A few minutes ago, ed while I was driving home from my son’s daycare Halloween parade (and yes, order he wore his bat costume again) I got cut off on the road by an aggressive jerk. Weaving in and out of traffic, healing speeding, talking on a cell phone, throwing a smoking cigarette out the window – you know the kind. But now that I’ve described him, what kind of car do you picture him driving?
Chances are, this isn't what you're picturing (Photo from the Flickr stream of cornillious).
That’s right, this jerk wasn’t driving an over-sized SUV, an expensive look-at-me luxury roadster, a rusted muscle car, or his mom’s minivan – any of which might have popped into your mind when I said “a jerk cut me off”. Well shame on you for being so narrow minded!
This jerk was creating dangerous road situations in a a cute little, enviro-friendly, fuel-sipping, tree-embracing Smart Car! And when I saw it, a little part of my brain popped. It seemed like an oxymoron, like a Ferrari doing the speed limit, or a Harley with a muffler.
But why should that surprise anyone?
Think about your preconceptions of Smart Car drivers for a moment. Now think about how those perceptions of the people are shaped by the car’s design, the current global warming “zeitgeist”, the smart growth movement, and of course by the Smart brand with its perfect name and focused line of extensions.
The thing that went “pop” in my mind was betrayal: this jerk was knocking down my positive stereotypes of Smart Car drivers, and I resented that.
Now think about your brand
Ask your self a few questions:
What preconceptions and stereotypes are built in to your product when people buy it?
Are these expectations positive or negative for your brand image and values?
Are the people “driving” your brand living up to the positive expectations?
If they’re not, is your brand strong enough to make the odd jerk look like the exception rather than the rule?
In this case, my mental image of Smart Cars survived the encounter, and this jerk even made my affection for Smart a bit stronger since part of my indignation was on behalf of the brand – as in “how dare you do that to something I treasure!”
Smart branders know their tribes and cultivate them with carefully tuned messages. The tag line from freecountry.harley-davidson.com says it all: "Screw it. Let's ride."
Company makes dough on the Den while another eats it.
Beg to Differ is going to focus on a beauty and the beast story of two hometown brands that showed up on Dragon’s Den last night, order with very different results. One plucky little company made a pile of money from investors, cost while the other – a much larger organization – wasted a pile of dough. Want to find out more? Of course you do. Read on.
The Beauty: spreading the dough on the Dragon’s Den
Beg to Differ knows that our non-Canadian readers probably won’t be familiar with the Canadian version of this reality TV show where real life entrepreneurs compete to get funding from real-life millionaire business moguls. But it’s a great show, visit web the guest entrepreneurs range from brilliant to insane to just cheesy, and it really helps average viewers get into the entrepreneurial process.
Last night, one of the big winners was the product “Yummy Dough” pitched by Stefan Kaczmarek from Germany and Tim Kimber from Ottawa (who owes me a few pairs of new shoes because my three year old loves his other product PlasmaCar so much).
If you’re like me, you probably hear “edible” and “modeling dough” and you first think of the PlayDoh most of us grew up with, then you think “YUCK!” Then if you have young kids like I do, you probably also think “I don’t want my kids to eat their PlayDoh!” But this is pliable cookie dough that you can bake into cookies.
Check out the Yummy Dough site. It tells its story in a fun and compelling way (but make sure you quickly mute the annoying and slightly creepy background noises). One quick positioning note for the owners now that they have some marketing dollars: they need to steer away from the word “clay” and focus more on the “make your own cookies” aspect. It needs to seem like equal parts toy and food product – which will take some careful work.
The Beast: dumping dough on the Dragon’s Den
But another Ottawa-based “brand” is wasting money as fast as Yummy Dough is making it – probably faster.
Take a look at the screen shot (above) from the Web site, and in particular the sponsor logos in the upper right. You’ll probably recognize the Cadillac insignia. You may be curious about the “Ivey” brand – which is the University of Western Ontario’s school of business (note to Ivey – great name, but negotiate a short tag under your logo with the words “School of Business”).
But unless you’ve directly done business with them or have a family member working for them, you probably won’t know what the letters “E.D.C.” stand for – even if you are Canadian. Yet, EDC has been pumping truckloads of money into season after season of the Dragon’s Den to build brand awareness!
So who the heck is EDC?
Some Hints:
Don’t look for it to be spelled out for you anywhere on the Dragon’s Den page. It’s just EDC in the video ads, side banners, and sponsor logos.
I’ll give you the “C” – it’s Canada, and yes, this organization is run by the Canadian Government.
It is often confused with two other corporations that do similar things and also go by TLAs (Three Letter Abbreviations): BDC and CCC.
See if you can find them on this Wikipedia “EDC May Refer to… ” page. And I’ll give you a bigger hint, it’s the 20th EDC on a list of 25 things that call themselves EDC.
Still stumped?
Well, if you’re not baffled, call your brother who works at EDC and tell him what a bang-up branding job they’re doing. If you are, you’ve helped me make a point I’ve made many times here on Beg to Differ:
An abbreviation is not a brand!
