Who would have thought when the confectionary giant Mars launched a new campaign in 1995 for computer animated “spokescandies,” it would become the center of a Super Bowl commercial 17 years later—and all the hype to go with it.  These color-animated candies recruited some of the biggest names in Hollywood as celebrity voices.  Including Jon Lovitz, John Goodman and the late Phil Hartman.

What is it about these colorful little characters that makes us want to purchase everything from coffee mugs and apparel to collectibles and racing gear.  The answer is easy—the brand.

Mars brings the M&Ms brand “personality” to life through animated characters who speak to all ages and create funny, clever even a little racy moments that we can all connect with. All that and what we are really taking about is just candy-coated chocolate!

At HEASLEY&PARTNERS, we believe that great brands are built on three essential brand elements.  The first is a brand must be genuine, so you can’t fake it.  The second is meaningful, it must mean something to the people it serves.  And, the third is a brand must be different—different from anything else out there.  The M&M’s brand, and its lovable little characters, has all characteristics and they own this product segment.

Hershey has candy coated chocolates similar to M&Ms, but few would know it. And who cares? They’re the “kiss” people. In Hershey, Pennsylvania (also known as Chocolate Town, USA) the street lights are kisses. Hershey is genuinely about kisses, just as Mars is about M&Ms. Of course this should lead you to ask, “What am I about? What’s my product about? My company?” Do you think Mars would be spending the big bucks on Ms. Brown unless they knew their brand? Of course not. How much money are you wasting promoting your business without knowing what you stand for? Even one dollar is too much.

So, what will Ms. Brown have to offer?  Will she show us her vulnerable side? Will she connect with fans?  How will she be different? I think she wears glasses? From her close friends and colleagues, “Ms. Brown is very intelligent and has a sharp wit.”  She has been behind the scenes as “chief chocolate officer” for decades, and has finally decided to come out of her shell (no pun intended).

All we know is…if she is anything like her colorful counterparts, I’m sure she will not disappoint us.  We will have to wait until February fifth to find out.   Until then…

What is branding?  Heart & Mind® Branding.

You may say you don’t need to actually know any of this stuff, after all you will hire people who do. But you can bet that having a solid technology foundation and a willingness to learn new things will help you in ways you have yet to imagine. Sure you may not actually do the work, but you can’t recommend the strategy if you don’t understand the technology and what it can do for you. You can’t be a good purchaser of services if you don’t know the language. And you can’t pull off marketing miracles if your hands are bound by your fear of technology.

Let’s start with the absolute basics.  One is old school, Microsoft Word, and one is new school, WordPress:

Microsoft Word

Believe it or not, much of your communication still happens through word processing documents. Reports & proposals – these all are part of your brand promise. If they look amateurish, that reflects on your brand.  So how do you make sure your materials don’t look like you turned your computer on and started typing? How do you make sure that professional brand look we created for you lives on beyond the brand presentation?

• Tip: Understand and learn how to use style sheets. Word actually is quite powerful when it comes to type management and page layout. I wouldn’t recommend it for laying out a brochure, but to make your reports and proposals speak volumes about your work, learn how to manage type and layout through style sheets.
• Tip: Understand how to use Word’s line leading controls and paragraph functions. This is the secret to making pages look professional. It’s more than just adding line breaks between paragraphs. You want to control the space between your lines and between your paragraphs. If you don’t understand type, and leading, you’ll have a hard time pulling off a professional brand look.
• Tip: Learn the right way to use tabs. You can drag and drop them right in the page ruler. It’s that easy. Too many people just use the auto tabbing and align their text in a space that looks “close enough.” Not good. It’s so easy to set tabs where you want them, why not do it?
• Tip: Become an expert at using tables. Word’s table function is powerful enough to handle many of the most complicated charts and even create forms.  Just mess around with it, you’ll pick it up if you let yourself make mistakes to learn.

We’ll stop there with Microsoft Word. That’s enough for you to start bringing your skill levels where you’ll need them to be effective in the digital world of communications.  Practice and see what the tools do. Use the online help to guide you when in doubt.

Let’s move on to your website.

WordPress

WordPress is another way to publish your own content. We strongly urge business owners to create their websites using the WordPress development engine because it is so powerful, scalable and easy to keep fresh. Plus you can even post blogs, edit pages, change settings, approve and reply to posts, etc. right from your iPhone, iPad or similar devices.  You’ll want a company like ours to help you with the initial website development, but once you have the site, what do you need to know?

