HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
“Soft drinks and computer brands play the role of deities in our culture. They are creating our most powerful iconography, they are the ones building our most utopian monuments, they are the ones articulating our experience back to us - not religions, not intellectuals, not poets, not politicians.� Anti-G8 Summit Prague
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HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
The world, say activists, is becoming dominated by brands. As power within business shifts from production to marketing, brands have stopped being mere feelings about products, and have become cultural phenomena. In the words of Naomi Klein, “Branding is, at its core, a deeply competitive undertaking, in which brands are up against not only their immediate rivals but all other brands in the mediascape including the events and people they are sponsoring.� Some brands, they say, have forged as strong a relationship with consumers as institutions of state. 1
CERTAIN BRANDS ARE NOWADAYS BETTER RESPECTED THAN THE INSTITUTIONS OF STATE Americans hold CocaCola and Nike in higher esteem than the United Nations.
Germans hold brands like Mercedes and BMW in higher esteem than any of the political parties.
Esteem (7 point scale) Coca-Cola 5.93 Nike 5.37 United Nations 4.31
Esteem
(7 point scale)
BMW
5.19
Mercedes-Benz 5.12 Socialists (SPD) Christian Democrats
4.03 3.66
Britons hold Adidas in higher esteem than their Royal Family and the European Union.
Even in France, many brands are held in higher esteem than the European Union.
Esteem (7 point scale) Adidas 5.38 The Royal Family 4.53 EU 3.79
Esteem
(7 point scale)
5.81 Levi’s 5.78 EU 4.47
Major mineral waters
Base: Representative sample of adults aged 18+. Source: Y&R BAV study 2005
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What do marketers say? Marketers, have, by and large, been wrong-footed by the debate. “Branding is merely a reasonably effective tool for selling products.” runs the mantra, “Nothing more, nothing less.” Well who’s right? We’ve done research on this. And we hate to say it, but the activists are right. Some brands are becoming major cultural phenomena. Their status has given them the ability to extend themselves across many markets, without losing their meaning. Their power is greatest amongst younger consumers, whose first instinct in life was to Barbie-theme their world, and for whom nowadays Nike is less a make of sports shoe, and more a life philosophy. In a world where the costs of marketing a brand have risen year in year out for four decades, these new ‘iconic’ brands have important new economies of scale. The tide is therefore turning towards them, and away from their smaller, more product based competitors. How are classic branding companies reacting to this? Most companies use high quality, professional market 3
HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
research as their radar to alert them to changes in their competitive environment. But these changes are happening outside of product categories, in the mediascape. And the world SOME ICONIC outside of product categories BRANDS is a blind spot for market Calvin Klein: research. Minimalist, As a result, most companies monochrome cool. don’t seem to have noticed Nivea: Caring. the changes. DKNY: The A few have noticed. But executive career lacking a framework for woman packaged. thinking about the issues, Nike: In my soul I they are powerless to am an athlete. respond to them. Easy: Cuts the crap This booklet is an attempt to in airlines, car rental, move the debate on. internet cafes, credit The world is changing, and cards. new iconic brands are increasingly dominating the mediascape. For classic branding companies, the choice is either to learn how to build an iconic brand themselves – or to leave others to dominate the world. 4
THE BRANDED YOUTH OF A YOUNG WOMAN OF TODAY 1986: 1990: 1991: 1992: 1993: 1994: 1997: 1998: 1999: 2000: 2001: 2002:
Born Dressed head to toe in Baby Gap, gazes enviously at other tots in Oshkosh. Starts her Ninja Turtles collection. Barbie-themes her bedroom, clothes, backpack, school equipment. Flight attendant Barbie sets her dreaming. Lunchbox wars, as character branded foods fight off her mother’s soooo uncool private label substitutes. Flirts with Spice merchandise. Drops Spice merchandise. Her Buffy backpack measures up well against the schoolyard’s Backstreet fixation. “I want to be a lawyer.” Starts buying Ally McBeal merchandise. First snog. He is soaped, deodorized, shampooed and shaved by Axe. Becomes a Kookaiette. Gazes enviously at her elder sister’s Emporio.
HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
For them, the issue is not one of corporate social responsibility. It is one of survival.
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THE MARKETING BLIND SPOT How is it that consumer goods companies, which spend millions on market research every year, have to wait to be told by activists that there is a fundamental change in the way brands operate? The answer is simple: all the changes are happening in the mediascape outside product categories. And their market research is designed to study changes exclusively within product categories. • Retail audit research looks exclusively within Nielsen categories. If your brand stretches across six retail categories, retail audit research will treat it as six separate brands. • Every question on usage and attitude studies, from “Which of these brands of DVD recorder do you regard as hi-tech?” onwards is category specific. If a DVD recorder manufacturer impresses consumers by buying 7
HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
THREE STUPID MARKET RESEARCH QUESTIONS The market research industry’s obsession with product categories leads to some funny questions: Thinking of digital video cameras, how would you rate Samsung for ease of use? (80% of the population have never seen a Samsung digital video camera, and therefore have no idea.) What brands of individually wrapped chocolate biscuits, often in multipacks, can you name? Thinking of school lunch boxes, what do you think of Britney Spears? (Yes, a market research company did ask it.)
