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.

The Love Of Labour

Labour Day Weekend.  Its a bit cliche to talk about work etc., but that is where my mind goes none the less.
A few weeks back I started a new blog called "ART UNDER US" .  It was a chance to show some of my photography and to dabble further in social media.  An experiment.  But it soon became a passion for me as I crafted my skills as an observer and sharpened the focus of what I wanted to say through photography.  It is labour and I love it.
Art Under Us quickly went from my discovery of wonderful manhole cover designs to attempting to create art through my vision of those designs, and then to challenging us all to "look differently at the things we never see".  The latter is the most important part of all.  It's the skill every marketer needs to forever be developing.  It's the ability to be "new" and turn "not knowing" into the most important point of view a company can have.  But like everything in life, it doesn't just happen.  It takes practice.
I'm actually toying with the idea of creating a workshop series where I help participants to:
A).  observe something unique yet overlooked in our world.
B).  find a special point of view for their observation
C).  craft a form of art that allows the participant to communicate their point of view

Looking differently at the things we never see is labour of love we all need to maintain.  Without it we lose our most important marketing skill - the ability to look from outside into our brands.
A recent submission to my blog is a perfect metaphor. Alan sat on his dock and rather than taking a standard lake picture that has been done a million times on every lake in the world, he noticed that which we overlook and then proceeded to create art and beauty. In the process he sharpened his observational eye.

While this is all metaphorical in nature, it is still the core labour all marketers must love doing.

The Elegance Of Steve Jobs

I'd really like to talk about something other than Steve Jobs this week, but its kind of the only thing everyone is talking about so, here goes...

I once read a book about elegance in design.  One theme stuck with me - the idea of how nature repeats patterns.  The veins in a leaf are the same pattern as a branch on a tree. The whole tree is really that same pattern as the branch repeated over and over...even down into its root system.  Repeating patterns is how nature works. It is what creates elegance.
Humans are part of nature and companies are made up of humans.  So it's "natural" that this pattern could show up in the world of business as well.  I've always thought Apple was a good example of this pattern and its one of the reasons they have elegance in what they do.
From what I've been told, Mr. Jobs may be difficult to work with etc., but he is also a singularly focused individual.  That singular focus repeats itself in the simplicity of Apple hardware design, user interface, retail store design and even product offerings - one choice of iPhone (for now). The sum of that repeated pattern is what creates Apple's elegance.  And, since the company is such a personality driven organization, the genesis of the pattern starts in Steve Jobs' mind.
The opposite therefore is also true.  Schizophrenic thought leadership leads to schizophrenic decision making which leads to schizophrenic product design, product offerings, retail presentation, etc., etc.
It is so simple yet so true.  And, that too is the elegance of nature at work.
So for me, the question about Apple's future is not about their ability to innovate.  The question is: can they continue the pattern that has led to their elegance now that the seed of that pattern has stepped aside?

Be Your Own Disruption

August 15-19th.  Wow, what a week.  Google enters the hardware business and HP exists.  And, there are rumors that BlackBerry will get into the music business in coming months.  I always knew it was hard to see into the future, but its getting just as hard to see the present.
In a previous blog entry I questioned if there actually is a tablet market or just a iPad market. "Is There Really A Tablet Market?"  Well, with HP's quick exist out of the tablet game the carcasses are starting to pile up pretty deep outside the walls of Fortress iPad.  With nine million iPads being purchased every quarter, the competition has put a scratch on the iPad's empire.  Now, with HP's exit out of the hardware business, perhaps there is validity in Steve Job's musings about the "post PC" era.
How did we get here?
The Harvard Business Review offers up some interesting thoughts: HP's Decade-Long Departure. It goes something like this - HP, and many other PC makers, were at the top of their game and started "consolidating" and "leveraging" which is what you do when you occupy the throne of status quo.  Meanwhile Apple was paying serious attention to "mobility".  Rather than creating off the shelf patchwork mobile products and leaning on the equity of its strong brand, Apple created a real complete solution.  Enter the iPod and enter the beginning of the end of the world as we knew it.  Rather than improving and maximizing the current category they disrupted and created a new space.
The best thought in the article is when it is suggested that right now you can be sure that Apple is contemplating the "Post iPhone" era.
We should all be contemplating the demise of our own products and brands.  The best hedge against the unpredictable future is to be your own disruption.  The disruption is coming...it might as well be you.
As Dwight D Eisenhower said, "Plans are worthless.  Planning is everything."

Looking Differently At The Things We Never See.

I've stated it before - one of the most important things a marketer should do is always look around and try and figure out "what's going on".  In fact it should be a natural ability.  Marketers are observers.
The other thing marketers need to be is brave.  Look at things differently.  Do things differently. And, openly embrace experimentation.  Without these traits it's difficult to create bold ideas and bold ideas is what we do...hopefully.  As Lee Clow said in a recent tweet,  "A passive message only invites people to pass you by".  
Recently I decided to exercise my inner observe, explore and experiment.  
In my recent travels I've had time on my hands and rather than looking up or forward like everyone else, I allowed myself to look down at artwork that most of us never have the time to see.  Manhole covers.  There are some brilliant designs below us.  Worthy of our attention.  I began photographing them in a way that might make art out of the art.  And now, I've created a new blog in an effort to experiment with the idea of creating a movement around something as insignificant as a manhole cover.  Art Under Us.
But this is what we do.  We look differently at the things most people never see.  
Visit Art Under Us.  Pass it on.  Go off and observe something small and amazing and submit your own photo.  
This is what we do.