• Tip: Understand and be familiar with image file formats. If you’re expecting to do anything in marketing, you’ll need to know the difference between a .jpg, a .bmp and an .eps file. You’ll need to be able to convert image files and compress them for online use. Learn how to upload images, crop and re-size them. Know what aspect ratio is and how to maintain it.  These are critical to working in the communications arena.
• Tip: Know where to go online for images, music and videos that you will use on your website. Begin a digital photo and video library of your own company media and tag them for easy retrieval. Keep them on your own local computers or in “the cloud” on sites like Flickr, YouTube or Vimeo.
• Tip: Master the administrator interface on your WordPress website. Our developers will set up your site so that it can be dynamic allowing you to add content continually. Learn how to add a page, how to edit a page, how to add images, embed videos, manage your navigation menus and how to categorize and tag your pages and posts for easy search.

The tips in this post are by no means all inclusive and we are not trying to turn you into a power-user in any of these areas. These are simply the basic skills we have found most lacking and most needed for keeping a brand alive. We can create the brand, but you and your team must have the basic skills needed to keep it alive and growing with quality and consistency. Watch for more posts on this subject. There’s much more to learn, but this should get you started.

“In a historic shift for the beverage industry, Pepsi, long the No. 2 carbonated soft drink in the country, has fallen to third place in the category behind both Coke and Diet Coke. Beverage Digest reported today that Pepsi lost 0.4 share in 2010, falling to a 9.5% share of the category. Diet Coke controls a 9.9% share of the market, while brand Coke holds a 17% share. The move has been long been in the making — Pepsi barely nudged by Diet Coke in 2009 — but the brand wasn’t able to turn the tide. John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest, said Pepsi had held the No. 2 slot for decades.” (from AdAge – 3-18-11)

There will be lots of talk about this one. Why did this happen? Did Pepsi lose focus? Did they put too much money and effort into new media?  Finding the reasons are important, of course, because Pepsi will have to regroup and minimize future errors. But you know what, this brand-shattering announcement really is a wake up call to all those brands at the top of their games. It proves that anything is possible and just because you have a lead, big or small, doesn’t mean that you can’t be dethroned.

Right now we are working with several companies who are number one in their category. We have been talking about this very thing. You work really hard to get on top, you do all the right things. But then what? Getting there and staying there are two completely different things.  I know. I worked for McCann-Erickson in the mid 80′s during the New Coke era. I was a lonely media buyer/account executive handling the Coke brands in Phoenix, Arizona. That’s where I learned the effort and energy it takes to stay number one. Staying on top is much harder than getting there.

There have been many brands that knew how to get to number one but didn’t know how to stay there. I have worked for a number of them. The strategies are quite different. Picture yourself as the number one brand, and you’re standing on the top of a hill. You’re high enough to have a better view and a lot of advantages, but you’re not high enough to be out of firing range. Even more, you have very little protection and shots can come at you from all directions and all sources. In my experience that’s what being number one has felt like.

Attitudinally, there’s a big internal shift too. Everyone loves the underdog and it’s energizing to be in that position. It’s easier to rally a team to WIN than it is to rally it to keep going. The reason is that once they’ve won, it’s natural for the team to want to bask in their glory. Even worse, it’s so challenging for leadership to inspire people who have won to work even harder. I learned this lesson at one company I worked for years ago. We had 60% market share of the industry. We were the darlings. Then we went public–the holy grail of the entrepreneurial company. After that, it was a steady downhill slide brought on mostly by people who had accomplished much, but who were not versed in staying there.  I won’t mention the company’s name but there are countless companies whose names you could insert into this story.

It’s actually fun for me to see Coke get back on top in such a big way. Even though I don’t drink soda, there’s a place in my heart for my early mentors. It doesn’t hurt that I met my husband at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Tempe!  So congratulations, Coca-Cola. And don’t get cocky!

What is branding? Heart &  Mind® Branding.

The other day I got an email from Chad telling me that he was trying to figure out how to actually sell a really great organic dog food that he formulated. He’s passionate about this product so he’s not giving up.  Here’s what I shared with him:

You Need to Demonstrate Value – You can’t just plop a product on the home page and say, “Buy.” A glorified shopping cart is not going to work as a website.  As a shopper, do you go right to the cashier and say, “I’ll take it”? Of course not. You browse, you read the back label and ingredients, you compare. The same thing happens online, so be sure you clearly communicate value to the customer before asking for the sale.

