Archive for the ‘Branding’ Category

Celebs… Don’t go West.

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Days like today I am glad I’m not a celebrity publicist.

Public relations professionals who work with brands have it easy. Those brands can’t speak for themselves and thus, they can’t put a foot in the brand’s mouth. Not so with celebrities.

In case you don’t know what I’m referring to: On the MTV Video Music Awards Kanye West, presumably drunk on cognac, interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech after winning the Best Female Video Moonman. Katy Perry described it as “stepping on a kitten.” In an open letter on her blog, Kelly Clarkson wanted to know if he didn’t get hugged enough as a child. I think part of the issue is that Swift is a new artist and still quite young. Many feel she deserved some spotlight and viewed West’s actions as heartless. Regardless of what you think, his PR team probably needed to change their pants.

You can’t fault his PR team though. They only have so much control. More so than with brands, PR teams for celebrities are often janitors for these open individuals who sometimes have eccentric lives. After all, could Spears’ publicist do anything to stop her from shaving her head? What could her little sister Jamie’s publicist have done to stop her from getting pregnant? Imagine the daily headache Michael Jackson’s PR team faced.

Granted, there are times a PR team can take a more active role in a star’s activities. Someone present at Miley Cyrus’s controversial “topless” Vanity Fair photo shoot could have suggested that it might not resonate with the Disney-level fans and parents.

So what’s a publicist to do for Kanye West? I’ve suggested that in the long term, maybe in a year or two, some form of duet with Swift would be the perfect fix. It would take some work to get to that point. A proper apology would be a good start, something akin to a heartfelt minute or two on YouTube. Anything written will not appear as sincere. After that, he needs to do the exact opposite of what he appeared to do on the awards show; he needs to disappear from the spotlight.

Granted, I’m un-researched in this area and a few months out of the music industry.  Despite this, I think he can take a lesson from the airline industry. When a plane crashes, they silence the brand so the public can forget. If Kanye doesn’t want to look like he’ll step on anyone for the spotlight, he needs to follow that advice. He’s the brand, he needs to cork it.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/09/14/kanye.west.reaction/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/14/mtv.music.video.awards/index.html

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The Wall Street Journal attempts Social Networking (supposedly)

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

It’s ON! There are tons of articles, blogs and twitterers screaming how there’s going to be a “showdown” between LinkedIn and The Wall Street Journal as the latter creates the ultimate weapon in social media. That’s right, they’ve made a “LinkedIn Killer”

The widespread reports started with a TechCrunch article reporting that a concept was on the table. From there the report grew legs.

Will it work? Nope. It’s all hype. To be fair, LinkedIn isn’t positioned at the top of the social networking/media category, but I don’t think it expects to given its niche. When it comes to Business Social Networking, however, it dominates. In fact, there’s no other service. Is it possible it could get ousted? Of course. Is it likely? Not unless those in charge of the service are asleep.

MarketingPilgrim makes a few good points. NewsCorp hasn’t done very well with MySpace, which owned Social Networking when it was purchased. If they can’t hold onto a brand category throne, what makes them think they can dethrone LinkedIn from the Business Social Networking category? Perhaps its because the WSJ is about business? Likely, but that’s not sound brand thinking. The MarketingPilgrim article continues that The Journal hasn’t done a very good job of getting its online readership to use its existing profile/connections portal.

That’s Killer…
Internally they are already calling it the “LinkedIn Killer” [TC]. Lets review the list of other “Killers” on the market: The Blackberry Storm and Palm Pre were iPhone killers and the Zune was an iPod killer. Lets be straight, if they are in that mindset, they better give up right now. In fact, the brand cemetery is littered with imitation products and there are quite a few #2 products that try try try. Who leads Red Bull (energy drinks), Gatoraid (sports drinks), Coke (cola), and McDonalds (fast food)? No one. They were the first and they’ll stay #1 mainly because of that.

You might say that the industry is in flux, but Facebook ousted MySpace by being different, not the same. MySpace ousted Friendster by being different, not the same. WSJ Connect is undoubtedly trying to be the same, as “LinkedIn Killer” indicates.

I dare you to come up with one “Killer” that was branded as such and succeeded. Even if you do know one, how long did it take you to think of it and are there any others?

What the Wall Street Journal is going to do is weaken their core brand and divert resources that should be spent researching a better way to keep ahead of the Business Daily News category that they are in charge of. They’d be better off partnering up with or purchasing LinkedIn.

Of course, this is all speculation. Nothing’s been confirmed.