Read my July Op Ed from the Citizen with the message "NOMO" useless acronyms!
With an involuntary guest appearance from Chris Brogan (thanks Chris!)
In Monday’s post, order I critiqued the term “Personal Branding” which generated a fairly lively discussion – including input from the patron saint of “Personal Brand Experts” Dan Schawbel. But it got me thinking about some basic terminology I use all the time – in particular the difference between “Identity” (Andrew Mueller called me out on this one) “Branding” (David Sandusky thinks we should abandon the term), about it and “Brand” (Rob Frankel doesn’t think this word ever belongs with “personal”).
Then I got to thinking about how these things could be expressed using the Twitter universe as a metaphor.
Here's my first attempt. Does it make sense to you?
Originally, I was going to use my own Twitter account as an example, but who am I kidding? There just aren’t enough people out there talking about me to make my own little corner of the Twittiverse a very good example.
I know that it’s not the perfect metaphor, particularly since in corporate branding terminology, “identity” means name+logo+design standards – all of which overlap with the “branding” category above. But it’s working for me for now.
How about you? Is there a way I can make this stronger?
“Personal branding” isn’t new, pills but it seems to be a term that’s spiking upwards right now, viagra buy pushed by an enthusiastic tribe of “personal brand experts” who are starting to throw their weight around – particularly in Social Media. They dominate every Twitter search on “branding” for example. But for me, malady as a brand guy, a #brandchat conversation last week and blog posts by Mitch Joel and Rob Frankel set me to wondering: Is a “personal brand” even possible?
My son "branded" himself as Batman for a Halloween party over the weekend. But was it "personal"?
The case for “personal branding” (i.e. it’s not an oxymoron)
Brands are important: I’ve built my career around the idea that the concept of a “brand” is a powerful tool to build relationships between people, products, companies, services, government programs, charities, and various combinations of all of the above. So when I hear someone – anyone – reinforcing the importance of brand-oriented thinking, part of me yells out an involuntary “Amen, preach it brother!”
Persons can have brands: individuals can and do become incredibly powerful brands – and many of them consciously cultivate these brands in much the same way a smart company manages their brand portfolio. No one can ignore the phenomenal impact of the Obama, Oprah, or even the Glenn Beck brand – although impact may be the only thing those particular brands have in common.
Tom Peters: I was inspired by a ground-breaking article in Fast Company from 1997 called “The Brand Called You” in which Peters says:
It’s this simple: You are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no single path to success. And there is no one right way to create the brand called You. Except this: Start today. Or else.
The rise of Social Media: this development more than any other is what is driving the growth of the “personal branding” industry. Just look at the Personal Branding Rock Star Apparent Dan Schwabel’s Web site, blog, or Twitter stream: your Social Media “footprint” is mostly what he’s talking about. And indeed, now that our thoughts, deeds, and misdeeds can be broadcast to the world with the click of a button, we all need to be aware of how our online actions affect our perception by employers, business colleagues, and potential customers.
My own work: I myself have done almost a dozen seminars on branding for individuals at universities, professional organizations, and networking groups. My first such presentation was at a “Company of Friends” meeting in 2001 (selected slides below), in which I encouraged attendees to look at their careers, areas of expertise, and public communications through the lens of branding. I even wore a T-Shirt with “I AM BRAND” on it and encouraged them to repeat that phrase in their heads.
So let me be clear: I’m not against “Persons” “Branding”
To sum up, before I get to the negative stuff: the intersection of “Branding” + “Individuals” is a powerful connection that I strongly believe in and promote.
Clear? Got that? Cool. Let’s move on.
The case against “personal branding” (i.e. it is an oxymoron)
Personal branding often confuses “identity” with “brand”. These are different things. Identity is the part of your brand that you control – that is, your name, what you say about yourself, how you look, etc.; but your brand is much bigger, and includes a lot of stuff that you don’t control – most importantly what other people say about you.
Branding is not about you. It doesn’t matter what you are trying to promote, your brand is only as good as what it does for human beings– that is, how useful your brand is to human beings as a way of finding, understanding, and referring others to something they value.
No one can “own” their own brand. Here’s my definition of brand for the record – one which I’ve honed and refined over 15 years of building practical brand strategy for companies big and small. Note as you read that “brand” can not be created ex nihilo (from nothing), nor can it be owned by the same people who own the “product”:
A brand is the whole set of ideas, words, images, and expectations that humans* associate with a product**.
(* “humans” means multiple customers / influencers / observers.)
(**”product” can mean a corporation, commodity, service, concept, or individual)
Or, a shorter definition: “a brand is a promise.” And a really strong brand is a promise kept consistently, and reinforced publicly, over time. This is where the “personal” part starts to break down: it implies private, non-public, just between me, myself, and I. Say “personal promise” to yourself. Sounds wrong doesn’t it? That’s because a promise is only meaningful if it is made to someone.
