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Building a corporate brand by working with personal branding
9/6-2010
Since Tom Peters first coined the expression Personal Branding in 1997 in a Fast Company article, there has been more and more hype around the concept and new terms such as career branding, employee branding personal mission statement, have seen the light of day. Mostly the discussion and application of Personal Branding is focused on how to obtain a new job or how to build a career for one-self. For that reason, when corporate and personal brands are discussed together the focus is mainly on topics such as Managing the conflict between a personal brand and a corporate brand.
In this article we will discuss the other side of the story, how working with personal branding can enhance the corporate brand. Let us look at a few different situations where the personal brand is supporting the corporate brand:
The Executive Team
Personal branding is all about having a clear identity for your own brand as well as being able to communicate in a manner that the recipient will accept and relate to your brand identity. If you are a member of the executive team, then being clear about your values and passions and how to communicate to different target audiences, will help you build a more loyal team that has a clear image of how you are.
This way of working with the personal brand will not only strengthen the corporate brand to the employees, but also to other stakeholders of the company.
The Sales Meeting
The sales representatives are one of the most active communication channels for the company, and are very sensitive of how the brand is perceived. The same is true with the executives, the personal brand of the person is extremely important. Does the sales person believe in the same values as the company and the products? In what ways do they differ and how can we work with them in a conscious way. Imagine a sales representative for a company working with eco-transportation, showing up to a meeting with a sports car or SUV. Imagine a sales representative for a consultancy firm saying that she doesn’t believe in the methods the company uses.
The personal brand, the image that the person communicates should be aligned with the corporate identity.
Recruiting
Showing the personal brands, the values, beliefs and the passions of current employees is a great way of attracting new employees with the right mindsets. This could be done by storytelling on the website, in folders or sending the right persons that are aware of their personal brand to student fairs. Make sure that the personal brands that you put out there are aligned with the positions you are recruiting for, and keep in mind that different profiles can be positive to the creative environment and the development of the company.
This way of working with the personal brand is also very useful when attending trade fairs or different networking events.
Social Media
With the development of social media, the consumer is demanding more personal service and that the companies are getting more personal. Working with the personal brands alongside company values will not only strengthen the relationship with customers on a more personal level, but will also create a consciousness about status updates and messages that seem harmless but can be hurtful to the brand. If you repeatedly see that your friend at the big lawyer firm posts “Off to another boring meeting” every now and then, your idea of the company will change over time into thinking that the company is boring, even if it is not even mentioned in the post. If that person instead would post “Off to another meeting about patent infringement”, then your idea of the company would probably change towards that they have a lot of experience of patent infringements.
These are just a few examples of how the personal brand can add value to corporate brands if used in a conscious and correct manner. If you have any other situations or thoughts, please add them to the comments for further discussion.
By Ola Rynge
Ola Rynge is an acclaimed speaker and entrepreneur with a passion for the personal development side of personal branding as well as the application of personal branding and social media for entrepreneurs and small businesses (covered in The Rynge Blog).
His company, The Rynge Group specializes in strategies within social media, personal brand development and market oriented small business and idea development.
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Should you let sheep create your mobile strategy?
2/6 2010
In 1870 there was a heated debate on how; the now famous, central park in New York City should be constructed. Frederick Law Olmsted, the main landscape architect for the project, mocked suggestions that came from other leading citizens during these debates. One such suggestion was to employ sheep to roam the park explaining, “The ground should be rented as a sheep-walk”. In going to and from their folds the flocks would be sure to form trails which would serve the public perfectly well for foot-paths; nature would in time supply whatever else was essential to form a quite picturesque and perfectly suitable strolling ground for such as would wish to resort to it”.
Olmsted was completely opposed to this. He agreed that public parks should be perceived as naturally occurring “wildness,” but in typical Victorian style he also believed nature was not able to it on its own. Adding, in order to achieve the desired effect the construction needs to be planned and as theorized, with the same intensity required to develop any other type of public building.
