by Genevieve Smith

Welcome to my world. This could be a really complex discussion or a really simple one; I’m going to go with simple. Here’s the bottom line: Influential and effective managers generally manage business units or support groups that generate profit or cut expenses in a way that is material to a company’s bottom line. They’re hired because they have the necessary skills and knowledge to generate results and they can be held accountable for profits.

Managing these relationships is where brand management becomes an art much more than a science. Yes, you could create enterprise metrics and measures that demonstrate the brand effect to the bottom line—and you should do this no matter what, as we’ve discussed. The challenge for brand management in this situation is to demonstrate how the brand creates relevance and value for the influential manager and his or her business unit and bottom line.

The first thing you have to do is work with the manager to define “brand”—meaning brand as a core operation, not graphics, logos, or marketing—so you know you’re talking about the same thing. If, even after this discussion, the manager fails to get on board, a somewhat naughty but effective response is to ask that the dissenting manager rebrand his or her business unit and stop doing business under your brand if he or she doesn’t want to pay for the privilege (if you allocate brand expense) or doesn’t believe in the brand’s effectiveness. If this person really believes the brand has no value to his or her group, then he or she should be up for the challenge—but chances are he or she will see the light.

by Mike Hand

Is a risky concept worth trying if failure means potentially losing the account (or, for a marketing director, losing your job)?

Risk-taking is a major part of life and can bring tremendous rewards. It’s important to remember, however, that risk-taking can be extremely dangerous if the risk involves tampering with something that is currently working and if done without careful thought. Then again, risk-taking may also result in a huge win by driving incremental sales growth. So how do you assess whether a risk is “worth it” ? Before anyone can answer that, they need to ask themselves a few questions: How badly do they need the account and/or how badly do they need this particular job? Is the upside for the business really there? Are you the only one who sees it? Answer these questions, and then you can discuss whether the risky concept is truly worth pursuing.

While I’m all for taking creative risks and pushing the envelope, any campaign concept that is so risky it could actually jeopardize your livelihood or alienate your current user base might be pushing things too far. Some risks are just bad ideas that should be put back in the creative drawer, never to be seen or heard from again. The number of people who might be attracted to the idea could be totally eclipsed by the number of those who will be turned off. Some risks will result in only marginal impact, creating a minimal swing—but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worthwhile. The only real downsides in such cases are the loss of time and productivity from pursuing the effort; if more consumer insight was gained, then it was worthwhile. On the other hand, if the risk has the potential to drive large sales gains and increased consumer awareness with your only concern some potential media backlash, that’s not a risk at all. Go for it!

If you believe an idea is extremely strong and has major upside potential, you might propose a market test to see how things go. But realize that within hours of the test, your biggest competition in the segment will be fully aware of it—thus removing the element of surprise and allowing your rival to prepare for any potential national rollout in the near future. Your idea will instantly become public knowledge, making the concept ripe for the taking.

The bottom line? Be willing to make a mistake and go after big opportunities. Too many companies are mired in short-term thinking and are foolishly risk averse. Go change your corner of the world—just don’t act carelessly with your brand equity.

Too much of anything can be too much.  But legitimate social media marketers understand the difference between engaging and being in their consumers’ collective faces.

For brands, being social isn’t just about marketing a message – it’s about influencing consumer behavior, creating a stronger brand/consumer bond, allowing consumers to have a voice in the development of the products and services they use, and providing customer support openly and quickly.  In fact, according to a 2008 Cone study, 85% of social media users believe brands should interact with consumers online, and nearly 40% of Americans actively engage with the brands they use through social networks.

Social engagement is not the same as direct sales, and if consumers want to avoid interaction with certain brands, they have that ability.  But when we talk about online engagement, we’re not talking about spam filling up our e-mail boxes.  We’re talking about companies providing us useful information, gathering our ideas and responding to concerns.  We’re also talking about them listening more, and understanding the general consumer sentiment regarding their products, services, campaigns and industry as a whole.  Within the confines of that understanding, there is no such thing as “too social.”

by Jay Miletsky

I’m not going to lie – I called this one wrong.  I would have bet money that despite the absolutely awful reviews it received, Sex and the City 2 would not only be the #1 movie in its opening weekend, but it would leave all of its competitors in the dust.  It should have been a simple matter of the brand, after all – clearly, while I don’t personally understand their appeal, these four insipid characters have claimed their place in the hearts of women everywhere, and for the month leading up to the release of their second movie, it seemed that it was destined to be far more than just another movie opening – this was going to be a monumental event on par with the Super Bowl or an American Idol finale.

