Category Archives: Branding

We’re excited to announce…

why excited to announce is bad practice

How many times have you seen email or a news release that begins, “We are excited to announce our new…”? Or, quotes from a company executive talking about how “thrilled” or “delighted” they are to be offering this “innovative solution”?

There are two reasons why this is poor practice.

First, it’s radically overused. A Google search for “excited to announce” (with the quotes for an exact match) delivers 95 million matches. You sound derivative, unimaginative, and trite when you use this phrase.

More important, it’s company-centric and narcissistic. Does your customer care how thrilled you are? Instead, give them reasons to be excited.

There are marketing articles that give alternatives to the word “excited,” but let’s do better and eliminate the self-absorbed point of view altogether. Talk about the customer, the top benefit (you know — the one you’re excited about) and the value they will get from whatever you’re announcing.  Most important, start with why. Why should customers be excited about your announcement? Show how you solve the customers’ problems.

Now, that’s exciting.

What you believe: The road to your “why”

What you believe — your values, your heart and soul — are the key to your why.

Simon Sinek’s famous TED talk, Start With Why is the first place I go when working with clients on product and company messaging. Why? Because most of us naturally think about what we do and how we do it. It takes discipline to get to what really works: why we do it and why the customer needs it. Sinek has helped us all switch to a far more effective approach: Start With Why.

Simon Sinek Start With Why

 

The most powerful way to get to the Why is through our values: who we are, what really matters — what we believe. Here’s a new video with a more developed version of Sinek’s talk. It incorporates a super-important feature that had scant mention in the earlier video: how what we believe connects to customers.

Funny, but I hadn’t really noticed how often he used the word “believe” in the original Start With Why presentation; and since then, I have been noticing how often it comes up in the values statements of the best companies in the world. 

In particular, listen at the 4:50 mark as Sinek uses Martin Luther King and others to explain how “we believe” is how you connect to the why. Your values — your beliefs — are what moves you and moves your customers into relationship with you.

“The clearer you are about what you believe, the more disciplined you are in how you do things and the more consistent you are in what you do, everything you say and do becomes a symbol for your values and beliefs.” — Simon Sinek

Every company I work with has heartfelt values, but few have enumerated them — or even discussed them. But most companies are motivated by more than just making money. For instance, my company is here because I believe in startups and entrepreneurs. I believe that bringing them world-class marketing will help them succeed, which makes the world a better place as their great ideas become commercially successful. They do not need a big budget and an expensive marketing executive to have quality marketing. A marketing strategy built on straightforward processes delivers a roadmap that even junior-level marketers can execute.

Those values — my beliefs — translate into my why, and I think all companies benefit from knowing what they believe, and why.

Hilarious brand mission video spoof. No, wait — what?

Because I work with clients on brand messaging and corporate missions, I was curious about a new brand, introduced with a full page ad in the business section of the newspaper. (Yes, I still read newspapers.) I couldn’t tell who they were or what they did — were they being deliberately coy?

What I found was amazing: A hilarious parody of corporate branding videos! Full of lofty but meaningless phrases, set to happy faces in corporate settings. Pretentious and phony, over the top! Clip-art-y graphics, fancy production. Someone spent a lot on this elaborate, beautifully executed joke. It was very funny — until the horror crept in.

It’s real.

Andeavor is the new corporate brand that combines Tesoro’s refining operations and their acquisition of Western  Refining Logistics. Visit http://www.andeavor.com and click play. Check it out right away because I wonder how long it will be available (so far, it’s been months). Surely, someone in the $38 billion, 13,000 employee company will realize how ridiculous this is.

Some excerpts:

“We are creating our future, building on our experiences to achieve more than we once thought possible.”

“We are more dynamic than ever.” (What does that even mean?)

“We are determined to be better today than yesterday; and better tomorrow than today.”

“We are strengthened by our diverse backgrounds and experiences, limitless in our combined talent. And we work as a team, sharing a belief that when we combine our knowledge, experiences, and drive to make a difference, we can create something better, in a spirit that celebrates where we’ve been and sees no limits to where we can go.”

