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Cliff Ennico is a self-described “Affordable Wall Street Lawyer.” He tries his best to charge flat fees for his services; services that are focused around the needs of small businesses and start-ups. These fees (and his hourly rate, if it is needed) are transparently available on his website. He has understood what people like and, more importantly, don’t like about getting legal assistance. His approach is less painful, more helpful, and more upfront than most other practices.
Though he has obviously created a nice middle position to reach out to so many, one area that is most impressive is inclusion of what he doesn’t do, including any litigation or criminal work. Though there is, obviously, a place for that type of work in our society, he had decently chosen to ignore areas that are likely the most lucrative to address the needs of the common man.
In his approach, he has understood his brand and core offering, firstly by easily helping people understand what he does, but more specifically by delineating what he doesn’t do.
Have you done this?
Filed under: brands | Tags: Brand Autopsy, branding, honesty, Obsessive Branding Disorder
Brand Autopsy reports on the book Obsessive Branding Disorder, bringing out a well thought out snippet:
Branding is corrupting our culture by heralding emotion over reason, surface over core substance, and packaging over experience.
Though I am, by profession, more at brander and marketer than anything else, I agree with this statement wholeheartedly. Too often the focus of marketing is on the peripheral emotive rather than the concrete factual. Though branding, as was mentioned in the piece, is the medium of communication, the core kernel offering needs to be genuinely helpful and worthwhile or the sale pitch is essentially dishonest.
Filed under: brands, community | Tags: Bleed Cubbie Blue, branding, communities, Cubs, Fenway Park, Marlins, nations, Red Sox, White Sox, Wrigley Field, Yankees
Cubbie and Red Sox Nation. For years, these two communities have had a treaty of understanding that had grown between them after years of failures and curses have fallen upon their beloved baseball clubs. Though the Red Sox have finally stepped into the light, the Cubbies have yet to even near the promise land. The last time they won the World Series was 1908. The last time they were even in the Fall Classic was 1945. Compare that to the Evil Empire. The Yankees have won the World Series more times than I can count on all my fingers and toes. Even in recent history, they have won in 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000. They have been in the Series as recently as 2003 losing to the Florida Marlins.
The Marlins are another story. This is a team that has never lost in the playoffs. In their short history, they have won the Major League Baseball Championship twice: 1997 and 2003, both as a wild card. Not only that, they represent the Miami, Florida area, which means they have 5.5 million fans to support them—more than Boston (4.8 million) and Chicago (4.6 million per Chicago team). New York has more (a staggering 10.2 million per New York team), but the Fish ought to be in a great situation for community support.
Why is it then that the Marlins average just fewer than 43%* in attendance since 2001 in their 36,000+ stadium? Boston pulls a sellout crowd of 37,000 to every game over that same period, and the Lovable Losers are just behind them at above 96% (Wrigley Field holds just past 41,000). It is obviously not for winning teams; compare it to the New York Yankees. They average under 86%, and in the midst of their last winning legacy (2001 – 2003), they were below 78%. It wasn’t until they started struggling that the fans came out. And sure, Yankee Stadium is much larger (holds almost 57,000)—but, the fan base dwarfs any other team. If you want to break it down per person, the New York area has nearly 179 people for every baseball seat (Mets and Yankees), Miami has 151 people for every seat, Boston has about 129 people for each seat, and Chicago a paltry 111. Take it another way; each member of the Yankee’s immediate fan base (say, half of NY Metro because of the Mets) attends games .48% of the time, Red Sox fans: .78% of the time, Chicago Cubs immediate area (as shared with the White Sox) fans attend .87% of the time, and Marlins fans: each fan base member attends just .28% of the time.
Maybe it is older teams that really draw, or perhaps it is an issue in Chicago: Chicagoans like losing teams. There has been some examinations into this phenomenon, but, luckily for us, we can compare it to another losing Chicago baseball team. The White Sox had nearly 90% attendance in 2007—but that was after they won a World Series for the first time in decades upon decades. During 2001 – 2008, their attendance is right at 65%. This is one of those old, storied teams! Teams that play in hallowed locations: Yankee Stadium (well, for a little bit longer), Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, U.S. Cellular . . . wait, what? No wonder the Cubbies are fighting to keep Wrigley, Wrigley. Maybe U.S. Cellular is to blame; or maybe it was a residual effect born from the Black Sox (I don’t think so).
