The Dominant Selling Idea

Advertising and truth are rarely two words you find in the same sentence.   That’s because advertisers, much like politicians, are better known for ignoring or, at best, stretching the truth, rather than for telling the truth.   It’s no surprise then that consumers are running away from ads, now more than ever, and turning to their friends for brand advise, with more ease than ever thanks to social media.

Yet fear not.  Herein lies the opportunity.  According to Sue Unerman and Jonathan Salem Baskin, co-authors of Tell the Truth:  Honesty is Your Most Powerful Marketing Tool, “truth” can be your ultimate winning marketing strategy.

I’m not sure this is a new idea, but it’s a good one that bears reminding, particularly in the age of what Steven Colbert terms “truthiness,” where people are increasingly comfortable combining just a tiny bit of truth with a whole lot of spin.

The book prescribes eight truth-enrichment guidelines that together will help make your brand more trusted and ultimately more successful.

1) Acknowledge Reality

Understand the reality of your customers’ lives, and the reality of your company’s actions, and address them directly.  24 Hour Fitness faced the harsh reality that over 70% of people who join their gyms quit within a year.  So they stopped promising perfect bodies in their ads (blatantly untrue) and started helping people meet reasonable health and fitness goals.  When Mobile Me bombed, Steve Jobs stood up and said, “it didn’t work.”  Course, Steven Jobs was Steven Jobs.

2) Deliver Real Change

When you say you want feedback from consumers, mean it, act on it, and show them the tangible result. Fiat invited consumers to crowd-source a new car.  Of course, it never got built.  It was a marketing gimmick.  Would you invite your entire neighborhood over to architect the new addition to your home?  Conversely, The Guardian newspaper in the UK invited readers to identify and research stories of interest to them, but only if they were experts on the subject, otherwise no thanks.

3) Build Truth

We all know truth the minute we see it.  It’s one of our inherent capabilities as a semi-evolved species.   We’ve pretty much always got our radar out for it.  So, Unerman and Baskin argue, as a marketer, why not deliver lots of little truths that will get people nodding their heads, as opposed to trying to change intractable minds.   Case in point: Tums advertising features food slapping people in the face, supported with the tagline, When Your Food Fights You, Fight Back.  Get it?  Of course, you do.  We all do. Because Tum’s is tapping into a simple truth we understand and believe.

4) Co-Announce

Legitimacy can often come from the company you keep.  Think of it as truth by association.  Green Works was co-created by Clorox (not the first company to come to mind when you think about environmental concern) and the Sierra Club (the first organization you probably DO think of when you think about environmental protection).  What’s more, the two companies co-market Green Works and share in the profits which makes the brand’s environmental credentials all the more credible.

5) Be Close

Support the way people want to use your brand, not just how you want them to use it.  After all, they bought it and should be able to do with it what they want.  Right? The authors offer up instructive opposing examples here.  When hackers started reprogramming the Xbox to do things like turn the lights on and off in their living room, Microsoft issued a cease-and- desist order, promptly pissing off many of their fans.  Rumba took another approach.  When people started reprogramming its robotic floor cleaner to do all kinds of wild, new things, like barking like a dog, the company said “that’s great” and encouraged people to let their imaginations run wild.

6) Find a Truth Turning Point

We all know that when politicians make a public gaff, it’s a rare glimpse into a candid and honest expression.  For brands, like politicians, the trick is to capitalize on these moments of unguarded truth by building on them, not running away from them.

7) Use Point-of-Action Media

The best way to strengthen your brand’s sense of truth is to tie your brand promise into a real world customer experience.  For, example Stove Top Stuffing put heaters at bus stops in Chicago throughout the winter creating islands of warmth and comfort for commuters, which ties in nicely with the brand’s warm and comforting food brand promise.

8)  Leverage Routine

Don’t tell people to do something different—fit into their existing behavior.  Years ago, when Twix was a small brand competing against other chocolate bars with far more money to spend, to break through it decided to tap into the timeless English tradition of daily tea time and become the tea-time treat.

In the 1970’s, Cunningham & Walsh, a top US ad agency claimed to offer its clients advertising that conveyed “truth with enthusiasm.”  We could certainly use a little more of that today, and thanks to Tell the Truth we now have a helpful guide.

Being a resident, born and raised, I’m pleased to see the state of Connecticut once again promoting itself as a tourism destination following a lengthy hiatus due to budget cuts.

