Musings on Branding

MIT Branding Class Tumblr

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Social Media 101: Overreacting= Bad, Hysterically deleting follower comments = worse

Apropos last week's discussion of brand management in the social media age, Buzzfeed posted this example of Black Milk Clothing having a complete and utter social media melt down when customers began reacting negatively to one of their posts:

Rather than taking a step back and listening to their followers, BMC started deleting follower comments they didn't like. The situation continued to deteriorate as BMC refused to apologize or even acknowledge that they may have posted something distasteful, and then started banning critical commenters and those who "liked" their posts. 

Worst of all is that BMC's head of marketing knows better, or at least he did a month ago:

"Talking down to your community probably tops the list [as the worst social media faux pas]. Social media is an equal-opportunity platform, and you have to be open and honest with the people you’re engaging with. People can sense when you’re not being authentic and they generally don’t react well to that. Isolating your community by treating them as essentially different from yourself is a great way to cannibalise your social media network."

Full story here. 

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Leadership Branding in the Army

There are three different components to Officer's Training Course in the Israel Defense Forces, and throughout each, a significant amount of time is dedicated to personal and group reflection on what it means to be a leader in general and an officer in particular. Although it isn't framed as constructing a "leadership brand", functionally, that is what you are encouraged to develop. In order to inspire and encourage your soldiers, it is a critical exercise - how can you lead others if you cannot define what values, principles and behavioral norms you hold as most important? 

Repeating this thought exercise outside the military framework made me reflect on my own experience of various commanding officers throughout my years in the army. What stands out is that departments and units with commanders who had strong "leadership brands" consistently performed better. This successful leadership had two critical ingredients: first that values (whatever they were) be clearly communicated and second, that they be consistently embodied by the commander and reinforced rigorously from the top-down. The frequency with which soldiers and officers would note that "the culture of the unit reflects the leadership at the top" made it almost cliche, but it was also proven true on a daily basis.

One of my best commanders was the head of my unit's training school - he had a clear vision for the type of officers he wanted to produce, and a strong record for graduating consistently excellent cadets. During the course, we were instilled with principles of diligence, professionalism and responsibility (to one another and our roles) through our lesson plans, our daily activities, and most importantly, his example. 

Lead through example - although the first step may be defining our leadership brand, it is a necessary but not sufficient measure to creating the leadership brand. The head of the unit's school was a successful leader not only because he knew his "leadership brand", but because he lived it consistently and always held himself first to his own standards of performance. Ultimately it was that framework of consistency and personal example that enabled all of his cadets and recruits to develop their own understanding of overriding principles and goals and apply them long after graduation. 

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Engaging Online, Military Style

Institutionally speaking, the Israel Defense Forces had stumbled into a major social media role during the 3 week operation against Gaza in 2008-2009 when a few soldiers and I had taken it upon ourselves to open an IDF YouTube Channel. The YouTube channel had garnered millions of views (partly as a result of the controversy where we were shut down and then quickly reopened). 

From the IDF's perspective this foray into the realm of social media was an ill conceived liability. That being said, there was a high level understanding that the jinni was out of the bottle and that, once opened, the IDF social media platforms could not be closed down. 

Unfortunately, at least for the first several years, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit didn't quite grasp the "social" part of "social media". Comments on Youtube, the blog and Flickr were disabled and in order to respond to questions, @IDFspokesperson had to go up three layers in the chain of command to get approval to tweet.

There were two major mental hurdles that needed to be overcome before the policy could be changed: first, the mental lens whereby social media platforms were viewed as simply another broadcasting channel. In interactive digital age, it wasn't enough to dump our material online and call it a day - rather than talking at people, we needed to engage with them. The second, and more challenging was embracing the chaos, recognizing that once we released videos, pictures, and information online, we would no longer have full control over how people re-used it. This was a major change, since at least with traditional media outlets you could appeal to the journalist or editor, whereas that was simply impossible when dealing with the online masses. 