One hundred and seventeen years later in 1987 Elizabeth Barlow Rogers wrote a study entitled “Rebuilding Central Park – A Management and Restoration Plan” in which it is quoted “Study participants also drew charts of pedestrian traffic to take note of what are delightfully termed “desire lines”- paths actually made by walkers as opposed to those created on the drawing board.” After these desire-lines were mapped they were then included into the new layout for the park. This does not necessarily mean that Olmsted’s original design was flawed, it is clear that a modern visitor placed different demands on the park than one from 1870. However what is interesting here is the visitors desire to create the most pleasing route through the topographical landscape, regardless of all the planning and theorizing. Thus proving that when an object is placed in the public domain it is the public (or sheep) that decide how best uses it.
Photo creditIf we jump forward another twenty odd years to the now, what can we learn from this anecdote? Digital media is now so ubiquitous that how we consume and use it, is changing the way we interact not only in front of the screen but also out there, in the real world. Technological advancements in mobile solutions are always going to turn-on early adopters and allow evangelists to predict a future with mouth-watering possibilities. However the mobile space brings up a whole new set of relationship questions. As Jonathan Macdonald puts it “Technology will be really cool but we will need to prioritise psychology”.
In example, SMS was originally designed as a peripheral form of communication but now, due to its impersonal nature many people would rather have an SMS conversation with a friend than exchange the same amount of information in half the time via voice services. The benefits of video calling are clear when in front of a computer; bringing family and colleagues over distance closer together. On the mobile however, it never really took off, it was clear that we don’t need or want that type of immediacy when we are out and about.
The mobile space is a very, very, personal space in which only a few are invited and even fewer get to stay. Brands need to start engaging with their customers at the design level, and not as lab rats for user testing but as part of the design process. As Elisabeth Rogers found in her study, users expect and do things you can never anticipate. Through this engagement with the customers, brands have the possibility to help people continue doing the things do, whilst introducing new possibilities into their lives.
This fundament should lead the development for a mobile strategy. Digital media is made up of a growing list of communication channels and I hope that it has already sunk in that a brand must communicate accordingly in each. If brands are going to succeed in the mobile space they must start designing services that will provide a clear benefit to their customers, be it directly on brand or from the peripherals. This is personal media. Regardless of the technology, understanding people should be the focus for development.
Is it relevant? Is it functional? Is it immediate? Let the sheep decide.
By Steinar Danielsen
Steinar Danielsen is the co-founder and Creative Director of Supernative, a digital communication agency based in Stockholm. He works with providing analysis, online strategies, creative concepts and digital identities, for a range of international brands.
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Swedish Branding in China
26/5-2010
China and Sweden are definitely in the spotlight right now. Just back from Shanghai I realize the magnitude of importance of China. The Expo 2010 is a full on mega experience and the Swedish pavilion is no exception. The King of Sweden together with prominent business leaders and politicians poses on pictures in Chinese newspapers. Yesterday, the Chinese foreign minister Li Yizhong made a proposal to the Swedish government of extended cooperation between Swedish and Chinese small- and medium enterprises. So what does Sweden really have to offer China when it comes to marketing and branding? I see two things:
1. Strategic Brand Management knowledge
Swedish marketers have developed advanced systems on how to build brands from within the organization. Due to our lack of hierarchies, flexible flows of information, independent workforce, equality in the workplace, trade union involvement and teamwork and co-decisions, we have become rather skillful at gaining internal approval. This results in a higher buy-in from staff regarding brand strategy and new marketing programs. By engaging our staff in building the brand we effectively utilize human resources that might make or break new market initiatives. This approach, I believe, is not far from the corporate culture of Chinese companies, but not yet exploited. Chinese business professionals I have come in contact with are curious of this approach and the tools we have developed in brand engagement programs. Here lie some interesting opportunities for exchange of experience between brand managers and marketing experts from both countries.
2. Social Media Evolution
Sweden may not be in the forefront, but is not lagging behind when it comes to brand building through social media and untraditional channels. Being a very small export dependent country, with high Internet penetration, highly educated workforce and large share of innovative creative professionals, The Swedes have quickly jumped on the bandwagon of Social media and are learning fast, through “trial and error”. According to Baidu.com (China´s #1 search portal) there are 384 million people online today in China. It is the largest mobile Internet market in the world with 233 million mobile Internet users. With a growing middle class of 200 million people that are computer savvy and seeks out products of quality that reflects their personal taste (According to China Business Review. Jan 2009) branding on the net is inevitably going to be a priority for Chinese marketers. Swedish companies wanting to establish themselves in China need to adapt their social media skills and methods to Chinese language and culture. And by doing so new markets for consulting and services occur. Seems like an interesting opportunity, doesn’t it?
