Tag Archives: values

Website-less in Cyberspace

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Branding and Your Website

Labrador has no website Since 1993, there has been a small and steady footwear manufacturer in Zemun whose rise to recognition has been less than meteoric. It is a boutique shoemaker, designing for both men and women, and bringing out new and interesting models each season. Reasonably priced and attractive, this brand should be taking the country, the region, and maybe even the world by storm.

But you will not find them on the web.

Labrador Shoes. Ask anyone around me and you will see that I have been puzzling about this brand for at least two years. I am puzzled by the strategy. I am puzzled by the existence of a website address that has nothing behind it (for at least two years). Worse still, it also shows a Wrong websiteweb address that belongs to another company! I am puzzled by the shoemaker’s ambitions and goals. Are they only interested in Belgrade? Only Serbia? Is there a reason? All things that this inquiring mind wants to know.

Labrador has a Facebook page, adorned with lovely photos of the shoes, listing retail outlets, but not referring us to any kind of headquarters. Perhaps they have the market they want. Perhaps they are happy with organic growth – after all, they have been in business now for 24 years even if I only discovered them relatively recently. Clearly, there is a reason for it. I would very much like to understand it.

It makes me think a lot more about the nature of today’s brand and business environments. There was a day when having a shop on Main Street was your ticket in. You opened your doors, you had a listing in the Yellow Pages, you perhaps took out a few ads in local papers, and Voilà! You’re a brand!

Almost.

In those days, no one could imagine a low-cost vehicle that placed you immediately in front of the entire known world. Dependence on word-of-mouth was high and, if supplemented by advertising, would be just about all you could do to get your brand out there and understood. Brands were built more slowly before the Internet: people grew to love them over time, with experience, and by testimonials.

Fast-forward to today, however, and the story is completely different. People use the web as a first resource in learning about products and brands, and even people. How many times has someone mentioned a name in a meeting and you have Googled them? Or checked them out on LinkedIn? We have developed an info-reflex that we trust more than our own brains and memories.

In this environment, it is a mystery to me how a company like Labrador – ostensibly a brand that wants to sell and wants to win hearts and minds – can be happy not having a working website.

Sine Qua Non

The reality is that a website is all but indispensible. You may not use it to sell your brand online, but it is a showcase for your brand and its messages. All the stories, the values, and the character of your brand can come out of your website. It encompasses all the value of word-of-mouth marketing in one place.

From the days before a websiteVery importantly, having a website is a legitimizer. A company without a website will not be taken as seriously as one that does. A business that only uses social media could be regarded as “cheap” or untrustworthy. Just like the Yellow Pages once was, when you can set up a website for the price of a good meal, it makes people wonder why you do not have one.

But a word of warning – your website must also be good. Since everyone else is out there online, you have to cut through the dross of bad content and poor resolution photos. You must make your website into your Brand Ambassador, always dressed for the occasion. Writing for the Entrepreneur, Tim Knox puts it nicely:

“It’s actually better to have no website at all than to have one that makes your business look bad. Your site speaks volumes about your business. It either says, ‘Hey, look, we take our business so seriously that we have created this wonderful site for our customers!’ or it screams, ‘Hey, look, I let my 10-year-old nephew design my site. Good luck finding anything!’”

– Tim W. Knox, Entrepreneur

Cyberspace, once a word reserved for Sci-fi films, is now the place where our businesses live. We owe it to ourselves and our brands to give them life and fill them with everything necessary to get to know us.

Being without a website in cyberspace is just not an option.

 

 

 

 

René Magritte, Les Valuers Personnelles

Branding: It’s Only Human

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Do you talk to your cat?

As humans, we tend to endow human qualities to a wide range of unlikely things. We give our pets names and we attribute to them the ability to think and understand us. We talk to the dog and the cat and the fish and the fern and allow ourselves to think that they “get” us. In fact, many pet-owners will say that their pets get them more than humans.

Our brands “get” us too!