More Reading:
http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/2009/07/27/daily55.html
http://inventorspot.com/articles/wall_street_journal_gunning_linkedin_30930
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/07/will-the-wall-street-journal-take-a-real-shot-at-social-media.html

Also:
22 Immutable Laws of Branding (Reis & Reis) [excerpt: http://synergynet.com/artman/publish/marketing_resources/branding_laws.shtml]
Chasing Cool (Kerner & Pressman) [http://www.chasingcoolbook.com/]
Brand Failures (Haig) [Google Books]

And just pay attention. It’ll become common sense.

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Posted in Branding, Social Media, Strategy | 2 Comments »

Appealing a science fiction channel to a general audience is just that: Science Fiction

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Three months ago, The SciFi Channel (scifi.com) announced that it was changing its name to Syfy today. It took all of three months for this news to finally reach me, but in all honesty, I’m not in the network’s core demographic. I actually caught the promo for it while watching a Twilight Zone episode over the weekend and really thought nothing of it until I read CNN’s article on the subject.

It appears from this article that the network wants to open the channel to a new, broader demographic. I assume that means they’ve saturated the science fiction genre and want to take on a larger audience. They probably feel that generalizing will give them a greater market. The name, I suppose, is an attempt to not alienate those embarrassed to say they watch science fiction. Lots of assumptions, but this is a blog, not an academic paper.

Those familiar with any of Al Reis’ writings and the general principals of branding already know this tune. It’s a bad move. Moving out of their key market and becoming just another channel isn’t going to help, it’s going to hurt. However, I’m not so sure I agree to the comparison to the New Coke situation, which was more a mistake in assuming that taste tests and quality matter over brand loyalty.

Here, you have a successful entity ruling a category trying to be generic. THAT’S the mistake. The name is irrelevant at this point. Those branding pundits that the CNN article seem to quote can’t be very good experts if their focusing on how the audience will react to the name. It’s not necessarily about the name, though it probably won’t help.

There exists a potential problem with a generic SciFi Channel name. Bravo and Spike did great rebranding with their names. However, they didn’t generalize. Spike moved to a male-central programming theme. Bravo devoted itself to “Fine Arts.” (Side note: how is ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’ a ‘fine art’?) If Syfy is about a broader audience, they only stand to lose.

Could they have chosen a better name? Probably. Syfy is the same name in different clothing. They should look a little harder for a distinct name that stands out. Syfy still sounds like “SciFi” and still carried all the connotations associated with it. What we have is the potential to alienate a portion of their core audience while not really attracting who they want to. Sometimes you have to remember that a brand is spoken as much as it’s seen.

And who did it? According to several articles I found, it was an internal decision. That makes sense. Landor Associates, the branding firm for the network claims they had nothing to do with the name change. Do they want to distance themselves from such a possible err, I suppose I would to. I’ve had situations where clients ignore me and go on their own merry way. They do seem to be distancing themselves from the name more than the concept though, and in all honestly, while the name may not be good or thought out, that’s not the bad part of this decision.

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Posted in Branding, Strategy | 4 Comments »

Branding and Sony’s new Walkman X

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Earlier this month, Advertising Age put out an article on Sony and their new Walkman. Apparently Sony is trying to revitalize the brand. My first reaction probably matches yours, I wasn’t even aware that Walkman hadn’t left that market.

And really… it should have.

Companies unwilling to mothball ageing brands and move to something new risk doing themselves and their product lines a disservice.

Think about Polaroid. The company could have branched into digital media sooner with a different name, and let the instant photo business fade away. Unfortunately, they didn’t, and they were eaten by the digital photography revolution. Kodak has a similar problem. Holding onto film, they failed to see that film is/was going the way of the dinosaurs. They’ve since branched out, but with the Kodak name. As someone who has roots in photography, I can say for sure that Kodak is synonymous with film, not digital. Kodak’s penetration isn’t significant. Had they branched out with a new or different name, it’s likely they could have had a more potent impact. Finally, if we look at Oldsmobile, we’ll see a brand that, like the Walkman, was pigeonholed into what it was and hence, couldn’t really survive.

So does Sony want to compete with Apple and it’s iPod? “No,” according to the article. In fact, Sony describes the new Walkman X as a niche product. On that point, I say “bravo” to Sony. You can’t compete with iPod right now, that’s not how it works any more. Going head-to-head with iPod is going to just cause headaches. Instead, by branding as a niche product, they actually have a better chance of swiping some market share. Could it be the product that beats iPod? Perhaps, but that depends on Apple and how much more they stretch the iPod brand.