As a marketer, I’m also pleased because unlike so many other state tourism campaigns, this new one from the Nutmeg State presents a truly differentiated idea—a unique positioning–firmly rooted in the state’s proud history and culture of independent thinking and action.   “Still Revolutionary” is a solid, well considered positioning, accurately reflective of what makes the state meaningfully unique.  Not only does it make residents of the state feel a sense of pride, it’s an enticing invitation to would-be visitors.

Here’s the problem.  In moving from idea to execution, somehow the idea got lost.  The advertising is beautifully produced, but it’s generic, with little if any drama or story telling around what makes Connecticut “revolutionary” and why people will find it appealing enough to come and spend their hard earned money instead of going to say . . . just about any other state.

There’s good news.  It’s fixable.  It’s a good positioning.  It just needs to be brought to life in words and pictures.  The opportunity is to convey more of the “revolutionary” spirit of Mark Twain, PT Barnum, Nathan Hale, Charles Ives and Seth McFarlane—all CT residents.

In this hyper competitive world being bigger, faster, stronger, or smarter is deemed imperative to triumph over others. But what if being different, not just better, is the real key to winning?

Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, and currently teaching a course at Stanford, argues that “we often shouldn’t seek to be really good competitors. We should seek to be really good monopolists. Instead of being slightly better than everybody else in a crowded and established field, it’s often more valuable to create a new market and totally dominate it. The profit margins are much bigger, and the value to society is often bigger, too.”

David Brookes, of the New York Times, recently dedicated an editorial to Thiel’s premise of  “creative monopoly.”

Along the same lines, David Aaker, renowned branding scholar and practitioner, writes in his latest book, Brand Relevance:  Making Competitors Irrelevant, that the only way for a business to grow, with rare exceptions, is to “develop offerings so innovative that they create customer “must-haves” that define new subcategories for which competitors are not relevant.  The goal is to win not by having a brand preferred over competitors but because competitors were not considered.  You strive not to be the best but the only.”

This is also the central premise of the best selling business book Blue Ocean Strategy, which encourages companies to stop trying to directly beat the competition, and tap into unoccupied market space that is uncontested.  In other words, don’t bombard each other in the congested, bloody, red seas; rather chart a course for the vast, unoccupied blue oceans of uncontested opportunity.

And Ron Johnson, J.C. Penney’s new CEO, who transformed Target from a ho-hum discounter to a store that sells stylish but affordable products, and with Steve Jobs at Apple created what is today the most profitable retail store in the world, offers this:  ”Improvement merely lets you hit your numbers.  Creativity is what transforms.”

Of course, being so creative that you establish a distinct market, niche or identity is harder than it sounds.  Still, as Thiel argues, our head-to-head competitive culture and sensibility undermines innovation because it sets the wrong goals.

In the movies, they say, “Action is character” because what an actor does is more important than what he says.   It’s true in real life, as well, where we judge a person’s character more on what they do than say.  Similarly, in the world of branding, success is 90% walk and 10% talk.  True and meaningful differentiation lies more in the experience than the story.  Action is Branding.

I’ve noted of late a slew of advertising articles focused on promoting the idea that what a company does is more important than what it says, and that advertising agencies need to adjust their businesses accordingly, relying less on selling brand spin and more on creating brand involvement.   Not a new idea, though a good one.  A  recent article is by Jeff Rosenblum, who is soon to release a documentary film about the future of advertising called, The Naked Brand, does a nice job of summing up the brand benefits of substance over spin, performance over pretty pictures, unique customer experience over clever words.

Positioning your brand as an underdog–#2 to a powerful #1–is nothing new.

Avis, most famously, positioned itself as the car rental company that tried harder, especially with regard to customer service compared to market leader, Hertz.  And, of course, we’re all familiar with Apple vs. Microsoft, Under Armor vs. Nike, and the Jamaican bobsled team against . . . all odds.  These brands caught our attention and generated broad-based appeal because they were all a variation on the classic David vs. Goliath story–the humble but determined underdog pitted against the arrogant, bloated titan.

Now another brand is attempting to join the ranks of these famous underdogs:  Powerade sports drink.     With a market share of 28% compared to Gatorade’s 70%, it certainly qualifies as the little guy.  Powerade’s new brand campaign carries the tagline “Power Through,” a set of words that promote the idea that Powerade is for people who go all-in to achieve success—that nothing short of relentless, hard work is required to win. This idea resonates with even more meaning when put in the context of the underdog.

Powerade is on to something here.  Being the underdog has always been a viable positioning strategy.  But it may be even more relevant in today’s difficult economic environment, in which people are increasingly suspicious of large government and businesses.

According to a study at Harvard Business School, “In today’s world, underdog narratives address real-world challenges and anxieties faced by increasing numbers of Americans.”

