotional connection forged between consumers and a brand is absolutely, positively real, and not a load of BS that we spew in an effort to try to sell more. It’s palpable, it’s clear, and even if the new trend among marketing authors is to try to dig an early grave for brand-building as a practice (a growing number of marketing malcontents seem to suggest that branding is no longer useful given our Web-enabled access to greater information, replaced in part by targeting consumer behavior), there is no denying that brands wield a distinct emotional power over people. In fact, according to a 2002 report (a little old but still relevant) by the Grocery Manufacturers of America, which studies consumer trends in grocery stores, half of all consumers consider the brand to be either the first or the second most important element when deciding which product to buy (other factors include nutritional information, cost, or nostalgia – i.e., they buy products they remember using during childhood). In addition, 13 percent first try a brand because it was recommended to them by someone they trust – further establishing the importance of brands in building a loyal following of customers willing to pass the word on to others.

It’s possible that some of the hesitancy relates to the word “emotion.” The emotional connection between consumers and brands isn’t the same kind of emotional connection between, say, two lovers. A guy’s not about to look at a an Exxon station and suddenly sport wood. And women aren’t going to blush and become coy when they approach the Swiffer section on aisle six. That’s not the kind of emotion we’re talking about. The emotional connection between consumers and brands is more subliminal, more subtle. It’s the difference between longing for something and wanting something. Having an emotional connection to a brand is the consumer’s subconscious acknowledgment that the brand will somehow prove beneficial to them and that they want to – and will – seek it out.

For those who refuse to see the emotional connection between brand and consumer, and disregard the connection between brand and sales, I ask you to close your eyes and imagine every product packaged in a neutral gray box, each the same size and texture; every name changed to a single letter; every advertisement simply stating what the product is, what it does, how much it costs, and where it can be purchased. Boring, huh? And for those who believe that branding should be set aside in favor of targeting consumer behavior in a more connected world, I ask that you acknowledge a difference between branding and advertising, and that multiple efforts can be undertaken simultaneously and, in fact, combined. Whether and how advertising models can be improved for greater ROI is a debate all its own – but the answer to that question will never negate the emotional sway that brands hold over their audiences.

I don’t get it. I don’t get the campaign, and I don’t get the thinking behind it.

Why would Microsoft, which holds on to a crazy dominant share of the OS market, deliberately play into Apple’s hands – not only further legitimizing them, but in the process making Apple seem even cooler than they already are? Yes, Apple’s “I’m a Mac” campaign (one ad is shown below) brilliantly made themselves look like the choice of the young, hip, and artistic while making PCs look like the choice of Dungeon & Dragons players everywhere. But that doesn’t mean Microsoft needs to provide a direct response.

The current round of the campaign focuses on individuals showing the world how easy PCs are to use. Not just any individuals – children. Children. For example, in the one posted below, adorable little Kylie demonstrates how she can take a picture of her fish Dorothy, edit the shot and send it to her mom and dad. She ends by running up to the camera and announcing “I’m a PC, and I’m four and a half.”

In marketing, going head-to-head with a competitor is nothing new. The infamous cola wars of the 70’s and 80’s laid the groundwork for advertising as a bloody battleground. But the OS war currently being waged is proving that David can, in fact, take down Goliath, at least in a battle for mind share if not market share.

Maybe Microsoft’s campaign is working (I haven’t seen any numbers that prove success or failure), but to me it looks a little like Microsoft is just being a pouty child who’s gotten its feelings hurt. Instead, they would have been far better off – and looked a hell of a lot cooler – rolling out their own creative as if Mac didn’t exist, than feeling the need to go on the defense. The whole point behind the Mac campaign was to make Apple look edgy, and make Microsoft look nerdy. Is there anything more uncool that someone who can’t take a joke or throws a tantrum when they get picked on?

If Microsoft is determined to stand in the middle of the ring and trade punches with one of the best marketers in the biz, then they have to be prepared to out-smart, out-strategize and out-create them, or they’ll be unwitting partners in driving home the “I’m a Mac” message.

But a day or so ago, I logged onto Facebook and saw that one of my friends had changed their status to the following:

[NAME OF FRIEND] won’t buy Kellogg’s products until they lift their hypocritical, judgmental, unfair ban on Michael Phelps sponsorship.

I find it frustrating how people seem so ready to punish Kellogg’s for dropping Phelps.  Over and over again, I hear that “smoking pot with friends just isn’t that big of a deal,” and “he didn’t do anything that everyone hasn’t done at some time or another,” and “as a country we’re far too uptight about things like this. “

On the surface, people who make these arguments are absolutely right – people in the U.S. are far too prude and sensitive about issues that we should just let roll off our backs and not let bother us.  I think the whole politically correct movement is bullshit, and it wouldn’t kill us to grow some thicker skin and not get so uptight every time we feel the slightest bit offended by something.  Without question, our national attitude could use a makeover.  I just don’t see why Kellogg’s should have to shoulder this responsibility and be forced to use their marketing dollars to change the perspective of a nation. That’s not their job – they just want to sell more cereal.

Kellogg’s isn’t exactly an “edgy” brand – they’re not an apparel company that markets to teens and young adults. They market to families, particularly those with young kids, and health conscious adults. Companies pay celebrities to endorse products when those celebrities publicly demonstrate the same values as their brand.  I’m not saying that Phelps doesn’t have values or that he’s not a good person, but clearly that pic of him smoking pot isn’t in line with the Kellogg’s brand or the values that they’ve built their business on.

