RIM launches the “Blackberry Torch 9800”. But is it one brand too many?
Beg to Differ has been struggling how to deal with the launch of the new Blackberry – the much ballyhooed “iPhone Killer” – from Canada’s tech brand darling Research In Motion (RIM). But after writing – and discarding – a long, page thorough (and mildly bitchy) brand strategy critique, price the Differ found the perfect lesson for RIM from watching a street performer named The Fire Guy. Hey RIM: this guy juggles Torches, what is ed but manages not to get burned.
Would a telecom megabrand create intentional confusion for customers?
So Wednesday another new cell phone brand was launched to the Canadian market, hospital and the public response? Deafening. (cue loud cricket noises) Well, viagra 40mg Beg to Differ thinks you should care. Not about the service, but about the brand strategy logic behind it – and maybe even get a little bit angry. Because this is a case of brand managers using their awesome powers for evil. On purpose.
A bit of background
For those who may not be familiar with the Canadian Cell Phone market, the landscape has long been dominated by three hulking gorillas – Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless, and Telus Mobility – and more recently, more than two dozen smaller “discount” monkeys – including the range of products below.
The big three Gorillas - in their matching monkey suits.Some of the rest of the monkeys including Chatr.
Confused yet?
If you’re not, there are a few highly paid brand managers who will be sorely disappointed. That’s because many of the biggest “stand-alone” brands above are actually wholly owned and operated by the big three – Koodo by Telus, Solo by Bell, and Fido by Rogers – but are branded to hide or obscure the relationship with the parent company.
And now Rogers is doing it again with their new Chatr brand – which launched this week into mall kiosks in Canada’s biggest cities, with no availability in Rogers outlets or any explicit Rogers branding.
CBC notes that Chatr is supposed to become the “low end” of the Rogers line, with Fido as the middle, and Rogers own services as the Cadillac of the line. And according to Chatr’s senior vice-president Garrick Tiplady “The company isn’t afraid of cannibalizing existing Rogers business, since (Chatr) caters to different market segments, much like the Fido and Rogers brands have done for years.”
But isn’t choice good?
If you read the Differ, you’ll know that the answer is: No! Not always!
The second problem is when the choice only seems like a choice but really is not a choice at all (we’ve called out Telus and Google AdSense on this one before).
And third is when choice is designed to confuse.
That’s the most serious and the least ethical: Rogers is intentionally creating confusion in the marketplace and making life more difficult for consumers.
Does that sound like wild-eyed conspiracy? Nope just unpacking the “flanker brand” strategy they have said they’re using – where a large dominant brand “flanks” itself with smaller phantom brands to create the illusion of choice in a market where smaller players may be beating the big guy on price, service, or general non-evilness – or all three in this case.
This is a calculated move to undermine competition (and damn the consumers). And we’re not alone in saying so:
Globe and Mail The so-called “flanker” brand is supposed to complement Rogers’ existing brands, Fido and Rogers Wireless, by targeting a lower end of the market. But some analysts suspect that it is designed to muddy the crowding market with yet another brand, in an attempt to fight back against new competition.
CBC: Mobilicity chair John Bitove has said… “We welcome competition, but it’s the way they’re competing that we object to,” he told CBC News recently. “It’s right in the Competition Act.… You can’t create flanker brands to try and defeat the competition.”
MyCellMyTerms.com: While Rogers’ intention is offer more choice I believe that this adds to the confusion in the marketplace and consumers will be thoroughly confused with all these brands.
And what’s worse, rumour has it that both Telus and Bell are intending to do exactly the same thing in very short order. So like it or not, more artificial choice is coming your way.
So what do you think?
Is this added choice good for consumers? Is Rogers evil for using accepted brand strategy practice to muddy the water around its slower, more nimble competitors?
Ancient storytelling secret: characters are more interesting
Beg to Differ was reminded by this cartoon from the wise and funny Tom Fishbourne, health that all great stories are driven by compelling characters – and that’s as true in the branding world as it was around the ancestral campfire. So is your brand a hero, medications a helper, or a Jack of all Trades?
Quick plug: if you’re interested in branding at all, subscribe to Tom’s blog. He not only packs amazing insights into the cartoons, but then blogs about the topic with wit and clarity. You will never be disappointed.
