What kind of marketing does your organisation really think it needs and how do you get it?

What kind of marketing do you need? What kind of marketing do you do? It’s been our experience working with both small and large businesses, that often a company might want to undertake a marketing program but is not really prepared for it...as a result some works gets done but it is never effectively implemented and no one feels the program was very successful. Why?

It’s an interesting question and one that US business consultants Booz Allen Hamilton and the US Association of National Advertisers recently worked on together. What they did was to define types of marketing 'organisations' that already exist within most businesses today. Their report identified six distinct types of marketing within organisations. According to the study, all have unique strengths and each is appropriate to particular types of companies in certain competitive circumstancesvalued within the company for its ability to drive revenue. It is considered as important as other major departments, such as finance and sales. It drives the company’s priorities and leads product innovation and new business development.


1. Growth Champion. The marketer is highly valued within the company for its ability to drive revenue. It is considered as important as other major departments, such as finance and sales. It drives the company’s priorities and leads product innovation and new business development.


2. Senior Counselor. Functioning as a high-level advisor on marketing strategy to the chief executive officer and the individual businesses, the marketer is the Senior Counselor, leads major advertising, promotion, and public relations campaigns. Unlike the Growth Champion, however, it does not typically drive company-wide strategy.

3. Brand Foreman. The marketer is an efficient provider of marketing services, ranging from communications strategy to creative output and campaign execution, in support of the company’s key brands. It serves as the central manager of agency relationships, and is considered among the company’s most important support organizations.

4. Growth Facilitator. The marketer has the authority and skills to develop and lead large, company-wide marketing efforts and helps set the business’s overall priorities. They coordinate with other major functions, such as sales and product development.

5. Best Practices Advisor. The marketer works with the individual businesses to identify internal and external best practices and incorporate them into all marketing activities. This organization’s goal is helping the businesses achieve maximum effectiveness and efficiency, and it has expertise across all elements of the marketing toolkit.

6. Service Provider. The marketer supplies marketing services such as advertising, promotion, and public relations at the request of the company’s brand and product teams. The Service Provider is effective at executing specific tasks and is responsive to time-sensitive requests.

According to the study, many companies with internal marketing functions claim to fulfill most or all of these, but in reality they tend to gravitate to only one of these roles. DIFFUSION believes that knowing which type of marketing function exists within your company is critical. The challenge is to understand where the company is heading and make sure marketing is developed and configured properly.

More importantly, we believe that it is the absence of brand and marketing capability, in any form, in many organisations which is far more critical and one that the Booz Allen/ANA study does not consider. Where this type of function and the culture associated with it is missing or where it is relegated to a partial consideration and/or a part-time role, this seems a fundamentally more important place to start.

So we’ve added one new type of marketing for organisations.

7. Consultant Provider. In the absence of a real marketing organisation, an agency or consultants supplies brand and marketing services such as strategy, advertising, promotion, and public relations at the request of the company’s management. The Consultant Provider must be effective at executing specific tasks, is responsive to time-sensitive requests and often provides this on an on-going basis.

The defining essence. Getting a handle on Oroton.

Australia’s Oroton Group as Australia's only luxury clothing and accesories group, used to be a bellwhether for contemporary Australian luxury but not any more.

At the turn of the century, the company began an aggressive acquisition program that saw it acquire the Morrissey and Marcs brands. At one stage both of these brands were originally positioned at the higher end of the Australian fashion market, Marcs used to import leading European designer brands and Peter Morrissey, alongside long-time partner Leona Edminston, used to sell into New York department stores. Since 2003 the group has shown static growth, with both the Marcs and Morrissey brands subject to constant revision and somewhat arbitary repositioning. We think we might have some idea why the Oroton Group might be getting it wrong.

This is Oroton’s customer segmentation model from a recent presentation:

Oroton
Contemporary consumers who spoil themselves and others through quality purchases

Polo Ralph Lauren
Quintessential classic contemporary shopper

Polo Jeans
Classic youth minded shopper

Marcs
Contemporary consumers who seek quality fashion

BabyDoll
Fashion driven youth-oriented shopper “Gotta have it now”

Morrissey
Sophisticated consumers who value individuality

Aldo
Fashion aware, on-brand shoppers who place price and quality as paramount

The interesting thing about what these descriptors reveal is how little Oroton seem to know about their customers, interchanging the word “shopper”, “consumer” and “individual”, without really attaching any single unique detail or benefit to purchase. Instead, they use ambiguous outcomes like “quality”, “ value individuality” and “contemporary” in a naive attempt to segment their customers. All seemingly simplistic, almost as if they are frightened to actually say who their customers are. More importantly, we believe the poor performance of some of these brands can be attributed, not to a flat trading environment which the group cites, but to their failure to actually understand and get inside the minds of their customers.

One of the opportunities we see for Oroton is the adoption of a more benefit-based market segmentation approach for their portfolio. This involves segmenting the market for their products across all the brands and introducing a brand lifecycle based on the intrinsic value that their customers get from their products, not by traditional conjoint analysis, which identifies customers on variables such as how much money she makes or where he lives. This intrinsic value (benefit) could take various forms such as the snob appeal of Polo, the perceived quality of Oroton or the derived economy in an Aldo shoe customer.

This method of market segmentation is significantly different from other methods of market segmentation in use. It gets inside the consumer’s thinking and finds out what the customer feels about a product or brand. The underlying principle is that consumers do not seek a product or brand, rather they seek alignment with a brand essence - they want what it does for them, or the derived benefit – how it makes them feel, look and the status they get from the purchase. With benefit-based segmentation, the objective is to identify why the customer is buying the product, and group customers accordingly.

Oroton Group currently seems to see the outward benefit of segmentation as a way to market to customers within the brand portfolio rather than across it. However, using a benefit-based market segmentation model, the objective is to group customers together for the most effective targeting, not separate them out to be targeted separately. Something that fits with the Group’s recent stated goal to adopt a “whole of company” approach to their brands.

No one will save Myer now.