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?

By Jay Miletsky

As I was flying down to Dallas for a meeting earlier this week, I was half-heartedly flipping through the US Airway’s in-flight magazine when a short but interesting article caught my eye.  It was a reprint of an article from the Harvard Business Review, about whether or not social networking can actually show any measurable results when it comes to brand building and marketing.  What made it interesting (other than the results), was that they didn’t focus on a major brand, which would make for a more obvious case study.  Instead, they focused on a smaller company called The Dessert Factory – a Houston-based bakery and café chain.

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.

by Jay Miletsky

During the years I’ve worked with various brands and brand managers, and have studied other brands to see how they’ve been developed, I’ve spotted some mistakes that brand managers make on a regular basis, which can often be the difference between failure and success:

1. Relying too much on data and research: Let me make this clear: I’m a big believer in research, statistics, data, focus groups, etc. I think research can give you insight into the minds and movement of any audience, and brand managers and marketers should use this information as they make their decisions. But good brand managers should also have a sixth sense when it comes to their brand and what’s best for it, and be able to make certain decisions even in the face of conflicting statistical data – not based on common sense, but based on raw, gut instinct. Brand management isn’t accounting – it’s not always just about looking at the numbers. It’s creativity. It’s sociology. It’s psychology. There may not be only one right answer, and brand managers need to know when to go against the grain.
2. Being reactive instead of proactive: Being reactive is really just playing it safe. Too often, brand managers wait it out to see what their competition does before taking any action of their own. Or they’ll balk at trying something new because nobody else in their industry has done it yet. One brand manager told me that he doesn’t like to be the first to do something because, as he explained, “the first pioneers through the canyons were the ones who ended up with arrows in their back. The next ones through knew which roads to avoid.” I guess that’s true[el]but it’s also true that first one to find the treasure chest gets all the gold. The next ones just find an empty box.
3. Going for the quick buck rather than the long-term gain: Brand-building is as much a time investment as it is a financial investment – but brand managers are often under the gun at the office, with mandates coming from higher-ups to make things happen faster. It’s understandable that this will prompt the brand manager to attempt to accelerate results. But if there is one fight the brand manager must take on, this is it. Going for the quick buck and marketing for short-term results might in fact yield short-term results, but those results will be a far cry from the much greater results that can be achieved with a longer-term brand-building strategy.
4. Not setting firm goals: No, this does not contradict the preceding bullet. Goals are absolutely necessary; they just can’t be too short-term or unrealistic. The importance of firm goals can’t be stressed strongly enough, since numeric goals are the only way to determine whether the best, most cost-effective strategies are being used.
5. Not taking their own branding guide seriously enough: Don’t get me wrong: I believe people in branding and marketing – on the client and agency side – can ignore certain mandates established by the guide as long as they maintain consistency in key areas and stay within the spirit of the brand. That being said, though, it drives me nuts when a brand manager makes some flippant comment like, “It doesn’t matter if the color is off by a shade or two. Nobody will notice.” Yes they will! And if they don’t right away, they certainly will when a full year and five print runs later the color is five or six shades off. Don’t screw with consistency – it’s a brand’s best friend.

Every brand manager is bound to make mistakes and will need to retrace their steps at some point to get back on track. To be honest, I give any brand manager a lot of credit – there’s a lot of weight on their shoulders, and very often they’re flying in a fog as they try to move the brand forward. But avoiding the pitfalls outlined here will go a long way toward keeping everyone moving in the right direction.

by Jay Miletsky

Creativity.  Has the word or concept lost its meaning?