It took many years, several serious missteps, and the pervasive penetration of interactive media into our daily lives, but the IDF has really begun to embrace the importance of the social/engagement component. To the point where rather than heaps of criticism for being non-responsive, they get praise for their innovative social media approach. 

Appropriately, for Holocaust Memorial Day, they launched a Twitter Campaign, #WeAreHere, which encouraged followers followers from around the world to tweet pictures of themselves with their relatives who are holocaust survivors. The pictures and tweets were then turned into an interactive global map. This is an excellent example of a focused, topic specific, and engaging social media campaign with a clear call to action that generates a sense of common belonging and sense of reward for participants. 

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Digicel in Haiti: Marketing as a tool to give back

I recently had the privilege of going on a short business trek to Haiti organized by one of my amazing fellow Sloanies. While the country is terribly impoverished, it is both beautiful and extremely colorful - both naturally and because almost every inch of available space on the sides of buildings and walls are used as canvas for painted advertisements. 

Among our many company visits, we had the chance to meet with the CEO of Digicel, the primary mobile phone provider in Haiti. Among the topics we discussed was Digicel’s approach to advertising in Haiti. Although they sometimes use the more traditional approach of billboards, they are more focused on finding ways to use their advertising budget as a tool to support the local community. They do this by sponsoring teams and local projects, and perhaps more importantly, paying locals to paint Digicel signs. Even though this may get fewer eyeballs than a billboard, it is a way to provide additional revenue opportunities to the under and unemployed population. 

Although this may not be the most efficient use of their advertising budget by traditional metrics, the goodwill it earns in the community as well as the real benefit it provides the local population is very significant. 

The discussion served to highlight, yet again, how important it is to adapt both the marketing message and medium to the needs and interests of the target customer. 

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Moleskine ad appealing to our imagination, creativity and artistry. No battery required. 

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Moleskine is very good at telling stories. The question is whether people are interested in hearing this new one. The company’s revenue continues to grow each year. Customers remain willing to buy Moleskine notebooks. They are also willing to engage with the brand online—but only to a point.

Adrienne Raphel on Moleskine’s foray into the digital world: http://nyr.kr/1mcX11z (via newyorker)

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I get my news from BuzzFeed

Say "BuzzFeed" and the first thing to come to mind will be cat listicles, gif memes and nostalgia quizzes. They are known for producing wildly sharable content that proves highly amusing when taking (sometimes lengthy) brain breaks during work/school hours. Things that wouldn't come to mind: breaking news, investigative journalism, long-form analysis. 

However, rather than positioning themselves solely against other viral content sites and aggregators like upworthy, gawker, or reddit - BuzzFeed is wading into the "real" news arena, targeting news consumers usually found on sites like the NYTimes, Washington Post, CNN, BBC, etc.

In a period when traditional news media outlets have been on a slow and steady decline, BuzzFeed is leveraging their oodles of advertising revenue (generated by virtue of their 93M+ unique monthly users) to lure high quality editors and journalists from top-notch publications and produce original, serious, newsworthy content. 

The question is, can BuzzFeed's serious journalism live side-by-side with its cat listicles? Will the BuzzFeed brand be able to house both, without one undermining the other? Will news consumers be willing to trust the site that they go to for amusing diversions to report the world's state of affairs? 

Brand and reputation plays a critical role for news consumers. And it is unclear whether BuzzFeed will be able to build their news brand within the same framework of light viral online content.

Thinking about this from a brand architecture perspective, the more obvious route would be for BuzzFeed to either buy out an existing news media outlet or build an entirely new one. However, Buzzfeed is building itself to be the media giant of the social media age - they are innovative, creative and march to the beat of their own drum. Although it may seem like a long shot now, I wouldn't put it past them to succeed in the not-so-distant future. After all, in addition to their oodles of money, millions of eyeballs, and growing number of experienced journalists, their founder and CEO is a graduate of MIT. 

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Hilarious SWA Flight attendant- In Mid Life Crisis MUST meet Ellen and Jimmy Fallon!!

When social media works in your favor, it can work oh so very well. 

