Posts Tagged ‘Branding’

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.

Tags: , , ,
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.

Tags: , , , ,
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.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Branding, Strategy | No Comments »

No Channel is an Island

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

I hate buzzwords. Most people hate buzzwords. You probably hate buzzwords. That being said, today’s buzzword is “synergy.” I’m sorry.

I’ve known the word since grad school, but recently I’ve seen it being used more frequently and often incorrectly. Just to be clear, it basically means “the interaction of the parts produces an effect greater than the actual sum of the parts.” To paraphrase: interaction of “synergetic” things will multiply results instead of adding. From this concept we get integrated marketing campaigns, not just ad campaigns.

I mention this because so many “social media experts” and advertising agencies use social media in a way that doesn’t connect to the rest of their campaigns. It’s not being used synergistically. In an article for Ad News, I wrote about how you need to use a different style of messaging, a conversational style, when using social media. I caution you, that’s only part of it.

What many professionals forget to do is integrate the social media into the campaign at large. What I see is a forced use of the medium. Don’t do this. Social media campaigns must be strategic and part of a larger campaign.

I’m cautioning the mixed readership here: integrate, integrate, integrate. If you’re thinking of using social media, don’t just force yourself to use it, it needs evaluation just like radio, TV or print does. If you don’t know the demographic and population, you’re in trouble.

Social media integration is not easy. The style of the medium is very nontraditional. Even if you’re not paying to use it, you still have man-hours invested. Beyond that, you have to be sure that use of the medium doesn’t have a negative impact on your campaign or the brand at large.

If you don’t know how to do this effectively, ask someone who does. More importantly: if you do hire someone who claims to be a social media expert, be sure they can work with the larger campaign. If you hire an agency, don’t assume they know social media. Be sure they know or do research on the trends and demographics. I can assure you, they can change direction on a dime.

…and don’t forget the synergy.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »