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Agitation: Step 1 in building a purposeful culture

By Mark Di Somma

clouds on the horizon

You can’t and shouldn’t change a culture just for the sake of it. Obvious, right? And yet managers often announce change programmes without referencing and quantifying specific motivations.

There’s little doubt that people act more positively and decisively when they are presented with a context for actions. A real context. A pain point they can feel. An opportunity that stares them in the eye and says “Come get me”. So often, the reasons given for changing a culture are far too broad. They’re couched around concepts or theory – productivity gains or the need to downsize or an economic change of fortune. The thing is, none of those reasons sound like reasons. They sound like excuses or, worse, prompts. They’re mantras not motives.

In this wonderful article courtesy of Bain & Co, authors Patrick Litre and Kevin Murphy trace the ups and downs of the traditional change programme:

Bain's change program trend

Specifically, the Agitation stage of a culture change programme needs to address the three change resistors that cause that significant dip at the start:

•  Anchoring locks people into conventional thought patterns;
•  The ambiguity effect means they would rather deal with what they know than what they don’t know (yet); and
•  Confirmation bias encourages them to look for evidence not to act and to doubt whether change will work.

Building a purposeful culture starts with providing people with a purposeful reason for changing the culture they have.

Answer these kinds of questions:
What exactly has happened to make upheaval necessary now?
Why today – and not last year?
And WIIFM to get involved and to do everything possible to make it succeed?

Deliver a trigger that is powerful enough to incite action and not just compliance.

Prove “we can’t stay here”.

Acknowledgement
Photo of “hey son, get out of the clouds” taken by Ibrahim lujaz, sourced from Flickr

Further reading
The idea of Agitation came from BJ Fogg. Read my original post on this here.
Looking for a list? Here’s 30 things you should tell employees.

Fighting the "fadar" …

By Mark Di Somma

Bright lights all around

We now have greater access to ideas than ever before, but the ideas themselves, it seems to me, have a much shorter half-life. New thinking, new people, new everything are presented to us at a dizzying pace – in editorial, feeds, slide decks, talks, videos, articles, almost everywhere one cares to look. In an age of instant celebrity and content marketing, thoughts and variations of thoughts are being championed from every social soapbox.

Ideas have become fashion – because they are marketed to us as fashions. And like fashion, most will barely outlive the press release that trumpeted them. A proliferation of lists across the media adds to the sense of volatility.

The “fadar” is how I describe the promulgation of ideas fighting for our collective and individual attention across every aspect of the cultural landscape. Some will shine. Many won’t get the chance. Others will bedazzle on first view only to burn out well before they hit paydirt … (Ironically, as an idea in its own right, the fadar is of course subject to the very forces that it describes.)

Brands are caught up in this. They’re increasingly positioned, and thus perceived, through media, as hot, dead, on the comeback or fighting off the receivers in a world that appears faster, more volatile and less forgiving by the year. Similarly, answers to current business “dilemmas” are marketed to us in the same way – as quick-fix ways to deal with issues in an accelerating world. In a recent article on Branding Insider Strategy, Walker Smith warns though that perceptions such as increasing speed are “an illusion that brand marketers should scutinize carefully”. Specifically, he says, marketers need to be wary of the discrepancy between the cultural footprint of new media against their actual shoe size. “Twitter is a prime example. Its cultural importance is indisputable. But … the reactions and opinions expressed on Twitter rarely mirror those of the population at large. It is provocative but not representative.” Little is as big, as serious, as important or as trivial as it may appear in the feeds.

So, if you’re a brand, how do you stay true to your brand in a world where nothing seems to hold that much attention for very long? Inspired by a suite of idea that continues to ring true for me, I’ve looked to apply the Heath Bros’ six principles of stickability to a strategy for successful branding:

Work from the simplest premise imaginable

Powerful brands telegraph pointedly simple ideas. Ironically that singularity then allows them to apply that thought in interesting and lateral ways. They last – because the ideas themselves are everlasting. Magic will always be fascinated, so will excitement, so will rebellion, so will finding, as will adventure. Steep your brand in the human condition rather than market conditions.

