I was thankful enough just to avoid it, my own girlfriend going out with a group of her friends to see it and saving me from having to take her (I’ll typically sit through just about anything, but two plus hours of Sex and the City may be a bit more than I can take).  Of course, it didn’t surprise me that the terrible reviews (which were impossible to miss beforehand) didn’t deter them – as I said, this wasn’t just a movie, it was an event, and no review was going to take that away from them.  I also wasn’t surprised when she came home and said it was every bit as bad as the reviews said it was, but I understood that SATC was a brand she had trusted to entertain her for many years, one in which she felt an emotional connection to, and so she had to find out for herself rather than allow her opinions to be swayed by others.

What did surprise me were the gross ticket sales for the weekend, as reported by RottenTomatoes.com.  Not only had SATC failed to take the number one spot, and not only had they failed to crush all of the other movies out there, but they lost to Shrek 4, which was already in its second week, and came dangerously close to losing the number two spot to Prince of Persia, which is based on a video game (note: RT.com currently lists SATC as third, although it made more money than Prince).

Neither Shrek 4 nor Prince of Persia got particularly good reviews, either.

So what does this say about branding?  In its own way, SATC’s failure sends some very clear messages about brand building:

1. Branding work is never done. Branding is not a finite activity.  As long as the brand exists, the work it takes to stay true to itself and maintain its reputation is never done.  The promise always has to be fulfilled each and every time a consumer comes in contact with the brand, and the established personality needs to be maintained and evolved.  Although I’m not a fan of the show, I do know that SATC established a unique, quirky personality through likable characters, wit and charm, and has made a promise to entertain its audience through semi-realistic story lines based around the changing roles women play in society.  Apparently, the latest movie in the franchise lost much of what made it so popular, veered away from its promise, and ultimately disappointed audiences who had expected more based on previous interactions with the brand. The keepers of the brand became lazy, and assumed that as established brand is a completed brand.  Not so.
2. Never take your market for granted. Why did I believe that SATC would take the top spot this last weekend without much effort?  For the same reasons the movie studio, its stars and all of the industry insiders did: we assumed that the SATC audience were brand loyal.  Clearly, many of them were – enough to sell $31M worth of tickets in spite of terrible reviews.  Only those who are loyal to the brand would pay money to see a movie they know in advance isn’t very good.  But what is also clear is that far less of their audience than expected can truly be classified as ‘brand loyal.’  This significantly larger group, made of people who may appreciate the brand, but are not “loyal” to it, very likely planned to see SATC2 in the theater, but changed their minds when the reviews came out, preferring instead to wait for the DVD or cable release.  If these people were truly loyal, SATC2 could have been the worst movie ever made, and it would have still been standing-room only.  The cast and crew very likely took their audience for granted and assumed that they could cash in without making a tremendous effort.
3. A single misstep can be impossible to recover from. Is this the last movie for the SATC brand?  It’s too early to predict.  What we can predict, however, is that the sequel will make far less money than the first one, has permanently broken the spell which it had cast over many of its fans, and that the movie studio behind SATC will be far less willing to put big budgets behind a third installment.  All because of a single misstep – that’s all it takes to put derail a brand permanently.
4. Word of mouth is more powerful than history or advertising. Sex and the City has been around since 1998, and the advertising and PR budget for this latest movie was clearly substantial.  But none of that was enough to overcome the power of word-of-mouth, and the negative remarks made by both professional reviewers and early fans who stood in long lines to see midnight showings on opening night.  Social media has become a catalyst for word-of-mouth, helping people spread the word faster than ever before to friends and strangers alike, and while advertising still plays a primary role in marketing, negative word-of-mouth will trump it every time.

What do you think?  As a brand, can Sex and the City recover?  Can any brand come back after such a dramatic fall from grace?