It is likely much more to do with the way a community has been built. A community built through trials and struggles. The Red Sox have a bit of an advantage in this. The Cardinals are a fine foe, but there is no team that is easier to hate than the Yankees. The have bound together, as a baseball fan base and as a city to support Boston against the behemoth to the south. More than anything, everything about the Cubs and Red Sox are genuine. They play in old stadiums (with old names) in old neighborhoods. They aren’t too polished (Green Monster, Murphy’s Bleachers, The Idiots). They are fiercely local (paradoxically, they are loved all over). They have stories, curses, traditions, villains, songs—more so than every other club (though I love the Yankees Bleacher Creatures). In short, they act so much like a community because they are one.
Wouldn’t you like to have a brand like that?
*Averages are in median. I don’t pretend to be a researcher, so my process may have some holes—but it is close enough to give us an idea of the true situation.
Update: I posted this in part on Bleed Cubbie Blue. The regulars had much to say concerning this fan base cohesiveness (there is a strong since of self-ownership and involvement; extremely pertinent to a community’s identity).
Filed under: brands, marketing | Tags: Amnesty International, AOL, Apple, Beijing 2008, Brand Tags, branding, Discovery Channel, Evian, Exxon, Firefox, GE, Google, Greenpeace, Halliburton, Harley-Davidson, Internet Explorer, Marlboro, McDonalds, MSN, olympics, Oxfam, reputations, The Consumerist, Tibet, Toyota, Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, World Wildlife Fund
The Consumerist (read more below) reports on the 10 best and worst reputations in corporate America. As I looked at Google (best) and Halliburton (worst), my thoughts turned to Brand Tags, a cool site that decodes what big brands actually mean (as viewed by people who visit the Brand Tags website). As is often stated: companies don’t own brands, consumers do. That is, people will chose what a brand means and there is little that a company can say to change that image (often, it is up to what they do).
When looking at what brands are most often rated “good”, Firefox and Google are second and tenth after do-gooder Amnesty International and among Oxfam, Greenpeace, WWF (not WWE), Whole Foods, Toyota, and the Discovery Channel. MSN, AOL, and Internet Explorer were third, fifth, and seventh in the “bad” listings among Wal-Mart, Exxon, Marlboro, and McDonalds. Evian is “pure”, Apple is “cool”, Harley-Davidson is “wild”, GE is “light”, and Beijing 2008 has significant issues (as shown below in a sampling of the website’s output, misspellings and all):
Like most great Internet tools, this application is painfully open and honest. It strongly exposes brands for what they are; for what they are is how they are perceived in the consumers’ minds. If you are lucky enough to have a brand that is featured on this website, use it to change your perceptions (through your actions and offerings). If not, talk to your customers and hope that they are honest with you. These insights are invaluable.
Filed under: brands, community, marketing | Tags: Apple, branding, Csikszentmihalyi, Easter Eggs, Google, Linda Scott, Rochberg-Halton
Brains on Fire report that hidden treasures really do add to the customer experience.
So many brands keep their communities (or their illusion of one) at arms length – especially the “crazy fans.” But what would happen if it was the opposite? What would happen if you left those secret Easter Eggs out there especially for those highly passionate fans to find?
This works very well in a B2C space, and what makes it most effective is the hidden “treasure’s” ability to help in creating a persona for the brand. Linda Scott (Fresh Lipstick 2005, p. 220) calls this personification “fetishization”. In addition to explaining how an inanimate object is “imbued with animate properties”, Scott conveys that a fetish “is not arbitrarily magical or religious, but helps to accomplish a variety of cultural tasks”. Compare this to when Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981, The Meaning of Things) explained that “things contribute to the cultivation of the self when they help create order in consciousness at the levels of the person, community, and patterns of natural order”.
The objects that we use frame our experiences and shape our selves; objects are signs of status, of belonging, of social integration, and are essential part of socialization and the relationship between people and things is fundamental. This is why this personifying of a product or service (specifically, the brand since the actually offering cannot easily be made animate) is essential to success. In many objects, it creates an easier space for adaptation into a cultural exchange.
Apple and Google add these hidden touches well, such as with Apple’s famous “Do Not Eat iPod Shuffle” in its terms and conditions (thanks to firewheeldesign.com for the image)
and Google’s map routing from, say, Kentucky to Germany (thanks to ghacks.net).