Our brands feel the same way we do about child-labor (Nike), about ethical sourcing (Starbucks), about speed and elegance (Maserati, Alfa Romeo), about families (Apple, BMW, Heinz, Disney, McDonald’s, and many more). Our values are reflected in our brands and we choose our brands for their values.

This happens for the simple reason that a beloved brand (for us) enters into our DNA. It becomes a part of our identity, and while it is always possible to change this identifier, we only do so in changing ourselves. The change can be subtle as in a shift away from Nike to Puma, or it can be dramatic as in deleting a cigarette brand when we quit smoking. In the first case, it is a matter of our personal style and the statement it makes, in the second it is much more about deep-seated value decisions about your life. Marlboro cannot be part of your identity anymore if you have become a non-smoker.

On the other hand, people who quit smoking half-heartedly keep their identity in tact – and usually become backsliders.

Most people contain a number of brands within their personality mix. We do it in order to establish an identity both to ourselves and to the world at large. Since I am and have always been very sensitive to brands, I will use myself as a test case.

My Brands

When I am shoe shopping – which does not happen more than once a year or so – I do not go out with the intention to shop randomly until I discover what I want. If it is a new pair of sneakers, I look for Pumas. If it is work shoes, I favor Italian brands. In the first case, it is a quite specific brand. In the second, it is a specific category.

It might sound heretical to say so, but there is no quantitative difference among Puma, Nike, Converse, adidas, Reebok, or any of 20 other brands. Most have features to distinguish them, but before I leave my flat to head out to shop for them, I have already made my brand choice. I like Puma.

Why? God knows!

In my experience they do not last for more than a year without coming apart. They are less common and therefore harder to find. And they are priced at a premium compared to others. This is not a value for money choice – it is a clear brand choice.

A number of things go through my head – I like Nikes and they were among my first sneakers that I chose myself. I like how they look and feel. But I am annoyed that they are everywhere. I don’t like Reebok – the association I have with Reebok is that of a secretary walking to work with heels in her bag (that used to be a thing). And I like New Balance generally, but the name bugs me. I like Puma because it is none of these things. It seems like it is all about style. It’s about me. So my choice – in this little bit of stream-of-consciousness, which is automatically felt and never clearly articulated unless pushed to do so – is already made.

I once bought a pair on holiday because I needed a new pair (the old ones were shot) but did not find any that fit me well. But I bought them anyway and wore them for about six months while they actually hurt my feet each day.

Puma for me was an identity. It was not pushing sales down my throat. It was not about organizing contests and ten-mile runs. It simply is. And because I feel that way about the brand, I immediately filtered out the many others and concentrated my search on them.

Another of my brands includes a Mont Blanc Meisterstück pen, a brand that has been close to me for many years. I use the Mont Blanc for signing “important” documents. It is a personal ritual and part of my own brand. I also contain Alfa Romeo cars in my personal brand. Although I currently do not own one, I have had two in my life, and they are “my” car and thus a part of my brand. I will very certainly own another one again!

A few other brands – in no order – include:

Why would I include a city in my brand? For many people, their home towns are an integral part of their brands. The place where you grew up or spent your formative years becomes an integral part of your branding. For me it is Rome, Italy, even though I have lived in a number of European capitals and other countries and cities over the years. Rome is my brand without question – it is the one place that I love without needing to justify or qualify with reasons. This does not make Rome a “better” city than Paris, London, Munich, Belgrade, or Shanghai.

It makes it my city.

In all the examples above, the brands that are part of my identity are those that have had a lasting presence in my life, by my own choice. Pasta De Cecco, as another kind of example, is a remembered brand. It is unavailable in Belgrade where I am living today and I have not been able to buy it in years. But I remember how much I liked it. I can picture its logo and brand identity. I associate it with excellent pasta. And again, it may not objectively be better than Barilla or Buitoni or Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, but it is my pasta brand.

