Walk Softly and Carry a Big Brand
How building your brand helps you enter (or bulldoze your way into) new products, categories and geographies.
Why invest your brand? Especially a B2B brand? Because it pays off. Handsomely. Let’s look at Google, a brand worth $32 Billion in 2009 according to BusinessWeek. (Yes, that just the brand, not the hard assets. More on brand valuation in an upcoming Brand Valuation blog piece.) Google started off in 1998 as a search engine, competing with a slew of other search providers: Yahoo, Magellan, InfoSeek, AltaVista and a slew of other now irrelevant search brands. Yahoo is the only remaining search competitor worth mentioning, with 14% share of search as of 2/20/2010. That’s 14% compared to Google’s 78%. As a result, I believe, Yahoo decided to turn its brand and business ship toward “personalizing the internet experience” and away from pure search (watch for an upcoming blog on that soon).
Google’s stated mission from the outset was “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” and it has certainly succeeded. In pursuing that objective, the company held two beliefs they bet their life on: 1) “The user is in charge.” And 2.) “If users come, so will revenue.”
Both of those beliefs served to be right. Google quickly monetized their leadership in the space by starting AdWords, their flagship advertising product and main source of revenue ($23.7 Billion in 2009). And then used the power of their brand and reach to enter (or bulldoze into) new categories.
- Online productivity software, including email and documents (where Yahoo was the clear leader at the time, and still is: 3.8% share vs. 0.8%)
- Desktop apps (GoogleWave)
- The Chrome browser
- Picasa photo editing and organization
- GoogleTalk instant messaging
- SketchUp 3D modeling
- The incredible and comprehensive GoogleEarth
- And most recently, mobile phones and operating systems: Google Phone and Android.
I would suggest that these entries would have only a tenth of their current buzz and value if they were coming from an unknown brand, even if that unknown company were better qualified in the category.
So how can Google’s story help you with your business? The first thing it says is to set an inspiring and badly needed vision/mission for your business, however large or small it may be. Make sure people really want what you’re offering them. Then, become better at delivering it than your competitors, because they will try to copy you.
Then, build your brand:
Create a compelling promise that asserts your leadership
Design it beautifully verbally and visually
Work diligently to deliver on your promise. Emphasis on the word “work”. Brands don’t become great because of beautiful design or catchy phrasing. They become great because companies DELIVER great product and service experiences that live up to their brand promise: their cause, you might say.
If you let people down on your promise, you’ll be worse off.
Once you’ve delivered great experiences, you will have earned the right to branch into other categories and geographies. You’ll be afforded product and/or service trial (and even forgiveness if you stumble) where before, you wouldn’t even be considered.
Does this happen overnight? No. Does great branding replace great business strategy and value delivery? No. But it does take great companies to new heights. And gives them a huge club to walk around with.
What do YOU think?
Brand Hijacking
by Ray Baird, originally posted on GigaBrandBlog.com
Why are many brands unintentionally hijacked by their own people and strategies?
There have been many papers and books written on the importance of brand alignment, employee engagement, brand adoption, call it what you may. So, why do so many companies still suffer from poor employee morale, low retention, misalignment, performance fatigue and the inability to make good on their brand promise?
To answer the question, all you need to do is look at the typical business eco-system— its structure, interactions, systems and most importantly its accountability and philosophy. For the most part, business in America is built in a departmental fashion, and the larger the company becomes, the more susceptible it is to falling into a “Silo” mentality. Obviously, the “Silo” effect works against the principle of being aligned, collaborative and fully informed. When the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, they are left to their own interpretation and often both work against the brand’s best intentions.
Structure is the next problem. The biggest problem here is who is really in charge of pulling the entire picture together and reporting on its effectiveness. HR deals with internal issues, marketing controls brand, operations tries to deliver the goods and sales. So the problem is not only that “Silos” are not conducive to collaboration, but that structures typically are not built to orchestrate a bigger picture mentality and understanding of the customer experience, the internal experience and how it’s being perceived and delivered.
In addition, companies often fail to develop well thought out interactive/collaborative processes to foster “informative decision making” internally and externally. Yes, most companies have some loosely defined collaborative meeting structure but most don’t monitor the internal brand working relationship to the external delivery. Again, people and departments are left to make decisions without confirmation of alignment to the overall strategies.
One of the biggest disconnects we often experience is the division and disconnect of Marketing and HR. So often these departments work on their own strategies without coming together to fully agree and embrace how the communication content is generated and distributed. We find that successful companies and brands that co-develop strategies and shared systems experience greater unity and brand performance.
