Are you building a totem pole for your brand?

I spend a significant amount of time in the Northwest where Totem Poles are a common sight.  When I was walking around West Seattle today, I stopped and looked at one that is at the Admiral Viewpoint and overlooks Elliott Bay and Downtown Seattle.

The purpose of totem poles (or in this case, story poles) are to document key people and events that had a significant impact on that settlement or region.

Alot of marketers do a poor job of creating their own version of totem poles.  Most of the time marketers are busy looking at the present or future to stop and think about the people that will come after them.  How many times have you stepped into a new job to find out that’s it your job to piece together the facts and learn about the history of your brand(s).

The past is important.  And I’m not talking about conducting a business review of the last 12 months or quantitative research to understand how A&U has changed over the last couple of years.  The past is everything from the founder of your brand to the people who played a role in building it to sales results, to advertising archives, media coverage and anything else that has shaped the brand.

Everyone is busy, but I challenge you to take a couple hours a month to build your brand’s story pole.  The people who follow you will appreciate it.

EAVB_GNTAITGGTS

Another Point for Authenticity

Today I was reading Peter Bregman’s piece on Harvard Business Publishing called Why Small Businesses With Win in This Economy.

The crux of the article is that people no longer trust big companies. Duh.  But the new insight is that people no longer trust the big companies they work for, which is leading to a trickle-down effect of mistrust and corporate suspicion.

As I read this piece, I realized that the word “small” could be interchanged with “authentic”.  Authentic companies will win in this economy because:

• People want to have REAL conversations with REAL people.
• Employees who are authentically excited about their job/employer/company sell their brand or service without even knowing it.
• An authentic brand creates sustainable word-of-mouth recommendations

Small companies have an advantage in that it’s just easier to be authentic.  But even the biggest of companies can authentic – they just need to think and act small.

Sell Emotion, Not Logic

We’ve all learned, or at least been told, that consumer buying decisions are based on emotion, not logic.  Agree?

So I have a question: When you get a chance to present a sales pitch to a potential client or customer, do you present the emotion first?  Or do you go straight to the logic because that’s what they SAY they want to hear…because they only have a limited amount of time and all that stuff.

I would argue that the emotional side of your brand should be presented first.  It’s the emotion and the story that will get them interested, asking questions and giving you more face time.  If you present the logic, aren’t you just any other brand?  Is your product or service really that much better than your competition?

There’s always time to talk business (logic).  Believe me, once you reel them in based on your story, they’ll give you plenty of time to talk numbers.

Brand Audit: Cracker Jack

While I was getting my car washed today, I was browsing the convenience store inside and noticed a bag of Cracker Jack sitting on the shelf.  If there’s a brand that can stake claim to a “You Can’t Buy That!” equity, it’s Cracker Jack.  I mean for crying out loud: their brand name is sung by millions and millions of people during the 7th Inning Stretch at every single baseball game across the country throughout the summer.  Plus, they’re the brand KNOWN for the ‘Surprise Inside!

So what’s the deal with this brand?  Other than “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” you don’t hear much about this iconic brand.  Let’s do a quick Brand Audit on Cracker Jack.

Packaging: Cracker Jack’s packaging seems to be up to date.  The Sailor Jack and Bingo (his dog) illustration are modern and the rest of the package design is clean.  They’re trying to appeal to”healthy snack eaters” by including the “zero trans fat” on the front.

Pricing: The bag shown here is line priced with the rest of Frito Lay’s snacks at $.99/bag.  Cracker Jack is probably perceived to be a little cheaper than brands that have huge ad spends like Doritos, but I don’t think there would be much lift if the price was a dime or two cheaper – so it seems to be in the right spot.

Unfortunately, after packaging and pricing, there isn’t much good to say.  In fact there isn’t much to talk about at all.

Advertising: According to their website, Cracker Jack’s last TV ad was in 1999.  But here’s the problem, it’s not available on YouTube.  I’m not sure if they do any print/radio/OOH – but I seriously doubt it.

Website: It looks like the last time it was really updated was in 2002.  And the more I look at it, this might have been Cracker Jack’s FIRST (and only) website.

• It has a little bit of flash (and I mean a LITTLE bit)
• Straightforward navigation, and a whopping seven total pages.
• Decent content about the history of the brand, but nothing that engages consumers.
• The only way you can “reach” Cracker Jack is via US Mail or Phone (normal biz hours).  No email offered.
• There is a slight tie-in with Major League Baseball.  You can download a Collector’s Sheet for the MLB-themed Special Prizes.  I guess they did a promotion where boxes would have an MLB team’s logo on a sticker as the Special Prize inside.  That’s m guess – as I’m not totally sure what the deal was.  I will give them credit – the logos on the Collector’s Sheet were up-to-date.