So here they are, in no particular order, and I would love to find out if I’m the only one out there bothered by these things, or if there are others out there who feel the same way:

1. The Brand Haters: “I have an idea – instead of getting involved in a real discussion about branding, I’ll tweet something absolutely ridiculous, like branding has jumped the shark, or Unbrand everything – branding is pointless.” I can only guess that’s what goes through these idiots’ minds each time they write something like that.  Wow, aren’t you just the rebels!  Clearly, the brand-haters see themselves as ultra-hip and unaffected by capitalist evils, but the truth is they’re just uninformed and out of touch with reality.
2. The Broken Records: Seriously, enough with the personal branding crap already.  Over and over and over again, my Tweetdeck is besieged by these zealots who are practically giddy about the idea that individuals can brand themselves.  So here it is…wait for it….: individuals can brand themselves. Happy?  Can we move on now?  If you really understood the concept of “branding” then you know that “personal branding” doesn’t have to be treated like its own religion.
3. The Sheep: It’s amazing how many people take the word “follow” too literally.  The Twitter sheep have little of their own to contribute – instead, they wait breathlessly for their online heros to make a statement, and then they rush to retweet the hell out of it.  Newsflash for the army of Schawbelites: more than half of what Dan Schawbel says either doesn’t make any sense, or is amazingly basic.  But that doesn’t matter – I don’t even think the sheep bother to read it.  Apparently, retweeting it is enough.  “Hey!  Dan says the days of Facebook and Twitter as marketing platforms are over.  Wow, that must be true!  I have to retweet that!!”  I have nothing against retweeting something you believe in and agree with, but…UGH!!  The sheep!
4. The One-Tweet-Wonders: The one-tweet-wonders are individuals that seem to have a sudden marketing or branding-related epiphany that clearly nobody has ever thought of before.  No link, no reference to a blog.  Just a simple, usually uninspired statement, like Branding is the building of reputation. Really?  Thank you, guru, that was very profound.  You may now resume your seated position at the top of the mountain.
5. The Easily Amused: I’m amazed at the staying power of this one simple graphic – an illustration depicting the difference between advertising, marketing and PR (for reference: http://bit.ly/c82oMv).  For the last few weeks, I’ve seen this image appear on an number of site and retweeted endlessly as though it were a brand new idea, and an extremely clever one at that.  Well, it’s definitely not new – I included a version of this same graphic in my college text book Principles of Internet Marketing over two years ago, and I know that I had seen it somewhere else long before that.  And it’s certainly not that clever.  Maybe on par with a decent knock-knock joke, but that’s about it.  Please, people, move on!

I understand that being on Tweetdeck is a lot like walking through Times Square on Saturday night – there are going to be all types of people there, some normal, some nice, some obnoxious and rude.  And if you’re going to be there, then you have to accept everyone, or at least put up with them all.  But the people I appreciate the most on Twitter are the ones with original thoughts, who are real, personable, and have something of value to share.

It’s too easy to say that the personality of the brand doesn’t need to reflect the personalities of the company’s founders or executives. Their personalities will absolutely play at least a partial role in how the brand’s personality is developed. I have to believe that the key executives behind the popular video-game developer EA, for example, are at least a little edgy and fun. I’d be shocked to find out they all wear three-piece suits to work every day, where they smoke cigars while discussing the moral decline of modern society. But just how influential the personalities of key execs are to the brand may be somewhat minimal, and may instead depend more on the product being sold and the market being reached. In other words, it’s pretty safe to assume that the key execs behind Barbie aren’t eight-year-old girls.

The real answer is that the personality of the brand isn’t reflective of any one entity in particular, but a balance of all of them. There’s no point in the personality of a brand being stuffy and serious simply because that’s the personality of the key execs, because it’ll turn off the market they’re trying to reach. At the same time, there’s also no point in a brand presenting itself as wild, crazy, and edgy simply because that’s what the market wants. If the decision-makers aren’t comfortable in that skin, they won’t be able to sustain that brand personality, and ultimately their efforts will fail.

Every brand needs to find a balance between what the market will respond to and what it can reasonably be expected to consistently present. The point where these two needs meet is the starting point for developing the brand’s personality.

What do you think the brand should reflect?

Q. How do you know that a dog is man’s best friend?

A. Lock your wife and your dog in the trunk of your car. Let them out an hour later and see which of them is still happy to see you.