It comes as no surprise to hear that embattled Myer is pulling out all stops with a new Christmas advertising campaign [Sydney Morning Herald 12/10/2005] in the lead up to its fire sale by parent Coles Myer Limited [CML]. Even more telling is the heat around the corner from a falling share price.

There have been a number of tell tale warning signs, all of which both CML boss, John Fletcher, and Myer MD, Dawn Robertson, have either ignored, misread or more likely, simply not noticed. Part of the problem stems from a greater issue, to do with CML and its inability to understand brand, both at a corporate level and at an individual business level. Secondly, like many other corporates, CML continues to relegate brand strategy to advertising agencies, who roll out tvc and print campaigns that do little to build brand in a way that is committed to integrity and longevity. Thirdly, CML has lost its ‘reason for being’ beyond that of economic rationalism [which is taking a beating anyway!]; yes, they provide millions of products to millions of Australians, but aside from this functional attribute, CML, our largest Australian company, doesn’t stand for anything in our hearts and minds.

Which brings us to the specific problem of Myer. I grew up in Queensland and as such, am familiar with the Myer brand. Intrinsically Melbournian [as evidenced by their choice of spokesperson Barry Humphries, about as much of a Melbourne icon that you can get], in Brisbane, that didn’t really matter…Melbourne represented a culture we didn’t have; it was aspirational, European, stylish, black and white, classical. However, Sydney was a different story. The move in 2004 to replace the iconic shopping brand Grace Bros with Myer, was always going to be problematic. Not only because Myer wasn’t NSW or more importantly ‘Sydney’, but because Grace Bros provided differentiation to David Jones [who can tell the black and white sales ads in our newspapers apart?] and had a significant and meaningful brand heritage.

In 2004 I co-authored a joint research paper examining the loss of the 119 year old name, Grace Bros. The paper, 'Out of the Red into the Black' [Murphy, Ringma & Jetland] examined the narratives [or stories] of both Grace Bros and Myer. It found that ‘Grace Bros played an important role “as a rhetorical interface between organisational culture and organisational identity” (Faber, 1998), an identity that had resonance in the community beyond its role as a retailer’. The research found that CML over 16 years of ownership, had systematically removed the history of Grace Bros and its related stories, ‘representing a deep disconnect between the current organisation and its narrative, cultural and value history’. It was a history and stories which customers, both young and old, continued to relate to, regardless of their attraction to Robertson’s “newer, brighter better” mantra.

It is now too late for Myer and one only hopes that CML has learnt some lessons, so that it won’t all be in vain. It’s unfortunately apt that the latest Myer catalogue is headlined, “Big, black bag”, all too reminiscent of a body bag they use for the newly departed.

Photo: John Woudstra. Courtesy Sydney Morning Herald 12/10/05.

Place branding. Are they serious, Mum?

Want some elementary school kids to name your suburb? Any takers for Pokemonville? Disney? Nelly? This is what the NSW Property Council in Sydney wants to see happen following a decision of the State Government to rename an area east of the city after the popular entertainment precinct, Darling Harbour.

The Council is up in arms because they believe that branding "East Darling Harbour", a 22 hectare site in an area formerly called Millers Point, will be difficult under the proposed name.

According to one Sydney Morning Herald report, NSW Property Council executive director, Ken Morrison thinks the name will be regarded as something of a last minute tack-on; both meaningless and not memorable, just convenient for untaxed imaginations.

“East Darling Harbour sounds like its left on the edge of something else", Morrison is reported as saying and thinks elementary school kids could come up with a better name.

As we note in our 21 June blog Place branding. Not so new., both the naming and branding of distinct urban areas is something that is serious and should be performed by professionals in consultation with the local communities. And anyway, what was wrong with Millers Point?

Meanwhile, the State Government says they will listen to proposals. We think given the Minister’s reputation, nothing much will happen.

Doctoring language.

Recently seeing a new doctor for the first time with my sick teenager, [our regular GP was away], I was taken aback when halfway through explaining a short history of what had been happening, he interrupted me mid sentence with, “do you mind if I ask the questions?” [with a tone of voice that indicated he didn’t give a rats if I minded or not]. A communication approach I had experienced several times prior to finding my current [and beloved] GP, I had forgotten how debilitating ineffective doctor/patient communication can be.

While there have been some moves to ensure that doctors leave the education system with adequate communication skills, unfortunately, there isn’t enough emphasis from the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and related professional bodies, on the importance and provision of skills for effective doctor/patient communication.

The current communication practice of many doctors is best described as ‘ethnocentric’; a view of the world where members of their own group [other medical and related health care practitioners] are valued and understood, while nonnatives/others [patients] are as seen as “fundamentally different and therefore deserving of different treatment” (Grimes & Richard 2003). While this, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily a problem, ethnographic communicators “develop simplified scripts in situations that necessitate interaction” (Grimes & Richard 2003), scripts which function to keep nonnatives [in this case, patients] predictable and within interaction limits. This leads to the sort of communication behaviour I was subject to.

Doctors need more than empathy in their doctor/patient relationships. I believe that they need to practice ‘cosmopolitan communication’; communication in which “others are treated [simultaneously] as both native and nonnative”. Importantly, cosmopolitan communicators understand and appreciate the genuine differences between groups, treat others as fundamentally like themselves and accept that “ways of understanding are open to change yet exempt from change” (Grimes & Richard 2003).

Neuworth (2002) in an important article in the Medical Journal of Australia, ‘Reclaiming the Lost Meanings of Medicine’, advocates doctor/patient relationships that are “intimate, sometimes gut-wrenching”. He states, “We need to create an ongoing public dialogue around the relational and ethical aspects of healthcare.”

Perhaps the practice of cosmopolitan communication may be a start. And maybe we could also encourage our accountants and other personal and professional advisors to do the same?

Image courtesy http://www.peanuts.com/ The Offical Peanuts website.

Silver is so turn of the century.

Mercedes Australia is putting paid to their own lack of diversity in car colours, particularly our love of machine age silver.