You Need Professional Design and Content – A site that is not professional breeds fear and doubt in the minds of the people you wish to serve. Is the product safe? Will I lose my money? What if I want to return the product? Are these people legitimate? Will my payment information be secure? You may have the best product under the sun, but if your website looks shady, you will scare people away.

“The truth about the Internet. It is highly competitive and there are no short cuts.The days of whipping up a website and making money are over and have been over for about a decade or more.”

You Need to Connect with the Customer – Once you have the basics firmly in place–you know what you deliver to the customer and you have made your site look and feel professional–you can really start connecting with the people you wish to serve.  This is critical because it will set you apart from all the other competitors who say they are the best, tout their features and benefits, etc.  Remember we buy with our hearts and justify with our minds, so connect heart to heart. Why do people buy expensive pet food, for example? Because they love their pets, their pets are their kids and they want them to never get old or get sick. It’s all about LOVE! What is the magic word for your product?

This photo from the Hawaiian Humane Society and a quick headline that I wrote delivers a great example of the “connection” I’m talking about.  This is what is missing from most websites.

Give Your Dog all Your Love,

And Keep him Healthy Too.

You Need to Share your “Why” – You better have a story, a good one, for why you are doing what you are doing. Today, that’s a deciding factor in why people choose one product over another.  “Because you want to make money,” isn’t good enough. That’s the reward, not the reason why.  Your “Why” must inspire. It must connect. It must build relationships.

You Need to Provide an Obvious Call to Action – Design it right from the start and know specifically what your call to action will be. Do you want the visitor to buy? Get more information? Sign up for a membership? Get a free sample?  Make it simple, obvious and then test, test, test. Try several different offers and see which one does best. Then keep testing with the goal of continual improvement.

You Need to Promote Until You Die – Marketing is a way of life, not an event, so get used to promoting your products all the time everywhere you go and create a special introductory offer.  If you believe in what you are doing and have a good solid “why” it will be natural. If you don’t you’ll be a 24/7 sales person with no friends. See, that’s another reason why what you do has to be in your heart!

You Need to Sample, Sample Sample – A very smart person named Paco Underhill told me many years ago and I have advised my clients to do this now for 15 years:  If you are serious about selling anything, sample it. Forever.  The truth is, you can’t sell what you don’t give away first.  A friend of mine built her entire multi-million dollar brownie business by getting the brownies into people mouths for free. Fifteen years later, she still samples and brings brownies everywhere she goes. If your product is as good as you say it is, people will tell other people and you’ll have a real  business that grows. If it isn’t all that good, better to know so you can improve the product.

You Need to Make Winning Over Evangelists Job 1 – When you sample and your brand experience wins over customers, it’s your job to turn them into evangelists. How? By communicating, talking with them, asking for their advice, taking it and giving them an emotional stake in your company. Whole Foods is good at this. So is Patagonia Clothing Company. It’s harder for big companies. This is the real power of small start-ups. Use it!

Of course there are many other things that can help you sell stuff online, but these are biggies. They are non-negotiables, the cost of entry and most important of all, they are proven.

What is branding? Heart &  Mind® Branding.

- First portable tape recorder
- First pocket transistor radio
- Sony Trinitron TV
- Sony Walkman
- BetaMax video camcorder
- The Compact Disc player�

Even though these innovations seem downright primitive now, they weren’t. They were as revolutionary as, say, the iPhone and the iPad. Maybe more revolutionary. Sony was also one of the brands that transformed the image of Japan from a country that manufactured low-cost trinkets, to a high-tech powerhouse that became synonymous with innovation and quality. Sony was a phenomenon that knew its consumers. They would deliver to us products we ourselves didn’t even know we wanted so badly. Sony was cool, and if you had a Sony TV or Walkman, you were cool too.

So what happened? Sony isn’t cool anymore. Somehow the world’s coolest brand, greatest innovator and even greater marketer lost its edge. Worst of all, what happened to this legendary company can happen to your company too. It may be happening as we speak. Are you prepared? Can you stop it?

It’s true. Sony was a powerhouse of innovation and marketing. Then, in the late 80’s the company shifted its focus from electronics to entertainment. It may have sounded like a good strategy as Sony acquired CBS Records and Columbia Pictures. They were riding high, and these were high-profile, power-hitter acquisitions that provided not only valuable media outlets but also a wealth of intellectual property and content. Dollar signs, or should I say Yens, had to be dancing in the eyes of Sony’s top brass. But at what long-term cost?

