OCTOBER 002009 / ISSUE 002
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Brand Personality Inspiration By Derrick Daye My dad always said, if you want to get ahead of the leader, don’t follow his tracks in the snow. If I owned my own jewelry store, this would be the mantra for everything I did. And my store would be truly different. I think the greatest challenge we all face is avoiding the well-worn track. So, how do we avoid falling into step with everyone else? The trick is to find inspiration, not from your competitors, but from brands outside your own category of business. Let’s imagine that Apple went into the jewelry business. Now let’s imagine how the Apple jewelry store might look. We all know Apple – a fundamental indicator in itself of the brand’s leadership. The Apple personality is well etched into our collective understanding of the brand. We could, therefore, imagine that the Apple jewelry store would proclaim itself in the street environment as a jewel itself. The façade would be sleek; the staff would be casually elegant, dressed in black shirts adorned with incisive, white-printed apothegms across their backs. The jewelry displays would be elegant – simple of line and perhaps using white as a theme. And the jewelry pieces would feature as the stars of a
coordinated and well-design show. Each piece – and perhaps there’d be a select few on display, ensuring that the story behind each work had the space and time to express itself – would be a paragon of design. You’d be able to see them up close, examine their well-crafted detail and even touch them to fully appreciate their seamless craftsmanship. They’d be Apple pieces, sharing design characteristics that underline the Apple brand’s inherent mission, personality and values. They’d be individual expressions of each artist’s creativity yet united in their evocation of the Apple brand signature. In brilliant paradox, their individuality would reinforce a recognizable and unifying brand, leaving no doubt about the brand behind the products. Let’s step back onto the street, out of that imaginary Apple jewelry store, and consider jewelry brand distinction in general. There’s a row of jewelry stores in this shopping district. Lined up side-by-side, they offer easy comparison. Or do they? They’re all the same. Where’s the distinction between them? If I were to take a photo of each jewelry store, I’d use the images to build a matrix to map brand difference – and lack of it. Continued on page 2
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Continued from page 1 The matrix is built around the four sides of a square. The vertical lefthand side accommodates all my pictures of stores that are almost uniform with each other. The opposite side of the square is where I put my photos of stores that are unique in some way. Along the top of the matrix are photos of stores that offer an experience – they’re more than retail outlets or places to display jewels. Finally, along the bottom of the square, are all the other stores. These are the bland environments – neither expressing difference, experience, or an environment of any distinction. Guess where most of the stores would be on the matrix? Would I be wrong in assuming they’d mainly be in the bottom left, where the uniform and bland stores overlap. Many of the remainder would be in the middle of the matrix, mapping their identities as stores which are essentially trend followers that provide a pleasant environment but one which is advised merely by function and habit, not brand expression. There’s a pretty big gap at the top right where we would map unique, experiential stores – if we had a picture of one. Guess what - that’s where I would aim to have a picture of my jewelry store. My customers would be willing live billboards for my jewelry products. Just as the white earphones have become a distinctive icon for the Apple brand, the proud wearers of my store’s products would be sporting distinctive pieces that could have come from one place only. So, how do you identify the right source of inspiration to start building your distinctive brand experience? First, you need to carefully consider the values you want your jewelry store to convey. Should it be cool, courageous, harmonious, sensitive, humorous, inspiring? Did you notice the values I listed? We’re not talking about reliability or quality. These are values which consumers take for granted in a brand that has the temerity to offer itself for sale. Brand values are personality attributes that set a brand apart from others. Think of brands as people. Values describe the personality of your brand, just as people represent values through their
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unique personalities. Think Oprah, and you’d possibly identify values such as compassion and care. Think Steve Jobs and you might associate visionary qualities with the man. The same is the case with powerful brands. Your brand’s personality is ultimately what distinguishes it. And the personality is built on welldefined and consistently expressed values. Your brands values should not only underline a distinctive personality. They allow you to tell your customers a great story. Like people, brands exist within a personal history. They exist in a community context. Tell the story of your brand through its expression and the relationship it builds with customers. Now you’re ready to identify the source of your inspiration. Consider brands, beyond your sector, which embody values to place them in the top right-hand corner of the matrix. Brands that are unique and which offer an experience in our encounters with them. Perhaps you might think of Red Bull. There’s a brand which might qualify as inspiration for a jewelry store because of its unique distribution strategy. I’m sure you’re aware that custom-built Red Bull fridges reside in surf wear stores as much as in convenience stores, because the surf wear stores are where their core customer group shop. On the same theme, Quicksilver, the surf wear clothing brand, has developed stores that are experiential, evoking a sense of the beach, of fun and youth. Gather a group of brands which reflect aspects of your store’s personality and values and examine how they can inspire concepts and directions for your store. Your next step is to consider your story. Branding isn’t all about design. It’s about creating a powerful story. The story, the values, the personality all contribute to advising the design. The design expresses these characteristics to achieve a holistic and integrated, confident and distinctive brand expression. The fact is, you’re selling a story first, jewelry as an inevitable consequence. The jewelry pieces are symbols for the