According to the latest edition of their magazine for car owners, we are going to start turning away from our obsession with turn of the century silver to reveal it’s more subtle hues - see a reversion to soft turquoise and light green-ish yellow. Even the ubiquitous colours of Calvin Klein beige and shades of brown will find their way onto our roads in the next three to five years.

According to BASF coatings, we’re “yearning for the familiar” and with that will be a range of colours associated with deep blues, green tones, creamy beige and warm reds and perhaps, even gold. BASF describes the trend as move to towards spontaneity and luxury.

If luxury car makers are acknowledging the move, then we are likely to see many of these colours begin to appear on a range of electrical and portable appliances as consumers seek more opportunities to express both their mood and their individuality.

Meanwhile New York Fashion week claims black is back. They say we’re sick of pastels, bright colours and the boho look.

But really, when was the last time you saw a brown car??

That's my line.

The July 28 New York Times reports a California businessman has filed a lawsuit against American Express, claiming they stole his tagline of the company's "My life. My card." (see DIFFUSIONBlog 01 February 2005 “This is not My Card”).

While American Express has maintained in court filings that it owns the legal rights to the slogan, lawyers for the businessman Mr Stephen Goetz, a credit card marketer in San Francisco, plan to subpoena evidence from American Express' advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather.

The issue is who owns the line and whether American Express independently conceived the idea for the campaign that began in November last year, or took it from the businessman Mr Goetz, who claims he used it in a sales pitch to the financial services company in the previous July. Subsequently, American Express spent more than $88.9 million on credit card advertising in the first quarter and according to TNS Media, much of that featured the line "My life. My card." .

The various counter claims in the court filings has Mr Goetz claiming he provided the slogan to American Express on a proposal in July 2004, Ogilvy did not run the campaign until November 2004 but claim they registered the strapline as a domain name in September that year (the article doesn’t say what the domain name Mr Goetz was and whether it actually exists). Mr Goetz also claims he registered the line with the US Patent Office in September, while American Express claim they registered it a week later.

At DIFFUSION we believe the ownership and origin of taglines, straplines and slogans can be a contentious area for companies and businesses. The important thing for owners and their agents to do is to create an extensive and registerable paper trail for the development of the name, register what is registerable and steer clear of the generic. In many cases, similarly worded and generic taglines, straplines and slogans, often used and trademarked by different companies operating in different business areas, are tolerated as long as they are seen as markedly dissimilar in look and feel.

The problem for American Express, Ogilvy&Mather and Mr Goetz is to be able to sufficiently demonstrate an origin and ownership papertrail and we’re left wondering if any of them actually can.

Branding ambiguity.

Gandell Properties has launched “The Entertainment Quarter” along with a snazzy logo as the new name for the Fox Entertainment Precinct out at Moore Park, Sydney. The question is was it ever formally identified as this or was it just called Fox Studios or the Sydney Showground? We think the latter. The ad (SMH July 19, 2005) and the need for any type of promotion of this is even more interesting. If there was ever a need for a more formal strategic brand planning, this project needed it. The naming is a mess. The website (www.entertainmentprecinct.com.au) describes the suburb of Moore Park as a “precinct” and the Fox Studios as a “creative campus”. In addition, the area also plays host to a number of other venues including the so badly named Aussie Stadium, the Sydney Cricket Ground, the Royal Hall of Industries and the Hordern Pavillion. So the problem is exacerbated by trying to overlay what is really quite a generic name over what is rightly indentified as a precinct in it’s own right. Within this precinct there are distinct destinations and so the name is meant to provide some point of unity, some way of providing a natural self identification for the area.


When DIFFUSION worked with Lee Wharf Developments, Honeysuckle Development Corporation and Crone in Newcastle we benchmarked numerous world projects that had attempted to define and name specific work and play precincts. The problem is that names are resonant things and they are generally accorded status and recognisability through usage. One of the problems faced by Lee Wharf Developments was what was to call a large site which had already been embedded with multiple associations and uses. We came to the conclusion that like most place brands, the recognition, use and common association of a name by the stakeholders of a place needed to be acknowledged. So we worked back to the original name for the site and developed a brand strategy that gave the whole place ONE name with internal alphanumeric naming for individual buildings and recommended historical or geographic names. We called it Lee Wharf Newcastle because that’s what it was called and where it was. Interestingly the word "Newcastle" was an important addition as Lee Wharf did not, just as the word "the entertainment quarter" does not mean anything without a place holder.

We also invoked the work of Richard Florida, who has made significant contributions to latest thinking on the value of creative culture in recognising, identifying and valuing place. We took Florida’s term “the quality of place” and built a evolutionary and dynamic brand strategy around this that enabled all stakeholders to participate at Lee Wharf.

While the idea of naming this Moore Park entertainment precinct is excellent, the name and logo itself is so generic it lacks specificity and association. The visual articulation of the name, while strong and vibrant, is in itself generic. The use of the sectional quadrant while suggesting part of a whole, never really comes to grips visually with what whole it is describing. It’s merely an amorphic image.

And it’s a shame. A great opportunity to create an evocative new place that will largely go ignored except by the people who did the work because of this lack of meaning and association. Merely another poorly strategised branding exercise.

Do we need new symbols of National Interest?

A recent set of comments by writers to David Dale’s July 12 column www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/07/11/1120934178159.html “How to Australianise”our supermarkets in the Sydney Morning Herald attracted our attention. Dale was commenting on the ability of consumers to buy Australian made and owned products in the nation’s supermarkets. Consumers willingness and ability to buy these types of products is more important these days given Coles Myer and Woolworth’s duopolic dominance. With 70% of the Australian market, they remain the most dominant supermarket retailers in the world and a cause for concern by both consumers, the Australian Competition Commission and competitors alike.

We took a look at the Australian Made site www.australianmade.com.au to see what constitutes an Australian made brand. According to Australian Made, “the Australian Made logo is a registered certification trade mark. To qualify to use the official Australian Made logo, products must comply with the country of origin provisions of the Trade Practices Act. Australian Made products must be substantially transformed in Australia, with at least 50% of the cost of production being incurred in Australia Licensees of Australian Made products must have a current licence agreement with Australian Made Campaign Limited; and agree to abide by the Australian Made Logo Code of Practice.”