up a feature film studio or inventing electronic pets, that doesn’t show up on the study. • All brand tracking research from “Which of these makes of jeans would you consider stylish?” onwards is category specific. The fact that DKNY also makes office wear and a trendy mineral water doesn’t get a look in. For nearly all types of market research, the world outside product categories is thus a blind spot. Introducing a map of the mediascape Fortunately Y&R have a piece of research that can look outside of product categories. 8
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It’s called BAV (BrandAsset® Valuator) It’s been going for thirteen years. And it’s reliable, because it’s based on interviews with over 450,000 people. How does it work? The method is simple. BAV shows consumers a list of consumer goods brands, service brands, countries and institutions, and asks them which of a list of attributes and adjectives they associate with them. But it does so without mentioning product categories. For things as diverse as Coke, Air France and Poland, the questions are the same. It therefore provides a clear, comparative picture of all brands, iconic brands included. And because it ignores product categories, it measures the whole brand, not just part of it. BAV started in 1993, and continues to ask the same questions today. Thirteen years of analysing the results has given a clear picture of how brands behave in the mediascape. First though, some clarifications If you’re a marketer, you’ll be familiar with the standard measures of in-category market research: the attitude battery, the persuasion shift and spontaneous brand awareness. 9
EARLY WARNING SYSTEM How do you tell if there is something wrong with your dog? One way is to check whether the dog has stopped moving and has started to smell. If it has, then the dog is likely to be dead. If not, the dog is likely to be alive, but you can monitor changes in the situation through regular checks. This is the way most market research works. It concentrates on lagging measures like brand attitudes and claimed usership. We recently looked at alcoholic drinks brands on a major industry survey. Claimed usership of failing brands fell off exactly in line with sales – but it did so two years after those brands had collapsed. Using most market research is thus like driving using the rear view mirror. Our differentiation measure, on the other hand, picks up change at a much earlier stage. If someone else’s brand’s differentiation shoots up, you have time to respond. If yours decreases, you have time to ask why.
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But you won’t be familiar with how to measure brands outside categories. So before we tell you about what we’ve found out about iconic brands, perhaps we should tell you how to study them: Measuring brands outside categories When consumers come across something new for the first time, they are usually not sure what they think about it. When the first Walkmans came out in 1980, those who tried them felt odd walking round with music only they could hear. And people who watched them silently boogie thought they were weirdoes, not cool. The one thing that people can say when exposed to something that is very new and
WE’VE BEEN TRYING TO MAKE BAV TRENDY We’ve learned though, that a lot of people aren’t comfortable with BAV. Not because there is any flaw in the methodology. The problem is that, more than most forms of market research, BAV gives you objective truth, and objective truth gets in the way of what people already think.
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HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
WILL MY RESEARCH DEPARTMENT HAVE ISSUES WITH BAV? We’d be surprised if they didn’t. BAV is completely different to most research. But it is intellectually rigorous: • In Europe, we have conducted waves of BAV in 1993, 1997, 2000, 2002/3 and now in 2005/6/7. In the US, a continuous panel is used. Across the world, BAV studies 45 countries. • BAV is stable because we convert brand attitude data to percentile ranks. This eliminates cultural differences in questionnaire response from country to country. • BAV data is collected and processed by a variety of major quantitative research companies, like Research International and Millward Brown. • Is BAV compatible with existing research? We sometimes look at BAV data just within product categories. This in-category research reveals findings comparable to conventional research. • BAV also measures usership of brands. This usership data reveals that BAV measures of brand health connect directly to share growth and market development.
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big, is that it is somehow not like everything that has come before. So the first element of brand equity to be measured on BAV is differentiation. Two of the most differentiated brands on BAV in 1993 in the USA were Starbucks and Snapple. In 1997, Amazon and Yahoo scored very highly on differentiation. But is the brand relevant? Of course, differentiation on its own is fine for a new brand. But if after a couple of years, all that consumers “When Alexander the Great saw can say about your brand is the breadth of his domain, he wept,” said Milton, “for there that it is different, then you were no more worlds to have a problem. conquer.” Perhaps if Alexander had Consumers haven’t worked invested in better mapmaking, how to fit you into their lives he would have realised that he had conquered just a few - and you haven’t solved the percent of the Earth’s surface at issue for them either. that point, and have kept on going. That’s why the second element of absolute branding we measure is relevance. 13
HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
With dramatically growing brands like Starbucks, we see relevance start to grow as people fit the brand into their lives and start getting into the lingo, talking about ‘tall skinny lattes’ in their office. On the other hand, with distinctive but niche brands like Citroën, we see a lot of differentiation, but low relevance. Esteem How then do we differentiate between a new brand and an established brand? We’ve found that some (but not all) brands that have been around for a long time, and which have established themselves, tend to develop a sense of esteem amongst the general population. This is related to feelings that the brand is of high quality and that it is popular. Esteem is therefore the third of the key measures. Knowledge Finally, as a brand fits into the national culture, people develop a sense of familiarity with it. BAV checks this out too, as its fourth measure, ‘knowledge’. Four pillars Combining the four into one graph gives the ‘four pillars’ chart.