Two Thoughts On Leadership And Followship

I've been thinking about leadership lately and what it really means.  I tend to break things down to simple core ideas because I usually find the raw, unspun truth there.  It's easy to acknowledge that leadership is the act of leading.  Duh.  To be a leader you have to have followers.  Duh again.  But think about it... a follower is someone who follows and patterns themselves after their leader.  As every parent knows, kids do what you do, not what you say.

Business Leadership
I think most business leaders today do not spend enough time thinking about the act of "followship".  Our idea of leadership is more inclined to be similar to dictatorship.  We want to tell people what to do and have them do it.  We want to have rules for the leadership that are different than the rules for everyone else. Our idea of leadership includes entitlement.  We may think a leader's job is to set a course, but we often forget it is also to set an example of behavior.  Actually its not even a job because it will happen regardless - it is a core responsibility.
Make no mistake, the rules that apply to a leader will apply to the followers.  Followers will find a way of following.  Followship happens.

Market Leadership
I see a lot of businesses and brands that seem have a strategy that focuses on refined model of following the market leader in hopes of someday overtaking the leader.  As I say - followship happens.  It is a bizarre concept to think you can follow your way to becoming the market leader.  Following just re enforces the activities of the leader in the consumers' eyes - thus galvanizing your position as #2 or #3.  No one has followed their way into market leadership.
There is only one way to the goal of market leadership and that is through disruption.  True disruption doesn't mean an improvement on the current category attributes, it means innovation to such an extent that a new category ( or sub category) is created thus making you...voila...the leader.

Followship happens.  Leadership...well that's up to you.

4 Odd Marketing Thoughts For Summer

It's summer. The middle of summer.  My view of the lake is pretty much perfect, so this blog entry is going to be light and easy.  Just like the days of late July and early August.  So, here are four little bits of info to ponder while you have a cold drink.

1. Lists with numbers in them are a growing trend in Internet blogging.  A recent quick scan of my twitter account turned up the following examples (it took no more than two minutes to find these):

• 14 Types Of Stories You Can Tell On Your Blog
• 9 Latin American Accelerator Programs You Should Know
• 5 Advantages to Using Google Plus For Photo Sharing Over Facebook
• 10 Leaders And The Surprising Ways They Stay Productive
• 20 Extremely Good Online Ads
• 12 Finer Points Of Email Etiquette

I'm told this is a new trend based on the fact that we want bite sized information served up to us in this modern age.  There is just too much out there so we crave short lists.  

I'm not all that sure this is a new trend.  I think this has been used before with some success:

• 10 Commandments
• 7 Deadly Sins
• ...heck there are even 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover.

2. It may seem impressive to have lists that have 10 to 20 items in them, but really most of us can only remember three things.  I don't really recall all the 10 Commandments, the 7 Deadly Sins, and beyond getting on a bus I don't really know all the 50 ways to leave a lover much less the 6 Ways To Successful Sponsorships.  

Do yourself and the world a favor - make your list three items long and make them really good points.  

3. The word "The" is a really complex and weird word, especially when associated brand names or cultural icons.  Here are 3 "the" examples.

• Referring to the Internet as "the Internet" sounds just fine.  But saying "the Facebook", well that's something your grandmother does.  
• I always found it odd when people referred to BlackBerry as "the BlackBerry".  "Do you have the BlackBerry?"  Who says that?  Why?  
• Oddly, putting "the" in front of sport team names always happens and it sounds perfectly fine.  The NY Yankees, the LA Lakers...and Da (the) Bears!

Can someone explain all that to me?

4.  Ahh, forget it.  You'd never remember the forth thing anyway.  Go have a nice cool drink and a swim.  

Content Is King, But Context Is The King Maker.

I have a simple belief.  The context of what you have to say is often more important than what you say.  The power of words is often overlooked or misused when it comes to communicating...be that in an ad, meeting or even a tweet.  
Words carry emotion. Words carry pictures. Words carry a whole world of symbols and universal meanings that engage an audience's heart and mind.  Words do not just communicate - they can also cast spells.  
Mothers often tell their children, when the wee ones are over eager and not thinking clearly  - "Use your words!".  Sometimes I think the marketing world needs to be reminded to "use your words" as well.  
I believe marketing copy in Social, Digital and all places needs to be powerfully thoughtful, simple and most of all - designed to create engaging context for what we are trying to say.
Ironically, the following link to a video says this so much better than my own words can.  
The Power of words.
People say content is king.  True.  But, context is the king maker.

The Most Important Marketing Skill: "Getting it".

Last week I was in Chicago, between meetings and in need of free WiFi but not in need of a double espresso.  A perplexing problem.  So in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon I did something I haven't done in over 10 years - I walked into the downtown public library. I found an empty table, opened my laptop, hooked into the WiFi network and made a valiant attempt at being productive.  It didn't last that long because I was quickly distracted by the world around me.  I was fascinated by the group of disenfranchised people within the building.  I was saddened and inspired by what I saw.  I wanted to write about the experience, but my blog is about marketing - not a sermon about humanity.  Later in the day I walked among the crowds of shoppers on Michigan Ave.  It wasn't quite so inspiring.  Determined to find a way to fit my library experience into my blog I went and had a drink and pondered.  Two drinks later I crafted an idea...

