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Personal Branding: The Critical Role of Leadership, Intellect, & Integrity

In preparation for Tuesday's class on personal branding, I reflected on the critical role that one's image plays in the workplace.  To optimize your value to an organization, I maintain that three individual characteristics dominate:  leadership, intellect, and integrity. 

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Relationship Revolution & Marketing

Successful, sustainable brands recognize the requirement to maintain relationships with their customers.  This has been true for decades--trust is based on relationships and a brand's strength is predominately comprised of trust.  What is different today is the proliferation of social media and its impact on cultivating/maintaining relationships with consumers.

I probably sound like an old codger, but I wonder if the increased desire for relationships with brands is a replacement for reduced relationships with actual people in "real life." 

I also fundamentally do not understand social media, probably because I view time differently than some people.  I am quite happy with many purchases I have made, but I have never had the desire to express my happiness with a product/company by shouting it from the rooftops (or posting something on-line).  I feel like it is a waste of time, even if the post/expression takes mere seconds. 

Don't people realize that they are providing free advertising/marketing for companies when they post positive reviews?  I think that they do understand this, but their desire to define themselves via a particular brand outweigh the free advertising/time investment dilemma.  Some people's affinity for brands results in cult-ish behavior. 

A couple of my favorite brand cults are Apple and CrossFit.  Apple lovers will stand in long lines for days at a time to have the privilege of purchasing the newest Apple product.  Isn't their time better spent doing something else?  Don't get me wrong, I have been quite happy with several Apple products and am pleased with their quality and ease of use.  However, my relationship with the brand is not strong enough to induce me to extol the company's product virtues or spend inordinate amounts of time purchasing the latest item.  

CrossFit provides another excellent example of relationship branding.  CFers literally cannot refrain from discussing their workouts and diet plans.  I like working out.  I like doing CF type workouts, but I do not understand the cult-like following the company has achieved.  It's actually quite fun to ask a few questions to a die-hard Apple or CF consumer and then time how long they spend talking about their affinity for the product.  This is loyalty/Word of Mouth at its zenith. 

I do know that if I ever start a company, I will work hard to cultivate a deep relationship with my consumers to create loyalty.  As Apple and CF recognize, such a method is extremely profitable.   

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Intel Inside & Chip Envy

Intel's decision to market their chips directly to consumers instead of computer engineers/manufacturers in the '90s was genius.  Although attending a tech school, I am not a "techie."  Prior to Intel's marketing campaign in the '90s, I could care less about the specs of any particular computer.  Somehow, Intel's marketing campaign made me care.  I did not (and do not) keep up with tech trends and could not tell you what a chip's bandwidth and clock speed actually mean, but I bought computers with the Intel Inside label because I was guaranteed a reliable product at the cutting edge of technology. 

Since slow computers have been the bane of my existence at times, I always made sure to purchase the top of the line chip when making computer purchase decisions from that point on.  In fact, when purchasing a computer for graduate school, I selected a computer with the fastest Intel chip available.  This chip is approaching obsolescence since Intel has created two succeeding generations of this chip over the past 20 months.  Although I certainly have all of the computing power necessary for my modest computing needs, I am secretly pining for the most up to date chip in my computer.  The rational, price-sensitive consumer in me knows that this is absurd and will prevent me from actually making the purchase to upgrade my current laptop.  However, it won't prevent me from breaking one of computing's commandments: thou shalt not covet thy newest chip.  Without the Intel Inside marketing campaign, this commandment would not exist.   

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Luxury Brands: Mercedes, Lexus, & BMW

I currently reside in the Boston area, and the percentage of luxury vehicles on the road is higher here than anywhere else I have resided over the past ~20 years of my adult life.  This may sound strange, but I see more Mercedes Benz, Lexus, and BMW vehicles on the road than I do Toyota, Honda, GM, and Ford.  Is there no longer a middle class, and I am residing in an upper class region of the nation?  I am confident that the average household income in the general Boston area is higher than in most US locales, but I don't see how that can solely account for luxury vehicle proliferation.  Rather, I contend that these vehicle lines included many "starter" lines such as the BMW 320i, the Mercedes CLA class, and the Lexus IS to target consumers that would normally purchase a Honda or Ford.  I am concerned that these decisions might weaken the brand strength of these companies, diluting their "exclusivity" if more and more middle class folks can afford and purchase these vehicles.  Perhaps this will open up a new market segment between BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus and the extremely high-end brands like Bentley in the near future.  Is this the market segment purchasing Teslas?  That would indicate a significant portion of Tesla growth is due to their exclusivity rather than their "green-ness."  I am interested to see where the vehicle market moves over the next 10-20 years and whether or not the inclusion of starter models at BMW, Lexus, and MB affect their brand strength over time.   

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Burberry & Old Spice

While reading the Burberry case in preparation for Thursday's class on luxury brands, I found the Burberry CEO Rose Marie Bravo's comment that "the brand was stodgy-looking and conservative, and skewed toward an older customer base" similar to Old Spice's look and feel in the same time frame (early 2000s).  Facing an aging customer demographic, Old Spice rebranded itself as a younger, more appealing product in an attempt to capture market share from Right Guard and Axe.  Old Spice's "Smell Like a Man" and "Smellcome to Manhood" campaigns have been wildly successful.  OS is no longer relegated to the back of your aging father's medicine cabinet because it is at the forefront of yours.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SHPxyhkfnY.

        I am not sure if OS learned from BB or BB from OS.  Either way, both brands have successfully managed to young-ify themselves, increase their market share, and avoid losing their core customers.   