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On the four pillars chart, new, up and coming brands look like this, with high differentiation, growing relevance but with esteem and knowledge still at a low level:
100-
STARBUCKS
BAILEYS
US ADULTS/BAV 1995
ITALIAN ADULTS/BAV 2005
100Percentile Rank
Percentile Rank 0Differentiation Relevance Esteem
Knowledge
0Differentiation Relevance Esteem
Knowledge
Brands that are in a very strong position across society look like this:
ADIDAS
FERRERO ROCHER
GERMAN ADULTS/BAV 2005 Percentile Rank
Percentile Rank 0Differentiation Relevance Esteem
FRENCH ADULTS/BAV 2005 100-
100-
Knowledge
0Differentiation Relevance Esteem
Knowledge
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HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
And household names that have tended to lose their edge look like this:
TWA US ADULTS/BAV 1999 100Percentile Rank 0Differentiation Relevance Esteem
Knowledge
Shape of the mediascape We then plot differentiation, relevance, esteem and knowledge to give us a picture of the mediascape. Differentiation and relevance tell you where a brand is going. So we combine them together to give a leading indicator called brand strength. Esteem and knowledge give you a sense of where a brand is, and where it has been. We therefore combine them to form a lagging indicator called brand stature. Plotting strength against stature gives a clear picture of brands on their way up, and brands on their way down. We call it the PowerGrid. Over time, brands tend to move clockwise around the PowerGrid. 16
THE POWERGRID
Brand strength (Differentiation & Relevance)
Niche/Unrealized potential
Power leaders
Declining leaders
New Eroded Unfocused
Brand stature (Esteem & Knowledge)
HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
WHAT BAV TELLS US BAV shows that there are clear differences between the old ways of branding and the new: Iconic brands are invariably stronger than the categories they came from BAV shows us that the majority of brands live in categories, showing up in similar positions on the PowerGrid. Those that don’t – the iconic brands – invariably have a stronger PowerGrid positions than the categories they came from. This means that they are invariably the strongest brands in their category. They also have more brand imagery of their own Sit in a category based market research presentation in the offices of an insurance company, and you walk away feeling that the insurance company has a strong, distinctive brand image. But this is driven by the fact that you are doing research within the category. 18
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Measure insurance company brands absolutely, and over 90% of their imagery is held in common. Put another way, 90% of the John Doe Life Insurance Company is the generic DNA of ‘Life Insurance Company’. Only 10% of the DNA belongs to John Doe, the brand. And it’s not just in insurance. This happens in banking, in airlines, and in many other mature categories. Iconic brands have very different image profiles. Most of the image of life insurance companies belongs Their image is likely to have to the category, not to the little to do with other brands in companies themselves. The image of John Doe Life their category, indeed their is 90% ‘Life’, 10% ‘John Doe’ imagery is likely to be all their own. And they are more profitable Iconic brands are stronger in financial terms too. The American brand financials consultancy, Stern Stewart, has looked at the branding model, and has found that brands lying above the diagonal on the PowerGrid make on average an 8.8% gross margin. Brands that lie below make much less. In general, iconic brands are in a better financial position 19
HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
than any other brand in their category. (If you are a classic marketer, now would be a good time to start getting depressed.) VALUING BRANDS Iconic brands can come FUTURE GROWTH VALUE, AS A MULTIPLE OF SALES from almost any category Nike and Adidas are strong, 2.3x iconic brands. But the sports 1.7x shoe category from where they 1.3x came is lacklustre in terms of image and in terms of its 0.9x position on the PowerGrid. 0.6x This suggests that any brands of any origin can become iconic, if they are marketed the Stern Stewart have looked at right way. the financial performance of brands at various points on the PowerGrid. Brands falling above the diagonal produce much higher returns on investment than brands below it.
Iconic brands create effects beyond their categories If you were the producer of Nescafe in the early nineties, you would be likely to dismiss
Starbucks. Starbucks was a retailer, Nescafe was a consumer goods brand. Starbucks was in ground coffee, Nescafe was in instant. 20
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But you would be wrong to do so. Iconic brands have effects well beyond their categories. And as Starbucks grabbed the coffee limelight, Nescafe lost it. Esteem and knowledge are no defence against iconic brands We’ve looked at brands that are highly esteemed by consumers and also brands that are highly familiar to consumers. Some of them are household names. Neither esteem nor knowledge on their own can revive a brand’s fortunes.
Nike Reebok
Clothing and footwear category
Nike and Reebok are extremely strong brands. But the clothing and footwear categories they came from are nothing special. Base: US Adults, 2005
What does it all mean? What it all means is simple. Any marketer who wants to remain competitive in coming years needs to consider building an iconic brand.
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HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
THE IMPLICATIONS ARE HUGE If the points in the last section don’t shock you, they should: • Many of the iconic brands we have just discussed are cross-category brands. Not one is attached to just one product. And conventional marketing wisdom says that cross-category brands should be weaker, not stronger than brands attached to an individual product. • Cross-category brands should all have less brand imagery than the individual product brands they compete with, and being close to commodities, have lower margins. “No one buys a range”, goes the logic, “so don’t try to sell one.” • Classic marketing tells us that a brand has to be associated with a function, and that a marketer breaks that link at their peril. 22
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Odorono meant no body odour. If Odorono launched a product with another function went the logic, that link would be broken and Odorono would die. The whole of classic marketing is based on the logic of one brand per need and one need per product. In their 1980 classic Positioning, Trout and Ries argued that as soon as a brand lost the link with an individual thing, that brand would weaken and die. Today, Odorono is dead anyway, and the winners are brands that have broken out of the constraints of product categories. There is no such thing as a Sony, or a Nike or a Nivea. But all are stronger than the product-centric brands they compete with. If Sony had stuck with its original meaning of a reliable rice cooker, it would be a historical footnote today. If Nivea had stuck with skin cream, it too would be dead. On conventional logic, Calvin Klein should have weakened as it expanded into fragrances and home furnishings. It got stronger. Easyjet too should have weakened as it expanded into internet cafes, car hire and credit cards. But it didn’t. Conventional marketing is therefore being proven wrong by these iconic brands.