Australian Made’s own 2002 research suggests that “the green triangle and gold kangaroo logo is the most recognised country of origin symbol on Australian shop shelves, enjoying a 96% recognition level amongst Australian consumers. With nine out of 10 consumers saying they have purchased goods carrying the trade mark and 66% say they actively seek out products that are made in Australia.” This is not backed by what the SMH commentators say, most want to see more publicity on what constitutes Australian made and owned. They are confused by the plethora of logos and marks and it seems that, on the face of it, the Australian Made logo does not enjoy the recognition it claims.

As we note in our previous blog on the specificity of brands, more accurate Place of Origin branding would make it easier for consumers to choose Australian made and owned brands and would perhaps force retailers to stock more of this Place of Origin product. German supermarket company Aldi has established a considerable beach head in Australia and already uses the “80% Australian made ” as a point of difference, but the new Woolworth’s Select range (a name we know was “copied” from Tescos Supermarkets in the UK) and the new premium GC Coles brand would also be perfect vehicles to adopt the Australian made and owned branding.

One of the problems with endorsing brands like the Australian Made logo is that it is not an absolute benchmark and thus can create a tendency towards ambiguity about ownership. While Australian Made rightly makes the point that people can feel more confident about products that carry this logo, the evidence from the small sample of comments in Dale’s article is that people do not necessarily trust this and other words carried on packaging. They’re looking for a recognisable symbol of both aspects of Australian production and ownership. More importantly, we believe that Australian Made should be raising its limits on what constitutes an Australian made brand and sponsoring a move to an an absolute benchmark for Australian made and owned. 50%+ production in our mind does not constitute this and from the SMH consumer comments, the use of this symbol continues to reward those companies that are no longer Australian owned.

Replacing place, the specificity of luxury brands.

Many luxury brand customers have developed an almost arcane adherence to the brand values of uniqueness and authenticity derived from place. It is the ostensible idea of an historic solidity, a departure from the more peripatetic attention to fashion and seasonal remodelling of consumer brands, that serves to distinguish the specific identity of luxury brands. Many luxury brands rely on the fact that they do not look externally for inspiration, that they only need look to their place of origin, of manufacture. Place, whether it is Tuscany or London, is what DIFFUSION argues contributes to the soul or essence of a brand and delineates it. So what happens when a luxury brand decides that place is no longer such a source of inspiration?

While consumer brands everywhere continue to seek to manage ever diminishing margins as they ride the wave of affordable affluence, luxury brands across all categories have, or are considering, moving manufacturing to global factories like China for much the same reason as their lesser counterparts.

Interestingly the move to “Made in China” seems to be coming from the franchisees of many of these luxury brand owners, rather than brand owners themselves. While many luxury brand owners such as JPTodd have avowedly rejected outsourcing manufacturing, others have embraced it. This new place label “Made in China” is already being borne by a swath of companies in Europe and the US, including Steiff, Coach, Kate Spade, Paul Smith and Armani, who have already shifted some of their manufacturing to mainland China. In Australia, much of the Oroton Group’s stable of brands has already migrated to the far east. And according to Bear Sterns it’s a trend that is showing no sign of abating. For example, they estimate that by 2010, 50% of all US manufacturing could be outsourced and the new place of manufacturer is likely to the be the global factories in China and India.

Which begs some questions: Do companies confuse country of origin with country of manufacture and believe their consumers can’t tell the difference? How will consumers be able able to tell the difference between the output of brands all manufactured in the same country? What will the nuances be? What do they believe consumers are motivated by – product or price? Do they only see value displayed by logo and name rather than quality? How do they value their brands on the balance sheet? What risk assessment do firms make of the effects on the brand associated with outsourced manufacturing? What account do they make of the the risks inherent in sharing manufacturing techniques and skills with potential competitors? How can product delineation and quality be preserved in the global factory?

For luxury brands the idea of place is critical to the identity, authenticity and uniqueness (we call this the “specificity”) of a brand (otherwise why would counterfeiting exist?). Place provides an aesthetic counterpoint to the “generic” of the chain. The authenticity of a product, as Virginia Postrel notes in her book The Substance of Style, is determined by purity, tradition and the aura of history – all elements that are determined by place and which can define a luxury brand. Yet, these brand owners are willing to re/place and subsume identity, determine authenticity only by logo and destroy uniqueness with an authorised non-specificity (authorised counterfeit) - all because it preserves margins and retains profit.

We think the idea of specificity is being overlooked by many brand owners and demands a careful rethink of current brand strategies, built on strong customer recognition derived from place of origin and manufacture.

Photo copyright Amanda Tsui 2004 Pratt School of Art, New York City

Crocodile Dundee Man unearthed again.

We were interested to find out from Saturday’s [18/6/2005] Sydney Morning Herald that according to Dr Clotaire Rapaille, a self styled marketing guru and “cultural psychologist”, Australian’s can be defined by the “key word”, “invincible”. Dr Rapaille says we are tongue in cheek Crocodile Dundee men, due to our origins [think convict settlers], our participation in various wars and, of course, “the bush”. Whether or not his views are based on any actual research, Jungian style, or simply his own deduction, the article does not make clear. ‘Crocodile Dundee Man’ is an archetype that we would like to see the early death of, not because it is outdated, or because its sexist, or because it is an artificially created Americanised version of Australian national identity, but because it is simply incorrect.

As Hugh McKay so rightly points out in the same edition of the SMH, “our identity is still evolving and we’d be foolish to try and define it prematurely”. We would like to think, together with McKay, that we side a little closer with Canada [even if we do lock our doors in some suburbs of Sydney] who completed the statement “as Canadian as...” with “...it’s possible to be in the circumstances”.

Yes, we are undergoing a time of self assessment - what does it mean to be Australian? Or, for that matter, un-Australian. But this is all part of our coming of age. Hopefully our sense of humour will not be lost when we finally get there, though I’ll be happy to plant a cross on the grave of Crocodile Dundee Man sooner rather than later.

