Brand Architect

When Brands Fail to Realize What They Have

I came across an interesting observation by consumer market researcher Robert Passikoff of Brand Keys who noted that “Kodak is going to stop doing what they were once the first to ever do. No, not produce Kodachrome. They stopped that 10 years ago. They’re stopping the manufacture of digital cameras.”

I didn’t know that Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975, but, as Passikoff notes, “because they had a 90% share of the US film market they relied on film and developing chemicals to make a living. Digital remained an afterthought.”

Well that afterthought has contributed substantially to their Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They won’t be the first brand not to realize what they have. Nor will they be the last.

The Stages of a PR Disaster

Tom Fishburne succinctly captures the failure of many brands to respond to a PR disaster in the cartoon above. Tom writes in his accompanying notes that:

“PR crises are nothing new. The field of crisis management originated with the environmental and industrial disasters of the 1980′s (Exxon Valdez, Tylenol). But they are more acute than ever thanks to social media. How a brand handles itself in a crisis is a far greater litmus test of what the brand stands for than any mission statement it writes or marketing plan it executes…

“Brand teams should spend time thinking about how they would handle a crisis, large or small. Marketers can’t plan for every single thing that could go wrong, but they should establish ground rules. And make sure that they have the right team in place. Waiting until a crisis happens is too late.”

Great cartoon, great insight, great advice.

Unilever Spends More on Ads, Less on Agencies

Unilever recently added to the writing on the wall for traditional advertising agencies when it announced that whilst it increased its marketing spend in 2011, it had cut spending on advertising agencies and production companies.

Speaking last week at Unilever's investor presentation, Ad Age reported CFO Jean-Marc Huet as saying, "We significantly reduced our non-productive spend during the year. As you know, that's the money we spend on production costs and agency fees, money that's not directly driving the exposure of our brands to the community and consumers."

Couple that with the decision late last year by South African retailer Woolworths to take its advertising account in-house and a clear message is that the value-add of agencies is being questioned.

Cutting-back agency spend in tough economic times is not new, but one gets the feeling that this time the clients’ intention is more long term and agencies need to redefine their value add for clients.

Creativity is an easy target for clients wishing to save money and the recession is making it easier. As retrenched creatives find themselves on the outside of agencies, clients are able to pick up excellent creative skills much cheaper than from an agency which leads to in-house agencies.

The move away from traditional agencies is, in part, also driven by a move towards more digital communication and the question whether the traditional structure of agencies is the best one to handle messaging in the social media arena.

Added to that, our own experience is that clients are also questioning the value of the traditional account planning service offered by advertising and creative agencies and are looking for more management-type consulting on how to position and manage their brands in tough market conditions.

Perhaps the combination of more strategic consulting, digital savvy and affordable creativity is the sweet spot that clients are looking for.

Brands as Content Curators

Much as been written recently about brands as publishers of content bypassing traditional publishers and creating their own communication channels primarily in the digital arena. Josh Sternberg writing in the DigiDay blog argues that some brands should consider themselves content curators instead of content creators. Josh writes:

“The problem is publishing is a lot harder than it looks, or rather it’s a lot harder to do it with the consistency, day after day, that’s needed to build a long-term audience. That’s leading some brands to hook onto the idea that their role lies more in the curation of content.

“Curation is the vogue digital term for the ability to not only aggregate and distribute carefully selected information, but also to provide a unique voice on top of the original pieces of information. In the age of Twitter and Facebook, it seems like all the world is curators now. Brands want in on the action…

“Publishing content in 2012 can be immensely complex or surprisingly simple, depending on your approach. Curation straddles the line. It can be difficult figuring out not only what tools to use, but also what platforms and, of course, what content to share. The plus side is that once you do figure out how you want to curate — how it becomes part of your broader communications strategy — it’s pretty easy to establish a voice…

“Brands need to be careful in not only what, but how much they curate. There can’t be articles that make the reader question why a brand is sharing it. Also, brands need to make sure they’re not just regurgitating content, but instead offering readers/followers valuable information, as readers will quickly determine the curated content — and thus the brand — is not worth their time.”

You can read the full article here.

What Brands Should Know About Their Consumers

trendwatching.com is a great resource for identifying emerging consumer trends garnered from their global network of hundreds of trend spotters. They have just released their latest report on consumer trends that brands should be aware of in 2012 and, as always, it makes for interesting reading. Below are some of the identified trends and the full report can be accessed here.

Red Carpet - In 2012, department stores, airlines, hotels, theme parks, museums, if not entire cities and nations around the world will roll out the red carpet for the new emperors, showering Chinese visitors and customers with tailored services and perks, and in general, lavish attention and respect.

Cash-less - Will coins and notes completely disappear in 2012? No. But a cashless future is (finally) upon us, as major players such as MasterCard and Google work to build a whole new eco-system of payments, rewards and offers around new mobile technologies.

Bottom of the Urban Pyramid - The majority of consumers live in cities, yet in much of the world city life is chaotic, cramped and often none too pleasant. However at the same time, the creativity and vibrancy of these aspiring consumers, means that the global opportunities for brands which cater to the hundreds of millions of lower-income Citysumers are unprecedented.

Screen Culture - Thanks to the continued explosion of touchscreen smartphones, tablets, and the 'cloud', 2012 will see a screen culture that is not only more pervasive, but more personal, more immersive and more interactive than ever.