Loyalty is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. It’s also the brass ring in branding: There’s nothing more valuable, but it’s extremely hard to grab. Why? Because a brand-loyal customer is revenue in the bank – and a disciple on the street.

Loyalty is derived from a mix of many different ingredients, each of which must be fully present for the magical formula to become – and remain – potent:

1. The brand needs to exist in a category the user cares about. For example, I’ll never be loyal to any brand of paper towel because, well, I just don’t particularly care about the category.
2. The brand needs to promise something that the market desires or requires.
3. The brand has to consistently fulfill its promise.
4. The brand’s personality needs to somehow reflect the personality of its market.
5. The brand needs to be true to its personality and not waver.

Notice that “price” and “accessibility” are not on the list. Consumers who are brand-loyal are largely indifferent to higher prices or accessibility issues.

Apple is perhaps one of the best examples of a company that commands tremendous brand loyalty. Even in the ’90s, before their ultra-hip ad campaigns and retail stores, Macs had reached an almost cult-like status. Back then, Macs were two, three, four, or more times more expensive than their PC competitors (they still are); more difficult to find; way more difficult to fix (good luck finding an Apple repair shop in the mid ’90s); and extremely limited when it came to compatible software (in your average 1995 computer store, past the gleaming white shelves jam-packed with PC programs, games, and applications, stood a single dusty, cobweb-covered shelf housing a few Mac programs-each a version or two behind). But Mac users knew a secret that their PC counterparts didn’t know: Their Macs were better. They were cooler, easier, more intuitive, and they were the anti-Microsoft-and nothing was going to get them to change their minds. Not price, not accessibility-nothing. That’s brand loyalty at its finest.

Hertz Campaign – Journey On.  I will admit that I am a sucker for driving an emotional connection while creating taglines and ad campaigns.  I love manifestos and I am a big fan of image/attribute boards.  I like getting people drawn in by more than price or simply screaming “it’s new” and “on sale”.  I will also admit that renting a car to me is not typically an emotional decision.  It seems like I only rent when on a business trip and my work “travel advisor” (I think the phrase travel agent is no longer politically correct – kind of like a stewardess is now a flight attendant) finds me the lowset cost possible.  If that rental happens to be with Enterprise, Avis, Hertz or Joe’s Rickshaw Service it really doesn’t matter.  I just want to know if I will be getting airline miles for the trip and if they accept my corporate AMEX.  I think this might have changed for me.  For the first time, after seeing the new Hertz ads, I actually thought about the difference in rental companies for a minute.  Who has cooler cars to choose from and nicer people to help me out?  These ads caught my attention and made me think emotionally as a non-business traveler.  Corporate travel will remain driven by the bottom line cost of the service, and purchasing people will make this final call.  Personal travel is a whole different ball game. I don’t know the facts and figures on where/how revenue is generated in the rental car market, or the size of the leisure v. business traveler pool, but with a simple tagline and great visual creative execution they brought me in.  Hertz built a bridge for me to be a part of the journey. Check out the Luke’s Journey Spot below:

Voodoo Doughnuts.  I had never heard of this company until I stumbled upon a recent article in Fast Company that profiled their efforts (http://bit.ly/dgqC6X).  But after reading about them I can promise you that on my next trip through Portland (OK, it may never happen), I will be sure to stop in and get a doughnut that I can stab with a pretzel to make bleed jelly.  My kids would love this.  Not Rocket Science – just fun way of packaging your product to appeal to more folks and be different than your competition. (More on Voodoo Doughnuts here:  http://bit.ly/aTmnpS)

Finally, props to Tom Hinkes for a very honest entry in Ad Age’s CMO Strategy column this week (http://bit.ly/9RXDK7).  I will let his writing speak for itself, but there is a lot of truth in his words.  Marketing is not science.  Nice work Tom.