Of course, many companies today, even top dogs in their own right want to think and act like underdogs.  No one wants to look like the sated, fat cat.  As Phil Knight, founder and CEO of Nike, said, “Although Nike is the goliath of the industry, we will always think and behave like David”

I’d give Powerade strong odds for making forward progress with this positioning,  It closely aligns with the winning-through-hard work attitudes of its youthful and ambitious target audience.   It also taps into the internet induced zeitgeist of the times, where everyone likes to believe they have a shot at being seen and heard; where authors can’t be rejected by traditional book publishers, and musicians can’t be turned down by record labels. Also, as noted in an early blog posting here, Gatorade has lost focus in evolving its brand positioning from hydration to sports nutrition, and offering a somewhat confusing product line-up.

The job market, housing market, consumer confidence, even the stock market, are all showing some signs of recovery.  So why is it that people are so down on US corporations?

According to the 2011 Harris Reputation Quotient Study, which measures how the public views corporate America, people are feeling worse, not better, about corporations.

The annual study measures the state of reputations of 60 companies deemed most visible by a sample of over 17,000 people.

Despite gains in 2010, all reputational measures showed significant decline in 2011.

Only 9% of respondents said company reputations improved, with a whopping 60% saying they had declined.  This is a 33% increase in negative rating from 2010.

Just 22% said American corporate reputations are positive.  53% said they are negative.

And, whereas in 2010 16 companies qualified for Harris’s “excellent” reputation ratings, only 8 made the cut in 2011.

What’s going on?

According to Harris, there are two primary culprits:

1)  An erosion of trust in the personal traits of company leaders and their ability to successfully manage the whole corporation.

2)  A greater demand for sincerity, transparency and accuracy of communications and reporting, coupled with a perception that companies are not doing a good enough job at this.

Of course, reputations varied greatly by industry so we need to be careful painting all companies with the same gloomy brush.  Not surprisingly, financial services was amongst the lowest, outdone in poor reputation by just one industry—government.    While technology enjoys a strong reputation.

Does this study really matter to companies?  50% of people now research companies, not just products, before doing business with them.  And this number is likely to increase over time.  Finding companies whose values are consistent with their own has become an important part of brand selection for many.  Finding a lack of information around company values and behaviors limits the emotional appeal between the public and these companies.  Companies today need to provide excellent products, customer service and pricing–but they also need to do more:  they need to have a purpose that is larger than making a profit, then pronounce it and live it everyday, inside and outside the company.

Social media has many benefits, but sometimes it seems to try just a bit too hard.  Especially when it bypasses a basic understanding of human needs and wants.   Just as in architecture where form should follow function, social media is at it’s best when technology follows human wants, needs and desires—especially when it comes to when, where and how we choose to interact with each other.

Witness KLM’s new Meet and Seat service that “intends to improve the flight experience by pairing seats according to shared interests, as travelers choose to link their Facebook and LinkedIn profiles to their check-in information.”

Some people will, but I’d argue that most won’t, want their flights, perhaps one of the last bastions of personal privacy, interrupted by someone schmoozing them, giving a sales pitch or even trying to pick them up.

Because we’re human, we all know the risks of what could happen if we were to participate in KLM’s new social media experiment.  So unless entertaining such personal intrusions holds appeal, most people are unlikely to participate.

Fact is, most of our “friends” on Facebook and “connections” on LinkedIn are unlikely to be people we want to spend two to three uninterrupted hours in close quarters with.  No offense, but that privilege is probably reserved for close friends and business associates.

Companies can easily become enamored of new media technology, especially when searching for ways to differentiate themselves in an otherwise commoditized market.  The risk is that they end up trying too hard,  forcing something on people in ways that defy basic human nature, which despite revolutionary technological advances is pretty much evolutionary, and slow moving at best.  Says author Jonathan Salem Baskin in Why the Next Big Thing Already Happened, an article about, in part, the merits and simple wisdom of aligning technology with how people think and behave versus the reverse:  Companies “trade what (people) like for what (they) think they should like, and this creates conflict and product failures.”

It’s hard for airlines to differentiate themselves these days.  And quality customer service is certainly a way to win hearts and minds.   So KLM gets points for trying something new.   Question is:  are they offering what they think people should like or what they really do like?  If it’s the former, it’s unlikely to help the brand, attract new customers–especially business customers, airlines bread and butter–or build brand loyalty?

For now,  I’d argue its  a newsworthy tactic of questionable brand and businesses building potential.  Because what most travelers in flying sardine cans for extended periods of time still need and want is privacy, peace and quiet, or at most a little conversation on our own terms and time.