A few thoughts on storytelling and metaphor in branding:
Archetypes – they’re not just for English class anymore
The idea of building your brand around one of the strong, powerful figures that recur throughout world literature might seem like a stretch, but as Tom points out, the greatest brands can be clearly identified with those figures – like Nike as the hero brand / Harley Davidson as the Outlaw / Patagonia as the Adventurer, etc.
And I don’t just say that to justify my outrageously expensive English degree (but it helps). When you translate these into brand elements and a tone of voice, they SOUND more natural. So the heroic statement “Just Do It” is intuitively more compelling than “Maximize your Performance” – even though both mean much the same on the surface.
Going deep into the human psyche can feel dangerous. But that's why it's so powerful.
Better the wrong character than no character at all:
In counseling companies on new directions for their brands, I always have to present tangible metaphors to help them “get” the direction I’m suggesting. And these almost always take the form of a character – or occasionally a creature. I’ve used a veteran soldier, a wise sage, a master craftsman, a banker / money changer, and a dangerous deep sea monster (see graphic at right), among others.
Those will also happen to sound familiar to anyone who reads any kind of literature, since you’ll find the same figures in everything from Homer to the Bible to James Joyce.
Be the leviathan: it feels dangerous, but it works:
When designer John Kaldeway presented the cartoon graphic of the monstrous angler-fish above to our client as the symbol for their data recovery company – which I had named “DeepSpar” – we were all a bit shocked. In the board room it seemed just a bit… too much.
But the image, and more importantly the attitude it embodied (ruthless, driven, even a bit predatory) turned out to be exactly the right approach to differentiate DeepSpar in a very small market dominated by very technical, geeky products and customers who were men (and gamers) that saw the symbol as a bad-ass reinterpretation of their own struggles.
Suddenly, our client was both much more memorable and consistent, and they were also coolest vendor at the trade show. Hard to give away a hat with XRP-7000 on it.
Branding is not about “messages”; it’s about character.
This point is driven home in this great blog post from 2008 by Olivier Blanchard (@TheBrandBuilder) – which Tom also links to. Olivier argues for using archetypes as a way of breaking out of the usual heady, analytical way of thinking about branding – which is most obvious in the “messaging” process – and instead using powerful metaphors to touch the customer in a deeper way
I’ll finish with a quote from him:
If the brand you create is powerful enough – inside and out – then messaging is barely frosting on the cake. Heck, it’s little more than the colored sprinkles on the edges. The messaging is nice and it dresses things up a little, but… Using archetypes in your brand development process can help you tap into the raw nature and identity of a brand better than any brand pyramid, onion, pie chart or whatever cookie-cutter technique you are currently using.
I’d love to hear your stories – maybe examples of brands using strong metaphors, or archetypes that pop to mind when you think of certain brands. Comment away.
Inspired by the 2010 Mitsubishi City Chase
You’ve heard entrepreneurship compared to a race – likely a running or a horse race, unhealthy
where one highly specialized skill always wins. But in real life, ampoule
business and brand-building is actually much more like CityChase – an urban adventure race that happens in dozens of cities worldwide. Last weekend, the Big Differ was in just such a race, and offers you some insights.
Shawn De Raaf (left) and the Differ Dennis Van Staalduinen (right) after crossing the finish line.
Um. We didn’t win
Let’s get this straight: I’m going to talk about how to win from the position of a non-winner. As you’ll see from these results, my teammate Shawn and I came in sixth place in the Ottawa race this year.
Before the start. Some of the 800 people that raced.
Not bad with 400 other teams in the race, and certainly better than my previous results of 22nd, 11th, and 12th (see last year’s blog post), but not top of the field.
However, we were close enough to the top that I delude myself into thinking we could have won, which means I desperately want to figure out how the actual winners win, and maybe, someday, we can.
So, these are my 6 steps to winning – told from the position of an almost winner who is thinking about how to win. And brand-builders, how many of us aren’t in that same position in that other race: business?
The six steps to victory
Lesson 1) Take a moment to think about strategy – but just a moment.
In the CityChase, you’re given a clue sheet at the beginning of the race with 30 “ChasePoint” challenges spread out over the city, of which you have to complete ten. So at the beginning, you have to take a few moments to scan the clues, get a general feeling for where things are, and figure out where you’re going to go. Kind of like those business strategy meetings I host for clients.
Information is critical to victory, as is strategic planning, so only a fool strikes out blindly in the absence of any information.
But the trick here is the same as with corporate strategy: if you take enough time to get all the information, it’s already too late to win. Read that again. And one more time.