Over the years, Sony’s loss of brand focus proved devastating as it battled numerous technology platform wars and lost most of them. Betamax lost to VCR. Memory stick lost to SD. Altrac lost to MP3. And plasma lost to LCD. Do you remember (pre-iPod) the ads for BestBuy, Ultimate Electronics and other sellers of all things technology? They featured Sony’s digital WalkMan and it was way ahead of Apple when it came to small portable digital music devices. The product had the brand name and the promise of Walkman, but couldn’t pull off the experience thanks to faulty software, clunky hardware and a pitiful online music experience. How could this have happened to a company that was once a high-tech role model and the envy of nearly everyone?

According to their CEO, interviewed in a recent issue of Wired, and who has been charged with turning the company around, one of the reasons amounts to what I would term loss of culture. The company went from driven, innovative and nimble to bloated over confident and slow. People adopted a “lifer” mentality and had gotten too comfortable over the years. That caused Sony to fall behind ever growing legions of increasingly aggressive competition.

If it can happen to Sony, it can happen anywhere. Sony couldn’t go on like this. It began losing money, and when you play in their league, it was big money. The turnaround has begun and like most companies that have to undergo a culture shift to bring their brand back, it took a major crisis and a major upheaval. Just like a person who is in cardiac arrest, Sony had to roll out the crash cart and shock its culture back to life. Sony recently underwent layoffs (unheard of in the Sony of old), massive reorganization and the closure of non-performing divisions and facilities. Bold moves all taken by an American/English hybrid CEO. Bravery is an understatement.

The good news is that Sony seems to be moving in the right direction. They won the HD video battle through an all-out Blu-Ray assault. Now they are betting on 3-D and hoping that the new Bravia TV line will be their next big win. Sony and only Sony is poised to deliver entertainment from conception to living room. That may be a formula for success, but it will take focus. Does Sony have it?

I’m not convinced. Their message to the world is “Make. Believe.” They say the line “reflects Sony’s ability to turn ideas into reality and, more importantly, to help consumers turn their own ideas into reality—as we believe that anything you can imagine, you can make real.” Sorry, all that marketing speak amounts to “making your dreams come true” and that’s just is not good enough. Where’s the inspiration? Where’s the cool? Where’s the heart? We’re getting marketing by committee and what we really want is a connection. Does Sony even know us? Do they care?

It’s going to take more than innovating and winning platform battles to come out on top. That will get Sony about ¼ of the way to success. Finding and marketing the heart of the their brand will take them the rest of the way. Sony will need to reconnect with the people they want to serve—how about not calling us consumers? That would be a step in the right direction. It might even change some internal thinking. It’s time Sony stops being product pushers and gets back to their former greatness as makers of objects of desire. I’m rooting for them, but Sony, miss the heart and you miss it all.

What is branding? Heart &  Mind® Branding.

You might say, “That’s not what we meant!”  But understand, blunders can happen. You develop a campaign for your brand (company or personal) and you put it out there through traditional media, online or both. You think you’ve got a great thing going and wham! The bad buzz gets unleashed like hornets from a nest you didn’t mean to disturb. And the hornets aren’t happy. What do you do? Panic? Swat them back, shout obscenities and tell them what you really think?  Crawl into a hole and cancel your Facebook account?

The Lesson…

So before you post on social media or put your message out there, think through how your words and actions can be twisted, then if you are okay with that, and have planned a good response, go with it. Most important, however, is avoid the mountains entirely. Why rile the swarm when you don’t want to? Does this advice doom us all to becoming P.C. bowls of vanilla ice cream? Yes, it does, but as long as you stay true to what makes you genuine, meaningful and different, if it’s vanilla ice cream we must be, it can have a healthy dose of chocolate sauce and a  whole lot of cherries on top.

What is branding? Heart &  Mind® Branding.

The reality is that word-of-mouth marketing happens whether your boss believes in it or not. In fact, people will talk about your brand–good or bad.  That’s the way it’s always been and the way it always will be. Why? Because we are human and with that comes all our human tendencies to want to communicate. So let’s agree that word-of-mouth marketing is happening regardless of whether we believe in it or not. Doesn’t it make sense then to add strategies to guide what people are saying into your marketing plan? Of course it does.