I work on mission and values with most of my clients and the number one rule is authenticity. A cynical view of corporations is that they care only about profits but in my experience, most want to make the world better through what they do. A good mission statement honestly and humbly reveals who the company is at heart, what values move them through their days, and helps customers, employees, and partners know what matters. It guides everything.

I expect that Andeavor is run by well-meaning people who are proud of their company. It’s a shame that their fancy video got away from them because further down the page, they communicate some real values: They have a solid set of Strategic Priorities: “Operational efficiency and effectiveness; value chain optimization across our system; financial discipline; value-driven growth; and a High-Performing Culture built around collaboration.” They focus on safety, community, performance, customer relationships, and their workforce.

I wish they’d said all that in the video. Instead, they said: “Go for extraordinary.” I would say they achieved that today. Andeavor says to Go For Extraordinary

Logos

Building a brand is more than just the a name, a logo, and t-shirtable colors. But those are the most visible elements and the ones likely to garner the most attention from a company’s executives.

As daily consumers of these high-visibility branding elements, we all lay claim to some level of expertise. That’s why selling the branding elements inside the company is sometimes the hardest part of brand development. (When we rebranded Maxim Integrated in 2012, we spent a year selling the brand inside the company before anyone outside saw it.)

Image result for Maxim Integrated logo. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Logo_Maxim_Integrated_2013.svg

I’ve written here about the challenge of naming products and companies. Here’s an episode of the podcast, 99% Invisible, Making a Mark: Visual Identity with Tom Geismar,” that talks about the development of some of the world’s most iconic logos and what it took to make them happen.

Logo sketched. Source: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/making-mark-visual-identity-tom-geismar/

 

Ho Ho Holiday Branding

A little cleverness from FedEx deftly makes the brand festive:

FedEx brand meets Santa: Clever use of holiday branding

 

 

 

 

Business hint: Right now, make repeating calendar entries prior to holidays that can have meaning for your brand. And have your content marketing crew do the same. When the holidays first appear on your radar, it’s usually past deadline for the really good ideas.

Book Review: Be Like Amazon, by Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg

I am going to recommend this book, Be Like Amazon, by Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg, to all my clients. Here’s the review I just posted on Amazon.

Book review-Be Like Amazon - Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg

When I read that the Eisenberg’s new book was a dialogue, I cringed a little. I usually find that style overly precious or pedantic, like a business-aimed Jonathan Livingston Seagull (not in a good way). But style is, well, just style, and I knew Be Like Amazon would be worth reading because I have read most of Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg’s previous works. So I grabbed the Sample and within a few pages, I had downloaded Be Like Amazon.

And glad I did. Be Like Amazon is short, easy to read, and chock full of gems. I’m a marketing strategy consultant and always on the lookout for ways I can help clients see the big picture. Values, mission, how to align all your people so that you don’t feel any need to micromanage — it all comes from core values. The Eisenbergs call them “unifying principles” and says they “are an operating system.” And they talk about how these feed the brand, which is built on actions and performance.

“We believe.” I got that from this book. I have seen and read the “Start With Why” work by Simon Sinek and make all my clients view his videos but damn, I missed the “we believe” messaging. If that were all I got from Be Like Amazon, it would be a huge win. “You’ll find your corporate ‘why’ when you write 10 true sentences that each start with ‘We believe….” I am so going to steal that.

But wait, there’s more!

Be Like Amazon is built around Amazon’s Four Pillars but you can see those in a two-second Google search. What they do here is bring them to life and relate them to other businesses, some of which use values well, some not; some used to and don’t succeed any more. Costco, Walmart, HP, and some tiny businesses you don’t know (but perhaps should).

Story. Culture. “Brandable chunks.” Unrelenting customer-centricity. It goes on. Mostly things we know but perhaps don’t always remember that we know.

The two measures of the value of a business and marketing book for me are:

1) How much highlighting do I do. Each highlight is something I plan to use with my clients. And my copy of BLA is pretty yellowed up! So a +1 on that.

2) Is it full of fluff? Because here’s the typical business or marketing book: One or two interesting ideas, three or four reasonable use cases, and then the author realizes no one will buy a 40 page book, so they fire up Word and write 260 redundant pages full of generalizations and contrived examples everyone knows. 80% fluff to support the one or two simple ideas the author has. Bleh.

