THE SAVORY OBSERVATIONS AND USEFUL ANECDOTES OF AN
Artful Realist
My name is LAURENCE VINCENT. I'm a brand strategist, author, speaker, photographer and lovable nerd based in Los Angeles, California. When I'm not writing here about brands and things that inspire me, I look after The Brand Studio at United Talent Agency. I believe brands must stand for real value; and that people value brands that fulfill a promise through artful experiences.
Posts on Branding
What Avon Can Learn from Instagram
With most of the business press focused on the $1 billion acquisition of Instagram yesterday, you might have missed the big news surrounding a 126 year-old social networking company that generated more than $10 billion in revenue last year. Avon Products announced a new CEO: Sherilyn S. McCoy, who was previously a senior executive at Johnson & Johnson. McCoy has a big job ahead of her. Avon has struggled with declining sales, unsolicited takeover offers, and decreasing consumer relevance. What can this dowager brand do to become strong again? I suggest that McCoy look sideways at three relevant brands who have focused on their promise to develop fierce customer loyalty.
TweetGood Design Is Good Business: Master Lock and the Battle Against Myopia
Reblogged from aigalosangeles:
What happened was that Wal Mart came up to the folks at Master Lock and said, “We can make this same product in China for dirt-cheap. Either cut your price by 30% or we won’t give you shelf space.” Monday’s AIGA Los Angeles event at the A+D Museum ‘Master Lock and the Battle Against Myopia’ was a study of a company in crisis that found relevance through selling a brand over a commodity.
Scott Williams, tonight’s speaker, is a brand consultant whose work deals within industries where creatives are not the top dogs, and where designers have to consistently prove a return on investment. Master Lock had a product with no customer loyalty because their strategy had only been to produce padlocks. Consumers didn’t care if they bought a Master Lock or their next cheapest rival. Unlike other companies that found themselves in a similar crisis, they decided to build that loyalty.
Stuck on You
How attached are your customers to your brand? How about your employees? Your shareholders?
Brand attachment isn’t a concept that’s familiar to most marketers. In fact, when I bring it up in discussions with potential clients they often ask me what I’m talking about. Yet, attachment is a far more important concept for a business manager or owner than most of the other health measures we think about it.
Brand attachment measures how much consumers (or any members of a brand audience, for that matter) view the brand as an extension of themselves. This differs quite a bit from measures of brand attitudes. When we measure attitudes, we mostly aim to gage how much people like a brand. In contrast, attachment measures how much people will say that a brand is like them—they identify with a brand because it reflects their values and resembles the way they see themselves.
TweetWhat can you learn about branding from a bike shop in Brooklyn? How about this: 718 Cyclery gets it right.
- Have a purpose - “I’m almost a therapist in many ways … I want to get to the heart of why they really want a bike.”
- Make a promise — “We’ll build a bike that answers the questions you have and the bike you described.”
- Deliver a storied experience — customers design and build their own bikes
Food for thought and true inspiration for any brand owner or manager.
TweetDollar Shave Club, Part II
Last week I shared a video introduction to Dollar Shave Club. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one sharing the video because it became a viral sensation. But the real reason I posted it was because I see the seeds of a very interesting brand. It offers a simple promise: a convenient way to get a quality shave at a low price. It has wrapped that offering into a brand with plenty of personality. The video is only a starting point. Check out some of the other parts of their brand system.
TweetThe US Marines Corps has just introduced a new advertising campaign entitled “Toward the Sound of Chaos.” The campaign builds off of research conducted by JWT that demonstrates potential recruits value “helping people in need.” This data point has been verified in numerous other studies I’ve written about in this blog and in my new book, Brand Real. Justice and community are consistently listed by young people 18-24 as important values that they seek in their brands.
This campaign is a significant reframing of the Marines as a brand. The question is: do you think it represents a new promise? And if so, is it credible? Check out the whole campaign, including an original series of videos created for Facebook.
TweetWhen Breaking with the Past is the Strategy for the Future
Tim Cook unveiling the new iPad in a Keynote Wednesday.
Source: Paracha on R3
28 years ago on this very day the unthinkable happened. Saul Steinberg, one of Wall Street’s most famed “corporate raiders,” began purchasing large blocks of shares of Walt Disney Productions with clear intent to acquire the company in a hostile takeover. Many believed Steinberg would recoup his investment by selling the company off in pieces, separating Disney’s holdings in theme parks from its motion picture and then fledging cable business. It was perhaps the lowest point in Disney history: a company that had captured the imagination of the world as a result of the innovative vision of founder Walt Disney was about to die.
TweetThe Folly of Standing Out Before Standing Up
I don’t mind telling you that the sentiment makes me a little crazy. I’ve heard it said so many times, often in the board rooms of venture capitalists and cubicles of aspiring entrepreneurs. Today, I read it in a tweet. It goes likes this:
“…Quality isn’t job 1. Standing out is job 1. Quality is important, but doesn’t matter if u are unnoticed.”
The tweet was from a branding expert, in response to a question about content in his book. Judging by the retweets and mentions, his audience loved it. Too bad it is dead wrong.
TweetScout’s Honor
Norman Rockwell illustration of a Boy Scout showing honor.
Imagine that you and I can eavesdrop in the team rooms of some of the world’s leading brands. We sit there inconspicuously listening to the conversations they have about their brands. We’d keep a tally of the keywords that pop up again and again. Invariably, we’d see that positioning, promise, purpose, strategy, image, identity and personality would have very high scores. Our glossary would also certainly include words like voice, values, attributes, and architecture. But there’s one word that I’d be willing to bet we’d never hear in all our snooping: honor.
TweetWage a Campaign Inside
It’s time for a new mode of thinking in brand alignment. When we introduce a new brand to customers, we launch a splashy campaign. But when we introduce that same brand to employees, we delegate brand cops who will crack down, compel, and control. I tell my clients they need to think of an internal brand launch as though it were a political campaign. Political campaigns change how people think and create a groundswell of public interest. An internal brand campaign should do the same. There’s much that political science can teach us about transforming a branded organization, including how to frame the mandate and the narrative.
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Copyright 2012 by Laurence Vincent