Recently, I’ve found myself scratching my head over this.  As more and more of my agency peers express frustration with their clients’ lack of appreciation for creativity in marketing – apparently, brand managers increasingly define “creative” as “not strategic” – I’ve started wondering if maybe they have a point.  Is “creative” a bad word, a mere euphemism for any ideas that are lacking effective strategy?

In the end, I refused to give in to the cult of blame, reflective of a growing agency trend where we point our fingers at clients or the industry structure every time we don’t get what we want.

Creative is creative, strategy is strategy and vegetables are vegetables. We all know what they are. Creative includes an overriding concept as well as the design and artistic execution. Strategy is the plan of action to get a campaign or message noticed by a desired audience. When developed in tandem and executed correctly, the potential results are greater.

The issue here isn’t whether or not the word “creative” is being misconstrued or used to imply a lack of strategic sense. The problem is that agencies, anxious to have things our own way, try to force fit arguments and issues that simply don’t work. We seem, on some levels, unwilling to adapt.   For example, agencies insist that creative is the key to engaging the audience.  They’ve lost site of – or refuse to acknowledge – that we no longer own the word “engagement” in any sense.  Agencies have never presented creative as a means to engagement – at least not in the sense that the term “engagement” is more often used in today’s social media environment. Creative doesn’t engage the same way that Twitter does. However, using social media to draw attention to campaign creative is a component of strategy.  Clients get that, but many agencies, including the ones that claim to provide social media services, won’t let that reality sink in.

Another example of agencies’ unwillingness to adapt: our continued push for brand campaigns in a quick-results environment. The last year was bad for most everyone – the recession slashed budgets and many agencies starved. In an effort to generate income and secure retainer dollars, many pushed the importance of brand awareness (what some clients see as “creative” further defined as “long-term” or “having vague results”). When that didn’t work, agencies moaned that they were being commoditized. What’s missing here is the client POV – long term branding isn’t what most marketing directors are being challenged with. Their CEOs and CFO’s are saying “generate revenue this quater.” They want to keep their jobs, so their interest is in capturing low-hanging fruit and generating a short-term ROI. Until the recession is really over and budgets get back to normal, every presentation is going to be met with the question “so what’s the ROI?”

The problem with “creative” is that agencies want to push art and branding, and clients want results right now. An online display campaign generates low click thru levels (my blog on this: http://bit.ly/hYIm0), and we say “Who cares? You got great brand exposure!” as though long-term creative without short-term result is going to appease anybody right now.

Creative is fine, it’s necessary, and everyone knows what it means. It’s the agency attitude that needs to adjust.

by Michael Hand

Every so often you see a commercial or a video that is produced for a brand and you are left almost speechless.  A spot or a video that truly captures the essence of what the brand stands for and illustrates a human connection to the product.  Unfortunately, for every one of these great videos you are typically forced to suffer through twenty bad ones.  I am happy to tell you that the next great one has been made.

Diageo, the Johnnie Walker brand and the team at BBH has done a fantastic job of weaving sound, interesting landscape and history into a six minute storytelling masterpiece.  Check out “The Man Who Walked Around the World” below – you will not be disappointed.  To all Brand Managers and Directors – this is how it is done.

(Sorry for the delay, this was actually first posted on YouTube in mid-August, but I have been a bit busy with my day job.)

