Word Marketing Blog

Brand Credibility

One of the things I talk to my clients and prospects about when building a brand is "who are you"?

Just as in a human's DNA structure, inside a brand's double helix lies complicated strands of pieces and parts, and one of those is credibility.

Credibility is made up of two parts.

Part 1-Trustworthiness

• When I do business with your brand, will I get what you promised?
• When I do business with your brand, will I get what I expected?
• Will your brand deliver it within the price quoted or budget discussed?

Part 2-Expertise

• When I do business with your brand, do it possess the skill required to deliver the results?
• When I do business with your brand, will you deliver the value I expect?
• When I do business with your brand, will the results you deliver be the best possible?

These are just a very few of the questions to pose when analyzing the credibility portion of brand building potential.

It's a community, not a commune

More and more people over the age of 30 are discovering Social Media. Just last week a bunch of my high school friends all flocked to a post started by someone on their Facebook page about how they missed high school and all the things that went with it. Almost 50 of my old buddies posted memories, comments and jabs about the school, teachers and times. All of these people are over 40.

If you are over 40 and you mention "online community", be careful not to let your mind think of "communes" as they were in the 60's and 70's. Communes of these decades were typically counter-culture and hippie oriented.

An online community is a bunch of people interacting together. They interact via communication media such as newsletters, e-mail, IM and Social Media. Even though some of my friends had not seen me and maybe not even each other in over a decade or more, through our previous association, we were magically brought back together as an online community through the technology of Social Media.

Your Facebook friend roster is an online community, and if you are a user, you are part of all of their online communities. As Mr. Spock says, "Fascinating".

In online communities, some people stay low, preferring to be an observer, some are just beginning to engage and others are constantly adding value, while others are just adding while working out frustration of not being able to share before, they share too much, I guess we could call this ITMI (internet too much info).

Some people leave. Can you believe it? Some people will actually stop following you on Twitter or de-friend you on Facebook? Yes, they will. They are either annoyed or just disinterested. Hey, some people's interests change.Maybe the new wore off or they just don't want to make time for you anymore. They don't see the same value or participation in the community as you do.

As I told a client a while back, this is the way the world is going, will you go with it?

Communities are about connection.

A conversation leads to a connection and that connection is community.

Building Brand Requires Focus

What is at the absolute core of your business?

The prevailing cause of "brand rot" in a lot of businesses and organizations is a lack of focus. Focus on the true core of the DNA of that business. Jim Collins calls this "The Hedgehog Concept" in his book, Good to Great. This is made up of three questions:

1. What are you deeply passionate about?
2. What can you be the best in the world at? (and what you cannot)
3. What drives your economic engine?

For small business owners, I also like to ask them:

• What feelings do you experience (or would like to experience) connected with your business? and..
• How do you feel now at the end of every day?

These are just some of the questions connected with the razor focus or lack of razor focus that your business might be getting from you.

Several business problems lie at the heart of a lack of focus:

• Spread too thin
• No prospective customer can actually describe what you provide or who you are
• Too long throwing a lot of things at the wall to see what sticks
• Too much generalist and not enough specialist

In most businesses and organizations, the lack of focus cure can be painful to face, painful to execute, but for the long haul, profitable for sure.

Building Brand Problems for Small & Large Organizations

The benefits of long-term brand building are very similar for both small and large organizations, however some of the most common problems related to brand building are very different.

Most likely brand problems in small organizations:

• No background or skill level in developing a plan for the brand
• Lack of time
• No or little understanding of who is buying their products and services and for what reasons
• Lack of funds
• Little or no marketplace awareness of the brand

Most likely brand problems in large organizations:

• Market/Advertising position is no longer relevant, distinctive or compelling
• Marketing (and other dept) functions are not integrated
• The brand structure (if present) has become too complicated and unclear
• Current leadership doesn't have a clear and accurate view of what the brand position should be
• The brand identity standards and systems have fallen in use or are not measured and inspected anymore
• Organizational structure and bureaucracy work against an invigorated new brand position

Although these are the most common brand building problems, they are certainly not insurmountable. Building brand is an ingredient to staying in the balanced and predictable growth mode for organizations and business.