The brands we love communicate with us on a much more intimate level than those about which we are indifferent, only just “like”, or have ambivalent feelings. Looking at Place Branding (also called Nation Branding), we can break down the reasons for which Rome continues to be my brand. It appeals to a number of deep emotional triggers – nostalgia, familiarity, consistency, and trust. In Place Branding, one could use the same triggers to alter my personal brand by communicating heavily in all these areas regarding Paris, for example. It would not be a direct appeal to me – because the agencies working on Paris as a brand do not and could know me – but to the same base phenomena that attach me to Rome.

The brands that comprise me, moreover, need not be static.

Newton’s first law of motion is in play here. It is commonly stated as: “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”[1] In our context, it means that I will happily stick with my own personal brands until another one of sufficient impact comes along to bump the old ones out of the way.

Some will try. Many will fail. But some will get through!

 

 

 

 

 

[1] “Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus illud a viribus impressis cogitur statum suum mutare.” Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Sir Isaac Newton, 1687.

 

Questions about your brand? Want to launch something new? Contact notapipe brand consulting today and we will assess your situation, give a frank appraisal, and real ideas and usable suggestions about how we could work together to make your brand the best it can be!

 

 

Employer Branding: Staying True

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Much of Employer Branding begins at home.

Employer branding is very much about values, ethics, and transparency and how these are communicated, shared, and taken up by a company’s employees and potential hires.

Naturally, there is a critical need for these qualities to be felt and perceived outside the walls of a company. This can be accomplished in several ways, chief among which are the following:

 

  • Contextually – wherein the values are woven into the content published by the company;
  • Directly – wherein the company actively and purposefully explains itself to the public;
  • Experientially – wherein the employer brand emanates from the employees themselves in a natural and unforced manner.

Creating this tapestry is a subtle process and one that requires careful attention to detail. While consumer brands grow in the esteem and emotional response of their followers by the a perceived proximity to their feelings and senses, the employer brand cannot depend on perception alone – the brand must walk the walk more than it talks the talk.

In other words, a car brand (like Alfa Romeo) must correspond to the dreams of its buyers and, as such, will be forgiven its minor flaws and problems, the automobile company (e.g., Fiat Chrysler Automobiles), must continuously prove itself to be worthy of the loyalty of its employees.

In employer branding, forgiveness is hard to come by.

The reasons for this can be found in the very definition of employer branding. According to Barrow and Mosely, employer branding “describes an organization’s reputation as an employer, and its value proposition to its employees, as opposed to its more general corporate brand reputation and value proposition to customers.”[1]

Good employer branding, therefore, can be defined as a company that structures a clearly defined and motivating reward system and that sets reasonable internal rules and abides by them.

 

Promises Fulfilled

The coveted response is “This is a great company to work for!” This response makes for better conditions inside the workplace and entices people to want to work for you, attracting talent. The path to arrive at this is neither as steep nor as easy as it might sound. Most of it comes down to making promises and fulfilling them.

According to HR Solutions, Inc., a Chicago-based management consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement surveys, an employee’s main concerns surround the issue of transparency and fairness. Are the salary scales clear and understandable? Does management communicate well? Is there obvious favoritism? Is HR responsive? Last on this list: Is it a clean place to work?

These basic issues make the difference between what is perceived as a good employer brand and a bad one. It is not the company that promises the most, but the one that makes good on everything they promise.

In this way, it seems very clear that you cannot just fake good employer branding by putting out a lot of spin – by being true to your own rules, you are half-way to achieving a good employer brand.

After that, it becomes a question of word-of-mouth. This kind of communication can be dramatically bolstered by attention to social media, by inclusion of employees in external communication (where feasible), and by thought pieces or blogs that reflect the company’s fundamental integrity and fairness.

Potential new hires must be allowed to infer the brand’s values. Telling them directly will probably arouse more suspicion than allay fears.

Getting the word out that this is a great company to work for is, therefore, solidly in your hands. A branding agency can assist you in finding the balance in communications and engineering the transparency you need and in what areas, but once established, you need to be as good as your word.