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Managing Expectations

Reading the SIngapore Air case, I couldn't help but think about the downside to high expectations. Although the airline had clearly benefited from their strong reputation as a top customer service airline, it came at a cost where customer expectations were higher than for any other carrier. As Sim noted, "...if the passenger flies SIA his expectation of being satisfied is already 110%, so if our crew gives 100% they will get a negative reaction..."

Managing expectations is a major challenge, for companies and for individuals - and even more so when your competitive advantage is something highly subjective like service quality. People judge within the context and framework of their expectations; if you set the bar too high, you may paint yourself into a corner where it becomes increasingly difficult to meet expectations, much less surpass them. 

While you may want to be known as "THE best" in your particular industry, it may be detrimental to position yourself as in competition with another industry/product which puts you in a different expectations category, and one you most likely wont be able to meet (even if it does signal excellence within your primary category). 

I think that how an individual or an organization responds to the challenge of managing expectations is a sort of litmus test for character quality and likelihood for innovation (how can you continually exceed high expectations without coming up with new ways to impress?).

Ultimately, if you position yourself/your organization on the Calvin-end of the expectations spectrum, you probably wont last very long in a competitive market. Exceeding low expectations gets you more one-off points, but the default poor performance will offset those gains over time.

The connection between managing expectations and innovative practices is perhaps most articulated in the different behaviors of public vs. private agencies. Public entities (government, military, etc.) manage on the Calvin-end of the expectations spectrum, and usually don't generate serious changes and improvements unless it is in response to a major crisis. In contrast, successful private agencies manage expectations upwards, and are pushed to think about new ways to improve themselves and their offerings or become extinct.

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Israeli Wines

As noted in my previous post, the issue of Israeli dinner guests and their wine gifting habits is one that has caused me varying degrees of consternation in the past. I have even stopped inviting certain people to dinner parties after they repeatedly brought sub-par wine to my table (3 strikes rule, after at least two electronic reminders). I take solace in the fact that I am clearly not the only one who objects, and that some enterprising journalist felt the topic worthy of covering in a somewhat useful wine-buying guide article. 

Below are some of my favorite Israeli wines and a few that I really dont like:

Approved!

Absolutely not approved under any circumstances:

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Why I Buy Wine

I love wine. And I like to think of myself as someone with a relatively discerning palate - to the point where when I host dinner parties I will often tell guests which wines are acceptable to bring and which are not.

(This is partially a product of my hyper-active not-so-inner control freak, and partially because people have terrible manners in Israel and tend to bring cheap bottles. Consequently I felt if my guests were going to be rude and bring me Barkan wine, I would be equally socially indelicate by specifying my wine expectations very explicitly.)

However, if I am honest with myself, I recognize that I would probably "fail" a blind taste test. Yes, certain wines are clearly superior to others, but there is a vast space in between of wines of similar quality, distinguished only by their packaging and prices. When I purchase wine, unless I am looking for a specific bottle, price and packaging are the two most influential factors in my decision making process. 

In terms of price - even if I am only buying a bottle for myself - I wont go below a 10$ price point because, psychologically, I am convinced that wine wine cheaper than 10$ must be pretty poor quality. If i wanted to buy cheap alcohol, I'd buy beer. 

When it comes to packaging, I am drawn to the traditional. It is because drinking wine isn't just about drinking the wine -  it is about the entire process, ceremony, and experience that surrounds it. When I buy a bottle of wine, I am paying for the pleasure this bottle will bring me - for the heft of the bottle, for the sound the cork makes when it pops from the neck, for the feeling of the embossed label under my fingertips, for the sound of the clean splash as the wine hits the glass. These are the elements that build the mood and facilitate that adult feeling of deserved, sophisticated relaxation and lead to the conversations (either with myself or others) that come with a pleasant mood. 

If the goal is to get wine-drunk then buy boxed wine and drink from a plastic dixie cup.  But if the purpose is to have enjoy a moment where wine plays either a feature or supporting role, I have no problem spending a little extra for those visible (non-taste related) elements that augment the entire experience. 