Brave Truth

This weekend I saw the movie "The Invention of Lying", which put an interesting twist on many apsects of life, including advertising. For comic effect the movie showed an advertisement that was ridiculously honest, and surely ineffective. But when it comes to real life advertising, what's wrong with telling the truth?

At the very basic level, honestly in your advertising means making sure you are who you say you are. If you typically don't wear a suit to work, don't put one on in your ads. If you don't get professionally made up every day to go to your store, don't do so for your commercials. Misrepresenting yourself in your ads will only cause customers to wonder what else you are misrepresenting.

To take it s step further, try telling the truth in your ads even about the downside of your product or service.How about an automotive repair shop that advertises, "we know the last thing you want to do is take your car into the shop for repairs." Or what about an employment ad that says, "working here is hard, and the hours are long. Not everyone can hack it." By speaking the truth in your ads and not ignoring the negative side (which, by the way, much of your audience is already thinking anyway), you will instantly build trust with your audience.

Be brave with your advertising. Speak to your customers with a voice of reality, and earn not only their business, but their respect.

Who are you?

It's an age-old question that's been asked for decades.....and it's a question definitely worth asking.

On the surface, it seems to be a fairly simple question to answer. On the other hand, people suffer through points in their life trying to figure out the answer to this short question.

Companies and organizations are no different.

Like people, they start out on one path and slowly gravitate to another. Some waver back and forth, never stabilizing to a steady path. Most start out declining, pick up momentum and incline before starting over the eventual hump where innovation and imagination are needed to start a new cycle.

During this process, some lose their focus and drift away from their original mission. Some gain focus and begin momentum toward the answer to the question.

I like to compare to movies. There's the exciting point in the movie where the main character discovers and announces who he/she is.

"I'm Batman"

"I am William Wallace"

"I am Neo"

Joaquin Phoenix as the evil Emperor says "Gladiator, reveal yourself" and Russell Crowe says "I am Maximus Decimus Meridius"

The same climactic thing happens when a company discovers and reveals who they are. Only then can they begin to enhance and strengthen the brand.

Who you are is a fundamental first step in establishing the entire brand building process. Think about it.

Who are you?

Really?

Balance

A dark, rainy day brings relief amid a stifling Midwest summer. A quiet night at home relaxes after a weekend of soirees and get-togethers. A home-cooked meal is most delicious after a busy week of restaurant dining.

Balance is what keeps us from becoming complacent.

It's the same with your brand. Remember that your brand is the total customer experience. If you neglect to change things up from time to time, your customer will start to take that experience for granted. And if you get in a rut, chances are the experience you're delivering will become stale, resulting in diminished execution.

Always look for new ways to wow your customers. Stay on top of the trends. Try something you've never tried. Do something retro.  Too much of a good thing will never retain its goodness. Seeking balance will keep you and your customers revitalized.

What is Intelligent Creative?

Our firm, Word Marketing uses the tagline Intelligent Creative, and we're often asked what exactly it means. That, in itself, is part of the reason for the tagline. It creates beyond status quo dialog.

As people who are regular readers of this blog, or are familiar with our company know, we are huge believers in strategy.

Unfortunately, many people choose an Advertising Agency or Marketing Firm based on simply how creative they are or at least, the perception of their creativity. We certainly have had clients based on that, as well. But saying creative defines an agency is like saying a logo defines a brand. It doesn't.

Don't get me wrong. I'm certainly not saying creative is not an essential element. It very much is.

I'm simply suggesting there is a world of difference between creative and Intelligent Creative.

There's a great line in one of the second season episodes of Mad Men, where Don Draper tells his copywriter, "stop writing for other writers". Intelligent Creative is not creative for the sake of creative. It's not art for the sake of art. It's not art for the refrigerator door. It's not writing for other writers.

Every thing we do at Word Marketing to produce Intelligent Creative, every design, every script, every print ad, every logo, every television ad--all of it must have a sound and reasonable strategy and rationale behind it. Creativity provides true value to the client only if it can send an effective message to the intended audience and has the potential to generate a positive return on investment.

We have our share of artistic, creative people. But, this is a business, not an art school.