• Price: Price is always in play when a buyer looks at your proposal. Many times, price is the only consideration, especially if all other aspects are minor or if all vendors are submitting the same item. This is especially true for items that are purchased repeatedly, where the buyer has data on previous purchases that enables them to evaluate what price is acceptable and thereby manage their costs. When price is the major factor in the buying equation, the buyer is in the driver’s seat. The buyer places the cost he or she has determined to be acceptable in front of vendors to accept or reject; this forces vendors to lower their margins to generate an order.  If you are dealing with a client who is basing their purchase decision solely on price, remember that you probably aren’t the only vendor they’re shopping the inquiry to. Your competition may in fact have seen the same request and politely declined.
• Brand: When brand preference is part of the evaluation, you may find yourself on either side of the selection depending on your offering; obviously, it puts added pressure on you if yours is not the preferred brand. In that case, you might offer a deeper-than-usual discount to sway the buyer, assuming the buyer has the leeway to use an off brand. Some specs don’t allow for any other brand than what was called for, however[md]in which case vendors can expect to pay a slightly higher price due to the lack of competition.
• Quality: The quality of the product, which is related to brand preference, is usually already established prior to the bid process[md]meaning that unless there is an apparent difference between competing vendor proposals whose pricing is similar, the quality of the product normally won’t be the determining factor in the final decision.
• Salesperson: All other things being equal, the vendor whose salesperson has fostered a strong relationship with the client based on trust, respect, and reliability will be given a slight edge. This edge diminishes, however, with inquiries that are less critical or less time-sensitive. In those cases, buyers might consider accepting an offer that’s equal in cost, brand, and quality from a salesperson who is looking to establish a working relationship and needs an opportunity to begin the process. Buyers would never give an untested salesperson a critical or time-sensitive order unless they had no other options.

by Jason Miletsky

I was recently involved in a debate with a small group of marketing people in which the following question was posed:

If you had to choose between two employee candidates, one of whom has experience but is not very creative and the other who is very creative but lacks experience, in general, which would you select?

There’s no question: go with the creative person every time.

Creative people see the world in a different way.  They can provide solutions that may not always be obvious, and can push a brand in a direction that it may not have considered otherwise. Creativity can open doors, and get other people thinking more productively.  In a brainstorming situation, they can take  a bad idea and make something useful out of it.

What?!? Did I just dare say that someone in the world can actually have a bad idea? No, no, no – we don’t allow that here.  There is no such thing as a bad idea!

Bullshit.  One of the problems with marketing and one of the reasons why agencies have allowed themselves to become commodities is because they continue to buy into this PC fantasy that there is no such a thing as a bad idea, because heaven forbid we hurt anybody’s feelings.  But the reality is that yes, there are bad ideas – plenty of them:

• Re-branding Tropicana OJ earlier this year – Peter Arnell thought it was time to take the image of the orange with the straw in it off the packaging, and build the brand around a very generic look and feel. Inside of two months, Tropicana’s sales dropped about 20%. Bad idea.
• Anyone remember mLife, from AT&T? They spent tens of millions trying to push that term into our vernacular, and failed. Bad idea.
• A few years ago, some cartoon decided to promote itself by placing Lite Brites with wires sticking out of them near bridges, tunnels and major buildings in and around Boston, causing a panic and shutting down the city. People at the agency were arrested, fines levied and the profile of the cartoon wasn’t raised nearly enough to make up for the damage. Bad idea.
• In 2005, Snapple tried to break the record for the world’s largest ice pop by erecting a 10 ton version in New York City.  In the summer. During a heat wave.  Apparently, nobody told them that ice melts in the heat, and Union Square had to be closed off by fireman after the streets turned into a sticky mess. Do I have to say it?

But creativity is funny that way.  It’s fun, it’s exciting, and everyone wants to be a part of it.  If I mention to people in mixed company that I’m working on the marketing for a certain brand, inevitably there will be one or two people that say, “hey, I’ve got a great idea for a commercial for them.” Like it’s just that easy. No knowledge of their audience, budgets, goals – as though anybody could be a creative director. Somehow, you don’t get a lot of people picking up a baseball mitt and thinking they could play shortstop for the Yankees.  And you don’t see a lot of people rushing to the accountant’s office to try and help them balance the ledger.  But when it comes to creative, everyone thinks they’re qualified for the job.

As long as we continue to promote the concept that everyone is creative, and that there are no bad idea, we’ll continue to devalue what true creatives bring to the table.  Creativity isn’t just about coming up with ideas, it’s also about understanding how those ideas can be executed, whether they have legs and can be sustainable over a period of time, who the intended audience is (not just the end user, but also the individuals that will sign off on it), how it should be positioned, and how it relates to the overall brand.

Real creativity – the kind that is actually worth paying a salary for, is rare. Experience is wonderful, but given the option, I’ll take the truly creative candidate any day.