Place branding. Not so new.

We were recently sent an article by a Canadian contact from enRoute magazine [‘This Brand is Your Brand’] on the ‘new’ profession of place branding. Not so new, we say. Place branding, whether a country, city, region, suburb or development, has been here for some time. Consider this 1938 quote, “A great city goes out beyond its borders, to all the latitudes of the known earth. The city becomes an emblem in remote minds; it exerts its cultural instrumentality in a thousand phases”. While we now have a more formal approach, the development of place brand strategies, understanding places as brands is not really new...we just now want to overtly manage them, or in some instances, such as a recent project we completed in Newcastle Australia, create them.

But yes, there is more discussion about places as brands. In part, this is because we are starting to more fully understand the holistic nature of brands but also because as people, we are now defining ourselves by where we live. Some interesting research has been undertaken to support this by Richard Florida, ‘The Rise of the Creative Class’, Professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

A true sign of the longevity of place branding is the recent outbreak of place brand generics...MCentral apartments in Sydney, recently claimed “genuine New York apartments”. The key is that even to those who have never been to New York, a style, emotion and mood is evoked by use of the term “New York”. Place branding can also be used effectively to re-generate an ailing geographic area. Parramatta Australia tried this in 2002, only to be thwarted by town planning problems.

What is vital, as with all branding, is that the brand is not artificially created, but is based on research and reality. When undertaking place branding for Lee Wharf Newcastle, we conducted multiple site visits, interviews with Newcastle residents [the true owners of a place brand] and lots of ‘digging’ in the historical section of Newcastle library. Place branding is also subject to the co-authoring processes of its inhabitants, who over time, assist in the shape and fashion of the place brand.

enRoute also refers to the importance of change in regards to place brands and even national identities; “radical thinking about our national futures is precisely the mindset required”. Which only supports Florida’s argument that “quality of place” is closely linked with our view of ourselves, hence we now define ourselves by where we live, not what we do.

Satellite image of Sydney copyright NASA 1996

Not the end of print.

In 1995 American designer David Carson famously declared the end of print. Not so, it seems somewhat resilient as a media form. According to TNS Media Intelligence, US advertising spending in major media in the first quarter of 2005 increased 4.4 percent to $33.5 billion from $32.1 billion in the same period last year with the major focus still on print. Local magazines led all media categories in percentage growth, rising 26.2 percent to $103.7 million from $82.2 million. By total dollar amount, local newspapers led the categories, at $5.869 billion, followed by broadcast television, at $5.845 billion.

Is this signalling a change back to more personal hands-on media? Certainly the trends in Australia reflect more of a prediliction for media planners to focus on electronic media.

According to the Magazine Publishers of Australia, media spend estimates here for 2005 vary from a low of 4.2% to highs of over 11%.

Media agency Zenith predicts the Australian ad market will grow by 5.3% in 2005 with the internet leading the way with an estimated 30% increase in ad spend to $390 million (compare this with the US magazine increase of 29%).

Zenith predicts television and radio ad spend will grow by 5% followed by magazines (4.4%), newspapers (4%) and outdoor (3.7%).

Consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCooper predicts in a range from 4.1% to more than 10%, while Citigroup analysts predicted only a 4.2% increase in ad spending in 2005.

Perhaps Australia is a less literate nation than we pretend to be, or maybe it's because advertising agencies see the lure of more $$ in electronic media than print, and steer their clients appropriately.

So we are a little ahead of the US in terms of spend but perhaps that's because economic conditions here have been more favourable. But yet it does suggest a trend that local brands need to be aware of, the swing away from electronic media to more locally focussed media. People want to know what's happening around them and want products and services advertised which are relevant to their daily lives.

Image from David Carson's Fotografiks, courtesy Ginkopress

You might have thought this was branding.

Here's what happens when a law firm decides that it has a brand.

We were curious when we picked up Friday May 27 Australian Financial Review, "Gadens' brand: you have to laugh", to read that Australian law firm Gadens has gone out on a limb and said that unlike most law firms, "We actually are different and we prove that by behaving differently".

According to Managing Partner, Michael Bradley, at the firm's Sydney office, Gadens is known for its "irreverant and relaxed" culture. Well we went looking for it. And here's why.

Last year we were approached by a large second tier law firm looking to rebrand and reposition. We were excited at such an opportunity and did some extensive benchmarking on Australian law firm brands. An opportunity was ripe for the picking. We did the right thing, flew out to the meet them at our own expense, wrote a lengthy proposal, providing them with plenty of evidence that law firms (let alone most profeessional services firm) don't know how to differentiate themselves, let alone how to brand, and then waited. And waited.

Sure the Managing Partner and his marketing manager thought it was a great idea but he'd have to get it through all the partners in the firm, and he really wasn't prepared for anything even closely resembling evolution. We pitied the marketing manager.

So let's hand it to Gadens. Internally their brand activities concentrate on developing a unique culture, which will inherently serve to enhance and develop distinct brand attributes such as irreverence and ease and which will differentiate it from most of its competitors. And they are making attempts at reflecting this in their recruitment advertising. But is this just the activity of their Sydney office, because we see no evidence of this brand position in what is a crucial part of brand articulation - their website - nor in their visual articulation - their look and feel.

Here's a sample from 'About Us' on their company website:

With more than 85 partners and 720 staff throughout Australia, Gadens Lawyers has the infrastructure and resources to partner with clients at local, state and national levels. Importantly, as the only Australian member of the International Lawyers Network - one of the world ’s largest associations of independent legal firms - we have access to 80 high-quality, full-service law firms with over 4,200 lawyers world-wide. The Network provides clients with easily accessible legal services in 61 countries on six continents.

So where does it say they are "irreverant and relaxed"? We couldn't find any jokes on the site and even Michael Bradley's own bio is more reverant than irreverent.

So, we think this is what happens when a firm only does part of the job of branding [or is there more on the way?]. Perhaps this was a publicity exercise and perhaps they are not what they seem, but branding is much more than an exercise. It is completely holistic and it should, as Gadens does in part understand, permeate the entire organisation and be part of all its communication. It's an idea we're still waiting for companies like Gadens to embrace. So for now we will just have to wait and see.