Our job is to market products and services effectively, not only beautifully.

That is Intelligent Creative.  

Why Do You Need A Marketing Firm To Help With Brand?

The purpose of a marketing firm that focuses on brand is to maximize the impact of your marketing investment and drive up your company's total value.

I've yet to meet a CEO or leader who did not feel their job was to drive the growth and value of their company. These folks get this message on the importance of brand value right away.

The objective is to make your brand work the hardest it possibly can. This is because your brand is independent of the money you have available to support it. So the greatest single value to be gained from a marketing firm that focuses on brand is the best brand positioning and communications that your product or service can support on a sustainable basis.

Look at it this way, both you and your competitors have a marketing budget.

Your advertising and media agencies are there to make your money work as hard as it can. They can choose different media, or schedule the media differently, or have different advertising and packaging.

But no matter how hard they try, their ability to increase the power of your marketing investment is limited. This is because it is your brand that will most determine whether your prospect will choose your product or that of your competitor.

How is the brand so different and so important vis a vis your marketing budget? It's quite simple, really. You might say that your marketing investment is a means to deliver your brand into the minds of your prospects. But it is what the brand does in the hearts and minds of your prospects that will determine whether they become your customer, instead of someone else's.

A brand is the sum total of all user experience with a particular product or service, building both reputation and future benefit. It's an emotional trigger.

It's the meaning that your product or service can have in the lives of your prospects. The more meaningful, i.e., the more important the meaning it has, the more thoroughly it is entrenched in your prospects hearts and minds. This meaning is what is called positioning in the marketing profession.

Positioning is the specific location in the emotional and mental map of the prospects mind. If your brand's positioning has the highest emotional and mental ground in that map, it is much more likely to endear your product or service to your prospect.

So the brand is what is delivered into your prospects' hearts and minds, through your budget, and your other communications like promotions and packaging. These means can deliver a brand that works very hard for you, or it can deliver one that doesn't.

Brand is where the rubber of your efforts meet the road of your prospects hearts and minds, where their preference for your product or service is determined.

So, when evaluating or choosing a marketing firm that focuses on brand or an ad agency, you really have only one question. How powerful can they make my brand, so that it multiplies the power of everything else I do, like the media I choose, the scheduling pattern I use, the advertising I use, the promotions I use, and the packaging I use? More simply put, how much bang can they give to my marketing buck?

Some of you might be wondering, why do I need a marketing firm that focuses on branding at all? After all, my advertising agency says they do brand. Good question. But here's the answer.

And it is a very simple one.

Because only a branding firm focuses on brand. Your advertising agency must sell you the budget, they must sell you the media, they must sell you the scheduling plan, they must sell you the ad campaign, they must sell you the ads, the promotions and perhaps, even the packaging. And it's very easy for the brand to get lost among all these things they have to sell you.

But you might say, my ad agency doesn't charge me for any work they do for my brand. They cover it with the money they make from the advertising budget.

Good point.

Here's a question to consider. Do you want to risk the most powerful single point in your marketing effort, the only one that can make the difference between your million bucks working as hard as five million bucks - just to save a few hundred thousand bucks?

You get the point.

In a nutshell. You need a marketing firm that focuses on brand. 

It is your best way toward making sure you get the most bang out of your marketing investment and build brand value which equals company value increases.

So, you wanna do a Billboard?

Keep these billboard basics in mind.

* Keep the message simple! In fact, keep it so simple that someone could digest it with just a glance. The average viewing time of billboards is 7-10 seconds. Avoid ornate typeface and styles that are too thick or too thin. Remember that words crammed on a board can blur at a distance.

* No clutter! Is the image clear? Does the board have impact?

* Message. Remember: in outdoor advertising, less is more. Keep the copy to seven words or less, if possible.

* Location, location, location! Rate the locations on a scale of 1-10. A 10 board should be legible from a distance and get your message across in 7-10 seconds.

One Strength: The message is out there 24 hours a day.

One Weakness: Copy must be 10 words or less.

Remember, the strategy is not to have billboards (or any medium) the strategy should be to build brand value. You have to answer the why, before the what.