The dialogue approach made me fear the fluff but no worries, this is a well-researched, concise book full of real examples of how Amazon’s four pillars apply to the real world.

Naming

One of the most popular articles here is about the simplest and most complex aspects of marketing a business: Naming it.

I ran across a wonderful real-life story today, from Alex Blumberg’s StartUp about how they named his fledgling Gimlet Media. He encounters and explains all the typical challenges and along the way reports, in a very honest way, the missteps, discoveries, and musings. (Be warned, there is a very obscene South Park clip; no worries, he gives ample warning.)  It’s a great overview of how to (how not to) name something.

StartUp: Episode 5: How to Name Your Company

And here’s my article, Naming a Product or Company.

We claim as our brand: truth

Brand isn’t about logos and colors and an attractive home page. It’s about the instantaneous, gut reaction you want people to have when they think about you. If you are very, very skillful, or very, very lucky, your brand can command a core human value. Today, The New York Times is both.

I would love to be on their marketing team right now.

On the luck side, the nation’s Brand Manager in Chief has taken them on:

The failing New York Times? Not today.

One can debate whether there is “no such thing as bad publicity,” but anyone who looks at marketing history knows that a fast, smart response is everything. The Times is responding with skill, using the President’s attention as an opportunity to grab a brand value that’s not usually available: Truth.

There are values a company can’t claim without seeming phony. You can’t tell everyone you’re trustworthy or honest in so many words; similarly, claiming truth is a dangerous proposition — unless you’re lucky enough to be under attack by someone your constituents consider an enemy. The New York Times has claimed a high ground that will help it take a leadership position.

In multiple media, the Times is investing in the banner of truth.

It comes at a fortunate time. The company has had credibility and financial issues but the public’s memory is not very long, and the timing seems perfect. A strong, protracted statement — a branding campaign — is just what The Gray Lady needs.

Obviously, there’s a sizable percentage of the population that won’t buy this. But they’re not in the newspaper’s potential audience anyway.

For years, many of us have been wondering how newspapers will survive. People didn’t seem to see value in reporting and investigation, or even in writing. The Internet was drowning traditional news values. But some will survive and some will thrive. There are glimmers of hopes for the news business, with a few rising stars, like The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and now, the “failing” New York Times.

Dear CEO: Mixing politics and business

mixing politics and business is risky business

Mixing politics and business: Risky business?

Just as politics is a risky topic at a party, most of us believe it’s dangerous to mix politics and business. But in these days of social media and online outrage, old rules are constantly up for question.

penzeys-ceo-letter on mixing politics and business

You may not know Penzey’s, unless you’re a cook. They’re a popular online and retail spice merchant (Side note: I am a fan: Get spicy. Once you buy cinnamon online, you’ll never buy it in the grocery store again).

Their social presence has always been personal, with heartfelt letters from their CEO, Bill Penzey but in election 2016, his letters turned from homey missives about baking pies for our loved ones to the storms outside the kitchen window.

The issues aside, there’s a lesson — or at least, an example — for those of us in business, because Penzey has published his business results in a “letter to CEOs.” The letter is repeated below because oddly, I can’t find it on the company website  yet (it appeared on Facebook today). He says that 3% of their customers abandoned them in a rage, while “online sales are up 59.9%, gift box sales up 135%.”

Mixing politics and business is a personal choice, not a business strategy, and it’s clearly not broadly applicable. But I take it as one example of where close relationships with customers change the rules. I’ve written before about empathy — it’s not just a modern buzzword — and I think the reason this worked in Penzey’s favor is that he was talking to his customers, heart to heart, over a cup of coffee and a slice of pie at the kitchen table. Whether we agree with his stand or not, it’s authentic. And it appears to have resonated.

———

Dear CEO,

Please give us a moment to share something we hope you will find very valuable.