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The Imitator Inflection Point

The rate of technological innovation and its penetration into our daily lives has increased exponentially over the course of my life span. My sisters and I were born two years apart, and yet our exposure to, and adoption of new technologies and particularly online habits highlights what is fundamentally a massive cultural and technological generational gap. 

I was born in 1983, while my two younger sisters were born in '85 and '87 respectively. While all three of us had computer classes in school and would play on the family's PC, it wasn't until high school and the introduction of ICQ and AIM that I realized we were from technologically (and therefor socially) different generations. 

My sisters would spend hours chatting online - often not because they enjoyed it so much as because it became a social necessity. One which, if neglected, would result in immediate lost ground on the high school popularity battlefield. 

I, on the other hand, was largely spared this after-school online ecosystem because my grade's social dynamics had largely been established by eleventh grade and so while some people did engage, it never became a social imperative the way that it was for both my younger sisters. 

When I think about imitators and the point at which they opt-in to a new technology - whether it be a device or a service - I am repeatedly drawn to the question of the inflection point where the cost of not adopting becomes greater than adopting.

This "price point" can be social, being part of an "in" or "out" group, as in the case with my siblings where the cost of not participating in marathon AIM chats came with a social price tag few high schoolers would be willing to tolerate. This "price point" can also be practical/functional - I have a friend who after years of resisting the siren call of smart phones finally broke because of repeated missed communication opportunities as well as the myriad apps that make life easier and more enjoyable. 

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Black and Decker Case

How is it that a company with excellent products, good service, and a strong brand can dominate in certain market sectors and yet woefully underperform in others? 

This case serves to highlight the importance of differentiation - ensuring that the targeted customer segment is aware of the difference in the products made for him vs those that are designed for other segments. 

A few observations made from the case:

1. Pricing: the importance of price and the role it plays for the buyer depends on the customer type and the purchase channel. For the Industrial sector, they are informed, buying in bulk and concerned with services as well as quality. Pricing is probably more important for the "Consumer" and "Tradesman" segments, but in opposite ways: while the home user is probably looking to get a better deal on the power tools they may use sporadically, the tradesman's livelihood is contingent on his tools and he therefor is probably more focused on quality than price point. Within a certain range, pricing may send a signal to the tradesman that a slightly more expensive product would be of higher quality. Tradesman will look to save on costs based on where they purchase (i.e. Home Depot v. traditional hardware stores), making the pricing of brands more reflective of 'quality'. 

2. Differentiation: while the home consumer may want to feel that they are getting 'tradesman' quality power tools, the opposite is true for the 'tradesman'. B&D needed to clearly differentiate their offerings, not only in terms of the logo, but also in terms of the color. 

                                           By having the same/similar logos on products for very different market segments, B&D creates confusion for individual purchasers. For the Industrial segment this is less relevant because of the highly informed decision makers who are concerned with service and performance. But for individual consumers, specifically Tradesman who are concerned with performance, but also need to feel that they are getting a different/better product, highlighting the difference in product lines is critical. 

Worse still is that given the similar coloring and branding, if a Tradesman purchases "Consumer" products designed for home use rather than professional wear and tear, the perception of overall quality would be undermined. This is particularly detrimental given the culture of peer review and discussion between tradesmen. 

3. Rebranding: Clearly, the decision was made in B&D to rebrand using the Dewalt brand. This included not only the brand/logo but also changing the color of the product line to yellow. 

This color choice is savvy and segment appropriate for two reasons:

A) It is subliminally associated with safety - guaranteed to be a concern for Tradesmen whose livelihoods depend not only on their performance but also on their continued ability to perform (i.e. not get injured on the job). 

B) The color stands out - given the propensity of Tradesmen to constantly discuss their tools, attracting attention and questions about their tools that perform well on the job could only help the word-of-mouth reputation of B&D. 

Finally, in their rebranding efforts, B&D clearly disassociated themselves entirely from the DeWalt line. There is no sign of B&D on the website, and you have to dig into the "Legal" section in order to find any connection to B&D.