Until next time…

According to the report, journalists Utpal M. Dholakia and Emily Durham sent a poll to The Dessert Factory’s 13,000-plus e-mail database and received a bit over 600 responses back.  They then launched a Facebook Fan page, invited their customers to become fans, and spent the next three months regularly updating the page with pictures of desserts, info on the people who worked at The Dessert Factory, sales, contests and promotions.  At the end of the three month trial period, they re-sent the original poll, this time getting back over 1,000 responses from people who were fans on Facebook, people who weren’t fans on Facebook and people who didn’t use Facebook at all.  After comparing data between the two surveys, the results were eye-opening to say the least.

Across the board, it appeared that a simple Facebook Fan page was able to positively affect consumer behavior.  People who were fans of The Dessert Factory visited the stores 20% more often, were more likely to go out of their way to visit The Dessert Factory as opposed to a competitor, spent a larger portion of their dining budget at the chain, were more likely to recommend the brand to friends and family, and on a four point scale felt a stronger emotional bond to the brand than did those who were not fans.

It’s a great study that makes a strong case for the benefits social networking can have, even for smaller brands.  But it did make me wonder why.  After all, people could find specials and promotions in their local newspaper.  They could enter contest in the outlets themselves.  They could see plenty of dessert images on the company’s Web site.  So why would a fan page alone be able to make such a dramatic difference?

The reason is the inherent buy-in.  Not to over-simplify, but there is power in the word “fan.”  Assuming technology stayed the same, if Fan pages were instead named Awareness pages, for example, it’s unlikely the Harvard Business Review study would have yielded such positive results.  There’s a distinct difference between being a fan of a brand, and being aware of one.

The Fan page has taken what had previously been a vague concept – brand loyalty – and made it visible.  And once it’s visible, it becomes actionable.  By listing themselves as fans, consumers publicly proclaim their brand loyalty, increasing their incentive for demonstrating this loyalty by actively supporting it through increased purchases and more aggressive word-of-mouth.  Facebook has transformed what was once a quiet – and often subconscious – relationship and given it tangible value.

For any company, regardless of size or industry, achieving true loyalty is the gold standard in consumer/brand relationships.  With a Facebook Fan page strategy in place, brands can not only increase this loyalty, but give consumers an opportunity to proclaim it – helping turn positive experiences with favorite brands into real revenue.

POSITION: ABSOLUTELY!

I’d say an unequivocal yes to that question with the proviso that it’s an authentic representation of you. Having a personal brand is very important, particularly in these challenging times, when we all need to be able to distinguish ourselves from the crowd.
 
Whether you know it or not, you have a personal brand, we all do. It’s about what others say about us; our reputation. For those of you who are interested in defining your brand, a good way to start is to ask a handful of close friends or relatives how they’d describe you to someone who doesn’t know you. Then, compare what they say to what you thought they might say, or what you hoped they’d say. You might be pleasantly surprised. 

As far as your brand being authentic is concerned, think about your values, beliefs and what you care most about. For instance, if being positive, communicating well and living a life of integrity and compassion are what drive you, do those qualities come across to others in your interactions with them via words, in writing, body language or actions? Donald Trump says that 90% of success begins with just showing up. Having an authentic Personal Brand will fast-forward you to showing up!          
 

POSITION: NO – ENOUGH ALREADY!

I’m a brand guy at heart, and I believe in its validity for individuals as well as for companies.  But the ongoing hype over personal branding has almost reached cult status, in a very creepy Tom Cruise/Scientology sort of way.

The endless babble by the legions of Schawbel-ites (the robot army that ravenously hangs on every word muttered by Dan Schawbel and the like) would have one believe that personal branding is a new practice, sprung from the popularization of social media. It isn’t.

Branding is the sum total of all user experiences with a particular product, service or person, building reputation and future expectations of benefit.  It’s no more relevant today than it was 10, 20, 50 years ago. So let’s stop making more of this than we really need to. People weren’t Neanderthals before Google and Twitter.  There’s nothing wrong with the concept of personal branding – there’s just nothing new about it either.  Before the Web, resumes still highlighted what makes each of us special, and we all put our best foot forward and did what we could to establish and maintain our individuality.

The Web hasn’t changed the means – it’s just slightly evolved the methods.