Lead people away from what they know

In a world where everyone’s been and seen all that’s going, intriguing brands use a combination of show and tell. They demonstrate their currency and capabilities through well-timed upgrades and new releases whilst continuing to lift the horizon bar by alluding to ideas “under development”. In the hands of a master, by the time those ideas do come to fruition, there’s always a smile in the tail – a fascinating twist that soon has everyone talking. Stock the shelf and, at the same time, feed the anticipation.

Inspire specifically

Express your brand in moments not generalities. And make the moments consistent but not predictable. Capture the best thing that will happen in a snapshot. Help people expect.

Help consumers misbehave

Most of us are locked into what we know. Consumers break habits much more slowly than we listen to or read suggestions, and at quite a different pace than the media might suggest. If you want your customers to do something that sits outside their current behaviour, give them a viable reason and/or a valid way to do something ‘small and disturbing’. The water industry did that by changing the language. When consuming water was no longer just about drinking and much more about hydration, it inspired a multi-billion dollar change in behaviour. By shifting the premise and linking it to a simple action – eight glasses a day – they actually changed the question that consumers subconsciously asked themselves. It was no longer about how much water to drink, or even whether to drink water at all. Now, the only question was which water to drink.

Every change of brand is an act of disloyalty. With their concept of the “third place” Starbucks changed how coffee drinkers viewed their cafes. They did it with this little heresy: don’t go straight there [to work, to your next meeting, home]. There’s always time to pickup a take out.

Encourage them to cry, laugh, love

Powerful brands involve people. They use that simple premise that I referred to earlier to strike a deep chord with consumers; to connect with them at the level of principles and schemas rather than slogans and discounts. You can couch that in all sorts of ways. I put it this way: “Be very interesting.” It’s extraordinary how few brands pass that simple, simple test. In fact, I think one of the great mis-thinks of marketing is that we allow ourselves to believe we’re in the business of persuasion. We’re not of course. We’re in the business of confirmation. People act on what they feel. De Beers changed how people fall in love, because they confirmed in consumers’ minds how people should capture and express commitment. Nothing says relationship like a diamond.

Appeal to their emotional need for reasons

Facts talk to our need to know. Stories talk to our need to experience. The reason is remarkably simple. We’re told facts but we share stories – and our understanding grows through that sharing. Stories help us recognise all sorts of things – from situations to value.

And because of that, the most powerful stories are refreshed, so that they retain their relevance. Great brands tell great stories – and increasingly, they do so at different speeds across different channels depending on consumers’ absorption rates. Red Bull is always telling a story centred on excitement – but the ways it captures and expresses that story are as momentary as “Taurine”, as sensational as a free-fall from space or as long form as their sponsored appearance in a Formula One motor race. They continue to expand and reinterpret that story through new events and adventures.

My own take: set the pace with your customers emotionally

It’s tempting for all of us to be drawn to one idea over another and to believe that we know where the next big opportunity lies. My take-out is that marketers need to resist the urge to chase momentary attention, or to see any one idea as the future of their brand, because people see, absorb, react (sometimes) and then move on. Marketing is about beautiful messages based on clear principles, applied competitively, across dynamic channels. New ideas add to the information we work from, but they need to be ruthlessly and continually analysed for their effectiveness, relevance and applicability.

There’s no doubt that the body of theory and ideas that marketers draw their insights from continues to increase – as marketing converges with fields as diverse as behavioural economics and technology – and that’s exciting. In some ways, that makes the work of, and the pressures on, marketers much harder because there are so many fads fighting for priority and consideration. Ultimately though, successful brands have the patience and the discipline to set the pace emotionally for what their customers want, rather than trying to take their cue from the sound and light show going on all around them.