The Marketing Message:
I may not be doing much "marketing" at the moment, but I am a marketer...and will always be a marketer.  That afternoon in a downtown Chicago public library I was doing what every marketer should do - I was looking at society around me and trying to understand what was going on.  I wasn't engrossed in my own importance. (To be clear, I'm am as engrossed in my own importance as anyone - but I set that aside for ever so brief of a moment.)  I wasn't projecting my view onto the crowd or attempting to change the crowd. (Two of the biggest and most common mistakes in marketing.)  Instead I was captivated in the lives around me and what did or did not motivate them.  I was fascinated to see how they interacted with each other and what, if any, rules and norms they followed.
It is my belief that if you work in marketing - this desire to understand what is going on in the world around you should be your number one driver.  It should come ahead of wanting to be creative, having a VP job title or anything else we have come to believe as being important.  We marketers should be constantly looking around ourselves and asking "What's going on?"  It's so vital that we "get" what is shaping the behaviors of society around us.  Without a fanatical desire to "get it", we fail as marketers because there is one thing I know for sure - society does not need to "get" your brand and certainly does not need to "get" you.

The Inspiration Message:
So, what did I see in the Chicago library?  All around me was an abundance of people with time on their hands who were trying.  Some were old.  Some were in their early 20's.  Many were black.  But, unlike the disenfranchised that we see on the streets - these people had not given up on life despite the fact that stores, streets and social patterns outside that building had no real place for them.  Almost every computer available was being used.  Older people trying to learn yet another new bit of technology that will allow them to stay connected to an ever distant world. Younger people using the computers to find jobs.  I watched people struggle their way through newspapers in search of some form of hope.  And, I watched a young black man teach an old white woman how to google.  Everyone was busy trying to do something.  Trying to improve.  Thank god the city gave them a place to try.
There is a T.S. Elliot quote on the wall of Chicago library that sums up what I witnessed and felt:

"The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man."

I was inspired by what I saw.  I was inspired by witnessing the act of trying - not the act of succeeding.  Trying, as I am learning, is far more relevant to our lives than success.  And, by trying to understand the patterns of the room around me I also honed my most important marketing skill - the act of "getting it".

An update to the Article: "Social" vs Socializing

In a recent post "Social" vs. Socializing I put out a few thoughts on how Social Marketing is at it's core - humans doing what humans do and that is both its strength and weakness.  The following article from CNN adds to this theory.  Enjoy.    The Fundamentals of Tribes

Stadium Branding. Really?

In this day and age of metric driven marketing, "ROI"'s, matrixes, quadrants and share of voice or mind pie charts, I am amazed that stadium and arena naming is still a sought after form of marketing. Is there really any value for the consumer in this type of activity?  Or does it simply come across as bragging, forcing the public to roll their eyes at your brand's hubris?   Is your brand providing value or providing noise?
Okay, I know that along with naming rights comes special hospitality features and perhaps guarantees that your soft drink will be the only one sold in the building.  But beyond that, does inflicting a brand name on a building really change the hearts of consumers and is it worth millions of marketing dollars?

Exhibit A:
Not to pick on anyone, but recently I was in Cleveland and came across the arena where the Cleveland Cavaliers play.

Yup, the Quicken Loans Arena.  Seriously?  That's just not a good name.  That's just not providing a good brand experience for anyone.  And most of all, it isn't even practical. To make it a name people could use it had to be shortened to "The Q".  Look at the top of the sign...the name on the name.  I rest my case.  This stadium/arena naming thing is out of control.  If you want more examples you can go to Silly Names to see more.
Did I say I rest my case?  Sorry, I'm not done.
Next door to the Quicken Loans Arena is the home of the Cleveland Indians baseball club.  The stadium use to have a great name.  Jacob's Field.  "The Jake".  I didn't know who Jacob was I didn't care.  It just felt right and it felt good to say I've been to The Jake.  You smile when you say it.  But I have since learned that it is now Progressive Field in honor of Progressive Insurance's marketing budget.  I don't know what role they play in the park experience but now everyone gets to say...with a sigh...I've been to Progressive Field.  And I don't think people smile when they say that. I don't know about you but I go to stadiums for fun.  Thanks Progressive for taking some of the fun away.
But that's not the end of it.  Every square inch of a stadium is for sale these days and somehow they find marketers willing to pay to slap a their brand name on to a board or post.

Exhibit B:

OMG!  Seriously?  How do you even tell what the score of the game is? Maybe there is an app for that.  Actually there is. Okay, I'm having a little fun here, but I'm also not making any of this stuff up.  Sometimes we marketers do some very silly things with our budgets.

Real Market Research: Love Thy Competition As Thyself

For the last 10 yrs I helped create and manage a major brand.  Now that I no longer have that responsibility I have been conducting a rather interesting market research experiment.  I've allowed myself to do what no self respecting corporate guy would ever do - devote myself to using the competitor's products.  (Well, no longer the competitor now, but old habits...etc.) 

I didn't run out and buy the "dark side's" products because I secretly lusted for them all these years and I wasn't being a s**t disturber even though that is core to my nature.  I wasn't just curious about where the buttons were and how much faster, slower or lighter the product was compared to what I helped market.

