18 posts tagged “brand”

[Cross-posted] I was reading Karl Rove’s commentary on Sarah Palin today and he hit upon a few things I agree with (you read that correctly).

McCain–Palin must deepen those doubts by pounding away on questions about Obama’s character, judgment and values. Drawing on Obama’s own record and statements, they need to paint him as a big spender, class warrior and cultural elitist; they need to say he’s never worked across party lines or gotten his hands dirty solving big issues. But the duo must also give voters reasons to support them. They must crystallize a positive, forward-looking vision so people who see Obama as unqualified have something to hang on to. It can’t be a laundry list of positions. McCain–Palin must offer a narrative about what they will do to help America see better days, especially on kitchen-table concerns.

   This is a lesson that comes up in branding, a lot.
   One of the necessary things we branding consultants always talk about is story-telling. There have to be legends in the company, things that become company folklore. The Murdoch Press has plenty of stories to tell, for example, about how one of its newspapers ran a piece about Elvis, coincidentally on the story of the King’s death. I still talk about the way the Lucire name came up, which probably paints to the way serendipity works inside an organization. TV3 probably has one on John Campbell’s tie.
   Stories unite people, and Rove’s belief that the McCain campaign must give a ‘forward-looking vision’ and a ‘narrative’ come straight out of a branding book. Maybe one of mine.
   Vision is important, and there have been other posts on that. But an easily grasped narrative goes beyond slogans. While the stories I refer to above come from the past, in an election campaign, candidates need to paint one about the future. We know the McCain legend of being a POW; we know Palin paints herself as a hockey mom. These form the background, but people need to buy into the sequel.
   Especially when one campaign is less well off than another. The Republicans are being outspent by the Democrats, so a consistent, continuous story about how the McCain–Palin principles will, in short soundbites, rescue America can have a great effect against their opponents.
   Big spending allows for promotions around the cult of personality; small spending needs cleverer ideas and stories are one of the better techniques open to supporting a brand.

Thanks to the hard work of my fellow director Patrick Harris, the Medinge Foundation Ltd. has been incorporated in England and Wales. Through this we hope to continue the work of the Medinge Group and, in particular, its commercial arm in brand consulting. More official news from CEO Stanley Moss in time.

[Cross-posted] I didn’t do as much witness work for my legal clients during 2005–6 and I was interested to see from a former client a letter from a large New Zealand law firm’s partner. I won’t reveal any specific information, of course, but let’s say it’s from a firm I did have some dealings against in the 1990s and I considered their statement of defence pretty amateur. I have considered their marketing to be very amateur, too—all style and no substance.
   Or perhaps their brand or marketing consultant actually did a perfect job—they expressed the firm honestly and accurately.
   The letter, with all the Our refs and jargon, lacks a salutation. There is no Dear or even an Attention: it launches straight in to the correspondence.
   This may be very nice for text messaging but it has no place in what is considered acceptable commercial correspondence.
   Perhaps once texting, or some evolution of it, becomes the dominant form of communication—which places us roughly between grunting and Morse code—then business correspondence may evolve toward the demise of the salutation.
   Until then, this merely illustrates the arrogance of the legal profession and how it has fallen even further out of step with its clientèle.
   Lawyers need to remember they represent certain parties and that those parties—the ones that pay their bills—have brands that need to be protected, not destroyed through callousness.
   The effects on culture are wide-reaching. Imagine singing the song ‘Dear John’ without the words Dear John. It kind of sucks with the lyric-free bits in the verses.
   How about answering a phone without a ‘Hello’?
   When I relayed this to one regular client, a practising attorney who is around my age, he was surprised. He has received such letters, too, but he agrees with me on this topic.
   There is what some people call a simplified letter, where there may be no salutation and the words Attention: Dispatch Department (for instance) may take its place. These are acceptable—just—when the recipient is unlikely to be known by the writer, but I have always adopted a Ladies and Gentlemen in such cases.
   I realize that the niceties of I remain or even Your loyal and humble servant have disappeared in New Zealand but this development of the missing salutation is worrisome.
   At best it is disrespectful to the recipient, which may be what the law firm wanted to convey—but disrespecting others is merely a sign of an absence of self-respect, showing that the firm itself is without merit.
   Yet the writer of this letter has not forgotten his valediction—I imagine he has retained it because that way he can put his own name down the bottom and see it in print.
   After all, with no salutation, surely there is no need for a valediction? My most casual emails, where I am firing off an internal memo or a quick response to some people, do lack both. I simply end the text with an em dash and my initials and I encourage some members of my team to do the same.
   Commerce does not function with people acting selfishly. It only works with mutual respect—and that includes people who may disagree with one another.
   So, for all those who have forgotten the components of an acceptable letter in modern business practice, here is a link. It is not geared to a general audience, nor do I agree with all of it, but following its components will certainly present a letter which hide how years of law school and legal practice have failed various members of the profession.

My Ferrari article, which I wrote for my friend and colleague Nicholas Ind for his Living the Brand website, is now up.

http://www.livingthebrand.com/USER/Ferrari_.html?CompID=2&pageId=18&componentContentID=5

   It’s trying to explain why the Ferrari brand is strong—I focused on the legends and story-telling aspects.

