Word Marketing Blog

Word of the Year 2009

Words are powerful.

They are communication containers of thoughts and feelings.Rudyard Kipling said that "words are the most powerful drug ever used by mankind."

I was reading a book on culture night before last and the author had a list of things which contribute to the establishment, culture and maintenance of a nation. These characteristics must be established and maintained for a nation to be maintained. His list is:

• Land and Territory
• Culture (Ideals)
• Values (standards the people live to)
• Language (common form of communication)

Language creates national unity. Language is the arranging of the communication containers we call words into streams of discernible ideas. Words and language are constantly evolving and changing. Over time, we manipulate the words and alter the language. Periods of history and events contribute to this also. "Gotta give props to you" would mean nothing to the person living in the 1940's. Why? Because "gotta give props to you is created in the future." Slang from the 1940's makes sense to us today. Words like "gobbledegook", "city slicker", "easy money", and "old hat" are common to us now because they were created in the past.

Our world is changing constantly as new technologies and forms of communication are being invented and utilized. In 2004, the word of the year was "blog".Last year, it was "overshare". Facebook has changed us in ways we won;t understand for a few years. Social media is having a tremendous impact on our lives. Some embrace it, some shun it, some are in denial.

The word of the year for this year according to Merriam-Webster? "Unfriend". The act of deleting or removing someone as a friend on a social networking site such as Facebook. Also in the running were "netbook", "hashtag" and "sexting".

Welcome to our language, "unfriend".

Isn't that an oxymoron?

 

Christmas Cards

One of my favorite Christmas memories revolves around Christmas cards.

Both of my Grandmothers had houses which contained large ornate wood door facings when entering what we called the "living room". Each year, all of the door facings were decorated from top to bottom all around the large opening scotch-taped with Christmas cards they had received from friends and family.

It was a definite tradition each year.

The first Christmas card was made by Sir Henry Cole in 1843 in London and President Dwight Eisenhower issued the first official White House Christmas card in in 1953.

During the Great Depression, many families sent homemade cards and I can remember family members doing this in my lifetime as well.

Some people forgo the Christmas card and instead send a Christmas letter, which details all the happenings in their family over the previous year and to relay messages of thanks and blessing.

Either way, Christmas cards and letters not only convey a message of appreciation, but also reflect your brand, whether business or personal. Besides being an intimate and effective branding tool, I, for one would like to see this tradition continued and if possible, increased this year. Convey a message of positivity and hope. Sometimes, just the encouragement of such a note could make a huge difference in someone's holiday and could launch them into en entirely different and more productive mindset for 2010.

Make your Christmas card/letter list, check it twice, maybe send to more that have been naughty than nice? Naughty people need love too. Love conquers all.

WKRP

OK....my day is made.

I just heard that WKRP in Cincinnati's first season is going to be released on DVD on April 3rd.

I've worked at many a media company in my time, and I've worked with each of the characters from WKRP in different incarnations.

The news guy, the sales guy, the receptionist, the program director, the djs, the intern and of course, the general manager and owner.

it's possible that this show is not as funny if you haven't worked in the media, but if you have, it's hilarious. When Arthur Carlson, the general manager utters those famous words, "As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!" You know some manager you've worked with in the media who has said something similar in a similar situation.

Yep, Johnny Fever, Venus Flytrap, Les Nessman, Jennifer, Bailey, Mr Carlson, Momma Carlson and Andy are all coming to DVD on April 3rd.

When they are putting together the jingle and commercial for the funeral home...well...we just might play that in the office every day!

PS3 vs Xbox

This past Christmas, I heard a lot more about buying the latest Xbox from Microsoft than I did about Sony's Play Station 3. At least from parents I know who were buying for their kids.

However, MCV is reporting that sales of Sony's PS3 have surpassed those of Microsoft's Xbox 360 in Japan. Microsoft has sold some 180,000 Xboxs in the past year with Sony having sold some 190,000 PS3s.

Nintendo has the commanding lead in the Japanese gaming market selling 400,000 in the first week of availability.

The Santa Brand

What would the Christmas season be without Santa Claus?

Santa Claus has definitely achieved the highest level of brand recognition in the brand building universe.

The smashable brand. How is this defined? We define it as being able to take the brand, then smash it into multiple pieces, and still have the brand be recognizable.

Santa is a gift-giving icon of the Christmas season who distributes presents to sleeping children and parents who have demonstrated "good" behavior all year long. Traditionally, Santa makes his distribution rounds on the night of Christmas Eve, December 24th.