So, if you’re looking to increase the morale of your organization, improve retention, or better deliver on your customer experience and brand, here’s a few things to think about:
1. Have a holistic view. Don’t develop brand strategies as it relates to your brand experience strictly in a departmental fashion. Bring department leaders together to truly understand the internal/external workings of the brand. Develop a brand council comprised of your department leaders, to guide, instruct and monitor the internal and external brand experience.
2. Say NO to “Silos”. If this is an issue, break it down now, it will only get worse. Especially make sure Marketing and HR are collaborating in strategy and the development of monitoring metrics (and don’t leave out operations).
3. Continual innovative communication. I know it sounds obvious but people need to hear strategy over and over to get it. You must reinforce the importance of the organization to nurture and foster brilliant internal communication and to have external proof that the brand is performing to its intended standards.
If you follow these simple rules, you’ll reduce the chances of your brand being hijacked by its own people. But that’s my opinion, what’s yours?
Google: When brand values collide with business opportunity
by Ray Baird, originally posted on www.GigaBrandBlog.com
The ongoing news about Google potentially pulling out of the China market has stirred up some very interesting points of view as it relates to sticking to your brand values versus protecting your bottom line. If you read Google’s core principles you can see why so many people are keeping a close eye on their moves as it relates to pulling out of China. It’s not just about money, it’s about principle. It’s about their brand.
When you get a chance, check out the philosophy section of Google’s websitewww.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html, specifically the core principles that guide their actions. Basically they have 10 statements that clearly articulate their thoughts as it relates to conducting behavior and business. I’ve always liked the concept of “clarity” and “consistency” as it relates to a company’s action, but the challenge becomes staying true to what you believe in during tough or challenging circumstances and not bending or shaping the principle to work in your favor.
In the case of Google, they clearly state, “You can make money without doing evil”. Therein lies the dilemma. In January Google outed that the December attacks that hit 34 corporate firms originated in China. Bottom line, it’s all about censorship and privacy, and Google has publically threatened to withdraw its search engine business from the Peoples Republic for these practices. But will they?
Just last Friday at the TED conference, Google co-founder Sergey Brin stated, “I want to find a way to work within the Chinese system to bring information to the people”. Really, even if the government has no intention of stopping censorship or blocking certain sites? Needless to say, there is a fine line between staying true to your brand principles and protecting your brand reputation. Careful what you ask for? Employees, customers and prospects are very savvy and will not put up with posers in this day and age. Google must be very careful to walk the walk if they want to remain one of the most courageous and admired brands of the decade. But that’s’ just my opinion. What’s yours?
Time Warner’s naming twavails
by Alan Brew, originally published on www.namedroppings.com
When it comes to name changes, the Time Warner organization has had its share of unfortunate events.
The merger with AOL produced the misbegotten AOL Time Warner for a brief period before Time Warner executives regained their composure senses and dropped AOL from the corporate name. In this case the name was the least of Time Warner’s problems, however unlovely and humiliating it may have been. Its offspring, Time Warner Telecom, made much heavier weather of its naming challenge.
Time Warner Telecom was created in 1993 by Time Warner Cable, a division of Time Warner, and was spun it off as its own company in 1997. A licensing agreement with Time Warner allowed the carrier to use the Time Warner name until July 2006. As the deadline approached the company sought a 12 month extension of the license and undertook a rebranding program with a San Francisco firm. It came up with the interesting name of Avid Networks. It was too interesting for Avid Technology, a maker of sound-and video-editing systems. It sued to block Time Warner Telecom from using the name.
After an initial round of legal sabre-rattling in which the carrier told Avid it “could consent of fight” Time Warner Telecom backed off to rethink and extended its licensing agreement, for a second time, to June 30, 2008.
Whatever happened behind the scenes in the meantime, the company finally changed its name to the safe and anti-climactic TW Telecom on July 1, 2008. “TW Telecom is familiar; it is stable; it is consistent; it is clear, concise and focused — it is who we are,” said Larissa Herda, company CEO, president and chairwoman. Or as the company said on it’s website to reinforce the non-change – “Twied and twue. Same twadition of service. And we are not changing a thing. Twust us”.
Part of the proclaimed logic of the Time Warner Telecom name change was to avoid confusion with Time Warner Cable, which has also been spun-off by Time Warner. Both offer Internet and data services to small and medium businesses. And in some places, the two compete in the business data transport market. Now we hear that Time Warner Cable is also considering a new name although it is under no apparent licensing pressure to do so. It has reportedly launched “Project Mercury”, in an initiative to rename itself sometime during 2010.
No doubt the Project Mercury team will do its due diligence to avoid an Avid situation when recommending a new name to the CEO.