Acknowledgements
Photo of “Albireo – colourful double star” by Jared Smith, sourced from Flickr

9 factors that help anchor your brand price

By Mark Di Somma

Beautiful car, beautiful cost

Behavioural economists refer to the decision making process brands use to set a price in the minds of consumers, especially when those buyers are dealing with something that is unfamiliar to them, as “anchoring”. Anchoring provides a reference point from which to perceive and negotiate “worth”. Brands looking to set a high value on what they offer anchor highly; brands looking to position themselves as accessible and everyday do the opposite.

De Beers anchored the value of their rings around “two months’ salary”. The message to purchasers – in this case, men in a jewellery store (perhaps the ultimate social fish out of water) – was that it will hurt but it’s worth it. At the other end of the value scale, when Coca Cola originally positioned their “delicious, refreshing” drink at 5c a glass, they were sending a clear signal to drinkers that Coke was the affordable beverage everyone could enjoy every day. Both messages were on brand, even though they presented vastly different value propositions.

De Beers’ “price” of course takes no reference from the actual cost – how can it, given that two people could have very different salaries? But then, neither for that matter, does Coke’s.

One thing is certain. In this age of ‘fair pricing’, what companies charge is certainly a topic that incites a lot of debate, as the reactions to this article about the cost of making a designer T-shirt prove.

I’ve found brands often look to reference their pricing on what they think a product should be worth (in their eyes) rather than how valuable it might be to a consumer and more particularly, how its anchor price compares with the other anchors that consumers see around them, and draw reference from, every day.

The price you anchor from should benchmark the value you propose to deliver. If you propose to deliver high value, do as De Beers does, and anchor highly. Set an anchor that articulates a clear expectation for what consumers can look forward to. Brands tend to focus on the tangible costs when they look to set such a value, but in today’s much more experiential economy, intangibles are a critical element of the value equation. With that in mind, here are my nine value influencers.

1. The value of what the product does to the person buying/using it – how does it positively impact their lives? What contribution does it make to them socially, communally and personally?

2. The ease with which they can access similar functionality – how common is that? And what do others charge to deliver something similar, and something very different?

3. The power of the brand – what the brand’s own story tells the buyer they should anticipate paying.

4. The perceived value of the components – vital for brands with ingredient brand components (such as Intel) but also for brands that use formulations (e.g. beauty products) because it adds to the perception that the consumer is getting more for their money, or that the brand is more accessible because it uses generic ingredients. Either way, components can help ‘explain’ price.

5. The look of the product – how beautiful/functional is it? – is it something people would want to be seen with, or to have? How much thought, effort and money went into making it look like that – and now that it does look that good, how easy is it to replicate and how long will that replication take? Packaging too transmits very powerful “value” signals because it elicits feelings of indulgence at one extreme and thrift at the other. I sometimes refer to design as part of a brand’s IP margin.

6. The demand for the product against supply – previews, press and social media coverage can fuel “must have” or “must ignore” status, heightening or degrading perceived value.

7. Where is it available – setting sets strong price expectations because environment can have such a powerful effect emotionally. The same goods available at a street vendor for example are likely to cost less than at a conventional store because the buying experience is so different. I expect to see stronger integration between physical and online environments in the years ahead for brands that cost more. At the same time, I expect any cost differential between the online cost and the in-store cost to close.

8. Service levels – the levels of support that come part and parcel with the product versus those that consumers must pay for. This is changing rapidly in some sectors like aviation as brands look to charge less upfront but also include less. Particularly at the budget end of the market, service at anything beyond basic maintenance is increasingly a fee-based addition. This allows value-conscious brands to anchor their prices lower, making them appear more attractive.

9. The “world of difference” coupon – the extent to which buying the product makes a difference to the world, either through what the brand has done ethically or what it plans to do as a result of the consumer buying. The lower the price premium, the lower the expectation that the brand will contribute globally.