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HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
So? If you think our findings on iconic brands are even worth a little consideration, you should consider the economic implications for your brands. Because for conventional, product-centric brands, those implications are severe: The new brands are cheaper to run Run one effective campaign across twenty different product lines, and your marketing is a lot more efficient than if you run twenty separate campaigns for twenty separate brands. The rules of marketing were written in the 1960s, when TV airtime was cheap, and you could afford to launch an individual product line, like a deodorant, with its own 4000 rating TV budget. You would be an idiot to try that sort of thing today. Iconic brands have the edge today because they can use their marketing spend against many, many more product lines. The new brands aren’t reliant on any specific technology Base your brand around a new piece of technology in the fifties, and you would keep your edge for a decade or more. Do so today, and you will be looking silly within months. Technology develops so fast today, and is copied 24
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so fast, that technology promises are a risky basis for a brand. Iconic brands are reliant on ideas, not on any particular technological edge. The new brands aren’t reliant on specific functional promises Most past brands were based on superior product functionality. But basing a brand today on a belief that consumers will notice that your product functions In the UK, the fcuk brand better than its competitors expanded in the 1990s through is a dangerous assumption clothes, toiletries and accessories, without making in many categories. any functional promises. Its name ensured it kept a sharp Nowadays, products are 20-something singles much more likely to work demographic. If you lived with that they used to, and most your parents, they wouldn’t allow it in the bathroom. And things do exactly what they if you had kids, you didn’t say on the packet. Cars, want it there either. “Mummy, what does ‘fcuk’ TVs and hifis used to break mean?” down all the time. They don’t any more. So building a brand classically around a guarantee of functional performance makes much less sense today. 25
HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
The new brands reduce consumer confusion Cross-category iconic brands reduce the clutter in people’s heads. In the 1950s, adman Rosser Reeves imagined the human brain as a series of empty boxes. “I’ve had a His job was to put the name swoosh tattooed ‘Anacin’ in the one marked where only my headache. In today’s boyfriend can see consumer society, a it.” consumer has to have thirty GIRL, 19, BERLIN boxes just to register all the cosmetics she needs. How much simpler if she just has to remember L’Oreal. The new brands advertise themselves Anyone who protests about testing cosmetics on animals is indirectly advertising the Body Shop. Anyone talking about their love of tall skinny lattes is advertising Starbucks. A typical subway commuter sees ninety Nike swooshes on their way into work*. Iconic brands’ users raise awareness for them, leaving advertising to do other, more important jobs. The new brands don’t lose their edge as they get bigger Conventional marketing says that it’s the small, up and coming fashion brands that are cool. Once a brand gets
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* SOURCE: S/OBSERVATION, LONDON 2002
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big, it automatically becomes mainstream, and loses its edge. But this hasn’t happened to Nike. It may be global, but its image is more leading edge than virtually any up and coming sports brand. Big needn’t mean boring any more.
HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
THE VISION THING How do you build an iconic brand? Iconic brands are diverse, and have many different meanings. But there is one factor above all others that makes a brand iconic. That factor is vision. “The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion.” THEODORE HESBURGH
What do we mean by vision? Vision is the difference between: “We want to sell more than Pepsi.” And: “We wish to replace water as beverage of choice for the people of the world.” SERGIO ZYMAN
Most brands are a semi coherent collection of meanings, feelings, functional competencies and attitudes. 28
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Vision is not semi coherent. Vision comes from building your brand around a single-minded brand idea. Vision is not consumer driven Whereas good brands meet consumer needs, and very good brands meet consumer needs very well, iconic brands do not seem to try to meet consumer needs at all. Rather than sidle up to their consumers and try to be as nice as possible to them, iconic brands stick their standard in the ground, lay out their philosophy and await the attention of users. Their stance is magnet for innovator consumers and early adopters. And the endorsement of these groups acts as a magnet for the rest. Vision has been around for a long time in marketing: “We are not here to sell you a parcel of boilers and vats.”, said Dr Samuel Johnston in 1781 as he presided over the sale of Thrale’s Brewery. “We are here to offer you the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.” But it has become ever more important in recent years: Brands are becoming more important We no longer live in an age of deference. All surveys show that trust in institutions is declining. Meanwhile, science says that it is our genes, not us, that get the eternal life. 29
Stubble wars In the past, Gillette was a razors company, and relied on a belief amongst men that Gillette razors were functionally better than those of Wilkinson. Today though, Gillette has extended into deodorants, fragrances, BAV Spain shampoos and gels. It is now up against other shaving-toAxe • shampoo brands like Axe, and • Gillette its success depends on whether ‘The best a man can get’ projects a more compelling vision of manhood • Wilkinson than ‘the Axe effect’.
Base: All adults, BAV Spain 2005
* Axe is known as Lynx in the UK
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Perhaps it is therefore not surprising that consumers are looking to somehow inject spirituality back into their lives, and that brands that help them do so are becoming as important as national institutions in the great scheme of things. Creating vision Creating a brand idea is not easy, particularly for a brand which crosses several categories and which is not linked to any particular usage pattern, type of person, or specific product function. Most marketers, when they have a nice simple unique selling point to deal with, feel they they are on solid ground. But when that goes, many start to feel like they are being asked to nail a jelly to the wall. For this reason, Y&R have developed a process called Y&Rchetypes...