What the Walkman X is supposed to do is revitalize the Walkman name, according to Mich Li, the guy who oversees the brand.  This is Sony’s mistake.

-not your daddy’s walkman-

“What is a ‘Walkman’?” Sony needs to ask this question. I did. Sure, it’s not scientific, but outside a combination Coldstone/Starbucks I asked 10 people of different ages, “What is a Walkman”? All 10 hinted at something old. In fact, each response had one or a combination of the following words: “Old,” “Cassette,” or “80s.” Do you see the problem?

-ditch ‘Walkman’-

While Sony is smart not to try and go at Apple directly, they’ve failed on the name. It would take more effort and money to rebrand the Walkman name than to introduce a new product that speaks to their niche psychographic. All that using “Walkman” serves to do is handicap the product. If Sony would pay attention to the history of strong brands, they’d be less likely to repeat the mistakes of the past.

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Chasing Apples – A Look at the Potential Long-term Brand Effects of Microsoft’s Current Ad Campaign.

Monday, April 20th, 2009

In early April, Brandweek interviewed David Webster, the general manager of brand marketing at Microsoft. This interview focused on Microsoft’s new ad campaign. Generally speaking, the campaign addresses Mac’s ubiquitous three-year Mac vs PC campaign. (Article: Mac Daddy by Todd Wasserman)

The interview with Webster highlighted the intended themes of the PC ad campaign: celebrate the diversity of the PC user,  it’s easier for one to find a PC that’s perfect for the person than a MAC, PCs are more affordable and, most importantly (it seems) that people are more like the PC in the Mac ads than the Mac guy.

Personally, and I don’t speak from my Macintosh preference, but the campaign won’t have that effect on the long term. Webster points out in the article that preference for Mac over PC has increased by 10 percent – not a bad figure.  But will it last?

Looking at these ads, I wondered – as did the article’s author – “Why chase Apple?” I’m suspicious of the success of the campaign. I continued to wonder what long term damage this might do the Microsoft brand. Curious as to what each ad campaign said about the respective brands, I did a little content analysis. Here’s what I found:

What Apple says about Macs (& their users):

  • Macs are the finest available computers
  • Macs work with everything
  • Macs come with more applications
  • Macs are for your life, for fun
  • Macs are secure and virus resistant
  • Macs start right up
  • Macs product better quality, polished results
 What Apple says about PCs (& the users):

  • PCs come with nothing but crap installed (that has to be uninstalled)
  • PCs (or their users) are dimwitted or idiots
  • PCs are for work
  • PCs aren’t ready when you are
  • PCs (and their users) want to be like Macs/PCs have a Mac complex
What Microsoft says about PCs (& their users):

  • PCs are cheap
  • PCs are the future
  • PCs are not hip
  • PCs are for everyone
  • PCs are for children
  • PCs are diverse
  • PCs are flexible and customizable
 What Microsoft says about Macs (& their users):

  • Macs are cool
  • Macs are expensive
  • Macs are aesthetically pleasing
  • Macs are small

The more I look at the Microsoft campaign the more it seems that they are playing into apple’s hands. Essentially, calling Mac cool and aesthetically pleasing fits with Apple’s efforts. Additionally, I get the message that Macs are for children from a number of their recent ads. Does Microsoft want to brand the PC as a toy? Sure, it shows that PCs can be for your life, just as the Mac ads do, but I think they walk a very thin line here.

I do find the diversity angle appealing, but it seems that Microsoft abandoned that. Those ads were a direct response to the Mac ads, and I’m not sure that resonated well. The ads stopped running in less than a year.

The angle I think might do the most damage to the brand is the “PCs are cheap” approach. Starbucks is expensive, as is Bloomingdales, any mall clothing store, and a number of other products.  They do well BECAUSE they are expensive. I’m not convinced that the consumer wants to always “go cheap” with high priced electronic products. Sure, that will sell, but eventually things branded as “cheap” can also get a reputation for poor quality. That brand attribute is probably the worst stigma a company thought to have a buggier operating system than it’s competitor should want.

I have no immediate solutions for Microsoft’s problem. However, I do recognize their campaign as somewhat fragmented. While researching ads I came across three or four different message types for PC commercials. Apple’s ads were significantly more uniform in their message and delivery.  I don’t think this campaign benefits the long-term health of Microsoft. I think the 10 percent increase in preference was a temporary gain. I’m not confident that it will last if they keep the campaign as is.

I do think Microsoft (and their ad agency, which uses Macintosh) should stop chasing Apple. They need to pick a niche and go with it.

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Posted in Advertising, Branding, Strategy | 4 Comments »