The key thing to remember about these influencers is that they are volatile. Each one shifts in worth (and therefore influence on the anchoring price) depending on its priority to the buyer at the time, the relative attraction of others and the extent to which a brand has been able to develop and sustain loyalty with that buyer. In most cases, brands should be looking to improve the proposed value on an ongoing basis, or at least retain current margins in the face of commoditisation, through a combination of small and larger changes to these value influencers. Such changes, brought to market and promoted socially and in the media, give consumers a sense that they are continuing to pay the right price for what they are now getting.

One way that I commonly suggest brands make sure they keep their pricing competitive is to regularly audit their proposed value against their proposed price.

• What have we been charging (and what has the response been?)
• What do we want to do with that price (retain/increase/decrease)?
• What will we need to adjust to make that price feel fair to the consumer and be competitive against our rivals?

Let me close with an interesting aside from Rory Sutherland. In one of his presentations, he dryly observed that, while price anchoring was an important social signal, and one that consumers took serious note of, there were sectors in which, in his opinion, it simply didn’t apply.

It was impossible, he said, to accurately value the price of wine because most people knew they wanted a drink but didn’t know enough about wine to make a value judgment about what they should be paying. Winemakers, he cheekily suggested, could in effect state the quality and set the price at almost any level they chose because drinkers actually couldn’t tell a good wine from any other. Vino, he concluded, in a social context anyway, was one of those products that was consumed for the impression it made on others rather than the effect it had on the consumer.

You may or may not agree with him. Either way, the price anchoring at play is something to think about (and maybe test) the next time you’re out and you get the bill for the white you had with dinner … Is a glass of wine with dinner reassuring at, say, $9 a glass – or outrageous. Cheers.

Acknowledgements
Photo of “The new guy in town” taken by Tom Wolf, sourced from Flickr

Brand language is volatile

By Mark Di Somma

Language fades

Linguists will tell you that language is constantly evolving and that a number of factors drive the speed and extent of those changes. Language changes as it is passed on; it adapts to movements in society and technology; it reflects shifts in social attitudes as a result of social, economic and political pressures.

In the shorter term, words are volatile. New words are invented to describe new technologies, industries, products and experiences. Changes in the ways that individuals speak also fuel language change. And of course words themselves change meaning – but more importantly they change significance over time. Ideas that once carried weight and urgency have been lost in translation or have been diluted to the point where they no longer command the respect they once had. Equally, words that once sat in the relative back-blocks have been elevated to new levels of relevance and importance.

Because of all these factors, words shift in value through useage, through adoption and through being redefined. And these changes are critical to understanding how people will engage with them. This article in the New York Times (spotted by the ever watchful Alex) is about just how much our language has altered and why. It identifies a range of important trends through the words that matter to us now: individualism is on the rise at the expense of communal words and phrases; moral terms have declined along with words associated with the moral high ground such as courage, gratitude, humility and compassion; words associated with the ability to deliver and fairness, pointing to economic production and exchange rose; and words associated with politics and government have also become more prevalent.

That volatility is as true in the world of commerce as it is across everyday culture. Words go in and out of fashion and as they do so, they take sectors, and the associations that those sectors have relied on, with them. Examples: “conversation” is hot in the realm of marketing right now, along with “content” and “data”. So is “storytelling”. “Tribe” was once radical, now it’s mainstream. “Natural” is close to discredited. And “sustainable”, in many circles, now simply means viable. “Innovation” often amounts to improvement. “Purpose” has climbed through the ranks of awareness to emerge from fuzzy-logic status to C-level preoccupation. In 2000, having an i-anything was the epitome of cool. Now it’s an anachronism.

All of this is important if you’re a brand because it shows why your language cannot simply stay put. Words that you may use to describe yourselves, your sector, your products, your importance, even your contribution may, by now, be sending the wrong signals to consumers. That doesn’t mean they’ve necessarily lost their meaning, but, more likely, the original value of that meaning has commoditised through useage, or more likely, over-use.