[Cross-posted] H&M has been collaborating with top labels such as Stella McCartney and Roberto Cavalli for a while, and now, Adidas has launched its co-branded line with Diesel. Last year, we checked out the Diesel fragrances, and we’ve covered the jeans for ages, so this does seem to be the brand’s period in the Zeitgeist.
   Sold via Adidas Originals stores, the spring–summer Originals Denim by Diesel range includes two male and two female models presented in four different washes, beginning this month. Prices range from US$160 for the female Adi-rohnary model up to US$210 for the male Adi-viker model. Representing this long-term partnership, the range is branded by both the Adidas Originals Trefoil and the Diesel logo.
   Below are videos from the launch party in New York, and interviews with Diesel’s Renzo Rosso and Adidas’ Sport Style division CMO Hermann Deininger.

My comment on the Journeyman Blog today:

Mike, you are being generous. I’m no longer going to watch American serials that don’t have self-contained episodes as my “default” position, making exceptions for presently unforeseeable situations. I feel that strongly about Journeyman.
   Journeyman was an exception, but I have managed to stay away from all the other so-called hits with “story arcs” anyway (Lost, Heroes, The Nine, Traveler, Prison Break, 24, etc.).
   Like you, I was a Day Break fan and we managed to get, fortunately, all 13 episodes networked here (albeit at a really sucky time). I gave Journeyman a chance on the strength of a fabulous pilot but now, if I hear ‘Made in USA’ along with ‘story arc’, I just won’t bother.

   This cannot be good for the US TV industry, but if it has morons running the networks, then what can it expect? Journeyman was the last straw, especially as I tracked how the show unfolded and how inept NBC had been. This isn’t the first series that I have followed that was cancelled prematurely—but after so many of these, where American networks cannot understand that loyalty to the network brand also depends on overall product quality, I am just fed up.
   This is the Ford Taurus syndrome. The story is this: the Taurus was a huge hit for Ford. Instead of continual improvement, Ford opted to abandon the Taurus, letting it get trampled by the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, when the SUV boom happened. Toyota and Honda, instead, kept improving their sedans and developed SUVs. By 2006, the Taurus was a joke, sold to rental car fleets. It was only for the 2007 model year that Ford transferred the Taurus name on to its Five Hundred. By that time, Ford lost a lot of customers to the Japanese and there are people who felt their loyalty had been thrown into their face.
   It also had the Ford Contour in the US, which the company refused to market properly, probably because it had been co-developed with its European branch. The claim was that Americans were not interested in the CD-sized market that the Contour occupied. Reality: Dearborn probably wanted to cover its own butt by saying, ‘We are not taking this European stuff because we have to sell domestically designed.’ It’s perhaps all political. Meanwhile, Americans were buying the same-sized car from BMW and Mercedes. Buyers just kept going foreign.
   Ford’s latest refusal to sell the German-designed C307 Focus, and instead facelift the older model for American buyers, is yet another example. Now the Focus is getting trampled by the Honda Civic, and the next Toyota Corolla will beat it even more. History keeps repeating there at Ford.
   In other words, Ford thinks Americans are dumb Yanks.
   NBC has combined these moves, but really, every network is guilty of this. While Journeyman was not a huge hit, NBC knows its poor scheduling and non-existent promotion are to blame. Instead of allowing an audience to build (the numbers were growing), it decided to interrupt Journeyman’s schedule just as the show found its legs. It had a quality product which it intended to kill. And in the meantime, viewers are feeling that the networks are not listening. They will happily go to cable, DVDs and other services. NBC’s remaining offerings—dumbed-down reality fare—will be like the 2005 Ford Taurus.
   In other words, the US networks think Americans are dumb Yanks. 
   No, foreigners do not think Americans are dumb because of George W. Bush. Foreigners think Americans are dumb because that is how American corporations treat American citizens, by making decisions that disrespect the American consumer’s intelligence. Foreigners then make an erroneous presumption that that is what consumers have asked for—when in fact most Americans are as upset about the strange corporate decisions that take place.
   As television globalizes—and it will—the US networks will be like Ford, where perceived quality and loyalty will no longer be there.
   Bad moves against quality products do affect the overall parent brand—something that even brand consultants need to remember.
   And, sadly, the parent brand’s image can often be tied to the national one.

