Brand Anthems

This past week I spoke at an Audio Branding conference in New York City.  As a result of my talk I was interviewed by NPR on the topic of Brand Anthems.  It's an interesting topic and idea.
Most of us accept the idea that some brands carry a certain amount of cultural star power.  People align themselves to brands the same way they align to some celebrities and cultural icons.  Brands are rock stars and rock stars are brands.  Add to this the fact that people, especially the younger generation, expect brands to have a social point of view and participate in society in an authentic way.   With this context and expectations, brands need to find ways to engage people in deeper ways.
Social Media dialogue is one way to engage, but there are also the emotional power of music.  We use jingles and sometimes even a audio "stinger" with a logo, but most of these audio treatments are about creating cues to help you remember a brand.  They don't rally or create deep emotional attachments.
Music - the full on use of anthem like pieces are rare but perhaps they should be used more as society's expectations of brands and brand tribes increase.
Years ago, Coke did it with "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing...".  They might not have known exactly what they were doing but they tapped into an emotional tactic that articulated the "emotion of us".
GMC was able to do it thanks to Bob Seger's song "Like A Rock".  It was an authentic representation of the mentality of a pick up truck owner.  The song was written by a native Michigan and it also said something about buying American and supporting America.
But few other brands have tapped into the brand anthem concept.  European football teams have anthems.  Countries have anthems and so do schools.  It's time for brands to consider the emotional bonding power of anthems as well

Ignoring The Noise

I've refrained from writing a Steve Jobs posting partially because everyone else was doing such a good job - partially because I was honestly surprised by the impact his death had on me.
Much has been written about how Steve was involved in every detail within Apple products and the brand image, but nothing has been written about what he didn't pay attention to.
As super human as he was, I don't think he chased every detail.  Even he couldn't do that.  I don't know for sure, but I suspect that he used his core insight and vision as a criteria for what was worthy of his time.  If it wasn't critical to his vision - if it didn't threaten the insight that drove that vision - then I suspect he treated it as noise and ignored it.
The lesson for us all:  If you have a unique insight that leads to a unique vision for the future, then focus on all that affects that vision and ignore the noise...and there will be noise.  There will be people who will say "but.." for no real reason.  There will be compromises that actually affect nothing at all.  The difference between clear brilliance and a muddled mess is knowing what is important and what isn't.  
Yes, it is critical to focus on the details.  It's more important to know which details are important.

What's Your Brand's Gravitational Pull?

What is the context that your brand, product or service exists in?  The answer is easy - LIFE.  Regardless of what you make or do, your reputation (brand) exists with the context of life.  Everything from Occupy Wall Street to the latest grumblings on Twitter influence the mindset of those who determine the fate of your product.
It may be comforting to simplify the world by creating pie charts that eliminate all the influences on your brand other that competive issues, but it's not a real view...and by doing so you miss so many opportunities to leverage....well, to leverage life and culture.
We live in a world where brands are rock stars and rock stars are brands.  CEOs write books and as Jay-Z says, "I'm a business, man."  (the comma is important)   In this blurry world, consumers align themselves to brand and entertainment icons equally to create their own cultural tribes out of the combination.  Brand relevance and appeal can be greatly influenced by aligning your brand with the right cultural influences.  A star's relevance can also be boosted by aligning with the right brand.  Ideally it works equally both ways.  A good example of that  equal benefit was when I helped create the BlackBerry/U2 relationship a number of years ago.  BlackBerry was looking to move into pop culture and U2 needed to be part of the contemporary dialogue again.  In a way they were equal "brands" getting equal amounts of leverage.
When looking at how best to align with cultural icons it helps to consider "Gravitational Pull".  Some brands or icons have a way of pulling other brands and icons up to their status. Understanding who has the gravitational pull helps define the nature of the relationship and how the roles should play out.  Ideally it's best when everyone wins and the relationship feels natural to the consumer.
So the question to ask is - are you looking for gravitational pull from another "star"?  Are you providing the gravitational pull? Or, have you identified a wonderful opportunity where everyone, including the customer benefits?  
This philosophy also applies to the world of Social Media where people "friend" brands all the time.  But, do brands "friend" each other?  Why not?  I'm sure consumers would actually like to see the brands they align with aligning with each other to form a true tribe.  That's the way life works.

Cheech & Chong and General Mills...Oh My!

How do you get the aging, yet forever young thinking baby boomers to think about the need for fiber in their diet without resenting the messenger?  Easy - let Cheech and Chong deliver the message with a slight wink.
How do you get the corporate executives at General Mills to approve such a campaign?  Oh lord I have no idea.