The popular American name of Santa Claus is actually a mispronunciation of the Dutch word Sinterklass, which is a contracted form of Sint Nicolass (Saint Nicholas). Santa Claus is an evolution of an icon that has evolved down through history from an earlier folk tale concerning Father Christmas.

Some of the other iconic symbols that surround Santa Claus are his laugh (HO HO HO), his reindeer (Rudolph, Dancer, Prancer, Dasher, Donner, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, and Blitzen), writing Santa a letter to the North Pole and spotting him on the radar by various weathermen on Christmas Eve as his flying reindeer navigate the globe pulling his sleigh full of gifts.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created for Montgomery Ward department store chain in 1939 and has since entered the public consciousness as Santa's ninth and lead reindeer because of his shiny red illuminated nose to guide the sleigh through rough weather. I dare say most have seen the cartoon version where Rudolph is called on to save Christmas and have sung the popular song at this time of year. Rudolph debuted on television in 1964 on the NBC network. Rudolph certainly is one the most powerful marketing creations to have been conceived as a brand extension of Santa.

Actually there is even a NORAD Santa tracking website which tracks Santa every Christmas Eve with the same equipment that tracks aircraft entering American airspace.

The Santa Brand is truly smashable. If you smashed the brand into many pieces, you'd find reindeer, sleighs, jingle bells, candy canes, the North Pole, gifts, a white beard, a red suit, a giant bag with gifts protruding from it all which contribute to the Santa Claus brand. In each of these separate icons, Santa is still brought to mind.

In fact, marketing, to a great degree has created the Santa Claus we know today. If you only said the words, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!", what would be your visual image?

Santa Claus flying into the night.

Congratulations to you, Santa, of being an icon that marketing has created to bring joy to millions again this Holiday Season.

It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's The Superman Brand

Last week one of the most popular DVD's for the Christmas shopping season was released.

Superman Returns.

In addition, a whole plethora of Superman DVD product was released last week to ride on the coat-tails of the Super Holiday Madness. The Ultimate Superman Collection. The final season of George Reeves' Superman TV show, Adventures of Lois and Clark, they even released the old Superman movie serials from the 40's to DVD.

Superman is a brand.

It's a 74 year old institutional brand and one of the most popular comic and movie heroes of all time. When you think about it, Clark Kent and Superman really don't look all that dissimilar, do they? The black rimmed glasses are part of the brand.

Almost everyone knows the Superman mythos, he was rocket to Earth as a child when his father, Jor-El discovered that his own planet, Krypton, was dying. The rocket is found on Earth by Johnathan and Martha Kent, who re-name the baby Clark, and raise him as their own son in the town of Smallville. As he grows, he learns that he has super abilities, which he resolves to use to helps others. He adopts a costume, then later moves to the bigger city of Metropolis to fight crime while taking a job as a reporter at the Daily Planet. Clark develops many friends and enemies including Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Lex Luthor and Brainiac.

The Man of Steel was the creation of Joel Schuster and Jerry Siegel. He was first created in a short story they wrote and appeared in a magazine that Siegel published. The Superman we know today first appeared in a comic book (Action Comics #1) in 1938. Since then, he has gone on to fight crime in comics, books, magazines, television, movies and countless premium materials such as lunch boxes, notebooks, coffee mugs, the incarnations are endless.

Superboy (Superman as a teenager), Lana Lang (his high school girlfriend), Krypto (his super dog) and Supergirl (his super cousin) are all part of the brand as well.

Is the Superman brand smashable?

In other words, if we smashed the brand into a bunch of pieces, would you still be able to recognize it?

Absolutely it is, in fact, it's been smashed many times.

The television show Smallville is an example. It's not really Superman, but it's definitely the brand. There are enough pieces of the brand to make it recognizable without being the brand itself.

Imagine some blue tights, a red cape and some black rimmed glasses spread out on the floor. What would you think of?

Superman

What about a dark-haired lady holding some red briefs with just a bit of a yellow "S" showing?

Superman

How smashable is your brand? What parts of your business are uniquely recognizable? Do you need 10 minutes to convey the essence of what you do or can I "get it" in just 30 seconds?

We can help.

Fast Thinking

This morning on Fox and Friends on the Fox News Network, there were two models on the show from Victoria's Secret to promote their fashion show tomorrow night.

1. When you pay someone to represent your brand, you need to have confidence that they can represent you well even when put on the spot.
2. Who says Supermodels aren't smart?