Here’s a simple suggestion. Check your “tag cloud” – the collection of words that lie at the core of how your brand describes itself internally and externally. Check for meaning (and lack of it), relevance and motivation. (Tired words are a sign of a tired culture and, arguably, a tired strategy.)

Part of continuing to successfully redefine who you are as a brand lies in reviewing and refreshing the language you use for the meaning it now has – not the meaning it had 30 years ago.

Acknowledgements
Photo of “outdoor advertising space now available” by fenderfish, sourced from Flickr

Now showing on Branding Strategy Insider

By Mark Di Somma

Branding Strategy Insider

I’ve been a fan of the good people at Branding Strategy Insider for many years. Regular readers will know that I have quoted a number of the site’s contributors on a number of occasions. So I’m absolutely thrilled that they’ve chosen to pick up a number of my posts in recent days and to feature them on the site:

Creating a Powerful Brand Manifesto explains how and why every brand must be prepared to nail its colours to a church door;
A Brand that Discounts or a Discount Brand examines the fundamental difference between brands that use discounts strategically and those that practice “value” pricing;
Brand Advantage and the Reason for Buying looks at why brands need to be able to identify a reason for buying that provides buyers with sufficient incentive to chase a result;
Evolve or Transform? 17 Brand Factors examines the difference between what brands must do to evolve and how far brands must be prepared to go to transform.

Thoughts, reactions and comments to all of these articles are most welcome.

Nailing your opinions: creating a powerful brand manifesto

By Mark Di Somma

Pinning your opinions

On All Saint’s Day 1517, Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on the door of Castle Church, sparking, in the eyes of many, what would become the Protestant Reformation. Whether or not he actually did post the Theses (of course there is historical debate) and what that generated are off-topic, but the action of pinning your colours to a statement of beliefs for all the world to see lies at the core of building and articulating an opinionated brand.

Brands build trust through behaviours. And behaviours should be based on clear principles. Those principles should bring your purpose to life by laying out the clear psychological guidelines within which your brand operates. They are, when done well, an inspiring précis of your organisation’s worldview.

Martin Lindstrom made the brand case for opinion for me in this post several years ago when he wrote: “The fact is that consumers are tiring of perfectly polished brands. Inoffensive brands. … Brands without well-defined opinions will find it increasingly difficult to gain traction in the market place. The challenge is to ensure that the opinions are in tune with the core values of the brand. That they are authentic, and not an opportunistic and superficial play for attention by deception.”

Diesel’s famous “Be Stupid” is one of my all-time favourites. It’s a wonderful mix of observation, grace, defiance, sarcasm, insight and counter-intuition that lays out Diesel’s anti-smart stance, including the fabulous assertion that “Stupid is the relentless pursuit of a regret-free life”. You’re left in no doubt as to Diesel’s abiding philosophy, and the case is put in such a way that the viewer is pretty much asked to choose one way or the other, stupid or smart.

So what’s the basis for a powerful manifesto? Jean-Claude Saade captured it nicely here with the thought that there are 7 doors to connection between people and brands:

• Shared values, such as peace, equality and liberty;
• Shared roots including religion, ethnicity, language, culture, citizenship, education, profession and geography;
• Shared fights, be they political, environmental or ethical;
• Shared pursuits such as wealth, power, information and notoriety;
• Shared lifestyle aspirations;
• Shared passions, including sports, arts, music and travel; and
• Shared preferences, including food, drinks, cars and clothing

What’s clear from Saade’s observation is that there are rich and diverse grounds for creating likeability. The challenge though doesn’t lie in finding your point of affinity. The hardest thing about creating a compelling manifesto is having your own take as a brand on that intense point of connection.