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HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
ARCHETYPES How BAV gets you out of the brand values quagmire Anyone who thinks that marketing is a professional analytical discipline has never been to a meeting to agree and decide the values, or personality model for a brand. When a marketer has the fastest brewing tea bag in the tea bag market, they have a rational product benefit and they are fine. They can do side-by-side ads with housewives demonstrating how they brew tea rapidly, and everyone knows what the brand is about. Once the rational benefit is gone, all hell breaks loose. The meetings lead to diagrams of concentric circles, showing more and more adjectives in rings of core brand values or personality dimensions. As time goes on, the brand diagram bloats, as more and more stakeholders add more and more adjectives.
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BRAND PERSONALITY BULLSHIT BINGO Rich iconography
Underlying value structure
Matrix structure
Schizmic
Data mining
Tertiary attibutes
Run that up the flagpole
Rich seam of wants
Holistic
Perceptual parameters
Drivers of mentality
Parapsycho -logically
Move the peanut forward
Qualitative validation
Deep dive
Paradigm shift
Semiotic perspective
Need states
Neo-
Granular
Personality dimensions
Microtargeting
Dancing on a pinhead
Underlying brand values Psychographic discriminator
A fun game to play in the conceptual hell of brand development meetings. Tick a box every time anyone mentions a phrase. When you get a line, shout ‘bingo!’
The end result is a brand that is everything to all people, and therefore a brand that is nothing. A way out Hollywood found a way out of this personality mess some time ago. As movie storylines spread beyond the simple white hats/black hats good-versus-evil stories of Westerns, 33
HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
scriptwriters started to struggle with the complexity of the characters they were writing about. They developed a process called archetyping. Archetyping is built on the observation that throughout history, there have been distinct Most brands similarities between the myths and start out as stories told in all the cultures of the tight, focussed world. propositions like this. For example, the Medusa the Gorgon character in Greek mythology betrays many similarities in behaviour and attitude to the Catherine Trammel character in Basic Instinct. The spiritual journey of Mel Gibson in Braveheart mirrors that of Perseus in Greek mythology. The process was used heavily in films such as Star Wars, where the characters of Princess Leia (The Maiden), Obi Wan Kenobi (The Sage) and Han Solo (The Rebel) were all defined and developed using the rules of archetyping. Transforming characters Archetyping allows certain transformations in characters, which initially surprise viewers, but which are subsequently easily accepted. For example, viewers find it easy to accept that a powerful, evil man can turn into a father figure. As a result, few viewers struggle with the transformation of the evil 34
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destructive terminator character of Terminator 1 into a good father figure in Terminator 2. Similarly, the world accepted it when the following was said in The Empire Strikes Back: “You killed my father, Vader!” “I am your father, Luke.” Archetyping can transform brands in the same way. How is archetyping used? Using BAV data and archetyping After a few changes of management and thinking garnered from academic, of marketing historical and movie industry agencies, they end up sources, we have developed the as complex, unwieldy Y&Rchetypes process. structures like this. Y&Rchetypes cuts through the fog of brand values to identify rapidly a brand’s natural position in the mediascape. It does so processing BAV data though some proprietary software. Archetypes are simple. A brand can therefore more clearly be defined using Y&Rchetypes than by any brand values or personality model. 35
HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
Archetypal Stories of the Maiden The Maiden is threatened by a terrible monster. She cannot escape, but she is rescued by the White Knight, who kills the monster. She falls in love with him, and agrees to follow him on his adventures. They live happily together. ... The Seducer tries to rape the Maiden while she is walking in a field. She (a) manages to escape or is rescued by the White Knight who truly loves her, or (b) is abducted and taken to the Seducer’s castle. ... The Maiden returns with the Hero to his homeland. At first she is welcomed by his family, but the Earth Mother, under the influence of the Tyrant, grows jealous of her. She is threatened and lied to until she is eventually driven away. ... The Maiden is lost in a wood. She encounters a Witch who, out of jealousy, casts a spell over her so that she falls asleep, as if dead. The Hero finds her, and believing that she is dead, buries her in a tomb.
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Source: QualiQuant/CRAM
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Using Y&Rchetypes, and the rules of archetyping, a brand that has fallen into a weak position over time can easily found a new position in the mediascape. Most brands are perceived by consumers to lack vision not because they are fundamentally boring. They are perceived to lack vision because they are not singlemindedly projecting a role for themselves. Y&Rchetypes can help define that role simply and quickly. The next step Then, once you have the brand’s role defined, you need to connect it to its consumer. Within product categories, this means identifying its benefit. But when a brand operates beyond product categories, it also helps to dig deeper to understand the basic human motivations that attract people to that brand. Rolex the watch is there to tell you the time. But in its greater role as a luxury, Rolex satisfies a much deeper rooted need...
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“You’re so ambitious, aren’t you? You know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. A well-scrubbed, hustling rube, with a little taste. Good nutrition’s given you some length of bone, but you’re not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? And that accent you’ve tried so desperately to shed pure West Virginia. What does your father do? Is he a coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know how quickly the boys found you. All those tedious, sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars, while you could only dream of getting out. Getting anywhere, getting all the way to the F...B...I.”