I wanted to get into the context of the brand and really understand what the product did for my life and what was core to the passion of the brand's followers.  

It only took me about two weeks for me to learn more about the competition than I learned in 10 yrs of following the rules.  I came to appreciate the context and nuance of brand, product and culture.  There were and are times when I love the product.  I now have full empathy for customers I once competed to acquire and as a result I know I could walk into my old company and help them compete so much more effectively because I understand the context of the competitor's experience.  It has nothing to do with the number of bolts, wires, colors or gigawhatevers.  It has to do with knowing what it feels like to love what the competitor does.  

I swear - in my future roles I will jump at the chance to send some people away to use the competitor's products.  I won't ask them to come back and tell me what's wrong with the product or simply what it does.  I will ask them to come back when they are in love the product and I will ask them to go into lush detail about their love affair.   

And that's when I'll learn how to compete and beat the competition.  

Disruptive Marketing With A Smile

Disruptive marketing usually comes from the fringe.  The odd time it comes from the market leader, but usually the leader is invested in maintaining the rules of the status quo.  In the auto industry, the status quo was once Detroit - then Japan.  The fringe seems to be Korea.
30 years ago, Hyundai  arrived in North America with the "Pony".  It was super cheap....and crap.  But the incredibly low cost was just disruptive enough to gain a place in the consumers' mind.   And, over the years they grew at the bottom end of the car market by adding the Kia brand
Recently Hyundai added the Genesis sedan which is beautiful, full of quality and about $20,000 cheaper than its BMW and Mercedes competitors.
 
Disruption!

Kia hired the designer of the Audi TT to head their design team.

Disruption!

All of a sudden you can have cool cars, stylish cars at a very reasonable cost

Big disruption!

The best part is all of this disruption is captured with a joyful wink and smile in the Kia Soul commercial "The Arrival".  It carries one clear message - something disruptive this way comes, so put on your seat belts and enjoy the ride!

The 2 Golden Rules Of Marketing To Humans

Edward Tufte, the graphic designer/statistician who made art out of charts and graphs once said that PowerPoint is used to guide and reassure the presenter rather than to enlighten the audience.  That comment stopped me dead in my tracks. It is such a perfect example of the many mistakes we all make when we try to communicate.  It is so easy to get caught up in our ideas and our own need to hear ourselves that we forget to think about, and listen, to our audience.  Ask yourself:

• How often do I catch myself not listening to someone who is talking to because I am too busy thinking about what I am planning on saying?  
• How often have I been pre occupied with what I just said and forgot to listen to the response?
• How often do I focus on listening for responses that support my ideas rather than all the responses being communicated?

Marketing and marketers can easily fall into the same traps. After all, marketing at its core is the act of communicating ideas.  I think two of the golden rules of marketing should be:  

1. Always remember, communicating with humans is hard and messy.  They filter what they see and hear based on hidden agendas...some of which they hide from themselves.
2. Always remember, you are a human too!

Here is an example, and I've seen it happen numerous times:

We read a report that says when people see our ads, FaceBook page, etc., they have increased purchase interest in our product.  That's what we want to hear so we stop digging and asking questions.  Customers seem to like what we have to say and gosh....so do we!  

However, messy human thinking doesn't fit into a chart very well.  Just because purchase interest increased in your product because of your marketing doesn't prevent people from also being interested in other products...and being influenced at a greater degree by your competition's marketing.
Good communicating begins and finishes with good listening. So, if you really want to know if you are changing purchase interest you need to ask more out of your market research and listen more too. Ask to look at the attributes that influence purchase interest.  Do you own them or does your competition?  That's what really matters.  That's a more meaningful measure.  That's the customer talking to you.  And if you listen you can craft a message that will become a true dialogue and not a boardroom lecture.  

Marketing Messages And Man's Search For Meaning.

One of the big battles we as marketers face is debating the balance of functional and emotional messages within a campaign or brand strategy.  More often than not, marketers have to champion the idea of having an emotional component to a campaign. More often than not, there is a non marketing person wanting to make the message 100% about features, rational benefits or price.
I've often wondered why this tug of war takes place and why it is so challenging to prove the need for an emotional benefit.  Sometimes I even start questioning the reason we think emotional benefits and messages are so important to good marketing.
I got a bolt of inspiration the other day as I was talking to someone about how Social media still needs to follow the basic fundamentals of how humans think and behave.  Somehow into that conversation, from the back pages of my mind, came this statement.  "We humans have certain constant driving behaviors and needs.  For example, humans need meaning in their lives.  (Read about it in Victor Frankel's Man's Search For Meaning.)  Our need for meaning sets us apart from other animals and is what constantly drives us...both good and bad."
Rooted in that need is one of the reasons why attaching an emotional benefit to a product or brand is so powerful...at least I think so.  We are always looking for something deeper than merely breathing.  It is why we have religion and it is also why new shoes make us happy and certain cars make us feel younger. The desire and need is ever present.  We look for it subconsciously like our lungs seek air.
Sometimes the need for meaning gets directed into more fleeting things such as joy, happiness or something as vague as smelling cut grass at Fenway Park in Boston.  But even then we capture and cherish those moments because down deep we are always looking for something more than what is on the surface.
So it comes down to this - if your marketing message does not have an emotional component, you pass up the opportunity to connect with one of our most deep, driving desires.  Maybe it is as simple as that.  It's what we do!