Emerging Maturialism - While cultural differences will continue to shape consumer desires, middle-class and/or younger consumers in almost every market will embrace brands that push the boundaries. Expect frank, risqué or non-corporate products, services and campaigns from emerging markets to be on the rise in 2012.

Point & Know - Consumers are used to being able to find out just about anything that’s online or text-based, but 2012 will see instant visual information gratification brought into the real and visual world with objects and even people.

Between Analysis Paralysis and Costly Haste

Competent market research and analysis is vital, but in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments, too much research and analysis can be costly as Tom Fishburne demonstrates in his cartoon above.

Tom writes in the notes accompanying the cartoon that he is “a big believer in the power of market research when done well. But I’ve also experienced the purgatory of over-testing. Over-testing limits our ability to move quickly and delays getting our ideas into the real world.”

Whilst too much analysis can result in being late to market and missing opportunities, there is also a risk of rushing ill-defined and poorly-tested offerings to the market. Just ask a certain manufacturer of tablet devices.

At Sagacite we believe the answer lies in what we term rapid-adaptive strategies that start with brands garnering an understanding of the demands and drivers of their markets through ongoing processes such as scenario planning and then developing flexible strategies able to cope with a VUCA environment.

At the heart of rapid adaptive strategies is an open and flexible mindset, smaller steps, constant assessment, and the capacity change and adapt quickly. Not dissimilar to what Marc Pritchard, global marketing officer at P&G describes as a “do-learn” approach.

Mass Market Digital Trends

At the this time of the year, predictions for the upcoming year abound: some are good, some are obvious and some aren’t going to happen. Wayne Arnold, co-founder and global CEO of digital agency Profero, has put together a list of the top 10 digital trends for 2012 that he believes will go mass market. Arnold’s list falls in the good category of predictions and I have replicated five below that I particularly agree with. For the full list on Ad Age click here.

Inner Circle: We seek to mirror our social personals in the digital world. But so far, digital has forced us to bring together not only our social selves, but also our professional and familial ones, and present a single persona to everyone we keep in contact with online... Thanks to new filters on social networks, we can at last separate more easily and filter the people we know and decide with each post we share what portion of our friends will access it. Look for greater sophistication in filtering techniques on social networks over the next 12 months.

Personalized News: We currently create more information in a year than we ever have historically. Understandably, overwhelmed by the plethora of information online, people need ways to navigate relevant information and choose what to read. Already, RSS feeds and social networks facilitate the process through integration with news sites that allow users to generate passive status updates by posting content to the wall. Now, applications that sort content based on digital friendship are emerging. The result: social reading is the new standard in online content consumption.

Seamless Transactions: We're always demanding that our processes become more efficient, quicker and safer, especially when it comes to our bank account. We now carry at least one screen with us at all times. Forty percent of US consumers own a Smartphone, which has becomes so much more than a phone. Transactions are quickly becoming fully integrated with our screens in multiple ways, from paying with our phones to executing financial transactions. Expect to see additional shifts in how we conduct our banking and financial matters.

Location-Based Discovery: Seeing the same place through someone else's perspective enriches it with new meaning. We want to discover and share the hidden gems around us. Interactive websites and mobile social apps are helping us make creative archives on locations. We catalogue these discoveries and geo-tag them to participate in an evolving public portrait of a place, creating a collective multimedia experience

Control Over Data: Data has become an intricate part of our lives. We're now able to quantify all our digital actions and more services catering to specialized activities have emerged, from tracking our web history to monitoring a car's fuel consumption every inch of travel. We are becoming aware of the value of the data we share online, and may start making decisions differently – perhaps, charging for access to our data.

Social Media Snake Oil

Marketoonist Tom Fishburne is spot-on with this cartoon. In his cartoon notes, Tom speaks of how social media is moving beyond the undeliverable hype of a snake-oil salesman promise to science where more meaningful, measurable and successful social media interaction and marketing will emerge. “I like the idea that we are entering an age of science in social media. It will require thinking beyond the hype. That’s when the real magic happens”.

Brand Communication and Interaction in Your Palm

In case anyone needed convincing, brand communication and interaction is increasingly happening in the palm of the target audience’s hand. Recent research by Neilsen Mobile Insight into the South African mobile phone market shows just how important the mobile phone is. Some key findings:

-- 76% of adult South Africans use a mobile phone, up from 17% in 2000.

-- More consumers use a mobile phone (29m) than listen to radio (28m) or watch television (27m). To further underscore this statistic, only 6m South Africans use a PC and 5m used fixed line telephony.

-- SMS texting is the fastest growing medium of communication and is four times more popular than email messaging. Nearly 70% of people prefer sending a text message than making a mobile phone call.

I came across this research on Reg Lascaris’s Tuesday newsletter.

Brand Strategists Should be Accredited

I am at the forefront of brand consultants and strategists having to receive industry accreditation before being allowed to practice. Lawyers, accountants, architects, etc must and so should the people who charge for advising firms on the critical element of their business: their brand.

I have just read another puerile effort passed off as a brand strategy. The "brand strategy" included a meaningless SWOT analysis that contains nothing of substance; simplistic market research and analysis that offers no insight of any value; a vague and meaningless brand personality that shouldn’t even be in the document; and much statement of the obvious.

There is simply nothing of value in the document.

What makes me angry is that a company has spent money on this piece of drivel and had hoped it would guide their business and brand efforts going forward. They have wasted their money and no doubt have a significantly lower opinion of the brand strategy and consulting industry.

Refer to paragraph one.