A powerful manifesto stems from a disruptive premise. And an inspiring narrative. My suggestion: Don’t write a piece of prose. Write a rallying cry in the media of your choice, with:
• The anger of a placard
• The commitment of a doctrine
• The beauty of a story
• The hope and excitement of a vivid dream
• The sense of a philosophy and
• The call to action of a direct response ad.

You’ve nailed your manifesto when it evokes one very, very simple response: “Couldn’t have said it better myself …”

Acknowledgements
Photo of “Church Door” by Acrylic Artist (Rodney Campbell) sourced from Flickr

When projects don’t stack: the fine art of understanding mistakes

By Mark Di Somma

By Mark Di Somma

When things go pear shaped

When a project doesn’t meet expectations, I’m fascinated by what gets asked, who does the asking and what, if anything, emerges as the key learning. My view is that we should treat projects that don’t go to plan not so much as wreckages but rather as breakages: they occur when the picture we have in our minds of what will occur shatters, splits or simply falls a different way than we had led ourselves to expect. That can mean something as elemental as having the wrong picture in the first place – or it can come down to developments that pulled things out of alignment.

Faced with picking up the pieces, here are 22 questions I use to try and get to the truth, and to move on:

1. What exactly went wrong? (What did not happen?)

2. How “wrong” was it – in the sense that how much did it differ from what we had told ourselves would happen?

3. How realistic was our prediction in the first place? (How did we arrive at that prediction?)

4. What did we do right throughout the project?

5. When did the quality change and what was the impact of that?

6. Even though we did things right, what didn’t happen that we expected to happen?

7. What did we base that expectation on? Was that reasonable?

8. Where did the biggest miscalculations occur? What did happen that took us by surprise?

9. Why were we not ready for that?

10. Who was most taken by surprise when things didn’t go to plan – and why?

11. What did we prompt people to do (or not do) that led to that occurring?

12. How did we seek to prompt customers to respond?

13. How quickly did we want them to respond? Why was that timeframe important?

14. If they did respond well and as expected, why did the initiative fail?

15. If they didn’t respond, why didn’t they do what we asked them to do? Because they didn’t want to do it, or because we didn’t provide enough incentive for them to do it quickly enough?

16. Who did we not reach that we should have?

17. Why were they not where we thought they would be? Or did we ignore them?

18. What did that cost us?

19. How did we react when we were taken by surprise?

20. Are we still working under the same miscalculations that saw this project fail?

21. Is everyone truly aware of what part their actions played in the project not hitting its targets? (Has everyone been told the truth about how much of the responsibility lies with them? None, some, a little, more …?)

22. How have we rewarded the people who took part so that they will feel motivated to do their best by the next project?

Acknowledgements
Photo of “Crazy hills of San Francisco” by Hakan Dahlstrom, sourced from Flickr

Don’t just provide reasons to buy. Change the reason for buying.

By Mark Di Somma

Change the reason for buyingIt’s tempting when your product all but parallels that of your competitors to be drawn into a meaningless war: a fight for market share that revolves around devaluing (looking to price the other guy out), trivial pursuit (nit-picking on features in a bid to show technical advantage) or overshadowing (spending up large in mainstream media in a bid to raise “awareness”).

The problem with chasing competitive preference is that brands spend far too much time focusing on the competitive aspects and far too little insight on identifying where the preferences could lie.

All three approaches above are looking to provide consumers with reasons to buy, but while they may change perceptions, they actually do little to change affinity. It’s a distinction that’s easily overlooked. Changing what consumers think of you for now does not automatically translate into a shift in how consumers feel about you – especially in the longer term. They may, as a result of the above actions, see you as offering them more value, they may like the fact that your product contains ingredient X, you may even feel more familiar to them – but unless you have the pockets and tenacity to maintain the fight, and unless you too are prepared to up the ante even further in response to competitor activity, advances are tenuous.

If there is still little to distinguish what you offer and what others offer in their minds, you have not dismissed substitution because you have not changed the equation in their heads. You may have convinced them temporarily that they are getting more from you than they’re getting from the other brand, but the comparison is still quantitative not qualitative.