Of course, as with all internet based initiatives that speed up the learning cycle, we’ll find out soon enough whether KLM is onto something.

Most people don’t really want to “engage” with brands, even self-proclaimed “fans.”  That’s the finding of a recent study from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute as reported in Ad Age.

According to the research, just 1% of fans of the biggest brands on Facebook are actually engaging (defined as likes, posts, comments, tags, shares and other ways a user of the social network can interact with branded pages) with brands.  What’s more, even passion brands, like Nike, Harley Davidson and Tiffany, which enjoy strong customer loyalty, don’t achieve strong levels of engagement:  The top 10 passion brands achieved an average engagement of 0.66%.  Nor does having the largest fan base appear to help.  The top 10 brands with the most fans had an average engagement level of 0.36%.

Said one of the researchers, “Facebook doesn’t really differ from mass media.  It’s great to get decent reach, but to change the way people interact with a brand overnight is just unrealistic.”

Social media is a powerful new medium, and an increasingly important component of most any integrated marketing communications plan.  But clearly, it’s still in its infancy in terms of how it can go beyond traditional media in getting people to actively participate with brands.

For now, it’s important to keep in mind that most people, contrary to what many purveyors of social media would have us believe, prefer to consume content passively—primarily one-way.  In-bound.

Books, movies, TV shows, plays, even amusement parks are enjoyed passively.  You get taken on a ride.  Told a story.  All you have to do is strap yourself in, open your eyes and ears, and be educated or entertained.  No effort required.  Like it or not, that’s how most of us prefer our media engagements and relationships.

That goes for how we “engage” with brands, too.  Served straight up.

Behavioral economics is based on the principle that people reason on the basis of self-interest.   How else to explain why so many people don’t view downloading copyright protected music, movies and books for free as an illegal act?

It’s this mind-set the movie, recording and publishing industries will need to address as they attempt to regroup and recover from the defeat of their anti-piracy bill by on-line proponents of SOPA  (Stop On-Line Piracy Act).

Perhaps the bill was too narrow in how it addressed the issue by granting the Justice Department the power to order websites to remove links to sites that are suspected of pirating copyrighted materials.   But the principle behind the bill is still legitimate.

The fact remains:  it’s illegal to download material for free without the consent of the copyright holder.  Most people wouldn’t think of walking into Wal*Mart and leaving with a DVD without paying.  How is downloading a pirated movie on-line any different?

For the content creators to secure the legal protections they seek, they’ll need to reframe the debate to win the hearts and minds of the public, especially the powerful, community-minded web public whose on-line belief system runs more towards sharing than owning.  At present the battle is perceived by the public to be between old vs. new, freedom vs. oppression, empowerment vs. profits, cool vs. stodgy.    Guess which side the content creators fall on.

If content creators want to succeed the second time around, they’ll need to change the way the world sees on-line piracy by presenting it as a moral issue—a matter of immutable human values.   Not simply breaking the law.

First they need to change the language.  “Piracy” almost sounds swashbuckling.  And “stealing” and “thievery” are something other people do.

They would be better served to focus the argument on our nation’s strong sense of “fairness,” and that we all need to be protected equally from having it eroded.    Because without fairness there’s no opportunity, and without opportunity there’s no prosperity.

It’s sad to see Kodak filing Chapter 11.  Such a venerable, deeply engrained cultural icon that’s been a part of so many people’s lives for so many years. Until the 1990s it was rated one of the world’s five most valuable brands.

Hopefully, they’ll successfully rebound when they emerge from creditor protection.

Of course, it won’t be easy.

One of the reasons is that they lack a clearly defined and articulated future, one that’s visionary and inspiring, one that has the power to motivate and direct employees and partners and galvanize consumer passion and loyalty.

The company did a nice job of getting in front of the bad news using social media.  In a broadly disseminated company video, CEO, Antonio Perez, explained that Kodak was still in the midst of a business transformation that started in 2004, that it simply needed temporary protection from creditors while it got its financial house together, that its focus would remain on being an imaging and material sciences company, and that in the meantime it would be “business as usual.”

All well and good.   But hardly words to stir the troops.

In the words of Michel de Montaign:  “ The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to know how to live to purpose.”

What is Kodak’s purpose?  Its higher order reason-for-being?  What does it intend to do to improve the quality of our lives, as it once did by bringing our “memories” to life?

If the recent aimless “So Kodak” advertising is any indication, the company isn’t yet close to answering these questions.

Of course, it’s not entirely  too late.  But it better move quickly.   As was recently noted in The Economist in an article titled “The last Kodak moment?“:  ”After 132 years it is poised, like an old photo, to fade away.”