Bottom line: the race doesn’t go to the one who has the most information; it goes to those who can act most quickly on the information at hand.
Lesson 2) Keep moving.
In the CityChase, you can get around to your ChasePoints in two ways: by foot, or public transit. But guess what? The winners almost never wait for a bus. The top teams keep moving at all times, taking buses when they offer tactical advantage, but just as often, running to stay ahead of the buses. This means you have to have a certain level of fitness to be among the top teams. But more importantly, you have to be willing to keep going for the several hours of the race.
Bottom line: don’t forget plain old hard work.
3) Play with the team.
This is teamwork. Really.
In the CityChase, you run as a team of two. Both members do all the challenges together, and you have to cross the finish line together, so a lone superstar doesn’t win if they don’t have a solid teammate.
You also need to be able to face a variety of challenges. This year for us, these included breakdancing, military bootcamp, whitewater yak-rafting, changing a bicycle tire, and lots of mental puzzles. This meant both Shawn and I had our chances to shine – he’s a far better athlete; I brought the race experience – but neither of us would have done as well without the other.
Bottom line: find teammates who both complement and challenge you to be better.
4) Share information relentlessly… with everyone.
I learned early on to “open source” my race. There are many secrets, surprises, and puzzles as the 800 people / 400 teams run around town doing the Chase, and every team is trying to figure out at the same information at the same time. So by swapping tips and clue details as much as possible when I get the chance, I’ve managed to save myself a lot of wrong turns over the years.
There are many teams that seem afraid to talk to other teams – lest they give someone else an advantage. There are others that lie to misdirect opponents. I get that. It’s a game after all. It’s just that as a strategy, it doesn’t seem to work.
Bottom line:, hoarding information just slows you down. Learn how to share.
5) Avoid the bottlenecks.
Hard work: Soaking wet after the whitewater challenge - we had to carry our boat back uphill.
The biggest time wasters in the Chase are the line-ups that form around many of the Chase Points, especially in the mid-race. So the winning teams figure out quickly where these are likely to be, and if the Chasepoint is mandatory, they get there early – before the other teams get there. If it’s not, and they encounter a line or a slow-moving challenge, they move on to a different Checkpoint.
In business, the bottlenecks are the business tactics, product features, and branding habits that form in a given market – where a “crowd” of competitors are all trying to do the same thing at the same time.
Bottom line: if it’s important, get there first; if it’s not and everyone else is already there, find another way to accomplish the same goal.
6) Have fun. It’s your biggest competitive advantage.
The picture of me that appeared in Sunday's paper. Photo: Jana Chytilova, The Ottawa Citizen
In the CityChase, I like to be competitive, and I like to go hard. And in a lot of ways I take it more “seriously” than a lot of people do (I’m writing this aren’t I?) But as someone I love once said about soccer, it’s just a game. And if it ever loses its lustre as a fun activity, there are plenty of other games.
In business, if you aren’t creating an enjoyable environment where people can be themselves – creative, funny, and human – maybe you should think about trying something else.
Bottom line: life’s too short to not enjoy what you do.
Ancient storytelling secret: characters are more interesting
Beg to Differ was reminded by this cartoon from the wise and funny Tom Fishbourne, health that all great stories are driven by compelling characters – and that’s as true in the branding world as it was around the ancestral campfire. So is your brand a hero, medications a helper, or a Jack of all Trades?
Quick plug: if you’re interested in branding at all, subscribe to Tom’s blog. He not only packs amazing insights into the cartoons, but then blogs about the topic with wit and clarity. You will never be disappointed.
A few thoughts on storytelling and metaphor in branding:
Archetypes – they’re not just for English class anymore
The idea of building your brand around one of the strong, powerful figures that recur throughout world literature might seem like a stretch, but as Tom points out, the greatest brands can be clearly identified with those figures – like Nike as the hero brand / Harley Davidson as the Outlaw / Patagonia as the Adventurer, etc.
And I don’t just say that to justify my outrageously expensive English degree (but it helps). When you translate these into brand elements and a tone of voice, they SOUND more natural. So the heroic statement “Just Do It” is intuitively more compelling than “Maximize your Performance” – even though both mean much the same on the surface.
Going deep into the human psyche can feel dangerous. But that's why it's so powerful.
Better the wrong character than no character at all:
In counseling companies on new directions for their brands, I always have to present tangible metaphors to help them “get” the direction I’m suggesting. And these almost always take the form of a character – or occasionally a creature. I’ve used a veteran soldier, a wise sage, a master craftsman, a banker / money changer, and a dangerous deep sea monster (see graphic at right), among others.