The “Wild East”?
China is expanding in a pace without comparison. The annual GDP growth for 2009 is 8,4%. According to Goldman Sachs BRIC report, China will be the source of 75% of the total incremental demand in the world in 2011. It has the largest youth population in the world with 560 million under the age of 30. Any businessman or woman, branding professional or marketer would be curious to find out what the implications will be for Swedish international brands and trade in the coming years. The Chinese has a word for networking and business relations, “Guanxi”. It has some resemblance to the Swedish concept of Network Based Marketing that came out of Uppsala University in the 1980-ies and has influenced many Swedish corporations in their way of doing business internationally. Perhaps this approach will be an opening for Swedish and Chinese marketers to commonly develop the next generation brand management and branding methodology. I, myself would love to be a part of that. Wouldn’t you?
By Carl Peyron
Carl Peyron is a senior brand strategist and founder of the Mind Your Brand network. He also teaches brand strategy and marketing as a tutor and examiner at IHM Business School and at Berghs School of Communication.
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Image protection and Image building: The Toyota case
19/5 2010
It is often said that confidence is a basis for marketing and the negative media coverage hurts a lot. But is this always true? Can being a Superbrand give protection?
a. Toyota has met with many problems and negative publicity …
b. … but yet Customer Satisfaction is rising according to new research in Sweden
Why?
1. Toyota (and its products/service) has handled their customers well and the product has created a confidence in Sweden that not even Congress hearings in USA can damage.
2. The customers are the best ambassadors and it seems that they become more positive the more ”my car” is attacked. Probably also an intense will to defend their car.
3. Toyota has felt a need to give discounts in USA. Maybe discounts are not necessary in Sweden. Toyota Prius is the most sold corporate leasing car. The customers are satisfied, loyal and profitable. Toyotas profit (published may 11) surpassed the analyst’s estimates.
4. The product (and service) is more important as image builder than the media ”storytelling” or the advertising agency’s image campaigns.
5. Being a Superbrand protects! Being a Superbrand sells! That is what Toyota has been doing for a long period. Toyota focuses on product development, selling and on the customers.
Conclusion:
- Keep your customers happy.
- Do not believe in the ad agency talk about ”Now you need an image campaign with all this bad publicity”.
- And give the customers the trust they really deserve. Communicate with the customers. Be honest. This is what we customers want. I have a Prius – and I want more information – not just media stories.
Another case:
The Volvo debacle with their new S60. It is supposed to break automatically when a crash is imminent and the driver is unaware of the possible danger. It did not when the press was invited to watch the innovation is full action. Will it hurt Volvo´s safety image or is it just one of those things that happen? Laughed at and then forgotten? Will the Volvo brand protect?
Summary:
How can a Superbrand protect against negative publicity? Toyota has the support from their customers – they are even more positive after the turmoil.
Bo Bäckman
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Nothing is impossible just do it!
12/4 2010
We are living in a world where imagination and fantasy are greater than reality. Superbrands live life in your fantasy where everything is possible. Brands confirm your dreams and mean that you can interpret, create and share your fantasies with whoever you want to when you want to.
Artist: Tom Sachs
At the beginning of the 1980s a much-criticised art form blossomed…
Graffiti spread like wildfire all over the world when the film “Style wars” was released. MOLOTOW™ saw what happened, MOLOTOW™ saw what it meant, MOLOTOW™ saw the opportunities. For ten years this global, multi-million dollar company has lived its fantasy. Against all expectations MOLOTOW™ has captured the major share of the spray paint can industry. Today this brand is present all over the world.
MadC vs Molotow™ Premium Transparent from Molotow on Vimeo.
MOLOTOW™ creates the best conditions for promising art, and for artists through exhibitions and opportunities to work with the best tools.
What’s your element?
Peter Nagy
Peter Nagy is the co-founder and Creative Director of a2c. analysis2creativity is a digital communication agency based in Stockholm. He works with digital identities and creative communication based on knowledge.
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Branding and geolocation services
5/5 2010
One thing is sure; we will never be the same again. Not the way we think, act or react will be the same again. When the mobile revolution took over our lives we started to open up our lives to others, not in an exhibitionistic way but little by little we’re sharing more and more of ourselves and our lives.