Both removed them after it became public knowledge and you would hope that they would continue to add to little Easter Eggs to enhance the brand experience. Think about your brand; what touches can you add to better tell the brand story and enhance the customer’s interaction with your offering?
Update
Google may have stopped you from swimming across the Atlantic, but I guess they are fine with you kayaking across the Pacific. My co-worker found this today when he accidentally put in the wrong information when trying to get directions.
Update 2 (2008 June 12)
Seth Godin seems to agree with me.
One of the most influential books I read when I first started marketing was entitled, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by the heralded Jack Trout and Al Ries. Armed with these laws that were, as noted, deemed absolute, I stepped into the world of marketing knowing all that I would ever need to know. That is, until reality pulled a trip cord that I simply had not notice with my self-assured nose so vertically positioned. Law after law seemed to crumble as I explored the reality of the business world, and I came to understand that Trout took a very narrow look at marketing, a shortsighted approach that continues this day.
In February, Trout posted an article aiming to prop up his decades old outdated theses. This time it was the “Law of Duality” that is, “In the long run, every market becomes a two-horse race.” Using this rationale, he gives the reasons for the Yahoo! bid by Microsoft.
Whether or not this is the reason Microsoft has gone after Yahoo! (and I agree that this “law” has a place in marketing strategy, but focusing on this law, particularly since it is not a law, can be troublesome for a company in the long-term—since it inevitably leads to market decline and price war after innovation is squashed—but that isn’t my point, so I will talk about this another time), Trout exhibits in this article the same unstructured approach to proving his contentions as he did in his original works.
Trout pulls from business history random case studies that prove his case, sometimes with accuracy but too often they are off-base and evidence guesswork. For example, he notes:
Early on, a new category is a ladder of many rungs. Gradually, the ladder becomes a two-rung affair.
In batteries, it’s Eveready and Duracell. In photographic film, it’s Kodak and Fuji. In mouthwash, it’s Listerine and Scope. In hamburgers, it’s McDonald’s and Burger King. In sneakers, it’s Nike and Reebok. In toothpaste, Crest and Colgate.
Eveready and Duracell? Consider a 2006 Time Magazine article on Panasonic’s bid to “Beat the Bunny.” And we are not talking the Duracell Bunny here. What happened to Energizer in his battery market? McDonald’s and Burger King? Though regional, In-and-Out holds a much stronger position than any fast food franchise in the US. Nike and Reebok? Does Adidas not exist? What about Puma’s resurgence?
And with this faulty foundation, he continues with his one strong case of Coke and Pepsi, with an add-on pronouncement that Toyota and GM are all that exist in the US automotive marketplace.
Take the domestic automobile industry. In spite of heroic measures undertaken by Lee Iacocca and others, Chrysler is in trouble. In the long run, marketing is a two-horse race. Today the main horses are General Motors and Toyota—Ford has been pushed into third place.
Taking this last argument in the present, based on his recommendation 20 years ago, he would have told Toyota to simply not worry—the domestic automobile market is a two-horse race and already well-established. Go do something else. Instead, Toyota disrupted the market (if you really want to see how to do marketing, look to Clayton Christensen, a business genius and fellow Forbes contributor that cannot be ignored). He would have been part of the chorus to which he derisively cites in his more recent piece,
Thirty years ago, one business magazine reported that “with over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market.” John Foster Dulles, in 1954, said “The Japanese don’t make anything the people in the U.S. would want.” Sorry guys, the Japanese are killing us.
And it was this piece that brought to my attention how out-of-touch Trout’s theories (and opinions) have come. I don’t fault him personally. The views of his time, still dusty and dated, represent a day in which business professionals acted as if they knew all they needed, and after gaining this immense wisdom, could therefore sit back and cynically and critically judge current (and in this case, prior) business decisions. Businesspeople and marketers in particular cannot continue to fall into this self-centered trap. Marketing is a beautiful discipline, the part of business that tries to profit from the variabilities of the human experience. Dynamic understanding of innovation, disruption, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, and so many other factors govern our behavior in this field. We are a bit too self-absorbed if we think that we have “figured it out”—and it is only in the continued drive to make sense of the ever-changing chaos that we can succeed in the foggy future.