Guess who has no idea?

Advertising agencies have been put on notice, again. Be ideas companies or disappear.

That’s the latest warning delivered at last week’s annual American Association of Advertising Agencies management conference.

According to the New York Times, what clients want most from their agencies is "the power of the big idea”.

“Yet that is probably a phrase that makes every agency cringe because there's no clear path to get to it”, said president and chief executive of Volvo Cars North America division of the Ford Motor Company, Anne Bélec.

Generating bigger, better ideas was also on the mind of another speaker at the conference, MDC Partners Toronto’s chairman and chief executive, Miles Nadalat, a devourer of creatively focussed advertising agencies across the States.

"The challenge for our industry is to make advertising a business of ideas instead of a business of ads and their distribution" said Nadal.

"What clients want most are ideas, innovation, creativity," he added.

While all too often agency leaders have a "focus on money rather than on results for clients", the Times reported.

"The most successful people in this industry are not motivated to come to work every day to make the most profits, but rather to come up with the best ideas.”

Now how many people in Australian agencies would dare even say that they’re ideas companies or that they are in the business of ideas? And how many clients, like Volvo, would demand it? Or even pay for it?

Australian ad agencies reflect in part the paucity of demand for inspirational ideas and concepts from clients, combined with their own slavish corporate attendance to the bottom line. Tell us any different.

No Idea Astro-Glo T-shirt image (c) www.contagious.com

Why we're scared of brand "narrativism".

According to Iconoculture's latest Iconowatch (www.iconoculture.com) the new word for brand narratives or brand stories is "narrativism". While we're very happy that the idea of a brand narrative is starting to seep into general discussions of brand and more importantly, into people's understanding of how complex brand structures and stories evolve, we're more worried about the use of words that don't exist or are innaccurate.

"Narrativism" is not in any dictionary we could find. The closest, according to our Shorter Oxford, is NARRATIVITY viz. "the quality or condition of being or presenting a narrative; (the action of story-telling)". As a verb it could be NARRATIVIZE "to present or interpret in the form of a narrative"

In a wider context, if the people at Iconoculture mean "narrativism" to mean "to tell our tales, cobbling together bits of promise from a scattershot of brands and products to create our own complex consumer tale" they may also be referring to the application of French semiotics term often used in the analysis of subculture BRICOLAGE, "the construction or creation of whatever is immediately available for use".

Understanding brands and branding can only be made easy for people if, as George Orwell always maintained, we use words that speak clearly and accurately project meaning.

Go forth and multiply.

International clothing retailer Gap has finally officially announced “Forth & Towne” is the name of the company’s new women’s apparel retail concept. We got wind of this a couple of weeks ago when I was in New York, talking to various fashion industry insiders. It comes as no surprise that Gap, along with many other retailers, are looking to target an older and more wealthy demographic, the Boomer.

According to Forth & Towne President Gary Muto, the name was chosen because “we wanted it to evoke a sense of place - to signify a special and unique shopping destination.”

'Forth' references our fourth brand, and 'Towne' conveys a sense of community that we want to create for our customers when they shop with us,” added Muto.

Unsurprisingly the intention to develop the new brand was announced last year. It’s intended to target women over the age of 35, a rapidly growing segment of the population. Apparently this group’s spending power accounts for about 39 percent of all US (we assume) women’s total apparel expenditures.

However, we also understand it’s really Gap Inc’s attempt at targeting women closer to 55, the mind-numbing Boomer market.

We’re not sure of the validity of being so self-referential as to name your new brand after the fact that it’s your Fourth (alongside, Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy) and we’re not so sure of the idea that 'Towne' will create that old special feeling of an old city style neighbourhood department store, especially since Gap-like stores helped push to closure these very same neighbourhood department stores by locating to edge of town malls.

Still, they are trialling the concept in four locations in Chicago and New York. And that’s for starters.

Gap Inc also announced that they trying to refocus the old Gap brand into something more “fresh and relevant”. They’re even looking at franchise models as they continue their international expansion (think China). Our recent experience is that it’s hard to even find a good t-shirt in the store. James Perse having long ago taken that mantle from the Gap stores by doing it so much better.

Granola name finally packs a punch.

We hear the Sanitarium Food Company here has started coming down hard on the users of the name "Granola", forcing many Australian companies who use it to remove the name and the offending products from supermarket and deli shelves. But as a name it has something of a spotted history and it maybe that Sanitarium may find itself on crumbly ground.

According to foodreference.com, the origins of "granola" date back to 1863 and the work of Dr. James C. Jackson of New York. Jackson developed what he called "Granula", a Graham flour formed into sheets, baked until dry, broken up, baked again and broken up into even smaller pieces. In 1855 at the Battle Creek Michigan headquarters of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, their Sanitarium director Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (later to found Kellogg's) was experimenting with foods and one of his developments was a breakfast food of whole grains, baked and ground up, which he named "Granula". He was later sued by Dr. Jackson for copying the name, so he renamed his concoction "Granola"!

Kellogg lost interest in cereals for a while, and turned his attention to nuts, and "Granola" as he named it never became a commercial success. But the Granola name was revived by the modern health food movement and it became a health food in the 1960s.

So what is it with generic names? Companies may have to check out licensing arrangements for common names. We think it's a little like wine and cheese naming. And when do names become so generic that they are no longer the property of their inventors - take band-aid and hoover, for instance. We think the difference is in the active appropriation and exploitation of the name.

Sanitarium claim they trademarked the name in 1921, so why does it take them over 80 years to act on it? Is this the forerunner to a new marketing campaign for Sanitarium Granola? We haven't heard of similar activity in the USA, but we'll let you know.

Now we're waiting for the Bircher company to claim the "Muesli" name. "Muesli" was developed in the late 19th century by Dr. Bircher-Benner, a Swiss doctor and nutritionist. And we always thought it was just a type of muesli.

Minority vision.