For me that change came in beginning of 2008 when I started using my Nokia N95 to the limit, and I have to say I never could have anticipated what changes my life would go through with the help of that gadget. If someone told me in October 2007 that by the end of 2009 I had changed my career completely I would have told them they were insane. But it did and here I am now.
For others the change came when they bought their first Iphone, and started to fill it with applications. Today there are virtually apps for everything from advanced calculus to sleep control. When it happened for you (or maybe it hasn’t happened yet for you?) only you can tell, but when it does it will have effects on your life, both personally and professionally!
So what has all this too do with branding now? Well, if it’s not obvious already let’s talk about geolocation services then. Gowalla, Foursquare and Brightkite, all of them has given us possibilities for Branding, both personal as well as for various companies like restaurants, pubs and others. The screener below is from the Foursquare webpage showing some brands to follow and get offers and new experiences from.
Examples
The first example is the recent partnership between the NBA’s New Jersey Nets and Gowalla involved the distribution of 250 pairs of tickets as Gowalla virtual items in targeted locations (sports bars, outdoor parks, gyms) during a recent Nets basketball game on April 12th. Users that found these virtual tickets upon checking into these locations were able to redeem them for actual Nets tickets at the arena’s box office. Ultimately, 15.2% of Gowalla virtual ticket winners attended the game. And I guess that’s a good result as we’re just in the beginning in a new way of branding.
Next is when Jimmy Choo and Foursquare teamed up in his first Socialmedia campaign in the Jimmy Choo Trainer Hunt. It’s was a real-time ‘treasure hunt’ that involved a pair of trainers from the new Fall collection doing a stylish tour around London and hanging out in posh venues from where they’ll send real-time updates about their whereabouts. And since the trainers only was at a given venue for a short time, the person who reaches the venue in time would win a pair of Jimmy Choo trainers in their size.
Use it for Branding
Other ways to use it is that companies can display their most frequent visitors on their webpage using the stream from Foursquare or Gowalla. And I think that we will see even more of this in the coming future, not to far away. This way companies also can address their special offers to their most frequent guests, so when the ‘log in’ to their facility they will receive a discount or something else to show the companies appreciation for their most valuable costumers. Let’s face it, everybody loves recognition, even if we are just recognizing ourselves in the Geolocation programs, we all want too have ‘Mayor ships’ right?
Personal – Professional use
Other aspects of geobranding is of course the possibility to find people you know or even new interesting people nearby and contact them to setup a short meeting. This also opens the possibility for new business and cooperation’s. This is a God given thing for all us freelancers and entrepreneurs that always try to find new ways and new people to work together with.
For me, starting off using Brightkite in 2008 and now using Foursquare more and more, this a natural way of my personal as well as my professional life now. I have only seen good things come from using geo locations services so I will continue to use them as long as I find them to be useful.
Anders Sporring
Anders Sporring is a freelance Socialmedia Facilitator from the consultant house Vascaia that runs his own blog Socialmedia by Anders Sporring where the main subjects are Socialmedia, Charity 2.0 and Branding. His also a keen microblogger on Twitter. In his varied background you find Music science, Composing and Technical work in both engineering and maintenance.
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What brands can learn from Lady Gaga – the 21st Century marketing mix personified
28/4 2010
Lady Gaga is the 21st Century marketing mix personified. She is living proof of the importance of the four Es; emotions, experiences, engagement and exclusivity – the new marketing mix to turn customers into fans of brands in today’s harsh marketplace. Earlier this year, Polaroid announced a strategic partnership with our fastest rising star, Lady Gaga, who now serves as Polaroid’s creative director. A brilliant strategic marketing move for Polaroid. With close to ten million Facebook fans and Twitter followers together, the lady of glam has proved she can move products. But, what is it about Lady Gaga that has made her this successful, and is there anything for brands to learn from this?
To begin with, all of you who have studied marketing are familiar with McCarthy’s marketing mix from the 1960s, the four Ps; how the right mix of product, price, placement and promotion help to position a brand on the market. About fifty years later many companies still use this model. However, the marketplace has drastically changed since the 60s. A company’s most important competitive weapon today is not its products, but its brand. For Lady Gaga this has been natural from the very beginning, and this is why she has such a rocketing career. Lady Gaga is not a product. She never has been. Lady Gaga is a brand, and she is a brand of substance.