In other words: talk the talk AND walk the walk.

 

 

 

[1] Barrow, S. and Mosley, R. The Employer Brand, Bringing the Best of Brand Management to People at Work, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester.

Your Brand. Your Vision.

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Who is in control of your brand? You?

After you spend years developing your product – an ice cream brand, for example – and struggle with all of its aspects, its flavors, its look, and its packaging, agonizing over all the details to make it just right, making sure it reflects your values and your personality, the next step would be to get the word out. So you hand it over to the nefarious brothers, Big Marketing and Big Advertising.

They will know what to do, right?

Wrong. But this is what most people end up doing. The Big Brothers look at your product as a money-spinner. They will want to decide who should buy it, where it should be sold, what the price will be, what the messages will say, and even what the thing should look like. The Big Brothers have satchels full of graphs and diagrams and funnels and focus groups and surveys and dozens of freshly baked pie charts. The Brothers Big, Marketing and Advertising, want you to know that only THEY know how your brand can be brought before the consumer public.

And it will be expensive, to be sure. But, say the Brothers, you must listen to us.

Suddenly your lovely ice cream brand, the one which you have been dreaming of since your early youth, the one that want the world to love as much as you do, has become a washing powder. Or a toothpaste. It could sell hand over fist. You could be the New Ice Cream Tycoon. But it will no longer be your brand.

Control over your brand should remain precisely where it was born – in your hands, in your heart, and in your mind. A brand is as much about art as is it is about economics. Branding is an experience of creative discovery, where innovation and ideas meet strong emotions. A strong brand is an expression of deep feelings, of character, and of desire. It is not a commodity to be traded impersonally on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange along side orange concentrate and pork bellies.

Before you hand over your brand, you must first
make sure that you have established it fully.

A brand has stories and a visual identity. It has as much personality as a good friend and inspires the same kind of loyalty. The fact is if YOU do not create your brand, the Big Brothers will.

Big Marketing and Advertising will not see your brand sold exclusively on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. They will see it on Main Street and State Street and in every shop and convenience store. They will see it in such a way that it translates into instant cash, with big flashing letters and bright colors!

worst-ice-cream-supermarketIt is not their fault – that is why they exist. And they do a lot of good for lesser brands, products and services conceived as a means to generate money. Many people are in business for this very reason. A washing powder needs to be trusted to get blood and ketchup out of your son’s baseball uniform, not to be the stuff of dreams. Proctor and Gamble was established for this. Henkel lives for it. Your ice cream brand, however, probably should have a different destiny.

The destiny of your brand will also be to make money and become profitable, of course. But it should do so on its own terms and in accord with its true identity. And if the Big Brothers want to speed past this, it does not mean you must surrender. On the contrary, you can nurture your brand to its full potential and self-expression by turning to a branding agency first. A good branding agency works with you and your brand to ensure its destiny.

Working with brand developers and professionals is a means to evoke all of the qualities about which YOU have dreamed in creating your brand. Writing the stories of your brand is part of it, creating the mosaic of its life and meaning. Once you have brought your brand into being and fully expressed its purpose, identity, and character, then the Big Brothers can help – they will not have fill in any blanks from their more mercantile imaginations.

Your brand is your dream and your vision. Be true to it before others try to take it over.

Famous: Building a Powerful Personal Brand

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A glittering star dressed to look undressed and singing someone else’s songs may become a YouTube or Vine sensation overnight. She may go viral. She may have a million views and a million followers. But is she famous?

Yes. But.

The kind of fame that is useful in personal branding is the kind that endures. It is not about getting people to look but rather it is about engaging a very wide audience consistently. Woody Allen is famous for a lot of things, but the main reason is that he has consistently delivered quality films for nearly 50 years. He gained attention early because of his talent and (it must be said) hard work. Woody Allen’s goal was not to become famous – he wanted to make films.

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