All posts filed under: Storytelling

Cult branding: Developing a scarcity strategy

By Mark Di Somma

In a world dominated it seems by the push for scale and mass coverage, it’s easy to forget that sometimes the smartest thing you can do is the polar opposite: develop a deliberately limited edition brand that shuns the mainstream. I’ve written about this a number of times – here’s an example – and coined the phrase cultrepreneurs to describe those enterprising individuals who have chosen to create and market brands with cult status. As this story about Julian Van Winkle and his Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery shows, there is nothing accidental about why his aged bourbon attracts a fervent following. I really liked the owner’s description of ‘a strategy of scarcity’. Here are just some of the ways Van Winkle builds cult status: The company deliberately stymies supply in order to raise cachet and lift returns. It’s one of the great ironies of cults that, beyond what you need to be viable, sometimes the less you produce, the more you make. As Van Winkle says he could unload two or three times what …

Lessons from Wikileaks

By Mark Di Somma

What’s Wikileaks really selling us? Access to information we deserve to see or the chance to participate in something that piques our curiosity? How many people have actually read the Wikileaks files – and at the end of the day, does it actually matter? Is Wikileaks important for what it says, what we’re told it says or what it claims to represent? Julian Assange has done a masterful job of linking his ‘product’ to some powerful and highly emotive causes: freedom of speech; censorship; government secrets, and of course persecution of the individual by the state. Big causes; global causes; causes that attract a committed audience; causes that broaden and deepen the Wikileaks’ brand story. In the process, of course, the brand has deftly snookered the authorities. If governments don’t express outrage at what Wikileaks has done, then they may encourage other persons with access to such files to release more leaks. If they do condemn the brand’s actions, that merely strengthens Wikileaks’ brand story as the modern day Robin Hood of free speech. In …

The real recipe for Coke's success

By Mark Di Somma

So someone’s supposedly discovered the recipe for Coca Cola. What does that mean for the world’s most popular drink? Very little I would have thought. Because the world’s most closely guarded beverage trade secret has already done its job – it has helped build perhaps the most consistently powerful brand in the world. Beyond that, its value as a formula today is questionable. Even if someone did replicate the taste, so what? They still wouldn’t be Coke. Great brands grow beyond the products they marque. They actually come to embody ideas – such as happiness in the case of Coca Cola – that the product reports to, and not the other way round. The New Coke debacle might suggest otherwise to some, but to me that was much more about changing a product that consumers held dear rather than a taste issue. Consumers expressed their apprehension by citing taste, but taste, in my reading of this particular case, was the identifier to the wider fear. What they were really saying is – don’t touch. So …

Ten minutes of Gaga

By Mark Di Somma

If I was a Lady Gaga fan, how would I feel about her claim to have written her latest single in 10 minutes? Would I see that as a sign of her huge creativity? Or would I, on reflection, consider that the return for minutes invested, assuming this is another big hit, is going to make most Wall Street bonuses look relatively modest? A cynic might say if it just took 10 minutes then she didn’t do a lot to make a lot. It didn’t take 10 minutes of course. It took all the experience that Gaga brought up to that moment, and all the subsequent time it took, both hers and for everyone else involved – to get the ideas in the song expressed, captured, edited, packaged, marketed and distributed; time probably better expressed in at least months. So the key value metric here is misleading; it’s not actually time to create (the idea), it’s time to market (the final result). By drawing attention to the 10 minutes, Gaga has framed the product in …

The power of occasions

By Mark Di Somma

Habits are powerful, but occasions may be even more so. I think they engage us so effectively because they combine time and focus. And because of that, they provide permission – it’s OK to behave this way or that. It’s OK to do something you wouldn’t do on any ordinary day. If you’re a smart brand, you’ll find a way to hook into that; to link what you’re about to what people are thinking about on specific occasions. You’ll give them a reason and a way to excel at the emotion of the moment. On Valentine’s Day it seems appropriate to look at a brand that used the occasion of declaring love to forge one of the most powerful marketing campaigns of all time. De Beers have turned a diamond into the embodiment of eternity with their sublime catch-phrase ‘A diamond is forever’. They’ve linked the optimism and romance of occasions like engagements and weddings with the promise to stay together ‘till death do us part’. They have encapsulated all that in a single symbol …

The real power of endorsements (and other opinions)

By Mark Di Somma

The purser on the plane this morning reminded us as we landed that the airline had just won two industry awards. She didn’t name them but the point was made. Endorsement brings that extra degree of confirmation that we as consumers have made a good choice. It plays to our collective wish to make wise purchases. It tells us we got it right. The lack of specifics doesn’t matter. Schemas – the snapshot opinions that we form of people, places, things – are hugely powerful influencers. They help us navigate too many choices, too many questions, too much conflicting information, too little time. They motivate us to engage. Without realising it, we form schemas for almost everything. Some are positive. Some are negative. Some are unjustified, either way. But the most common one is actually blank. It says “I don’t know what to think”. People literally don’t have a clue. The reason is simple. You didn’t provide one. Your website looked the same as everyone else. The email you sent them was formulated and vanilla. …

Refreshing the connections: a perspective on The Pepsi Refresh Project

By Mark Di Somma

It’s great to see Pepsi deciding to spend money over a year in communities instead of splashing the lot on the Super Bowl. It certainly makes sense at one level. Conscientious consumers are asking corporates more and more questions about where their money is being spent and how committed they are to the people who buy their goods. On that score, this is huge. And it certainly lays down the gauntlet in terms of challenging corporates to think about where they put their money. Top marks for that too. The ultimate Pepsi challenge. It’s a move that has huge feel-good. Let’s face it, what’s not to like? Pepsi’s given away more than $20 million in grants to causes that otherwise would struggle to find the money they need to make a difference. Touchdown in that regard. And there’s been incredible traffic online. So a huge participation win. A lot of people talking over an extended period of time. But there’s one other thing I think they still need to do for this to really work: …

Plotting what counts

By Mark Di Somma

Interesting isn’t it how we see numbers. I was reflecting on this yesterday after someone made the point that whilst all of us would agree that words tell stories, we tend to forget that numbers tell stories too. Instead, we class numbers as facts or patterns or targets or science. We use them to add logic, objectivity, reinforcement. We make them a goal in themselves. We ask our people to report to them. But the numbers are not the business. They reflect what’s happening in, around and for the business. And they won’t fix themselves. They are a storyline – of growth or decay, belief or disbelief in the on-going value of something, levels of demand, people coming together … And what I always try and do is to link them that way. This isn’t a 5 year sales comparison, it’s a movie script. What is this P&L telling me has happened so far – how, why, and where were the turning points? I find that when you do that, you’re soon looking behind what’s …

Distinctualising: getting purely personal

By Mark Di Somma

It’s one of the great myths of the New Zealand tourism story that we have great scenery. But only in the sense that it implies other countries do not. Or that’s all New Zealand has. Of course we have eye-wateringly beautiful sites, as anyone whose been here or lived here can attest. But so do many other places in the world. Chocolate box is global. Just like sheep. And fruit. Many years back when I worked on the strategy that would lead to the 100% Pure programme, I remember a great presentation where we showed people scenes from around the world and asked them to identify where they were. It was sobering for all concerned that many of the places that were “unmistakeably New Zealand” weren’t in fact here at all. What was here that everyone raved about was the emotional reaction people had to what they saw; the warmth of New Zealanders themselves; and the amazing stories that sat behind what people witnessed. I think Tourism New Zealand have done a great job with …