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.