A reason for buying, on the other hand, provides a buyer with an incentive to chase a result. And the lesson from brands like Moleskine is that when you change the outcome for consumers, you change who they prefer and why they prefer.

Finding that starts with a deceptively simple question for brand owners: What are we going to give our customers that will excite them? A discount is not exciting. Features are not exciting. Familiarity is not exciting. Labels, identities, colours, celebrity endorsements – none of them are exciting. They may be exciting to the people who create them or manage them.  But they are only of passing and functional interest to the man or woman in the aisle. They are just more ways to recognise. They explain.

I can’t even begin to imagine how many companies there are out there offering notebooks. The functional differences between those notebooks are non-existent, and yet Moleskine ties its products to a distinctive outcome that their audience craves. When you write in a Moleskine, you continue a tradition begun in a golden age of writing in Paris. You become part of a spirit that links to Hemingway and Picasso. Yes, that’s a beautiful and romantic story – but far more importantly, that feeling of inspired creation, of being in the moment and capturing something that will excite the world, is an outcome that every creative person treasures. It’s a ‘result’ that Moleskine has woven into every aspect of its business. They want their product to be more than something you write in. They want writing in a Moleskine to be an affirmation of the writer’s identity.

Starbucks changed the coffee market by convincing buyers not that they could have a nice(r) coffee, but that they could basically have the coffee of their dreams, served exactly the way they had always wanted it, in a place they loved to linger. When they stopped doing that, they quickly got into trouble.

Apple has consistently delivered people the most beautiful technology in the world (certainly by form, and for Macheads, also by performance).

Perhaps we should do away with the concept of competitive preference – and replace it instead with a mandate to find a competitive pleasure (result) that will then form the emotive basis for how the company does business. That’s because a distinctive and powerful outcome should also inspire and influence everything around it. Here are some examples:

  • Your purpose should define what you value most in all the world, and therefore what you are most seeking to achieve as a brand. (That goal should be a goal your consumers will be fascinated by.)
  • Your story should explain why you value what you value, the greatest result you want to achieve for your customers and what led you to pursue that
  • Your strategy should explain why and how your brand can deliver that result in a way that no-one can, or would dare
  • Your pricing should reflect what that special feeling is worth to the consumer

It’s not rocket science. When you deliver what people are most looking for, they will continue to look for it – and they will continue to pay for it. After all, why would they want to feel anything less?

More reading
In this post, I look at why I think the Moleskine story has succeeded

Acknowledgements
Photo of “Heart” by Seyed Mostafa Zamani, sourced from Flickr

8 ways to react when the knives come out

By Mark Di Somma

When the knives come out

Being non-popular is not the same as being unpopular. Brands that are non-popular are simply not prepared to do whatever it takes to court popular favour. They do their own thing, their own way – and look to attract cult followings via like minds. But brands that have become unpopular have lost likeability. That’s a disturbing development if you’re trying to be liked by as many people as possible.

The hardest thing about seeking to be liked is that we all do business today in an environment where criticism is ubiquitous. The ability for anyone with an internet connection to not just hold an opinion but to broadcast that opinion to the world is freedom of speech on a good day and freedom to abuse on another day. At a time when it’s easier than ever for others to get the knives out, the problem it seems to me has shifted for those on the receiving end. The dilemma these days is less about what do the critics think and rather, which criticisms should you act on and which are you better to brush off as beneath your dignity?

While every brand will quite rightly set its own guidelines, there are some clear principles that make sense to me in terms of meeting the balance between maintaining reputation and over-reacting:

1. Hold firm on your purpose, your worldview and your values.

2. Debate priorities, opinions and options.

3. Initiate or at least participate in conversations about matters that have been raised that you believe have not been properly explored and to which you believe you can bring a refreshing perspective.