As for Phelps himself, I also agree that he didn’t commit any crime that most American’s haven’t committed at some point or another.  On the scale of sins, smoking pot probably falls somewhere between doing 95 mph in a 55 mph zone, and double dipping at a cocktail party.  But he’s won 14 career gold medals and became a national hero at the last Olympics – which most American’s haven’t done. When you become a celebrity you have to expect to give up certain freedoms, and if you’re planning on endorsing “wholesome” brands that support family values (and signing contracts stating you’ll behave a certain way), then smoking pot at college parties is probably one of the freedoms you should give up. If it was Bode Miller caught smoking pot – that’s a different story. Miller sells himself on his bad boy image. Phelps doesn’t.  Phelps’s image clean-cut, dedicated and hard-working, and that’s the image Kellogg’s wanted to pay for.  They have every right to end that relationship when the image they bought has been tarished.

In my new book, Perspectives on Branding, due in stores in March 2009, I answer a series of brand-related questions based on my experience and opinion. One of the questions in particular struck me as a good way to start my first blog of the new year:

IF YOU COULD TAKE THE HELM OF ANY BRAND IN THE MARKET, WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WHY?

I’d like to share my answer, and would love to hear how other people would answer this same question.

The following is a shortened excerpt from my book of my answer to this question:

If I could take the helm of any company, I’d want it to be a brand that’s not currently at the top of their game – one that clearly has potential, once owned greater market share but has since fallen from grace a bit.

There are scores of companies that fall into this category that come to mind, like Hostess (cupcakes, Twinkies, etc.), DC Comics (they have characters like Superman, Batman, Aquaman), Krispy Kreme – the list goes on!  But there are two in particular that for one reason or another I feel more compelled to discuss in detail.

Midway Games: There was a point in time where you couldn’t go into an arcade without seeing the Midway name everywhere – they were the undisputed king of gaming.  But over the years, they’ve given up market share to others, and their stock (which I own some of), has been battered down to about 27 cents at the time of this writing.  Still though, they have a rich history behind them (Joust, Defender, Spy Hunter – the classic games that got it all started), and some great titles in their current line-up (including Mortal Kombat – one of the best fighting games ever made.  Coincidentally, a new version was just released using character from DC comics).

I would love to take the reigns at Midway and make some wide-sweeping changes.  First thing I’d do is completely redesign their online gaming site, which is sub-par at best and clearly not performing very well (I checked with Alexa.com, a site that ranks other sites by traffic.  Midwayarcade.com was ranked as the 859,751 most visited site).  Bubblebox.com, another gaming site, was ranked 4,314.  Bubblebox,com?  Seriously, how does Midway Games lose to a site called Bubblebox.com?  It’s sadly obvious how – Bubblebox.com’s got their act together in the online world; Midway doesn’t.

I’d also restore some innovative spirit to the brand.  Their Mortal Kombat game with DC characters looks cool (I personally haven’t played it yet), but my guess is that it’s probably way cooler than their advertising is showing it off to be.  The trailers and TV spots are well produced, but you’re dealing with characters that everyone knows and a completely new twist on a 15 year old game – do something really spectacular with this!  Where is the viral component?  Where is the larger than life aspect to the title?  Where’s the edge?  It doesn’t have to be crazy expensive – it has to crazy creative!  You’ve just blended the best fighting game with some of the best superheroes – you’ve got the bait, now you just need to cast the reel better.

Saladworks: Maybe this chain is doing well and I just don’t know about it, but from my experience the place is usually a ghost town, except for maybe a small increase in traffic during lunch.  But to make this work, I’d want to control more than just the brand and marketing.  For anyone who hasn’t been to Saladworks, it’s a fast-food style chain that lets people choose the ingredients and dressing they want and make their own salad – it looks like a buffet, but someone who works there does it for you.

The initial question is simply ‘why is this place so empty, at least compared to the Panera Bread place right next door?’  The concept is good, the ingredients seem fresh and there’s always emphasis in the media on staying health conscious (not all of the ingredients there are healthy, but the word “salad” usually invokes a sense that it’s good for you).  But then you get to the cash register and find out why the store is so lonely – $11 for a salad and soda is pretty hefty.  I don’t think anything a brand manager can do will be super effective until the price is more reasonable.

Put the price issue aside for second, and there’s still a lot more that could be done from a strict branding and marketing perspective.  For one thing, you need to really make the case that salads can be a meal on their own – especially for dinner, when the stores seem particularly empty.  People are happy to have a salad for lunch, but when it comes to dinner, they see salads as something you have before the meal – not as the meal itself.  Saladworks needs to change public sentiment, and get more people in during evening hours. I’d also play up some of the paninis and other non-salad food that would not only bring people back at night, but bring them back more often.

The first step toward this goal would be to change the name of the chain to Saladworks Plus – the addition of that single word at the end lets diners know there’s more going on than just salad.  I’d also completely revamp their advertising, which seems to rely most heavily on highway billboards.  I’d add some TV and radio to the mix, playing up the freshness and selection of ingredients, but with creative twists to make them memorable and support the effort with wide-sweeping Web marketing (starting with redeveloping their site and online ordering system).  I’d also remove any billboards that exist on random highways and reposition them to only appear near the parking lots of fatty chains, like Fuddruckers, laying the guilt on nice and thick.  Be aggressive!  Their 2007 Celebrity Chef competition was a good idea, and they do a good job getting PR for themselves, but it’s not enough to live up to their potential.  Saladworks is a great chain with a wonderful opportunity, but they’re missing the boat in terms of branding and marketing.

There are so many brands I’d love to get my hands on!  I guess the real answer for me is that I’d be excited to take the helm of any brand that allowed me to take some chances and really do something exciting!