So what kinds of word-of-mouth tactics work? Here’s my list. Feel free to comment and add your own tried and true methods. Just remember, the tactics must be Genuine, Meaningful and Different. No gimmicks that are “off brand,” please, for the sake of earning chatter

Word-of-mouth tactics that work

Build your business on extraordinary service – I just experienced this today. I bought my husband a Sekonda Expose watch while in England a month ago. For some strange reason, it stopped working. I contacted Sekonda and they are sending a replacement from the UK (with their sincere apologies) at no cost to me.  That’s extraordinary service.

Align with a cause – I was at an event recently and the speaker was talking about the power of relationships in building business.  He asked, how many of us had seen a Geico TV commercial. All 400 of us raised our hands. He asked, how many of us have Geico insurance. About eight people raised their hands. Not good. Then he asked how many of us ever heard of Girl Scout Cookies. We all raised our hands. (You know where I’m going…) When he asked how many of us buy Girl Scout Cookies, nearly every hand in the room was up. Case closed.

Make people laugh – My only answer to this is…”Hello, ladies.  I’m the man your man could smell like.” Of course I’m talking about the Old Spice campaign that has created more word-of-mouth buzz than just about any other in recent years. And did you hear, sales of Old Spice have doubled since the spots hit YouTube.

Create unforgettable “moments” – If making people laugh isn’t part of your brand story, then make them talk about you through “moments.”  It’s easier than you think. If you first understand that “moments” are the language of the heart and that we buy with our emotions, then you’ll see the connection. Even if you have no budget for this, you can create a “moment” by doing one simple no-cost thing:  making everyone you meet know they are special in your eyes.  We all want that in life, and it happens so seldom.

Find the hubs – It’s not that everyone doesn’t do some talking about their likes and dislikes with a product or service, it’s just that some do more talking and are more influential than others.  Your job is to seek out the ones who not only talk more, but who have more connections.  You’re also looking for people who bind different groups–connectors you might call them.  These are influencers who can leap frog your brand exponentially overnight.  Who’s the grand dame of all hubs?  Oprah of course.  But if you can’t get on Oprah, look a little closer to home, every town has influencers with lots of connections and lots to say.

Of course whatever you do, understand that word-of-mouth can take some time to build. And like any marketing you do, you must sustain it.  Too often people quit before they get any momentum. Recognize that we are trying to move people to action. And oh, are we stubborn! We don’t like change and we are slow to act without a tantalizing call to action.  That leads to my final comment.  There are no silver bullets.  Word-of-mouth is the best form of marketing money can’t buy, but it is even more effective when integrated with solid PR, online, advertising–a fully branded campaign that includes all the tactics that make you look formidable, credible, and trustworthy.  So go for it buzz-builders! Do what it takes to get some quick results and measure, measure, measure! That should keep the naysayers in the C-suite quiet until at least the next board meeting…short memories!

What is branding? Heart &  Mind® Branding.

Enter the 60′s when few mod girls wanted their guys smelling like their uncool “establishment” dads. And the 70′s disco era brought on designer fragrances like Pierre Cardin with its phallic-shaped bottle conjuring up images of bare-chested, disco-dancing  John Travolta, not dear old dad.

Tough market. The 80′s and the 90′s weren’t any more friendly; Old Spice was what grandpa smelled like, not Rick Springfield or Kurt Cobain. Old Spice seemed dead in the water never to be resurrected again.  Until…2010 and one of the most brilliant brand revivals ever staged.  Maybe it is because most original Old Spice wearers are long gone, may they rest in peace. Or maybe it is the brilliance of branding–specifically writing and casting–that has put Old Spice back on the map. Whatever it it, a brand that seemed all but gone is back. 

As if the first ads touting the product weren’t breakthrough enough, enter Isaiah Mustafa, the man your man could smell like and his follow-up YouTube responses to viewer comments. Videos feature “the man” in his iconic towel answering real posts from Justine Bateman, Alyssa Milano, George Stephanopoulos, and others.  Well written, well executed, once you watch one, you’ll watch them all.  And share them too. What a fantastic use of social media and video.

Officially, we’ll call Old Spice a brand resurrected, made relevant, and desirable to a whole new market of people who have no clue that Old Spice smelled like their grandfathers. Branding magic at its best.

What is branding? Heart &  Mind® Branding.