First of all, Lady Gaga is an expert on building emotional ties to her audience, setting them in specific moods through her music, thus connecting to them. With specially designed clothes, sometimes haute couture (sometimes no clothes), dance and art, Lady Gaga gives her fans inspiring and unique performances, experiences, they never forget! Not only does her audience speak of those experiences, they talk about several things surrounding Lady Gaga, myths, frequently spread through social media by the young lady herself. Thus, engaging fans all over the world into two-way conversations and storytelling that gives Lady Gaga and her music high-speed promotion, reaching new audiences all around the globe. Moreover, Lady Gaga is about breaking boundaries, being interesting, standing out and distinguishing herself from other artists. She has successfully positioned herself in the mind of her audience, thus she is exclusive. Overall, she is the new marketing mix, the four Es, personified, and brands definitely have a lot to learn from this lady!
First lesson: It is the brand and not the product that matters most in today’s harsh market. When it comes to Lady Gaga, would people actually listen to her music only for her voice? Second: By using the four Es marketing mix; building emotional ties to customers, giving them experiences that engage them into two-way conversations about the brand, “owning” an exclusive position in the mind of the customers, will build brand equity and increase sales. Just as Lady Gaga does, brands will move their products. Final lesson: It’s still about the music! Using music (the media most people would least like to live without) as the fundamental key to create the four Es, will strengthen brands. But just as with the four Ps the right mix of each E is required to yield the best result. The role of music, and the relative level of each E is dependant on the company itself, how it does business, who its customers are, the type of product or service being sold and so on. But, one thing’s for sure, using music in the right way strengthens brand equity! Again, take a look at Lady Gaga. What would she be without her music? A spectacle, a freak stared at walking down the street? She would definitely not be one of the most talked about brands (sorry, artists) covering fancy magazines all over the world and reaching new audiences, would she?
Jakob Lusensky and Sara Zaric
Jakob Lusensky is CEO of Heartbeats International, a brand communication agency specialised in music. He is also the author of the book Sounds like Branding released earlier this year by Norstedts Publishing. Sara Zaric is working with production management and project leading for Heartbeats International’s global clients.
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The web of brands is coming close to an end – nerds strike back!
21/4 2010
When faced with the opportunity to write a blog post for an online entity named the Superbrands blog, I naturally had to provoke by disclosing the future of online brands. There is no future for online brands.
Today’s web is driven by optimized content and popular people. People, product, news and institutional brands in all forms, are currently delivering the online truth to everyone. There is a big movement towards personal branding as well as optimized content. If you don’t get 500 retweets or rank on the first page of the SERPs, your voice does not count. You have to be popular amongst people or have a ton of links/references to your pages in order to get through the social filters of the online environment.
This is an excellent place for good communicators and popular people. Those people who know who to hang with, the click of cool people, the jocks and the handsome ones. With little regard to what’s the truth, these people are exploiting the online world the way they exploited the offline world.
There is only one problem. The web was developed by nerds, not cool people. When the cool people came into the realm of the nerds and started using the nerd’s tools for cool people’s gain, the whole concept of being a nerd was distorted.
Nerds had invented the online world to get away from the in-crowd. They had developed it to get closer to “the truth” rather than being distracted by mainstream cultures. Even worse was that the cool people now claimed they knew what it was all about. All of a sudden it was cool to be nerdy and these days it feels like anyone is claiming nerd turf. Naturally, true nerds feel lost and want to find a way out of this place that is ever so slowly becoming more and more like a high school cantina.
Nerds Strike back!
Popularity has never been the natural driving force of a true nerd, and thus, the time of brands is about to have a very disrupt end. It is time for the nerds to once again strike back, and so we are currently conspiring to create a web of data rather than a web of people and content.If you haven’t seen the TED talk by Kim Kelly about the next 5000 days of the web, I think you have to take a few minutes, and kick back to watch it.
The current web consist of three major components namely people, content and the links between them. The first web managed to link pages and resources through the use of URLs, the second web brought people to the table and we were able to link people to both each other through social networks, as well as to content through an immense sharing process where resources changed hands by the simple method of posting links within networks.