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LINKING BRANDS TO HUMANITY’S DEEPEST MOTIVATIONS The fictional Dr. Lecter, like students of human nature back to Marcus Aurelius, recognised that to motivate a human being, you first have to identify and understand their basic drives. With this in mind, we took everyone in the BAV study, and took them through a deep, probing questionnaire, designed to peel away the layers of civilisation in their minds, and expose the basic motivations beneath. We then used the response to the full questionnaire to 39
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divide people into seven groups. The seven groups are based on fundamental human motivations - physiological, safety, belonging, esteem and self-actualization, as identified by Dr Abraham Maslow in his famous hierarchy of needs. We call the resulting segmentation the Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation, or 4Cs for short. What makes 4Cs any good? Every ad agency has a set of strategic tools nowadays. All make great claims for theirs – even though some may be nothing more than a few PowerPoint charts emailed around their network. So what makes our 4Cs tool different? 1. It’s transparent We don’t try to conceal our methodology. You can try a 15 minute version of the questionnaire yourself, and see how it categorises you. It’s online at http://www.4Cs.yr.com/diys. 4Cs is no black box. 2. It’s not the same as demographics So many consumer segmentations end up with groups of people who look remarkably like standard demographic groups. Segment all adults into four groups by general attitudes, 40
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and you’re likely to end up with groups that look remarkably like: Richer, younger people
Richer, older people
Poorer, younger people
Poorer, older people
If your segmentation looks like this, you’ll be better off merely dividing your audience by age and income – that way your groups will be much clearer to other people, and much easier to use when analysing other research. 4Cs groups are about deep motivations, and so they aren’t demographics by another name. They thus give you new information about your brands. 3. 4Cs discriminates on brands If BMW looks exactly the same to all groups in your segmentation, the segmentation isn’t much use to BMW. That’s not what happens on 4Cs. The segments rarely see or use brands in the same way. We regularly find 40 % more, or 40 % fewer users of brands than expected in specific 4Cs segments. 41
HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
4. 4Cs is not based on clusters The mysterious art of cluster analysis may give you interesting results on an individual survey, but repeat your survey a year later, and you’ll end up with completely different clusters. 4Cs isn’t based on clusters, so the groups don’t change from survey to survey. If you’re in the 4Cs Succeeder group this year, you’re very likely to come up as a Succeeder next year too. 5. 4Cs works across countries An American who agrees that ‘a woman is only fulfilled if she creates a good home for her family’ is a reactionary. A
HOW MASLOW’S HIERARCHY CONVERTS INTO SEVEN BASIC MOTIVATIONS
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Russian who disagrees with that statement is seen in Russia as a dangerous liberal. Good segmentations therefore separate people according to the norms of the society they come from, rather than against some absolute norm. And so 4Cs does this. How do the seven basic Dare you find out what motivations help us? drives you? If we can identify the basic You can find out by taking the 15-minute motivations of people with an 4Cs questionnaire affinity to particular brands, we online at http://4cs.yr.com/diys can start to understand the motivations that drive usage of those brands. A brand like BMW appeals above all to Succeeders, for whom it projects a sense of control and to Aspirers, because it affirms their need for status. A brand like Saab has quite a different set of appeals. Adoption curves The seven types also help us identify how far consumers have absorbed a brand. The first consumers to discover new ideas tend to be Explorers and Reformers, followed by the Aspirers and the Succeeders.
EXPLORER These people are driven by a need for discovery, challenge and new frontiers. Young in nature, if not in reality, Explorers are often the first to try out new ideas and experiences.
THE SEVEN BASIC MOTIVATIONS They respond to brands that offer new sensations, indulgence and instant effects. Their core need in life is for discovery.
ASPIRER
SUCCEEDER
Materialistic, acquisitive people, who are driven by others’ perceptions of them rather than by their own values.
Succeeders possess selfconfidence, have a strong goal orientation and tend to be very organised.
As a result, they respond to what others perceive as being superficial: image, appearance, persona, charisma and fashion. An attractive pack is as important to them as its contents. Their core need in life is for status.
As a result, they tend to occupy positions of responsibility in society. Their investment in the status quo means they tend to support it. When it comes to brands, they seek reward and prestige, and will often seek out the best, because that is what they feel they deserve. On the other hand, they also seek out caring and protective brands – their aggressive attitude to life means they need to relax occasionally.. Their core need in life is for control.
MAINSTREAM
REFORMER
These are people who live in the world of the domestic and the everyday.
“Don’t tell me what to do or what to think” says the Reformer, valuing their own independent judgement. Reformers are the most antimaterialistic of the seven groups, and are often perceived as intellectual. They are socially aware, and pride themselves on tolerance. Reformers seek out the authentic and the harmonious, and are often at the leading edge of society.
A daily routine is fundamental to the way they live their lives. Their life choices are ‘we’ rather than ‘me’. As their name implies, they are the mainstream of society. They are the largest group of people within 4Cs across the world. They respond to big established brands, to ‘family’ brands and to offers of value for money. Their core need in life is for security.
However, unlike Explorers, they will not buy things just because they are new. Their core need in life is for enlightenment.
STRUGGLER
RESIGNED
Strugglers live for today, and make few plans for tomorrow. Others often see them as victims, losers and wasters - aimless, disorganised people with few resources apart from their own physical skills. If they get on in life, it will depend more on a winning lottery ticket than anything they do themselves.
These are predominantly older people with constant, unchanging values built up over time. For them, the past is bathed in a warm nostalgic glow.
They are heavy consumers of alcohol and junk food. Visual impact and physical sensation are an important element of their brand choices. In essence, they seek escape.
They respect institutions and enjoy acting in traditional roles. Their brand choices are driven by a need for safety and for economy. They choose above all what is familiar to them. In life, their aim is basic: it is to survive.
HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
Identifying which types have the most affinity for the brand gives an indication of how far down the adoption curve it is. Once we have looked at response to your brand amongst the 4Cs groups, we can see which groups it has connected with the most. And that in turn gives us insights into what the underlying attraction of that brand is for people. Understanding the basic human motivations of your target can be big step towards developing a strong, visionary brand idea. WHAT 4CS TYPE ARE WE? A Europe-wide unscientific poll of 59 Y&R execs revealed the following split:
Like most marketing services companies, Y&R has many Succeeders, Explorers, Aspirers and Reformers on its staff. The picture amongst the European population in general is quite different however. Amongst all Europeans, Mainstream is the biggest group, with 32% of the European population. Next come Succeeders (17%), Reformers (16%), Aspirers (12%), Explorers (8%), Resigned (8%) and Strugglers (7%).
Y&R EMEA
WHAT ABOUT GLOBAL BRANDS? It’s currently fashionable to attack globalization and global brands. So we’d like to launch an attack on global brands ourselves. We’ve found out that many of the world’s so-called global brands aren’t global. Many companies have global product distribution systems, and globally aligned packaging. But most so-called global brands vary so much from country to country in terms of their core meaning, that they cannot really be called global brands. We’ve found this out by looking at two things: how welldeveloped brands are on the PowerGrid, and how consistent their meanings are across the world. A brand that comes in the top right hand corner of the 49
HOW TO BECOME AN ICON
PowerGrid consistently from country to country scores high on the PowerGrid development index. A brand that is perceived in the same way from country to country, as evidenced from BAV meaning analysis, scores high on the consistent meaning index. Very few brands score well on both:
Source: Y&R New York
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The major cola brands vary hugely in terms of in meaning from country to country. Only a few brands like Disney and Nike are strong everywhere in the world, and mean the same thing everywhere. But should a brand with variable meaning worry about this? That depends. If a company believes that it can maintain a strong position around the world through its distribution clout and the superiority of its product, probably not. But it shouldn’t kid itself. If the relationship of its brand with its consumer varies so much from country to country, the consistency of its global position must be due more to its global strength as a producer and distributor than anything to do with its brand. It’s not a great position to be in. If any company like that slips up, it has no consistent consumer equity to fall back on. And the way is open for a brand with a single visionary meaning to come in and take its place.
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SUMMARY IN ENGLISH 1. Activists have been saying that brands, not politicians, poets or religious leaders are providing society with its spirit and vision nowadays. 2. Marketers have been saying that nothing has changed. 3. Our research shows that the activists are right. Today, some brands command much more respect than the institutions of state. 4. The reason marketers have not noticed this is that all their research is focused exclusively on product categories whereas all the changes are happening outside, in what Naomi Klein calls ‘the mediascape.’ 5. Y&R has been researching brands in the mediascape, and can confirm that some are very, very strong. We call them ‘iconic’ brands. 6. Iconic brands are so strong that they can, and in many cases already do, sell products and services in many categories, not just one. 7. They thus break the rules of marketing, and give their masters economies of scale over traditional marketers. 8. To build your brand into an icon, you must first clarify its role in the mediascape. The process of archetyping can help. 9. Then, you need to make it relevant to people. This means understanding the basic motivations that drive your consumer. 10. Branding today is a zero sum game. For marketers who ignore these new realities, the future is bleak.
SUMMARY IN FRENCH 1.
Pour les activistes, ce sont les marques, et non les hommes politiques, les poètes ou les chefs religieux, qui confèrent à la société contemporaine son état d’esprit et sa vision du monde.
2.
Les spécialistes du marketing, de leur côté, disent que rien n’a changé.
3.
Pourtant, les études que nous avons réalisées montrent que ce sont les activistes qui ont raison. Quelques marques suscitent aujourd’hui davantage de respect que les institutions de l’Etat.
4.
Si les hommes de marketing n’ont pas pris conscience de ce phénomène, c’est parce que leurs études portent exclusivement sur les catégories de produits, alors que tous les changements interviennent à l’extérieur, dans ce que Naomi Klein nomme le mediascape – le paysage médiatique.
5.
Y&R, qui a mené des études sur les marques présentes dans ce mediascape, peut confirmer que certaines d’entre elles sont aujourd’hui extrêmement fortes. Elles sont devenues des marques emblématiques (iconic brands).
6.
Ces marques emblématiques sont en fait si puissantes qu’elles sont capables – et y parviennent effectivement dans de nombreux cas –, de vendre des produits et services dans un large éventail de catégories, et pas seulement dans une seule d’entre elles.
7.
Elles brisent ainsi les règles du marketing et permettent des économies d’échelle par rapport aux schémas traditionnels du marketing.
8.
Afin que votre marque devienne emblématique, vous devez d’abord clarifier son rôle au sein du mediascape. Le processus de definition des archétypes peut ici s’avérer utile.
9.
Il faut ensuite qu’elle soit adaptée aux désirs des gens. Cela veut dire qu’il faut comprendre les motivations profondes des consommateurs.
10. Aujourd’hui, le choix d’une marque est un jeu à somme nul. Les spécialistes du marketing qui ignoreraient ces réalités se préparent à des lendemains tres incertains.
SUMMARY IN GERMAN 1.
Aktivisten behaupten schon länger, dass heutzutage Marken und nicht etwa Politiker, Poeten oder religiöse Führer der Gesellschaft Sinn stiften und Visionen geben.
2.
Vermarkter behaupten schon länger, dass sich eigentlich nichts geändert hat.
3.
Unsere Marktforschungsarbeiten zeigen, dass die Aktivisten Recht haben. Heute gebieten einige Marken größeren Respekt als die staatlichen Institutionen.
4.