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Brand Relationship Spectrum: Brand Architecture

While reading the course materials in preparation for Thursday's class, I kept reflecting on Apple's outstanding Branded House approach with many of their products: iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes, iRadio, etc.  The Apple / i brand is a strong signal of an interesting triumvirate consisting of high quality, innovation, and design. 

Apple has benefited immensely from both internal and external brand perceptions.  Twenty years ago nobody would have imagined Apple's resurgence/domination today, yet Apple has such strong brand loyalty at this point that many of their customers are willing to sit in long lines overnight to be among the first to purchase the company's latest product, which I find utterly fascinating and insane at the same time.  Their time has to be worth more than that. 

GM provides an example of a company that has had difficulty managing their House of Brands approach, and I feel as if they do not know how to respond to the external demands/changes in their brands. 

The change in the Cadillac brand image/perception is markedly different today than it was 25 years ago.  I often wonder what the GM/Cadillac executives think when watching things like Macklemore's White Walls video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PLifPUIuic.  Are they happy? Upset? Concerned?  How do you react as GM Cadillac? 

Personally, I applaud Cadillac's ability to maintain a position in the market.  Without this strange market segment, Cadillac might have gone the way of Saturn.  I also maintain that the first thing I will purchase if I come into a LOT of money (we're talking $20m or more, which is doubtful) is a reconditioned Cadillac from my old 1SG.  Fortunately, this is a concern/purchase that my wife need not fret over.  Perhaps it is something that the GM management should fret about? 

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Singapore Airlines Case

Reading the Singapore Airlines case caused me to reflect upon the now defunct ABC TV Show Pan Am, which attempted to highlight the "glamour" and "romanticism" associated with air travel in the 1960s. 

Singapore Airlines devoted significant time and resources to cultivate world-class service among their cabin crew personnel and eventually among their entire work force.  Fighting hard to win the premium and business class international markets along their routes, SIA sought to optimize their customers' travel experience through top notch, personalized service, benchmarking themselves against places like the Ritz-Carlton instead of other airlines. 

SIA will manage to maintain customer centric value along the personalized service front.  They will also keep costs down via purchases of modern A/C--post 9/11 is actually an optimal time to purchase A/C due to the downturn in the industry.  Playing Airbus and Boeing off of each other, SIA will be able to negotiate fantastic contracts for A/C purchases, ensuring their fleet is modernized, fuel efficient, and inexpensive to maintain. 

Although ABC's Pan Am show was short-lived, SIA will not have any difficulty navigating the post 9/11 airline world in a profitable manner. 

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To Rebrand or not to Rebrand: Chilean Wine

Chilean wine is delicious.  French wine is delicious.  Having spent three years living and working in Italy, I can attest that Italian wine is also delicious.  Despite drinking copious amounts of wine during my tenure in Italy, I cannot distinguish between table wine, decent wine, and fantastic wine.  My limited palette can only determine whether or not a particular wine has gone sour, and I don't think I am in the wine drinking minority regarding palette capabilities.  Thus, Concha y Toro faces a big dilemma--how to convince the American wine drinking public that their wine is just as good as the $10-20 bottles of wine they purchase from other suppliers. 

This problem is two-fold for CyT--a concerted marketing campaign at the country level to highlight Chile's fantastic wine production and a  more focused CyT campaign highlighting their brand.  France's Bordeaux wine producers spend significant sums marketing their products in the US.  One ingenius tactic involves hosting a Bordeaux wine tasting competition in NYC every year, inviting students from MBA programs, law schools, and medical schools--the future customers that will be able to afford to pay exorbitant prices for wine even though it is doubtful that very many of them could tell the difference between different wines in blind taste tests (in fact, very few people can determine whether they are tasting white or red wine in blind testing).  So, Chile as a nation needs to develop and launch an innovative marketing campaign for the quality of their wines.

As for CyT specifically, I would recommend a brand recognition study before making a move, specifically answering whether or not the CyT brand is associated with cheapness in the US.  If so, I would create a separate label (like B&D did with DeWalt) to market the vineyard's better wines in the $10-20 range.  If not, I would launch a campaign marketing my wines at boutique wine shops throughout major US cities, targeting wine shops that cater to the middle market. 

Reading the CyT case made me think of Modelo Corona's comment that selling beer is 90% perspiration and 10% innovation/inspiration.  I have a feeling the same is true for the wine industry. 

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Four Potential Products

Satellite  Radio appeared to be the strongest contender for quick adoption in the Four Products Case.  Unfortunately, XM and Sirius were disrupted by internet radio programs like Pandora, which offer a much cheaper (free) alternative.  The advent of the iPhone and its ability to stream musical content from the internet sounded the death knell for Satellite Radio from my perspective.    

I think the PB slice company is a bit of a stretch--their product is not really solving a significant problem that consumers face.  It takes literally seconds to build a peanut butter sandwich, arguably just as long as it would take to unwrap their PB slice product.  It is difficult to cut a uniform slice of cheese.  It is not difficult at all to make a PB sandwich.  My 5-year old son does it with relative ease and speed. 

The strongest contender in the case is probably the OTC bandage company.  However, this will be a slow adoption process due to the already crowded marketplace.  Fortunately, the trial-ability of this product is quite high.  They key to this product's adoption from my perspective is the observe-ability of its effectiveness. 

The iSmell company should focus on retail companies.  I have a hard time believing this product will take off in households, at least not in the next decade.   

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Corona vs. Heineken Marketing

Heineken needs to worry about gentrification of their customers compared to Corona's Sun, Fun, Beach theme.  Heineken's marketing approach seems a bit stiff and formal, which might have worked well prior to the craft brew revolution/evolution in the mid to late '90s.