Have a look at this fake movie trailer and hang in to the very end.  Magic Brownies   The brilliance in this piece is in the nuance.  General Mills let Cheech and Chong be themselves.  A little silly, a little messy and a little pointless.  All the things that made them great.  General Mills didn't force Cheech and Chong to shy away from their core schtick.  The result is fresh, entertaining, disarming and relevant to the audience.
I'm not commenting on my own age, body condition or drug habits , (I'm young-ish, regular and what I eat is none of your business) but I got the message, didn't hate getting the message and was so entertained that I wanted more of the message.
This is the ultimate in permission based marketing - I'm entertained so well I give you permission to keep entertaining me.  Tell me more of your story.
Left wanting more, I tracked down the microsite and Facebook page...and slowly the spell started to unravel.  This campaign started to feel normal and safe.  Sigh.

Let's face it, being bold in marketing is hard for an agency and even harder for a client.  Being bold and actually delivering a relevant message to a target audience - well that's brilliant.  All of us in the marketing world are on the sidelines cheering you on General Mills.  Keep going.  Don't shy away now...go all the way to Flaming Pole!

If You Tell The Whole Story You Tell No Story

There are many components to successful marketing.  There are many skills required.  The one that gets the least attention and is often the least understood is storytelling.  Marketing, among other things, is the act of storytelling.  Big powerful brands find ways to tell big powerful stories.  Marginal brands tell marginal stories.
What's the difference between the two?  A couple of things:

• Powerful stories talk to their audience as whole and complete humans. They speak to the logical and the emotional.
• Powerful stories don't tell the whole story.  They leave space for imagination, passion and most importantly participation.  

Errors in storytelling happen at both ends of the spectrum.  Some marketing campaigns rely completely on only communicating to the emotional and leave so many holes in the story that the audience dies off due to a lack of relevance.  Other marketing campaigns follow the belief that facts and information are what people want.  I'm sure they get this feedback when they conduct focus groups...which are hardly an accurate representation of how people truly behave.  (I think focus groups are a very accurate representation of focus group behavior.)
Telling your whole story in a detailed and completely logical fashion quite simply takes all the magic out of your message.  There is no moment of discovery for the audience and therefore no "Wow" moment.
By telling the whole story you tell no story.
In the age of social media, the need to allow your audience a "moment of discovery" is even more important than ever.  They desire the ability to explore and discover elements of your story and then they want to pass their discovery along to others.
Without question, the ability to leave your story with just the right amount of "unfinishedness" is hard.  But it's what makes good stories.  And, we must all strive to be better at it.  Unfinishedness is what makes this photograph tell a story worth exploring.

And, it is the things this MAGICAL spot doesn't say that makes it such an engaging commercial.

The Value Of Not Knowing

Are you a forest person or a tree person? Now, your immediate reaction might be "I beg your pardon?", but all organizations are made of tree people and forest people.  Tree people are the folks who really know your products inside and out.  They know the spec sheets and they know how many grams and gigahertz go into making a widget.  Tree people also know, in great detail, how your company works.  They know how the CEO thinks and what type of idea can get approval and which ones can't.
These people can see and catalogue every tree in the forest that your company exists in.  And, that's not a bad thing.  You need them.  But they can't see the forest because they are always looking at the trees.
Acknowledging that most organizations have an abundance of tree people, I think marketing should be populated with forest people.  Forest people can view things with a broader perspective and see how the whole forest works because they don't know much about individual trees.  In other words they don't really know how many grams or gigahertz are in your products and they probably don't care.  And that is a good thing, because your customers probably don't know or care either.  What forest people do care about is how to make your customers care.
Seeing the forest instead of just trees means taking the same perspective as your customer - "I don't know, I don't care and unless you meet a need of mine I don't have to care".
There is tremendous value in not knowing.  Not knowing is the world customers live in and if you know too much you can never fully embrace the customer's point of view.
So, if you are a forest person, rejoice. Embrace not knowing everything because you know the most important thing...the perspective of the customer.

Your Defining Moment

Let's forget standard business terms such as vision, positioning and even the term brand.  Just for a moment.  What does your company do?  It seems like such a basic question but how that question is answered has everything to do with how successful you will be in future years.
If your answer revolves around the thing you build or doesn't include a need held by your customer, your days could be numbered.
A good example may be Yahoo.  They focused on building a central portal for content, but when central portals fell out of fashion due to Social Media, Yahoo could not adapt.  They might have, had they really acted like a company who creates information vehicles for digital audiences.  Instead they acted like a company who makes a central portal.
On the other side the equation is a company like Cuisinart.  You could say "they make pots and pans" but I seriously doubt they would say that is what they do.  Clearly their definition of what they do is broad enough and consumer focused enough to include everything from wine cellars to can openers.  I suspect they may say they help people enjoy the world of making and savoring cuisine...Cuisinart is an affordable luxury.  Anything for the kitchen or back deck, including recipes is part of what Cuisinart does.
Consider how you define what you do.  Are you like a buggy maker or a company who helps people experience more of life by finding ways to help them travel?  The former could improve buggies all they wanted - they are now extinct.  The latter became automobile manufacturers.

THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR WHEN DEFINING WHAT YOU DO:
1.  Don't define what you do by a detailed description of what you make.
2.  Don't forget to include your customer's needs in your description of what you do.  Without meeting a customer need (that can alter and change) you are out of business.

It's that simple...and that hard.