TW Cable anyone?
What are the leading indicators of B2B brand success?
By Ray Baird, RiechesBaird
Do you know what predicts your brand’s success? Most marketing metrics only measure what has happened, using what could be called “lagging indicators.” But imagine the effectiveness of your marketing program if you could identify the “leading indicators” for your brand—the activities, buyer behaviors, and measurements that actually lead to sales and profits.
Progressive marketers and their agencies are exploring this brave new frontier. Instead of just looking in the rear view mirror at historical measurements like sales and market share, they are attempting to look ahead at predictive measures that are the actual precursors of business success. Most “leading indicators” never appear on a financial statement, but they can—and should—be identified, tested, and tracked.
| Lagging Indicators Are: | Leading Indicators Are: |
| Diagnostic | Predictive |
| Backward-looking | Forward-looking |
| Transactional | Attitudinal and behavioral |
| A measurement | A measurement tied to a hypothesis |
Identifying the real causes of brand health is vital to successful brand management. For example, most brands with call centers, which includes a lot of B2B brands, commonly measure such things as time on hold and minutes per call. But these metrics don’t measure or predict real customer satisfaction. Research by Convergys shows that customer satisfaction is predicted by two things: 1) Is the customer service representative knowledgeable? and 2) Is the problem resolved on the first call? (Convergys 2008 U.S. Customer Scorecard)
An important difference
Lagging indicators are simply a measurement. Leading indicators are
Adding UGC to B2B and turning communication into sales
By Jimbeau Andrews, as part of the Guest Blogger Series
At the heart of Social Media are Communities (SMC’s) that facilitate B2B communication in unique ways. B2B marketers that tap into powerful SMC groups can enhance their brand marketing objectives, establish Word of Mouth brand rapport and facilitate the resale of their client products. Social Media embodies the very spirit of B2B marketing by utilizing partner platforms to proliferate the use of their own products and in the process establishing a new virtual retail frontier. Read More »
B2B branding: symbolism versus substance
By Dean Crutchfield, as part of the Guest Blogger Series
Brand is not marketing: It’s about who you are. The role of business is to create customers through marketing and innovation, but customers have often lost out in the relentless push to maximize shareholder value. As Neutron Jack (Welch) would tell you, “Shareholder value is a result not a strategy. Your main constituencies are your employees, products and customers.”
Whether it’s a Business-to-Business (B2B) or a Business-to-Consumer (B2C) brand, it’s all about Business-to-People (B2P if you like). So as we reap the grim harvest of imprudent lending amidst insider dealing, bankruptcy, accusation, claim and counter claim, Read More »
Solar energy: commodity or branding opportunity?
By Marc Cortez, as part of the Guest Blogger Series
Spend any night waiting in line at Disneyland’s Adventure Ride and you’ll hear the usual stories of exploration, fame, and all those in search of treasures at the end of the rainbow. Standing in line this past Tuesday, however, those rainbows were turned up towards the sky, or more specifically, towards the sun.
Ah yes, the solar industry convention is in town.
Certainly solar energy’s time has come. Five years ago this event, the solar industry’s largest national convention, was held in a San Francisco office park atrium. Those of us who participated in that event—held, ironically, during a weeklong driving rainstorm—were giddy that we attracted over 3,000 people to our booths to discuss solar energy. In contrast, this year’s event filled two Anaheim Convention Center halls, attracted over 25,000 people, and occurred during the same week that President Obama announced over $200M of funded solar projects. With everyone talking about solar energy, it’s become mainstream, hasn’t it?
Well, sort of. Read More »
What are B2B companies really buying from their agencies?
By Tim Williams, as part of the Guest Blogger Series
It surprises most agency professionals to learn that many marketers—both consumer and B2B—are intensely interested in exploring a value-based compensation arrangement in place of the traditional hourly rate. A recent position paper from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) states it clearly: “Traditional metrics used in today’s cost-plus compensation agreements (usually based on time) have no relationship with the external value created for the client in today’s intellectual capital economy. Therefore, pricing should instead be based on results and value created.”
In forward-thinking companies across the country, Read More »
CSR value for B2B brands
By Sasha Strauss, as part of the Guest Blogger Series
Is there value in developing a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program for a business to business organization? Absolutely.
It is clear that CSR activities can have a tremendous impact on brand image. Yet, when poorly executed, they can give clients the impression that a company’s efforts aren’t only inauthentic, but a brand promotion ploy. Without understanding and addressing the elements needed to create a natural connection between CSR actions and their host brand, activities could actually backfire and cause identity damage.
So what is required to prevent a CSR initiative from being a “me too”? Read More »