"Social" vs. Socializing

Before Social had a capital "S"...it was called "socializing". Back then it was acknowledged that certain types people were good at certain parts of socializing.  People who were great party hosts knew lots of people.  Then there were the entertainers who could keep a partly alive.  And, finally but not least there were the wall flowers who, if you took the time to talk to them, probably had lots of knowledge and interesting things to say.  Put them all together and you had an event where ideas took hold and spread to the next party.
Those of you who are clever...which of course is all of you, will pick up on the fact that I have created a metaphor to describe what Malcolm Gladwell talks about in his book "The Tipping Point".   Ideas spread when you have "connectors" (people who link us up with the world), "mavens" (information specialists), and "salesmen" (charismatic people who can persuade others).
Perhaps you may use a different model or metaphor but its hard to argue that you need these types of individuals to help create a trend, fad or movement.  Humans simply socialize in certain ways. It is part of our DNA and part of our cultural norms.  "Social", with a capital S, does not change that.  "Social", with a capital S is a tool that can magnify how humans interact.  But if "Social", with capital S does not acknowledge the sociological behaviors of humans it can lead to dead ends and circular discussions.

• Your brand can have 5 million Facebook fans all willing to connect, but if they don't have content and information making it worthy to act upon...well then not much happens. 
• Subject matter experts sometimes have the nasty habit of blogging to an audience of other subject matter experts.  They can copy and compete against each other.  But without a good salesman thrown into the mix, the wide world never hears or gets passionate about their ideas.  

In future, I'd like to see socializing get a capital "S".  Is that too much to ask?   

Is there really a tablet market?

I watched an interview with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. It was on Fareed Zakaria's CNN show.  It gave Mr Schmidt a open platform to talk about his open platform strategy for tablets via Android. It was interesting and got me thinking.
There are numerous views of what the future of "tablets" is going to be like.  The two that are bouncing around my head are:

1). It's iPod all over again.  Turns out there wasn't really an mp3 market.  There was an iPod combined with iTunes market. It was total market domination and everything else fell off the map.  Now there are those who predict the same with tablets.  They say there isn't really a tablet market.  There i s only an iPad market because it offers you the ultimate iTunes and App mobile experience.
Thus far, sales figures give that theory some credibility.
2). Eric Schmidt suggests that the future will resemble the PC market in its early days.  Apple had created wonderful even exquisite computers, but due to its closed platform approach it became a "boutique" maker of computers.  Over time, he argues, Androids open platform and its collaborative creative approach will box iPad into a similar corner.
3).  Is there a 3rd option?  I will declare myself out of this discussion due to my BlackBerry background.

What do you think?  Can the Android open platform approach put Apple in its place?  Or, is first to market and brand domination the winning strategy?  Please respond.

Oh...one more thing.  Mr. Zakaria suggested that the tablet battle was not just a battle of brands but it was a battle of ideas.  Seems to me that a brand is an idea, and that the above strategies are embedded in the Apple and Google brands.

Brand Exceptionalism

Today's blog entry by Seth Godin is entitled "Brand Exceptionalism" and it is really worth the read. Seth's Blog  It speaks to the internal mindset of successful brand managers. They know the brand intimately.  They know the nuance.  They know the company and how to compromise to keep the brand alive.  And, within that mindset they come to believe that their brand strategy is best.  When the brand starts losing in the marketplace...well people just don't understand all the good they've done because their brand is...exceptional.
Of course that's not true and being exceptional doesn't count.
All of this was obvious to me, except for the moments of slight pain when I realized that I've been guilty of this mentality from time to time.
I've spent the last 10 years building and coaxing a brand forward.  A pretty darn good brand and I did a pretty darn good job of keeping it alive. But I have honestly learned so much more about the brand in the last 3 months because I've left the company and now only have the coldly unfair view of the brand from the outside looking in.  I no longer see the importance of the nuances or the compromises.  I no longer have the internal company dialogue in one ear and the external dialogue in the other.  I just have the external dialogue to listen to.
Nothing is exceptional and nothing is fair.  Everyone in marketing should have this view from time to time.  It is so very valuable.

Trust Your Brand Manager

I remember learning the golden rule that your brand only exists in you customer's mind.  It does not exist in the upper left hand quadrant of a powerpoint deck and it doesn't exist in the CMO's corner office.
One could go further and say that it is the customer who actually creates your brand. I believe that branding is the act of a customer determining what they trust your product will deliver to them on a consistent basis.  You may be able to influence what that determination will be through marketing, and you sure as hell have a role in ensuring you can deliver on the trust given to you. But at the end of the day your customer brands you.
They are the ones that choose your product over another.
They are the ones who use your product solely because they want to.
They are the ones who choose to love your product or tolerate it.
So, who is your brand manager?
We marketers have all heard this before.  We've all talked about it.  But how many of us act like we believe it?

Where were you when...?

This week we all had a rare experience.  We all had a singular shared experience.  A "Where were you when...?" experience.  Of course I'm talking about the Osama Bin Laden story.  This story has been "done" to death, but my take on it is a little different.  A singular shared experience is very rare for us in today's fragmented digital age.  While information travels quickly in today's information age, we are not all sitting in front of one screen watching it together.  We are all lost in our own customized view of the virtual world.  Twitter, College Humor, cnn.com, apps...on and on.  In the information age, a common refrain is "Really? I missed that".