I thought communists were more in to revisionist history than democratic governments. From the Fairfax Press:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4316159a12.html

   I am glad I got to the Republic of China to see the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial before this sort of government-sanctioned vandalism happened.
   The Democratic Progressive Party, indeed. Bit like the German Democratic Republic.
   I can’t speak for those inside the Republic but I would say that the majority of overseas Chinese will react similarly to me. Gen Chiang was not Franco or Stalin.
   The DPP calls Chiang’s Kuomingtang (KMT) repressive. I assume they have romantic notions of what was happening across the Taiwan Strait after 1949—or, for that matter, during the Sino–Japanese War.
   I am not exaggerating: in my time in Taiwan in November I met intelligent people who held beliefs that life was better under Japan than under the KMT, conveniently ignoring massacres such as the Rape of Nanking where hundreds of thousands were slaughtered.
   However, I accept that their positive ideas stem from the fact that some Japanese officials in Formosa did try to be good governors of the island.
   Back then, however, we weren’t talking about two Chinas. When 9-11 happened, it’s not as though Californians were cheery because they were comfortable, while the Twin Towers fell in New York.
   While the KMT did its share of demolishing memorials of Japanese colonialism after the war, it doesn’t make it right.
   My main view is that those of us outside need to respect the wishes of those within who participate in the Republic’s democracy. All we can realistically do from faraway keyboards is create a bit of noise when we are upset, just as we might with the War on Terror or other international matters.
   The Republic’s government also needs to know that this act insults those of us who hope that all of China will be ruled by a free and democratic republic, and whose families left because we did not believe such a China could exist under the Reds.
   Our hope was placed in the last free part of China that remained, that part in exile in Taiwan.
   Sadly, we are not voters in Republican elections. Only the inhabitants of Taiwan are.
   What now? Will a portrait of Mao be erected?
   One wishes that the DPP recognizes that it would not even exist without Chiang and the remnants of the Republican government in exile in Taiwan, but this latest incident suggests it does not.
   From an overseas Chinese view, it’s seen as an acceptance by Taipei that the Communist Party is correct across the Taiwan Strait, doing its work to erase memories that the Chinese people can have freedom.
   Indirectly, this is a slap in the face of the June 4, 1989 protesters in Tiananmen Square.
   Rebranding is something to be done carefully, more so when it comes to national monuments and symbols of national identity. Rebrands are meant to unite, not divide.
   Calling the Memorial the Democracy Memorial Hall sounds well and good on the surface—but divisions and the months of protest suggest the movement is foolhardy.
   For me, there was nothing wrong with calling it by its new name officially, while leaving the traditional lettering honouring Chiang Kai-shek’s memory intact. It was a suitable compromise and a recognition of history. It also reminds people of the freedom that Taiwan enjoys and the setting for its prosperity. Freedom, tolerance and open-mindedness are what separate it from Red China—which is still a dangerous place to visit or invest in, at least without high-level official help.
   Years after the American Civil War, there are still states (Louisiana and Tennessee) that call a certain holiday Confederate Memorial Day—and that does not seem to have harmed the Union.
   So what harm is there to retain the Chiang Kai-shek name in the interests of national unity on the island? Does the DPP seriously prefer disuniting Chinese people?
   At best, this was an ill thought through development.
   At worst, this was a desecration and an affront to traditional Chinese beliefs that memorials to the dead should be respected.
   Talk of independence or a two-China system is dangerous. It would be easy for the Politburo in Beijing to raise its voice—without even threatening violence—and Taipei can watch its stock market index fall. And I would hate to see any of my people suffer once again.
   Part of Taiwan might not know of Maoist suffering under the Reds, but I would never wish for any Taiwanese to be directly reminded of it.
   Beijing itself should not cheer at this latest development at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall as it sets the stage for separatism. During 2008, with worldwide attention focused on the Olympiad, the separatist movement might think it could get away with more mischief than usual.

I know Gov Schwarzenegger divides opinions, but I was interested to read this in the Mercury today:

Schwarzenegger recently proposed distilling the state GOP platform—the party's statement of core values—into as little as a single page focusing on lowering taxes, limiting the size of government and building a strong national defense. That proposal, in a letter to party members, made no mention of abortion, gay marriage or other social issues that often divide party members.

   Taking politics aside, a one-page summary of the brand’s core values makes sense. In fact, a one-sentence summary makes even better sense. How else can a disparate group of people be united under a banner?
   Starting with what an organization agrees on and building from there is one of the wisest things that a CEO seeking to transform it can do.
   Reading through the Mercury report, it seems that this routine matter is too darn hard for those in the political process. The leader says one thing, the people beneath him take ten times longer than any corporation, probably due to selfishness and an absence of generosity.
   What those stalling such processes, and they are rather minor in the grand scheme of things, fail to realize is that news of divisiveness makes the GOP even harder to fathom as a party with any direction.
   And since the liberal media are widespread, similar divisions in the Democrats—and I am sure they exist, perhaps more so—won’t be exposed as they champion Clinton and Obama. Even conservative media following the dollar might want sufficient scandal for sensationalism’s sake.

Lincoln has a new car out? Sorry, I didn’t notice.

   I remember when Lincolns were stylish Cadillac-beaters. Now I hear that the US President calls his limousine ‘Cadillac One’. Perhaps it’s no surprise, if Lincoln is flogging facelifted Ford Edges like this MKX and there’s a compact model called the MKZ which is on a Mazda 6 platform—can anyone say, ‘Ford Telstar’?
   Ten years ago, people were predicting the death of Mercury because they were just Fords with more kit. So what is Lincoln now?

On the Lucire site in a few moments, but I thought I’d share it here first: Venus Williams launches a new fashion line called EleVen (geddit?), which will be on sale at an American chain called Steve & Barry’s. Maybe I am too much of a car nut, but I liked our Ford Verve video more.