Web Presence: It would be safe to assume that with their website being as basic as it is, their web presence would be lacking.  But I was amazed at how lacking it is.  I googled “Cracker Jack” and the top four listings pointed to something brand related (website, wikipedia, NPR piece) but nothing after that.  I even did a blog search – nothing other than derogatory uses of the phrase “Cracker Jack” – i.e. “This Cracker Jack blogger doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about!”

Promotion: What really chaps my ass is their weak effort to tie in with baseball.  They should be all over that shit and it doesn’t have to license the MLB properties – which probably sucks up their entire yearly marketing budget.  What about Little League?  What about college baseball?  What about JUST BASEBALL?!

Either way, they gotta OWN baseball.  No other brand can take the baseball association away from them, but they’re not leveraging this equity into sales.  Buying a box of Cracker Jack was once a rite of passage at ballgames.  Now, it’s just a line in a song.

All in all, it’s pretty obvious to me that no one at Frito Lay is managing this brand.  I seriously believe that they re-up their contract with Major League Baseball once a year because that makes them feel like they did something.  And then MAYBE an Associate Brand Manager (from another brand) calls the web design firm once a year to make a couple small changes.  That’s it.

Doesn’t this brand deserve a little better than being sent off to pasture?

Recession Marketing Strategies

I don’t know about you, but I get asked this question everyday: How are you adjusting your marketing strategy in a down economy?

Here are my thoughts:

• Invest in people.  Good people will always figure how to get the job done, even in adverse conditions.
• “All hands on deck.”  This means everyone in the organization takes on a sales mentality.  Make sure everyone is trained on how to identify a sales opportunity and how to take advantage of it.
• Put together a list of your Top 10 ways to save some money.
• Be consistent.  The last thing you want is for your business partners, retailers, distributors, consumers to think you’re panicking.
• Play it safe, but don’t play it stupid. Yes, that advertising buy may make you look good in front of your boss or the board of directors, but is it going to sell product?
• Find ways to engage in conversation with your heavy users and fanatical consumers.  More than ever, your brand’s stalkers are going to help you spread the word.
• Get uber-focused on your goals.  If your marketing tactics aren’t directly affecting your core business objectives in a positive way, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

Do have any other points to add to this?  Drop a comment if you do.

Mark Silva Interview

Mark Silva is internet pioneer.  Not only does he run one of the best interactive agencies in the country (Real Branding in San Francisco), he also started RealBeer.com way back before blogs and user generated content were buzz words du jour.

I had a chance chat with Mark Silva before we headed into the Great American Beer Festival this past week.  In less than 3 minutes, Mark manages to summarize how companies need to connect with consumers in the web 2.0 age.  Then we went inside and drank some beer.

For more on how Mark thinks, check out his blog.

For those of you reading via RSS, click here for the video.

more about “Mark Silva Interview“, posted with vodpod

Brand Content is Like Food

If you’re reading blogs, you already know this.  And if you’re digging as deep as my blog, you probably already REALLY know this.

Consumers want fresh, new, evolving and relevant content.  If fact they expect it.

I was reminded of this when I read Mark Silva’s blog today showcasing some comments that college students made in a copywriting class.  The comment that stuck out to me was:

“Brands are built by consumers and consumers are people/living things. Brands need to show more ‘life’ online to become or stay relevant.”

So if college students (don’t know what level they were) know this, then why do so many brands still treat their website like a static online brochure?  The time has come for brands to monitor and publish online content on a DAILY basis.  The days of freshening or tweaking the website once a quarter are over.

Ads in Your Menu is a Really Bad Idea

I went to a birthday dinner at The Cheesecake Factory last night. For a fairly common chain restaurant, I’m really impressed with the level of detail they go to. The servers are well trained, the decor is on par with Las Vegas casinos and the food actually pretty decent.

But they have advertising in their menus?!

Bad move.  Terrible move.  I don’t even care if it is advertising for high end brands/retailers that mirror the restaurant’s image (which it wasn’t). Ads in the menus is just super tacky and being that this is one of the key interaction points, I walked away thinking less of them.

Our tab for a group of five was $100 and there was 35 minute wait for the table. It seems like they are doing a pretty good job managing the restaurant end of the business.

Cheesecake Factory: Just drop the menu ads that earn you a fraction of your total profit and concentrate on you core business. Plus, you spend way too much on your image to let shit like this ruin the of the hard work.