So, it's a rare thing for us all to share in a message at the same time.  It use to be common place.  The whole country use to watch Johnny Carson together.  Or, every Friday morning most people would gather around the water cooler and discuss last night's Seinfeld episode.  But this is simply no longer the reality as we all have virtually unlimited choice in the virtual world.

I think marketers are still struggling to come to terms with this.  I've sat in far too many meetings were we grasped for the big idea.  But in today's world maybe you need more small (but brilliant) ideas to make an impact on society.

The age of "I'd like to teach the world to sing..." spots is gone.  So is the Apple 1984 approach.  Brands don't need a campaign...brands need many campaigns and many strategies to make a cultural impact.

So Much Tension

I recently heard someone in the fashion industry say that there are no trends today.  Anything goes.  I'm not sure I fully agree with that.  My recent trip to SXSW would certainly suggest that Rayban sunglasses, dark clothes, and a few days growth (for men...hopefully) is very much in.  It was the official uniform of those trying to not look like they are following any trends.

I do get the idea that trends aren't what they use to be.  Certainly the life cycle of a trend is very short in our AD, D world. The slightest hint of a new trend is picked up and blogged tweeded and tumbled like good old wildfire.  Before you know it, someone my age has heard about it and the trend is as good as dead at that point.

But I don't think that as a result there are no trends.  In fact, I think there is a major trend forming as we all adapt to this rapid life cycle.  I believe there is a trend of tension - or the trend of purposely adopting conflicting symbols, ideas and habits.   Some examples:

• We love our modern sleek technology.  The iPad2 is almost sensual in its design.  Yet the new Fujifilm x100 is super retro in design.  
• We love combining clothing items that are from different eras.  Things that say different things about ourselves.  (I've started wearing frayed jeans and Allen Edmonds dress shoes.)
• One of the biggest growth categories in watches is expensive manual winding watches.  

I have a theory or two as to why this is and both have to do with technology.

First, due to the rapid sharing of digital information, everything changes so quickly that the only way to keep up is to accept and embrace duality and contradiction.  I think this is great, because contradiction is the true human condition.  So, maybe we are just being fully honest in how we live and express ourselves.

Secondly, technology has given us many things we can rely on.  Cell phones have good camera and clocks.  They are reliable and with us at all times.  This gives us the freedom to be a little frivolous.  Watches can be jewelry. You don't really need them to tell time.  And, if you visit Lomography you'll see that cameras can now be fun, silly, joyful...and anything but digital.  Why?  Because you know you know you have a reliable camera in your pocket at all times.

Perhaps we are in world of welcomed tension and contradictions.  Sounds fun.  But what does that mean to marketers who are trying to manage brand consistency?   I'm not sure.  Do you have thoughts?  

Have You Driven The Ford Brand Lately?

While I haven't driven a Ford lately, the car company has done a few things to make me think about them for the first time in a long while.

First off, Ford has started aligning its car designs on a global basis.  For years I would go to Europe and see all these cool looking cars and ask what they were.  "Fords" was the reply.  Really?  They didn't look like any Ford's I knew about.  These were...cool.  Well, now Ford's lower end cars, Fiesta and Focus, are quite European and pretty darn cool looking.  Fiesta looks down right fun.

Next, Ford started to push a "technology" angle to their cars.  SYNC, MyFord Touch other cool dashboard connectivity tools.  I think this was smart because up until this point the battle ground has always been over the elusive word "quality".  That is a tough perceptual war for North American car manufacturers to win on.  But connectivity technology is new and open to be claimed.  Ford has been focused on this message and it has at least sunk into my brain.  And, I'm a person who until this point would not even consider a North American car.  This brings me to my question...

Ford has done several things to shift my perception about some of their cars, but my perception of the brand is still...well its just not a relevant brand to me and brands play a strange role in car buying.  I've seen a few new Hyundais on the road and really liked them and thought "Too bad its a Hyundai."  Car brands are such a personal label.

With young fresh European looking cars such as the Fiesta (shown here), I feel a little disconnect between the product and the brand.  What do you think?  Take the Ford name off this car.  Is it a Ford to you?  These cars help the brand a lot.  No question.  I'm just looking for a message from the brand that indicates it is going to help sell the cars.

The Masters

It's the Masters this weekend.  Golf weekend.  It is a chance to watch those who have perfected the golf swing.  While I'm not a great golfer, I know that a good swing has as much to do with what parts of the body don't move as it does with the parts that do move.
Successful brand management, I believe, is similar.  If all the elements of your brand messaging are inconsistent and fluid, the end result is the same as a golf swing where every joint and appendage is moving. Its a mess and you end up fighting your own efforts.
Similarly, complete ridged adherence to brand consistency is like a stiff golf swing that has no fluidity. The ball, and your brand, won't go very far before it just runs out of steam.
The magic in keeping a brand relevant and fresh is in knowing what to keep consistent and what to change up. We as humans respond well to consistency, but we are also always looking for what is new and fresh.  Great brands and great entertainers always throw in an element of surprise into their persona to keep things engaging and fresh.  Jack White, while always being Jack, is also a master at changing things up to keep us  interested.  And, say what you like about McDonald's, but I believe they have been masterful at keeping their core brand consistent over the years, but always changing up the context that the brand exists in, thus keeping it engaging and relevant.
Marketers who do that - they are the masters.