So, Brian asks the question, "Now that Britney Spears is going around with no underwear, do you think this is a trend and will hurt Victoria's Secret underwear sales?"

Ah, the moment of truth. What would you have said?

Without even as much as a blink, the response came.

"Sounds like Britney needs to do some shopping. If she needs tickets to the fashion show, we're happy to oblige! Come on over!"

Nice job, ladies.

Just another reason they get paid the big bucks.

The Bond Brand

He started as a literary character in 1952 from the mind of Ian Fleming.

He was made famous before we ever actually saw him. For a decade, he was shaped in our minds before he was created in front of our very eyes.

He was given a try on television in 1954 and on radio in 1956.

He was crystallized by Sean Connery on the movie screen in 1962. This was the first time we actually saw him culminated for the first time. For many, we haven't really seen him since Mr. Connery stopped being his likeness.

However, since 1952 James Bond has become a brand.

The logo, the song, the girls, the martinis, the cars, the villains, the boss M, plus the man himself all make up a complex series of components called the James Bond brand.

When you go to a James Bond movie, you know there will be some sharp horn blasts to the Bond theme with the familiar gun barrel sequence.

Next comes an action packed opening action event, followed by a great theme song by the pop star of the day (whether it's Shirley Bassey, Paul McCartney, Madonna, etc...) then you are launched into the adventure itself including chases, explosions, femme fetales, villains wanting world domination.

We've been through 21 official movie versions of Bond and 2 unofficial ones. The official movie versions are supposed to be the ones done by Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman's EON production company. The latest actor to play James Bond is our eighth incarnation, including Barry Nelson and David Niven in little known versions. Even though Pierce Brosnan made a strong impression, Sean Connery is still the iconic vision of James Bond.

The Bond Brand represents a truly smashable brand. If you took the elements of James Bond and smashed them into pieces, it would still be recognizable. Martinis are identifiable with Bond. Tuxedos in a casino are identifiable with Bond. Fast cars are identifiable with Bond, Aston Martin in particular. Since Ursula Andress came out of the ocean in that white bikini, girls in bikinis have been associated with Bond.

These pieces assembled become the Bond matrix that we've seen in 21 movies in a row. The formula has not deviated much in 44 years, yet, we still go to see the latest version of these pieces put together in it's latest title which today is "Casino Royale".

Ann Marie says that James Bond shouldn't be blond. That's because Sean Connery will always be Bond to her. Does changing Bond's hair color hurt the franchise? No, because it's just a piece of the whole brand. In Casino Royale, they are re-starting the franchise, picking up on some back-story of James Bond, rather than trying to change him into Jason Bourne. Personally, I think that's a smart move. James Bond is James Bond. He's not Jason Bourne. Just as Jason Bourne is not James Bond. Bourne is a brand that is bring built. Bond is a brand that has to be maintained. The question is, will Daniel Craig be able to maintain the Bond brand?

The past incarnations of George Lazenby, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton suggest he will. Because Bond is not an actor. Bond is, well, Bond.

James Bond is the second most successful movie franchise after Star Wars. Even though we can predict 90% of what's going to happen in the latest version, we still go. Why? Because the Bond Brand is part of our lives. It's multi-generational. It's multi-dimensional. It's timeless.

Well done, Mr.Bond.

Lost Premiere

Tonight's the night that we find out the next installment of what will happen to the passengers of Oceanic flight 815, who crashed on a seemingly deserted tropical island. It wasn't long before we found that the survivors of the crash were not actually alone, in addition to a wandering guerrilla fighting french woman, there were also a group of people known only as "The Others" and a guy who was stationed in an underground hatch who has to push a button to reset a timer every 108 minutes or who knows what the heck will happen according to a video found in the hatch.

At the end of last season, the two main story lines climaxed with the main triumvirate of characters known as Jack, Kate & Sawyer were being held captive by "The Others" and the timer running all the way down and a brilliant flash of light covering the island with an ear-splitting sound. What does all this mean? We will hopefully find out more details tonight, but the way the show goes, it will only open up more questions while answering a mere few.

Folks who want to be better writers would do well to take note of this show. The character development is awesome, although some people complain that the show is hard to follow without knowing all the back story, I couldn't argue with that as the show is constantly revealing more of itself though "flashbacks" telling stories about the characters prior to the plane crash. A quick look at one of the fan sites on the Internet or a weekend with the previously released DVD sets will catch you up.

Oh, and also, advertising can be this compelling as well, it just takes a lot of work!