Dass Vermarkter dies noch gar nicht gemerkt haben, liegt daran, dass sich ihre gesamten Forschungsarbeiten ausschließlich auf Warengruppen beziehen - während all diese Änderungen außerhalb ihres Horizonts stattfinden, und zwar in der von Naomi Klein als ‘Mediascape’ bezeichneten Medienwelt.
5.
Y&R untersucht seit einiger Zeit Marken im ‘Mediascape’ und kann nur bestätigen, dass einige von ihnen wirklich sehr stark sind. Wir bezeichnen sie als ‘Icon-Marken’.
6.
Icon-Marken sind so stark positioniert, dass sie Produkte und Dienstleistungen in vielen Produktkategorien - nicht nur in einer einzigen - verkaufen können und dies in vielen Fällen auch schon tun.
7.
Sie brechen damit die Marketing-Regeln und geben ihren Vermarktern größenbedingte Kostenvorteile gegenüber traditionellen Vermarktern.
8.
Um die eigene Marke zu einer Icon-Marke umzubilden, müssen Sie zuerst ihre Position im ‘Mediascape’ klären. Das Verfahren zur Definition des Archetyps kann hierbei helfen.
9.
Dann müssen Sie bei den Verbrauchern die nötige Relevanz der Marke herstellen. Das heißt, Sie müssen die grundlegenden Motivationen verstehen, die Ihren Käufer bewegen.
10. Die Markenbildung ist heutzutage ein Nullsummenspiel. Den Vermarktern, die diese neue Realität ignorieren, steht eine düstere Zukunft bevor.
SUMMARY IN ITALIAN 1.
Gli attivisti dicono che oggigiorno la società trae il suo spirito e i suoi sogni non già dai politici, dai poeti o dai capi religiosi bensì dai marchi.
2.
Gli operatori di marketing dicono che nulla è cambiato.
3.
La nostra ricerca dimostra che gli attivisti hanno ragione. Oggi alcuni marchi esercitano un potere di gran lunga superiore a quello delle istituzioni dello Stato.
4.
Gli operatori di marketing teorici non se ne sono accorti dato che tutta la loro ricerca è incentrata esclusivamente sulle categorie di prodotti, mentre i cambiamenti stanno avvenendo fuori, in quello che Naomi Klein chiama il “panorama mediatico”.
5.
Y&R svolge ricerche sui marchi presenti nel panorama mediatico e può confermare che alcuni di essi sono molto, molto forti. Noi li chiamiamo marchi ‘iconici’.
6.
I marchi iconici sono così forti che possono vendere – e in molti casi lo stanno già facendo - prodotti e servizi in più categorie e non in una sola.
7.
In questo modo, essi infrangono le regole del marketing e danno ai loro padroni economie di scala rispetto agli operatori di marketing tradizionali.
8.
Per fare del vostro marchio un’icona dovete innanzitutto chiarire il suo ruolo nel panorama mediatico. A questo scopo, può essere d’aiuto la creazione di archetipi.
9.
Poi, dovete rendere il vostro marchio rilevante per la gente. Per fare questo, dovete comprendere le motivazioni di fondo che guidano il vostro consumatore.
10. Oggi la differenziazione dei marchi è un gioco a somma zero. Per gli operatori di marketing che ignorano queste nuove realtà, il futuro è tutt’altro che roseo.
SUMMARY IN SPANISH 1.
Activistas han estado propagando que son las marcas comerciales, y no los políticos, poetas o líderes religiosos los que en la actualidad aportan a la sociedad su espíritu y visión.
2.
Las marcas han venido diciendo que nada ha cambiado.
3.
Nuestra investigación demuestra que los activistas tienen razón. Actualmente, algunas marcas comerciales imponen mucho más respeto que las instituciones estatales.
4.
La razón por la que las marcas no han reparado en ello es que toda su actividad investigadora se centra exclusivamente en las categorías de productos – mientras que todos los cambios están ocurriendo en el exterior, en lo que Naomi Klein llama ‘el panorama de los medios informativos.’
5.
Y&R ha estado investigando marcas comerciales en el panorama informativo y puede confirmar que algunas de ellas son muy pero que muy potentes. Nosotros las llamamos marcas ‘icónicas’.
6.
Las marcas icónicas son tan potentes que pueden, y en muchos casos ya lo hacen, comercializar productos y servicios en muchas categorías, no sólo en una.
7.
De esta forma, pues, violan las reglas del marketing y ponen sus economías principales por encima de la oferta mercantil tradicional.
8.
Para constituir su marca en un icono debe, primeramente, definir su papel en el panorama informativo. El proceso de generación de arquetipos puede ayudar.
9.
Porque tiene que presentarla al público como de importancia primordial. Ello significa comprender los motivos básicos que impulsan a su consumidor.
10. Branding es, hoy en día, un juego de suma cero. El futuro es oscuro para las marcas que ignoran estas nuevas realidades.
Written by: Simon Silvester simon.silvester@yr.com tel: +44 20 7611 6356 For new business enquiries, please contact: Yossi Schwartz yossi_schwartz@za.yr.com tel: +27 11 797 6314 Helen Kimber helen_kimber@uk.yr.com tel: +44 20 7611 6750 For press enquiries, please contact: Bernard Barnett bernard.barnett@yr.com tel: +44 20 7611 6425
The emailable version of this booklet is at http://emea.yr.com/icon2.pdf Y&Rchetypes, 4Cs, BAV and BrandAsset Valuator are registered trademarks of Young & Rubicam Brands
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