brand experience. My jewelry store would be an epicenter of storytelling. Every jewelry piece in my store would have a unique story to tell. Each piece would express a unique origin, a unique jeweler behind its creation, unique gems or craftsmanship. No piece would leave my store without being accompanied by a booklet exploring the story behind the piece. My staff should be carefully trained in conveying each and every story. And my website would extend the experience. On- and offline, my jewelry store would function as theater. The set would be accompanied by a unique signature sound – music for the store and website. A signature scent would pervade the store and would be infused into all my exquisite packaging materials. Customers would take home the story, the piece and the sensory experience. In my book, Buyology, I explore why more than 70% of us touch wood for luck. It’s true! More than 40% of us avoid walking under ladders and opening umbrellas inside, for fear of invoking bad luck. Countless rituals like these are engraved into our social consciousnesses. Individually and collectively we practice ritual daily. Weddings, engagements, birthdays – they’re all rituals. And our addiction to them translates into a powerful branding tool. So, on top of the story, the environment and the sensory experience of my store, I’d invent rituals for everything: the way staff greet and attend to customers, the way the piece’s stories are told, the way in which purchases are wrapped and presented to customers. Every consumer touchpoint offers an opportunity for brand expression. Buying jewelry should give customers a memorable experience. It should be an experience that’s so distinctive that they can’t help but talk about it. Breathless stories of the beautiful jewelry store experience would spread by word-of-mouth to friends and family. This is the marketing strategy to aim for. Classic advertising rarely works, and it comes at an outrageous cost. I’d make my store do the talking and let my customers be the pilgrims who spread the word to the world. THE FLUX CAPACITOR
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10 Trends that will shape marketing in 2010 Consumer spending, even on sale items, will continue to be replaced by a reason-to-buy at all. This spells trouble for brands with no authentic meaning, whether highend or low.
Brands increasingly a surrogate for "value� The unique
“Value is the new black!� What makes goods and services valuable will increasingly be what's wrapped up in the brand and what it stands for. Why J Crew instead of The Gap? J Crew stands for a new era in careful chic --being smart and stylish. The first family's support of the brand doesn't hurt either.
meaning of a brand will increase in importance as generic features continue to plague the brand landscape. Awareness as a meaningful market force
Brand differentiation is Brand Value
has long been obsolete, and differentiation will be critical for success --meaning sales and profitability.
"Because I Said So" is so over
Brands are barely keeping up with consumer expectations now. Every day consumers adopt and devour the latest technologies and innovations, and hunger for more. Smarter marketers will identify and capitalize on unmet expectations. Those brands that understand where the strongest expectations exist will be the brands that survive - and prosper.
Brand values can be established as a brand identity, but they must believably exist in the mind of the consumer. A brand can't just say it stands for something and make it so. The consumer will decide, making it more important than ever for a brand to have measures of authenticity that will aid in brand differentiation and consumer engagement.
Consumer expectations are growing
In case your brand didn't get the memo here it is -consumers are on to brands trying to play their emotions for profit. In the wake of the financial debacle of this past year, people are more aware then Old tricks don't work/ ever of the hollowness of bank ads that claim "we're all in this together" when won't work anymore those same banks have rescinded their credit and turned their retirement plan into case studies. The same is true for insincere celebrity pairings: think Seinfeld & Microsoft or Tiger Woods & Buick. Celebrity values and As the brand values need to be in concert, like Tiger Woods & buying space becomes even more Accenture. That's authenticity. online-driven and international (and uncontrolled by brands and corporations), front-end awareness will become less important. A brand with the right street cred can It's not just buzz go viral in days, with awareness following, not leading, the conversation. After all, everybody knows GM, but nobody's buying their cars. Conversation and community is all; ebay thrives based on consumer feedback. If consumers trust the community, They won't need to know you to love you they will extend trust to the brand. Not just word of mouth, but the right word of mouth within the community. This means the coming of a new era of customer care. Social Networking and exchange of information outside of the brand space will increase. Look for more websites using Facebook Connect to share information with the friends from those sites. More companies will become members of Linkedin. Twitter users will spend more money on the Internet than those who don't tweet.
Engagement is not a fad; It's the way today's consumers do business
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They're talking to each other before talking to the brand
Marketers will come to accept that there are four engagement methods including Platform (TV; online), Context (Program; webpage), Message (Ad or Communication), and Experience (Store/Event). But there is only one objective for the future: Brand Engagement. Marketers will continue to realize that attaining real brand engagement is impossible using out-dated attitudinal models. THE FLUX CAPACITOR
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Corporate Recruiting
Featured Tool
Corporate recruiters have for the past many years had the task of being the key entry for talents within specific narrow fields, in order to fill talent gaps in their companies.
Greatly inspired by NCVO Foresight / www.3s4.org.uk
Stop. Hammertime! Redo.
The Six Stages of Strategy
Yet in the new world economies a talent as not necessarily as interested in selling itself to a recruiter as the recruiter should be in the talent.