At its worst, the personal branding movement misses the point. Far too often, even most of the time from what I’ve seen, “personal branding” is a fancy word for “narcissism”. It’s a cover for the selfishness, greediness, and egomania that are temptations for all of us – and should never, never be celebrated or recommended. That is, bad personal branding is about introspection or “self-help” – or making your life better, not about making the lives of your fellow humans better.
So can “personal branding” be redeemed?
Personally, I’m going to avoid the term as much as I can. It’s just too distracting for my corporate clients if I get too deeply tangled up in the narcissistic side of the field.
But there are people out there on the Light Side of the Force. And on that note, I’m going to leave the last word to Mitch Joel from Six Pixels of Separation:
“If there’s one lesson/opportunity when it comes to developing your personal brand, it is to make everything about the people you are connecting to and not about yourself.” (underline added by me)
– Mitch Joel
So what do you think?
Am I being fair to “personal branding”?
Should we use the term “personal branding”at all?
Is there a better term for the branding of individuals?
Part 3/4 of the Chicken Sandwich series on product names
On Monday, treat Beg to Differ introduced you to the KFC chicken sandwich we named, then we talked about why names matter. Today, we’re going to a) talk about how to read the “brandscape” of product names around you, b) whether the new name should define the new brandscape or be defined by it (chicken sandwich or egg sandwich?) and c) mix our metaphors horribly.
Test #1: Can you find the chicken sandwich? (Image: Fall Colours by Canadian artist Tom Thompson - )
So what’s a “brandscape”?
It’s the Brandvelope term for the whole big picture of brands that surround a product, company, or service. As a brand manager, you have to make sure that you have your eye on the whole brandscape, not just your little patch of “territory”. In this case, we’ll focus on products and specifically chicken sandwiches, but of course, dear brand managers, you can apply the same principles to your own products.
Brandscape is important to the Big Fresh sandwich because people visiting KFC will be using the name as one tool in making a practical decision: scanning the menu on the wall, trying to decide what to have for lunch. In their head , they will have their expectations, their experience with competitor’s brands, and the normal insecurities and hang-ups of humans. So whether its chicken sandwiches, Internet services, or business products, we can never pretend that any product choice is made in a vacuum; it’s all about context.
Every brandscape includes three kinds of brands:
1) Competitor & comparable brands: other products in your market(s) that customers will be familiar with and will influence their perception of your product by comparison. In the case of KFC, this would be everything from other “Quick Serve” restaurants like McDonalds, chicken sandwich products like A&W’s Chubby Chicken, but even indirect competitors like supermarket chicken brands and 7-Eleven meals to go.
2) Market noise: you need to consider the whole universe of other brands that may influence your customer’s perceptions of you, but aren’t directly comparable to your product. Because brands live in customer brains, any brand may create confusion with (or pleasantly complement) yours – including similarly named products in other categories, influencer or partner brands, and “megabrands” that bleed into multiple categories.
This is why it’s always useful to have someone from outside your industry involved in the branding process (like us for example). If your Chicken Sandwich sounds like a car brand, if your logo looks like a refrigerator brand, or if your name reminds them of an egg salad sandwich, you can throw your neat competitive matrix out the window.
3) Your brand architecture: that is the whole “portfolio” of corporate, product, and other brands that are under your care – and over which you have some control. In the case of KFC, this includes everything from the KFC master brand, the “11 herbs & spices” trademark, the image of Colonel Sanders, franchise design and marketing standards, and all the menu choices that customers will have to weigh as they consider the new Big Fresh.
Test #2: Okay, now can you find the chicken sandwich?
Choosing the right kind of name
If you’ve ever visited this blog you know that I’m a big believer in brands as human decision making tools. You may also have read my post on the perils of too much choice or perhaps last Friday’s excellent Neuromarketing entry on the same topic. Basically, branders need to manage their portfolios to offer consumers just enough choice to feel empowered (see Malcolm Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce) but not so much that they feel dis-empowered (see Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less).
So our first big question to KFC when we started was this: “How will this new product fit into the existing line-up?”
In this case, KFC has a large number of chicken offerings and many sandwiches already, many with fairly “opaque” (character-heavy, non-descriptive) names like “WrapStar” “Twister” “Popcorn Chicken” and “Big Crunch” – but with few clear patterns to the overall naming convention. The new name had to play nice with these other names, while still helping people understand the new kid. All of the above meant that the name had to be somewhat descriptive, which ruled out a lot of wacky “creative” options.
At the same time, the new sandwich was to be priced at the same level as the current top of the line the “Big Crunch”, so the new name couldn’t explicitly say “this is the best we sell”. This is also why why chose to use the “Big ____” naming convention. To show relationship, while highlighting difference.
So, of the 48 options that formed the “long list” of names we submitted, only 4-5 met the criteria of standing out from the brandscape. And only one, “Big Fresh” stood out enough, but also complemented the rest of the menu.
So how well is The Big Fresh doing?
Sorry, after just one week on the market and with the launch not over yet, it’s too early to say how well the sandwich is performing. But the last post in this series will tell the story of my first tasting, and what I learned by playing the role of a customer myself, as well as by speaking to other customers.
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