Schizophrenic Marketing For Schizophrenic Customers

Let's face it, your company is schizophrenic as hell. Don't worry, you aren't alone. Most companies are. The consumer goods folks don't talk to the B2B people. The engineers think they are better than the sales folks and everyone has different, often divergent goals. As a result, your marketing is schizophrenic too. Especially your website. (Websites never lie.)

So, whatcha gonna do?

Well, you could try fixing the problem, or do what a lot of us do – act like your customers are schizophrenic too.

A few weeks ago I presented a very simple schizophrenic slide in a speech at a marketing summit for a large corporation with multiple business lines. Geez, they loved it. It was a drawing of a two headed customer. One head said: “I am a business person. I only think of the bottom line. I live in a cubical. I have no emotions. I understand numbers…and covering my ass.” The other head said “I am a consumer person. I only want pleasure. I am really stupid. I buy everything based on emotions. I want happiness, piece of mind…and sex.”


This slide was met with giggles, but after the speech many in the audience commented “that's exactly how we end up thinking about customers. We ignore that in many cases, B2B and B2C customers are the same person in a different content.”


It is easy to see how we arrive at this state. Within many organizations we structure our marketing efforts to match the structure of the company. Then we structure the perception of the customer to match the marketing efforts. This requires us to invent the two or three headed customer so that one person can be completely receptive to our uniquely hived off marketing messages. Its the ultimate next new thing in segmentation....the segmented customer.

I'm having a bit of fun, but I'd be a rich man today if, over the lifetime of my branding career, I had a dollar for every time my goal for brand consistency was met with the statement “But my customers/segment/situation/whatever...is different.”

The end result is usually a brand that is increasingly irrelevant due to inconsistency and an external brand consultant making a ton of money simply by walking into your CEO's office with one slide that shows all the divergent images your company pushes out to the marketplace. (Every brand consultant has this slide template and they are just waiting to populate it with your brand.)

While what companies end up creating is usually overly complex marketing, I think the reason why we do it is not complex at all. Most organizations are full of smart people and smart people know that they don't stand out and get ahead by assimilating into the brand. You can't stand out if you are standing in the circle. If someone wants to make a name for themselves within a company, the brand can sometimes be the enemy. Brand is viewed as that thing that stifles ones individuality and draws attention away from ones efforts to get attention.

A lot is said about building brand cultures within organizations. I think it begins with finding ways to reward people for building a brand as much as they get rewarded for other goals. If that isn't in place, I think smart career minded people believe in “the brand called me.”

Don't go thinking I'm a dogmatic brand consistency preacher. I'm not. I believe in consistent variability. I'll talk about that and my golf swing metaphor next entry.

Good Questions About Content

Inside the offices of every record label one question keeps being asked. “How can we get people to pay for music again?” Good question.

Recently the NY Times set out plans to answer their own question – “Will people start paying for a portion of the on-line paper after having received it free for years?” Another good question.  Respondents to a NPR broadcast on the Times issue were fairly heavily weighted on the “I ain't paying” side of the debate. (Well, considering they were NPR listeners, they probably didn't say “ain't.”)

I have to admit, I don't know how you get people to start paying for something once they have been trained to assume it is free. In the very basic formula of marketing, Within the Four P's Of Marketing - price was one of the tools one used to position a product. Sometimes high price signified quality and value. But in a world where everything is free...were do you go from there? What happens when we don't want to pay for quality content like the NY Times? What happens when we aren't willing to fund sending seasoned reporters into the fields of Libya so we know what is really going on? What happens when TMZ becomes what we call news? More good questions.

Before we all just shrug our shoulders and say “Oh well.”, let's understand that content is more than just words and musical notes. We once bought things like watches, cameras, GPS devices, MP3 players...and we paid handsomely for them. Now we expect them all in our phones....for free...after all, its “just software”. Watches are now either high or low end jewelry. Now I either spend $30.00 on a funky Swatch or $5,000 on a Cartier. But I'm buying jewelry. My phone tells me the time for free.

Maybe there is nothing that can be done about all this and all content will someday be sponsored by, or custom built by a brand that wants to sell you something else. But within this trend, I think there is something to learn. What I think I'm learning is – not much has really changed.

There are plenty of examples of where we are willing to pay for things...and pay a lot. Sometimes we pay for the product, sometimes we pay for the experience of the product...and sometimes we pay for the experience of buying the product. It is still all about training people to see value in what you have to sell. In the tactile world, this can manifest itself in the gloriously heavy duty, well designed shopping bags and tissue paper from stores that want you to think you've just paid for something special...and that it is worth it. It's a simple equation “We care about the product we are selling you...and you should care too!”

Music is no longer delivered to me as if anyone cares about it. A download is now simply an item on a spreadsheet. I'm not bragging but, I recall sitting in a hotel room in London hearing Bono voice these very concerns. Oh fine...I'm bragging. He recalled when music was something you carried home under your arm after you bought it. It came with artwork big enough to put on a wall, and lyrics in a font size you could read over and over. Someone cared enough to create this expression and people cared enough to pay for it.