1. Direct Which way to go? The first step is to pinpoint where you want to take the organization or project. Factors: Mission, vision, values, stakeholders Tools: Stakeholder Analysis, Mission Statement
Most creative minds do not necessarily think of themselves in terms of accounting, development, strategy, management or whichever label “Corporate” wants to stick on them. And when you can’t think of yourself in these terms, you won’t sell yourself in based on these premises.
2. Analyze What does the world look like? How do you navigate if you don’t know the map? Factors: External Analysis, Internal Analysis Tools: Internal checkup, Portfolio analysis, SWOT
Before long recruiters and recruitment policies will have to take into account that a talent can be right in front of them, highly motivated, with aptitude for loyalty and loaded with abilities, but when asked about where he or she sees him or herself in five years the answer will still be “I don’t know”. In other words: “Why don’t you show me?”. The network economy is approaching with rapid speed (well; it’s here) and whereas it was formerly commonly believed that employees were prone to take jobs for companies whose values they shared, it now seems that employees, of the creative character, are prone to take jobs from employers whom recognize their true potential. Also if they are just in it for an entry level position. It is not about values, money or prestige. It’s about advancement, and only the company itself knows about the possibilities. So why ask the talent about these possibilities? Why not tell him or her what you have to offer?
3. Distill When you know where you are and where you want to go, you can choose the road. Factors: Focus! Don’t wander of into the bushes. Tools: Break-even, cost-benefit, Ansoff Matrix, Force Field 4. Plan You know where you are, where you want to go and how to get there. Let’s make a plan then! Factors: Money, time, resources, goal and target, KPIs Tools: Budget+schedule+resource allocation=strategic plan 5. Implement Load up the bag pack, take your map and lets move! Without implementation, you have nothing. Factors: Consistency with your plan, change, performance, Tools: Project -, Change- and Performance Management 6. Evaluate Did you get there? Did you?! Always, always, ALWAYS evaluate! (And remember to keep this in the budget too!) Factors: Performance, Process, Planning, KPIs Tools: Assessment, Reporting and Outcome Assessment
Stating the Obvious: Anarconomy The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (www.CIFS.dk/en) released the third of their four annual Member Reports. Usually these are reserved for members of the Institute, but as the topic of this particular one is Creative Commons the report have been released to the public. Anarconomy is a basic guide to the economics based on open source, Creative Commons and data replication. To anyone who has not been working closely with these issues the report is an
Featured Click
Google. The master of knowledge to us all. Mostly known for the search engine, AdSense and AdWords - the two most commonly used ad systems Google actually have a great variety of systems available for trendspotters, marketeers and strategists.
easy introduction to how modern society is changed due to these factors. To anyone else... well. Sadly the report is not very elaborate. It draws up to scenarios, the Rebels Versus Cartels and an open transparent society called The Ages of Empowerment. Ignore the poor English and treat yourself to a couple of hours of reading. Not challenging, but not too bad either.
One of these is Google Insights for Search (beta). A comprehensive database of aggregated search queries broken down into demographics, over time and within categories. Go and have a look at it :)
http://www.google.com/insights/search/
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Featured Reader
Name Benja Stig Fagerland Job Author and CEO, TalentTuning
“Benja Stig Fagerland is looking for a competent (Danish) journalist or writer, send an email!”
Hometown Asker, Norway Email Benja@TalentTuning.com
That’s how it started. One innocent status update. Benja and Daniel partnered up, just to redo the TalentTuning website - but both ended up with much more than they bargained for.
Link TalentTuning.com Benja on facebook Known Karpantschof since June 2009
Daniel is now on the steering committee of TalentTuning and they are both contemplating writing a book together. Benja Stig Fagerland, the mother of womenomics is the featured reader of October 2009! What are your greatest expectations for 2010? The tipping point! A revolution in thinking: Women have become probably the greatest neglected resource in business, both in their market potential as consumers and in their productive potential as employees.It is a fundamental weakness of business models that were designed for a male-
Mutual Friends on facebook 27 dominated world, we need a revolution in thinking My greatest expectations for 2010? That we will re-design over business models- and bust over self with a revolution in thinking and a new balance in business between men and women! How do you apply the “future” to your work? The 21st century will see a new balance in business between men and women. One never seen before in human history.
Have you ever had an experience where you foresaw something and it turned out exactly that way? Sure; in four areas I saw it coming 10 years ago. 1. Wrong focus was the reason we never succeeded in equality in Norway 2. Women mean Business 3. Pearl Diving 4. Womenomics - The New World Economy/The 21st Century Tipping Point
Whats up with Karpantschof? Daniel Karpantschof lives in Washington, DC from where he writes articles, gives speeches and talks and contemplate world domination.
Ever wondered what the future holds for your company, organization or brand? *click* Karpantschof Home Site
Daniel Karpantschof sits on the board of directors of the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies as well as the Academy of Futures Studies in Denmark, the Advisory Board and the Steering Committee of TalentTuning. In need of strategic advice? Branding extension by social media? Issues with retention and loyalty? Progress in progress... Homepage
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The Flux Capacitor is the free newsletter from Daniel Karpantschof, covering strategic planning, foresight and scenario building within the spheres of international markets and politics, fast moving consumer goods, education, entertainment and tech.
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