Our customers come from all walks of life. The kindness of cooks knows no borders or divides. In the aftermath of the election, seeing the intentional damage inflicted on so many outside the white heterosexual male world, we raised our voice. We felt we had to. We did this because we are Penzeys. The Spice business is so intertwined with history that it’s not really possible to have one without the other. It became clear to us that we are now in a moment history will long have its eyes upon. For the sake of our customers, and for the sake of future generations, we felt the time had come to stand on the right side of history.

And while the reasons for why we took a stand might be specific to our unique outlook, what we learned actually applies to all commerce in the United States. What we learned is that President-elect Donald Trump has no real support. Voters, sure, but no constituency. Running a campaign on “that horrible-terrible-woman who should be locked up,” while at the same time working to raise fear of minorities among white voters with limited access to education, clearly achieved its goal. But none of it left Americans with any sense of connection to the candidate they actually voted for.

Willing to take a hit for what is right, we did what we did. In the two weeks since, online sales are up 59.9%, gift box sales up 135%. And we didn’t have a catalog arrive in this window this year, while last year we had 1.1 million! Yes, maybe for the moment we have lost 3% of our customers because of the so-called “right wing firestorm.” And, yes, they send emails of rage, and ALL CAPS, and bad language with the hope of creating the perception that they are bigger than they really are. But what we learned is that, in terms of retail spending, Donald Trump simply has no one supporting his views for America. He has no constituency.

America’s Values, on the other hand, have a really sizable constituency, and that constituency moves quickly to support those that stand up for the values of America. If, as a company, you have values, now is the time to share them. You may well lose a chunk of your AM radio-listening customers, but if you really are honest and sincere, don’t be surprised to see your promotions suddenly, finally, find active engagement with the Millennial generation.

And the time for this really is now. We understand all too well that, with the holidays, December is a tough month to get things done. We understand that a change in direction will not be easy, but you are where you are because you don’t need things to be easy. If you wait until after the wheels come off the track for the incoming administration, this moment will have passed. And while there’s no bad time to do the right thing, to do the right thing at the same time as others in your industry will work so much better than waiting until someone else has shown the way.

In this moment there is finally the real chance to unite our nation in our shared rejection of sexism, homophobia, and racism. This is your chance to stand up for America’s values and make January a tent pole in your company’s history. Opportunities to do the right thing at the time when doing the right thing makes all the difference come once in a lifetime. Make your history proud.

Thanks for reading,

Penzeys Spices

Start With Why to Reach Customers

Reach customers with benefits

Do you want to reach customers in a more effective way, to help them understand why they need what you do? To help them see how your products and services fit their needs? To help you talk in customer-centric, benefits-focused terms?

Here’s a powerful device to reach customers: Start With Why.

To reach customers, start with why

Why do we need “why?”

It may seem simple to talk about products and services in a way that connects with customers. But most companies so it incorrectly.

Most of us naturally start talking about what the product or service is and how it works. We love to talk about features (what it is) and technology (how it works)! We may not realize that while those are important points to cover, it’s not how humans make buying decisions. We decide using a deeper portion of our brains, one that is powered not by words, but by feelings. This is why sometimes we make decisions that defy logic, or why we spend weeks agonizing over a decision despite the fact that we already have every bit of information we need.

How do we come up with marketing messaging that speaks to the feelings-powered portion of the brain, a portion that doesn’t use language?

Watch the video, Start With Why. Simon Sinek does the best job I have seen of explaining not just what kind of communication works, but why it works.

Simon Sinek, Start With Why

Most of us talk about what we’re offering; how it works; and finally, maybe, why we make it and why you would want it. Powerful marketing flips that around and talks first about why. Solution marketing is the example best known in the business world — it talks first about the customer’s problem.

“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”

In a hurry? There’s an edited, five-minute version. I suggest that my clients watch the full version and then watch the short one to lock the ideas in. Here are links to both versions.

We believe…

Here’s another one, nicely produced, with videos that illustrate the examples and more elaboration from Sinek. In particular, listen at the 4:50 mark as Sinek uses Martin Luther King and others to explain how “we believe” is how you connect to the why. Your values — your beliefs — are what moves you and moves your customers into relationship with you.

“The clearer you are about what you believe, the more disciplined you are in how you do things and the more consistent you are in what you do, everything you say and do becomes a symbol for your values and beliefs.”