4. Encourage suggestions, feedback and criticism of experiences and service. (As long as you’re prepared to reply stating what you’re going to do about what’s happened.)

5. Acknowledge and apologise for mistakes, errors of judgment, accidents and cases where you have not been fair or consistent.

6. Redress scaremongering, inaccuracies, speculations, lies – and sometimes comparison wars and competitor taunts.

7. Acknowledge, even applaud, a witty joke or satire at your expense (depending on its cleverness)

8. Ignore idiots.

Acknowledgements
Photo of “Case of kris daggers 1” by Marshall Astor, sourced from Flickr

Evolution or transformation? 17 key brand factors

By Mark Di Somma

What stays and what goes

No business these days can just sit pretty. But the extent and nature of changes confuses many. Brands evolve. Or die. But they must also retain something of what consumers know. Or they fade. So which is more important? And how should a brand act, when? I get asked about this a lot. So here are my takes on what must stay and what can go (sometimes):

Keep:

1. Your good name (in every sense) – it’s the thing people know you by. Unless of course you need to re-engineer your reputation or your old name doesn’t fit what you do anymore.

2. Your purpose – the ways you intend to change the world should remain an inspiring constant for staff and customers (providing it’s inspiring to start with, of course)

3. Your values – only change them if you’re going to make them more challenging

4. Your promises – trust is the basis for any brand’s success. Without that, you’re nothing.

5. Your principles – in today’s transparent markets, transgressions will be discovered. It’s just a question of time.

Consider changing:

6. The category you compete in – if the current category isn’t working for you, if you can’t achieve breakthrough in that space or if there is a disruption opportunity in another market, look for a different place to compete, or change the business model under which you compete.

7. How others must compete against you – look for ways to shift how you do business so that any reaction from a competitor disadvantages them by forcing them to work in ways and/or places where you have advantages.

8. Where you’re positioned – adjust your market position to put daylight between yourself and others.

9. Who you target – if your current market isn’t buying, go in search of new segments and/or change your current offerings to better meet the changing needs of your customers.

10. Your story – adjust your story to reflect the other changes in your business. Tell people a story that haven’t heard yet.

11. Your personality – to better fit with what people want. Bring an attitude that inspires and excites people.

12. Your language – visual and verbal, to better converse with the people you’re trying to reach. But be aware too that complete overhauls of your identity in low-attention sectors can literally see customers walking past your brand.

13. How people perceive you – use advertising and smart content marketing to give people different perspectives.

14. What you offer people – through improvements, upgrades and limited edition versions of your products

15. How people experience the brand – reach them through new channels and/or change the levels of service that you offer customers

16. How people access the brand – by giving them a value alternative to get them started or by offering them different ways to acquire what the brand offers.

17. What people feel they get for their money – particularly important in budget-conscious sectors. That doesn’t necessarily mean you discount. It can mean you have to demonstrate more actively why you’re worth what you’re worth through added features, improved performance, complementary offers etc.

Evolution vs transformation

The distinction between evolution and transformation lies in the extent of the changes rather than whether to change or not.

In the course of normal brand evolution, core beliefs and behaviours should remain constant but product lines, experiences and competitive approach need to keep pace with shifts across the marketplace. In this context, brands modernise but within a context that consumers clearly recognise.

A transformation process by contrast challenges the whole premise of the organisation and in so doing brings into question every aspect of the brand’s credo by requiring the business to redefine its ‘reason for value’. In this scenario, everything’s up for scrutiny including all the things that you might otherwise keep. The brand becomes something it has never been before by questioning everything it has previously held dear. This pulls the seat out from underneath everyone – but get it right, as organisations like IBM have done on a number of occasions, and new markets literally open up in front of you.

One thing we can safely assume: brands that don’t continue to change to the extent required of them (however radical that might be) must, in time, become extinct.

Acknowledgements
Photo of “Just Sit Back and Relax” by Vinoth Chandar, sourced from Flickr