Australia's Eyecorp are trying to build new opportunities to spread advertising. Their latest foray is in shopping mall broadband streaming advertising. According to AAP, Eyecorp is set to launch Prestige Plus, a network of more than 75 individual digital display units in 17 shopping centres in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Similarly, Amsterdam's Schipol Airport has just launched the Event Screen Lounge. According to Schipol Media, the Event Screen consists of two different screens which can interact with each other, with the largest screen being 20 m2.

Along with Frankfurt Airport, Schipol is probably one of the world's most media saavy airport organisations. We're still waiting for the others to catch on!

We're evangelists here at DIFFUSION for the wired/unwired world of streaming advertising, after all we've been working in this field for sometime. See what we think about what we call, 'Immersive Marketing' at www.diffusion.com.au Press Articles.

Why airports are more than just transit hubs.

The US Federal Aviation Authority (www.faa.gov/news) this week announced that it expected more than a billion people to be travelling through US airports within 10 years. What it didn't say was that people were likely to be waiting for longer periods, as airport owners and authorities struggle to provide the necessary infrastructure that will be required to meet the anticipated demands.
We think that airports need to start considering that they are on the brink of a radical change in their status as transit hubs; needing to provide more services as consumers become 'transumers'. Service infrastructure will need to replace the current shopping mall mentality as people begin to demand a more compelling airport experience, or at least service experiences similar to those they can find at home. Those hubs that are unable or unwilling to meet this need, will find usage flagging.

Not so $mart: Coles Myer's name game.

Not much is really new at Coles Myer. This Smart Buy brand has already been operating in south-western USA food stores for some time.

When Australia's largest retailer and biggest company, Coles Myer, announces to the sharemarket (www.colesmyer.com.au) that it intends renaming and relaunching its homebrands for its Coles supermarkets, you would expect that this would be handled with some level of sophistication and perhaps even evidence of consumer research. Modelling itself on the success of Britain's Tesco and Sainsbury's own homebrands, you'd also think there would have been some real thinking and research in the naming of the new lines. Even more importantly, Coles expects that the renamed homebrands lines will generate 30% of all sales by 2007. Worth billions.

So here are the new names - a budget label 'Coles $mart buy', a mid-priced line 'You'll love Coles' and a premium brand, 'George J Coles', named after the company's founder. Now we love 'George J Coles', but the rest?? Is 'Farmland' a better or worse name? A three tiered home brand line is a sensible policy, but it's also got to be seen as something serious, something that is going to feel like an attractive proposition to customers. Not merely a slogan.

Worse still is John Fletcher's idea for a name for a new liquor category killer to take on Woolworth's hugely successful Dan Murphy brand superstore. '1st Choice'. What does that mean? Like Megamart, the electric superstore, it means nothing and consequently has no way of building an identity, let alone, a brand.

Let's hope the result for Coles Myer won't be the same as when they dumped all the equity associated with the Grace Bros name in NSW and replaced it with the name Myer; a move that has still not managed to arrest falling sales and a flagging brand.

The question is, on what basis does Coles Myer makes these kinds of decisions?

Dissenting voices.

This just in. And we think it's telling us how seriously corporate America is taking blogging as an anti-corporate voice.


"CooperKatz & Company, New York, opened a practice called Micro Persuasion intended to help corporate clients monitor and respond to issues that circulate on blogs and other online venues. Steve Rubel, vice president for client services, was named to lead the practice."

New York Times "In Advertising Webdenda"
Wednesday, 16 February 2005

I was named after a suit.

Bringing new meaning to the term "designer babies", parents are naming their children after multinational companies and expensive brands such as Lexus, Pepsi, Nike and Armani. The trend, described by University of Melbourne sociologist Dr Jui-shan Chang as a bizarre symptom of a postmodern consumer culture, appears to have emerged in the 1990s in Victoria. While Prada, Gucci and Fendi are yet to be snapped up by parents, designer clothing labels such as Armani, Chanel, Versace and Diesel were popular choices in the 1990s, the state's birth registry shows. A luxury car name proved inspirational to parents, with three boys and a girl born since 2000 named Lexus. "This is self-identity defined by consumerism and parents want their children to have top brand names," Dr Chang said. "People's self-worth is so tied to consumerism now," she said. "Self-identity has become constructed from consumerism and that is different to anything we have seen before."
The Sun-Herald
Sunday February 13, 2005

Having just been through the process of naming my new baby boy, I was intrigued, humoured and somewhat disconcerted by the above Sun-Herald article. I had heard about naming your child after another family member, close friend, a hero or even a memorable destination, but a consumer brand?

Dr Chang’s analysis that this emerging trend is due to our close identification with the brands we consume…we are the brands we use...is worth consideration. For a brand owner, this trend could be considered something of a coup – brands have become so closely entwined with who we are, or who we aspire to be, we ‘label’ our children for life. However, as a brand advisor and parent, it is a trend that raises some questions.

Surely, even consumer brands with significant ‘heritage’ and suitable ‘attributes’ could not have the depth, permanence or uniqueness of a human life? Advertising and marketing allusions aside, the whole notion of consumerism is about expendability, utilization, desirability. Are we starting to view our children as consumables, made to order ‘accessories’ that round out our image of us?

Or perhaps we are being influenced by the personification of brands. With little or no differentiation between products and service experience, brand owners are developing a ‘cult of personality’ around brands. The old ‘if I were a person what sort of person would I be?’ approach to developing brand attributes has been taken to a new level. Though one must note that in the case of brands such as Armani, they started with, and are still strongly influenced by, an actual person.

Alternatively, naming a child after an unattainable item [that Gucci handbag you can’t possibly afford] may somehow, in the mind of the parent, endow the child with a hopefulness of future betterment, in the same way that people in some cultures name their children after saints or royalty. Certainly, the process of selecting and bestowing names on our offspring is culturally referenced. In Tanzania, for instance, where Catholicism is institutionalised, villagers call their children names such as ‘God Happy’, as a sign of devotion and commitment to a faith that may bring their child education and therefore, a better life.