Turn something into a free software feature represented by a tiny icon and I stop caring because I get the sense that whoever created it doesn't care either. Maybe the creator of the software makes money by selling ad space within the app, but I as the user am more than willing to jump to the next software that comes along. Not caring equals no loyalty.

We are humans, and we respond to tactile sensory stimulation. We respond to quality when we are exposed to the salient symbols of quality. Serve me fresh coffee while I buy your shoes and I'll respond. Create exquisite, joyful software UI, then add in wonderfully simple training I'll love my gadget or application. Show me you care so I know I should too.  

Apple, Hubris And Keith Richards

Hubris is one of my favourite words. It doesn't get used enough in everyday language in my non-hubris humble opinion. It's a wonderful way of saying someone is arrogant and has lost touch with reality while at the same time sounding a touch arrogant yourself. Ah, the irony of language.

Like everyone else associated with marketing, I've been gazing at Apple and wondering if there is any flaw in their brand. My gut tells me that once something gets that big and successful, hubris sets in and eventually people turn against you. So, I felt rather vindicated when Report On Business Magazine recently ran an article by Derek DeCloet suggesting that Apple could make mistakes. He even said that hubris was at the root of the issue. He used the H word! The article, worth reading, focuses on technical and business issues, but I also see hubris as a possible Achilles Heel of the brand.

Apple has always been at its best when it is a challenger/underdog brand. Need I say more than “1984”. If I do, go find the ad on YouTube. I'm not going to explain it here. They were the master of driving towards the spotlight while at the same time pretending they didn't want it. But to go from 1984 to the latest iPhone spots with the end line “If you don't have an iPhone, well you don't have an iPhone.”...wow, so much for being the challenger. Do I detect hubris seeping into Apple ads?

Apple brilliantly harnessing the power of the underdog with the MAC vs. PC spots. They were great. Well the first dozen were fun, but then something happened. They went from challenging the status quo to picking on a poor loser. It was like when the high school cool guy picked on someone. Funny the first time, but lame after a while. And, eventually you started keeping a wary eye on the “cool guy”. I think somewhere during the MAC vs. PC spots is when I started feeling that Apple was no longer a brand I wanted to wear on my chest. It signalled a hubris tipping point.

OK,...I know what you are thinking...where does Keith Richards come into all this? Well, Keith is the master of being the underdog we all love. The anti rock star rock star. Always in the spotlight, but acting like he doesn't want it. There is something to learn from the master.

The biggest problem with being an underdog/challenger brand is...success. What happens to your brand strategy when you are no longer the underdog. The reality is underdogs need “the man” to challenge. Underdog's need a foil.  Back to Keith...Keith's foil is Mick. If it wasn't for Mick's extravagant spotlight antics, Keith would never get away with being the anti rock star. Keith may poke and prod at Mick, but he never destroys Mick because he knows he needs Mick.

An underdog brand strategy requires a foil that will always be there to challenge. If that foil is the competition, then the underdog strategy's biggest threat is its own success. Therefore, it is better to have a foil that is deeply rooted in the human condition rather than rooted in a competitor.

Does any of this really matter if you are successful? Well, branding is about long term loyalty. One of the pay offs comes when you slip up on product quality and your customers like or love you so much they are willing to cut you some slack. Apple has that now. Considering the way society likes to pull down its arrogant heroes, will Apple have that loyalty in the future?   What's Wrong With This Picture

Grateful Brands

I've always believed that brands are like people and the other way around.  People and brands have personalities, behavioral traits and like us humans, brands are judged by what they say and do.  I know this is hardly rocket science, but then again nothing about marketing is rocket science...it's much more muddy and messy.  It's about human stuff.

Since leaving my old job, I am quite aware that the process of networking, speaking and even writing this blog is really the process of building a new brand for me in a new life.  It's the biggest brand relaunch I've ever done.  Exciting, scary and frankly sometimes it is down right exhausting.

Today it occurred to me that one of the key attributes of the new "brand called me" is that I am a grateful brand....I find myself saying "thank you" a lot.  I've learned to be this way because I've noticed that the people who have stuck with me through these changes are the people I was smart enough to be kind and empathetic towards in the past.  And now, as I need them, and even more friends, I do what I can - which is mainly say "thank you"...multiple times a day.  It's a little thing, but it really seems to make a big difference.  It fosters loyalty and it make me feel better about myself...and when I feel better about myself I behave better.  Gratitude is a great brand building tool.

So I sit and wonder, how many brands say "thank you"?  How many operate out of a place of empathy and genuine gratitude towards their customers?  I don't mean an opportunistic "thank you" attached to a store opening. You know....free balloons, hot dogs and three dollars off some junk you'd never normally buy.  I'm talking about ensuring that a sense of gratitude is built right into the core attributes of the brand.  I know brands that are confident, entertaining, approachable (whatever that means) and even innovative.  Apple use to be the underdog brand...but I don't think it was ever grateful.

Are there grateful, empathetic brands that have found inventive ways to be thankful for their success?  Are there brands that have turned gratitude into a strategy that builds customer loyalty with actionable programs and measurements?  Maybe this is where the metaphor of brands being like people breaks down.  Maybe being grateful doesn't pay the bills...or maybe it does!

I sure hope so.