The next step in this evolution is to be able to not only link people to resources, but link data to data, data to people, and people to people through data. Regardless of what document that data is in. Think of it like the explanatory links in Wikipedia. Each one of those links lead to a page with a new set of data that is in turn related to another set of data and so on.
A fools example of linked data
Let’s say you want to visit a new restaurant in Stockholm that has received 4-5 star ratings from people living in Östermalm. Today this search query is virtually impossible for the average Joe to construct, and even though you would be able to construct it, there is probably no such document available online, that match your specific query.However, there is probably a newly opened restaurant in Stockholm that has received 4-5 star ratings from people living in Östermalm. The web of today limits you to find only a vague representation what you are searching for. As the web turns towards being able to link data this search query will be a piece of cake.
And complicating it somewhat
The dataset Östermalm is a set of coordinates that reside within the set of coordinates named Stockholm. Östermalm has no people living within its coordinates registered with an e-mail address on their public profile of the local yellow pages. They have used the same e-mail when posting an online review of a restaurant in the central parts of Stockholm. As a web of data relates these data types to one another, it will be possible to find this kind of information which today is virtually impossible to extract without very lengthy search sessions.The above example is just one application of the data driven web. Imagine what this will do to research in fields of medicine, national security or journalism. I am not saying anything about the integrity aspects of the web of data, as that discussion will be completely useless.
What’s my proof
I have no non-disputable, solid and direct evidence except for some patterns and “coincidences” that are currently taking place online. If you look beyond the fact that nerds all over the world are joining forces to make data accessible and linkable, there are several established institutions that are moving towards preparing themselves for a web of data.Even before Hans Rosling stood on the stage of TED and displayed his bubbles based on linked data, Tim Berners-Lee (yes the guy who founded the world wide web) was working on his new project on linking data. Google released their application “favorite places” some months back, and yesterday Facebook announced that you can link your personal profile to stuff you like. Twitter is a hub for this very purpose and Buzz is its extreme relative.
These institutions are currently setting the framework in which we will be able to determine our online surroundings through our actions. The future of online business thus not dependent on how well your brand communicates but how well your products deliver.
Then again, nerds will never win
On the other hand, brands and popular people will probably adapt to the new circumstances and find ways to remain being top dog. As people generally go where the cool crowd hangs out, nerds united will probably not see their world of linked data adopted until the world of cool has found a way to utilize it to their own benefit.All I’m saying is that the web we are experiencing right now is not an end destination, it is a part of the journey.
Jesper Åström
Jesper Åström blogs at jesperastrom.com where he on a continuous basis delivers tutorials on how to do the stuff others talk about. During daytime he works as Digital Director of the ad agency Honesty, but at night time he turns into a serial scientist, exploring the deeper parts of the web. Find him through Google anywhere you are in the world by simply typing his name and hitting “I’m feeling Lucky”.
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The expensive experience
14/4 2010
A few years back there was reluctance from luxury brands to enter into the online line world. The ‘mass class’ of the Internet was contra to the ‘high-class’ position of luxury brands. In short they felt it was beneath them, of course now the ballpark has changed and the majority of major luxury brands have made the move into the digital realm, some even going as far as to offer online retailing.
Luxury goods play on the senses and their purchase requires a high aesthetical appreciation and the satisfaction to all five human senses. It is an act that often requires a human presence to both guide and pamper us, elements are strikingly absent in the online environment. The luxury brand’s flagship store is still the holy place of worship where everything from the location to the smallest in-store detail is carefully considered to provide total emersion of the brand. So can a typical luxury brand store’s atmosphere be transferred online? I think it can, if we remember the web’s ability to engage the user in storytelling, an intimate form of interaction and measureable customer service.
Connecting to a customer’s visual and audio senses online is easy and is already being done well by most competent brands but what of exclusivity and customer service? These two key elements can be applied to the web, but for some reason they elude even the most competent of luxury brands online. There is no reason that luxury brands should be able to develop an online strategy and deliver a site that can provide their customers with a similar sense of exclusivity and personal service online that they get from their nearest flagship store. No matter how inspiring or well produced a website is, if it only pampers to the visual aspects of their products, it is only giving a customer half of what they require when purchasing a luxury brand.