Or, are there just too many Emily’s in the world [ranked in the US TOP 10 names since 1991] and people are running out of names? Being inventive about a child’s name is considered paramount to some who adhere to the notion of individualism and an anathema to others, who want their child to ‘fit in’. Funnily, despite the plethora of baby books assailing pregnant parents from the shelf of every bookstore, no one it seems has yet felt the need to tell new parents how to select a suitable name for their child; naming seems to be one of those things that are assumed knowledge.

On the hunt for a name for our new baby-to-be, my partner and I took up the offer of my business colleague to run a ‘naming workshop’ much along the methodological lines we follow for our clients. It was after all, we reasoned, a logical and useful way to create a list of names that had meaning and resonance. Naming routes and themes were selected and researched, some with better results than others. While we skipped the linguistic checking step, it is highly recommended to couples who have differing cultural backgrounds…a friend married to a Spaniard loved the name ‘Casper’ only to find out from her partner that it meant ‘dandruff’ in Spanish!

However a name is chosen, what is important is that it is done with as much care, consideration and love as befits a new human being. In the intriguing and black, Amelie Nothomb novel, ‘The Book of Proper Names’, the young Lucette searches for a name for her unborn child in her grandfather’s ancient encyclopaedia…then kills her husband when he suggests mediocre alternatives. “As for me, I want my baby to have infinity within its reach. I want my child not to feel limited by anything at all, I want my baby’s first name to suggest an uncommon destiny”. Its a naming philosophy that I love, though unlike Lucette, I'm thankful I didn’t need to kill my partner, to achieve it.

This is not My Card.

In November last year American Express launched its new global card brand campaign, introducing the tagline "My life. My card." featuring extraordinary individuals such as actor Robert DeNiro, professional golfer Tiger Woods, comedian and television show host Ellen DeGeneres and professional surfer Laird Hamilton.

According to the American Express press release, “while the creative direction varies from ad to ad, a common theme knits them together: achievers of all types choose American Express.”

The US campaign uses director Martin Scorsese and photographer Annie Leibovitz to lend their vision to the campaign.

“The concept of each is original to the person it represents, and was refined in collaboration with the featured individual. The campaign unfolds in an intimate narrative format, with each storyline reflecting the places, causes, achievements and avocations that are meaningful to each person. Design touches like handwriting, signatures and snapshots lend a personal feeling to the campaign, in addition to each individual’s customization of the “My life. My card.” tagline for the closing frame of their ad, “ says the release.

“The ‘My life. My card.’ campaign portrays an emotional and practical connection that is based on a commitment American Express makes to every Cardmember,” said American Express Chief Marketing Officer John Hayes. “By revealing snapshots of the lives of these incredible individuals, we demonstrate our belief that our Cardmembers are exceptional people no matter where they live or what they do.”

In Australia a similar campaign has been running as part of the company’s sponsorship of the 2005 Australian Open Tennis Championships featuring the Williams sisters and others.

However, there are some clear differences in the way the Australian campaign has been implemented.

While the theme of extraordinary individuals has been retained, the central brand message has been corrupted. No longer is this campaign about equating American Express card holders with people like DeNiro and DeGeneres, it’s only about equating their physical assets and character traits with the card...not the person as a whole. In the Australian campaign words like "My vocals" or "My strings" are used. These are not, as American Express says,"revealing snapshots of the lives". And at the same time there is a certain humour, borrowed from the DeGeneres’ advertisement that seems trite and superficial.

While the campaign is stylisticly closer to the DeGeneres ads (the use of the handwriting), it still lacks the lucidity of the American campaign and the necessary connection to the core brand message that has been developed and so well communicated in the US TVCs.

What the domestic campaign points out is that global branding needs to be consistent. Very few Australians would be unaware of the actor DeNiro and the talk show host DeGeneres, yet the work that has been done to develop this campaign has been ground down and dissipated by a less than effective use of an international brand strategy.

Photo Copyright American Express November 2004

It's only a mug. The Krispy Kreme experience.

I've recently returned from New York and while there ducked into Krispy Kreme and espied one of their great vintage diner mugs, which sell for around $5.95 in their US stores and franchises.

The great thing about diner mugs is that reek of American coffee and donut culture, something Krispy Kreme trades on heavily and is part of their brand essence. The "Coffee and Donuts since 1937" surely says it all. As does this statement from Krispy Kreme themselves:

"There's nothing quite like drinking coffee or tea from diner mugs. They're solid, simple, functional, and unpretentious."

This surely is a brand statement about Krispy Kreme, if I ever heard one, and also attractive at the same time.

Now Krispy Kreme is a franchise business and the business of selling coffee and donuts hasn't been going well lately. From highs of $40 last year to under $9.00 on the US sharemarket, falling sales as well as investigations into misreporting from the buy back of underperforming franchises, it's not been a great start to 2005 for Krispy Kreme.

When I arrived back in Sydney, I remembered the diner mug (I have few of those vintage Victory mugs, kind of a Holy Grail for American diner mug collectors) and visited my local store to buy one. So what do I find? A plain ordinary garden variety $0.99 type mug emblazoned with the bow tie logo, sitting behind plexiglass and selling for A$8.95.

Why should I be concerned about this if I as Krispy Kreme's management am worried about the performance of the Australian franchise?

Yes, it's been hugely successful in this country, but is the allure wearing off? What's in a coffee cup?

Firstly, this business is about donuts and coffee. Australians may not know much about American diner mugs but they would recognise one. They want an American experience, they like the retro aspects of this brand and they are happy to buy into it. Secondly, the functionalism and robust design of the mug itself says as much about the Krispy Kreme brand and the bow-tie logo and the in-house production line. It's absence and replacement with an eratsz version, in branding terms, might be an oversight but it also might be a critical branding issue.

Global brands can have local nuances, but when something speaks so specifically of a brand's values and essence that it is replaced by something so much less so, those values and essence and the brand building associated with it are diminished. The experience is less.

When I looked for a comment card, I was interested to find that it asked me to rank the Krispy Kreme experience. So I am sending mine in. You'll know what I'll be talking about.