Those will also happen to sound familiar to anyone who reads any kind of literature, since you’ll find the same figures in everything from Homer to the Bible to James Joyce.
Be the leviathan: it feels dangerous, but it works:
When designer John Kaldeway presented the cartoon graphic of the monstrous angler-fish above to our client as the symbol for their data recovery company – which I had named “DeepSpar” – we were all a bit shocked. In the board room it seemed just a bit… too much.
But the image, and more importantly the attitude it embodied (ruthless, driven, even a bit predatory) turned out to be exactly the right approach to differentiate DeepSpar in a very small market dominated by very technical, geeky products and customers who were men (and gamers) that saw the symbol as a bad-ass reinterpretation of their own struggles.
Suddenly, our client was both much more memorable and consistent, and they were also coolest vendor at the trade show. Hard to give away a hat with XRP-7000 on it.
Branding is not about “messages”; it’s about character.
This point is driven home in this great blog post from 2008 by Olivier Blanchard (@TheBrandBuilder) – which Tom also links to. Olivier argues for using archetypes as a way of breaking out of the usual heady, analytical way of thinking about branding – which is most obvious in the “messaging” process – and instead using powerful metaphors to touch the customer in a deeper way
I’ll finish with a quote from him:
If the brand you create is powerful enough – inside and out – then messaging is barely frosting on the cake. Heck, it’s little more than the colored sprinkles on the edges. The messaging is nice and it dresses things up a little, but… Using archetypes in your brand development process can help you tap into the raw nature and identity of a brand better than any brand pyramid, onion, pie chart or whatever cookie-cutter technique you are currently using.
I’d love to hear your stories – maybe examples of brands using strong metaphors, or archetypes that pop to mind when you think of certain brands. Comment away.
Is it “just a game”? Ask the guys in the picture below!
You might have guessed already from his fourteen-letter last name, shop but the Big Differ Dennis Van Staalduinen is rooting for the Netherlands “Oranje” Team in Sunday’s FIFA World Cup final. And he’s getting a bit weird about it.
Yes it’s just a game.
Last week, someone in my family (who shall remain nameless) who is not a soccer / football / futbol fan, asked me this question when I sheepishly admitted I was going to take the afternoon off to watch the Dutch Oranje team beat Uruguay in their semi-final match.
My dear relation said: “What’s the big deal? It’s just a game?”
And you know what? She was right. Objectively speaking, it’s just a game.
Which is why it probably seems odd to my clients and friends that for the past few weeks, I’ve been doing odd things like wearing orange socks to business meetings, obsessively checking my iPhone for the latest scores, and rearranging my meetings to make sure I can be at a friendly pub at 10:00 a.m. on a business day to catch my team playing, what is, after all, just a game.
From that perspective, the flags on cars, the jerseys everywhere on streets half a world away from the tournament, and all those honking horns in certain parts of town when a given team wins, they all must seem very odd to the non-fan. It’s just a game.
But what a game!
On the other hand, saying that a World Cup match is “just a game” is kind of like saying that Halloween is “just a day”, or a wedding feast is “just a meal”, or that Mardi Gras in Rio is “just a parade”. All accurate statements, but they miss the point. All of these things are festivals, pageants, epic plays – where people come together, wear different clothes, act silly, go through strange rituals, and celebrate mundane things like a day, a meal, a walk down the street – or 90 minutes of grown men kicking a little ball.
And it is the very weirdness and counter-intuitive logic of it that makes it such a special occasion. A celebration is powerful because it doesn’t make sense.
Unless you are human.
So once every four years, I become part of a soccer tribe. I wear my orange. I honk my horn happily and wave at people wearing the same colour. I seek out other like-minded people. I celebrate the weirdness.
And you know what? I do this even though I’ve never been in touch with the actual Dutch football club. I’m not in their database, I’m not their Facebook fan. I have no direct “relationship” with the brand in classic marketing terms. I just want to be part of it.
How about you?
Enjoy the game. Just a game. A beautiful, beautiful game
If you’re not, there are a few highly paid brand managers who will be sorely disappointed. That’s because many of the biggest “stand-alone” brands above are actually wholly owned and operated by the big three – Koodo by Telus, Solo by Bell, and Fido by Rogers – but are branded to hide or obscure the relationship with the parent company.