For luxury brands that have made the bold step into e-retail I think you will find that for the most, it has become their Achilles heel. Again and again after an inspiring site has managed to convince its customers to click the holy ‘buy now’ button, it leads them straight out of the back door and into the dreaded “shopping flow”. All of a sudden the same items of desire that we were drooling over seconds ago are laid out bare against a white background, surrounded by facts and figures that do less to inform than they do force the customer to question if the elevated price tag is really worth it. Would brands treat their products, or for that matter their customers like that in the real world, I think not.
One brand that is making steps in the right direction, in the smooth transition from inspiration to buying is Ralph Lauren with the launch of an iPhone app for their rugby collection. The app lets you create your own Rugby shirt from scratch by selecting its style and additional patches to adorn it. You can also see if you look good in your creation by taking a picture of yourself and integrate it with the shirt. Once your shirt is done, and you are happy with it you can even purchase your personal shirt direct through the iPhone app.
Most luxury brands still have a way to go when it comes to developing a strong online presence. Behind all of the smooth graphics, expensive productions, and editorial content most sites still lack the exclusivity and personal customer service. The question for all luxury brands should repeatedly ask themselves when working with the brand in a digital environment should be “Would we treat our brand or customers like that in the real world?”
Steinar Danielsen
Steinar Danielsen is the co-founder and Creative Director of Supernative, a digital communication agency based in Stockholm. He works with providing analysis, online strategies, creative concepts and digital identities, for a range of international brands. -
How to use the drawbacks of traditional media as an advantage
7/4 2010
Right now the supermarket Lidl is rebranding themselves in Sweden, in a classic way: they’re trying to convert the brand weakness (boring, dull and simple stores) into the strength: we have low prices on food instead of investing in store interiors.
As a media consultant, I think this positioning tool (sometimes called “triangulation”) is not used enough among media companies. Here are some suggestions how to take the critics contra-claims and use them as pro-arguments:
Credibility
Many media consumers are losing trust in media. In Scandinavia people still put a lot of trust in radio and newspapers. Tabloids and TV are losing trust. But despite this the decline is a fact. Why are consumers losing trust in media? There are many reasons but I think these two are relevant: 1) More sources available today compared to ten years ago, this creates a greater opportunity to find new information and perspective to news. 2) A newspaper or TV station can’t possible cover every angle, they have to skip and choose what they think is most important – that is what editing is all about.
Possible position: media don’t give you every news and information – we give you the relevant structure and context to what happens in the world. The rest – just f**king Google it!Slow
To many consumers the newspaper is just a summary to what happened yesterday, news that they already read online in the afternoon or saw on the news show last night. This is a basic problem for every publisher who thinks they are in the news business. But media should be more than a news service: it is about relevance, affinity, analysis and understanding the world.
Possible position: news is not about “what happened”, it is about why it happened – and will it happen again?Death of media
For the last years people talk about the crisis – even death – for traditional media: circulation are on a decline and ad revenue crashing. This is in some cases true, in many cases a misconception – many media companies are doing really fine. What it’s really about is transformation: the business model is under reformation and this creates challenges and problems for traditional media companies. These who are too slow or unwilling to acclimatize will have a problem surviving, but these who are willing to adjust have great survival chances.
Possible position: every new technology have changed us, not killed us. And every change made us better, stronger and more profitable.Old people’s media
Reading a newspaper is by large a question of habits and finding time in your life to read it. When your 19, what would you prefer – going up for your whole wheat cereals or sleep another 20 minutes, grabbing something on the way to school? I know what I used to choose… The challenge is to offer content and media for every stage in the life cycle. Many media (especially newspapers) still tries to cater every need and behavior with just one product. This “omnibus” strategy won’t be sustainable.
Possible position: everything we do is not for everyone, but we will do something for you.Expensive
Yeah, everything online is free – so are some free newspapers on the tube. To many people the price says a lot about the quality. Luxury fashion is doing well in the recession – so is the expensive and non-discount newsweekly: The Economist.
Possible position: the best things in life are free – the greatest things have a value.The conclusion from this experiment is that the current weaknesses are in the brand proposition. Media try to promise everything, are afraid of excluding anyone and think they are in the news business.
Many other industries would rush to change that brand position.
Olle Lidbom
Olle Lidbom is Media Consultant for the Scandinavian newspapers and magazine industry, based in Stockholm. His influential blog Vassa Eggen is well-read and a cited source for editorial, business and industry analysis.