BrandSimple | BrandDigital: The Blog

Super Tuesday is upon us. Pundits are calling it the first national primary. I’m calling it a battle for the brands. From my BrandSimple perspective, the winner hands down will be Barack Obama. He’s identified the clearest, simplest brand driver of anyone running. His easily understood idea is sort of akin to Pepsi’s “choice of a new generation.” And whether people agree with this choice of a new generation they’re in full agreement that everything he says and does is in alignment with his well-defined brand idea.

Second on my best branded list is John McCain. His brand driver is more akin to Coke’s classic positioning, “It’s the real thing.” As an American hero with a stellar military record and an equally stellar senatorial record, he projects himself, what he says and what he does, as the real thing, at least when it comes to presidential timber. He comes across as authentic.

This leaves Hillary Clinton stuck in the middle, sort of between Coke and Pepsi. While she has plenty of supporters and just as many claims, she hasn’t identified a simple, clear way to define her brand. This could bode problems. As all brand professionals know, it’s really hard to win from the middle. It’s hard to win when consumers can’t quite figure out what you stand for. It’s hard to win when you don’t have a simple, clear idea driving all of your branding activities, be they ads or speeches, promises or platforms. If Hillary Clinton wants to make it to the top of the best branded list, if she wants to make it to the top, she’s got to get out of the middle. It’s hard to win from the middle. Just ask Dr. Pepper.

I love NBC’s 30 Rock. It’s a great television show. Given that it airs when I’m either helping my kids with homework or getting them ready for bed, it was easy to download from iTunes and watch it on my schedule. Note I said “was easy.” It’s not all that easy anymore. As a matter of fact, NBC has me in pause mode. You see, earlier this fall NBC teamed up with the Fox network and a number of media companies like MSN, AOL and Comcast, to create Hulu, an online brand that aggregates content from a number of places. Hulu is in beta right now, but the idea is that viewers would have to go to Hulu to download their favorite NBC or Fox shows. This is neither intuitive nor smart when it comes to reinforcing brand loyalty. Having viewers jump through this Hulu hoop creates an unwelcome EXTRA stop between brand and user. If they must control distribution and don’t want to pay Apple anymore, they should do it on the NBC.com site like ABC.

ABC has made the wise branding choice to reinforce its relationship with viewers by directing them to ABC.com for downloads. I don’t have to think twice about how to watch ABC shows on my schedule. It’s easy, it’s smart and it’s intuitive. ABC shows - ABC.com. Search made simple. No jumping through hoops. I like that.

Building a brand is hard enough today what with so many brand choices and so many media choices. The idea is to make things easier for consumers, not more complicated. NBC is risking its well-respected brand name by having an intermediary brand host its shows. It’s created a step between me – an NBC advocate – and my interaction with its brand. This Hulu hoop doesn’t rock.

Our built-in microwave oven broke a couple of months ago. Not a big deal in the general scheme of things. But a big deal in a household with two young kids where microwave cooking is mission critical to keeping peace at meal time. We bought the brand of microwave we did (a well-respected premium brand) because we associated the name with all sorts of positive brand imagery. “No problem-o,” I thought, as I went online to search for a brand- authorized repair service. Finding one, I called to make an appointment. Much to my surprise, the outfit operated like most utility companies, telling me a service rep would be there on the date specified, but within a five-hour window. Feeling a bit less respectful toward the premium brand, I acquiesced after a bit of polite discussion regarding the policy. The rep came on the appointed day, said we needed parts which would take a week to order, at which time I’d have to set up another service appointment which would, again, be within a five hour window. To put it mildly, I reluctantly agree. The repair guy arrived a week or two later with the parts he told us were required and realizes that a misdiagnosis was made. We’d need different parts. Repeat last sequence of events, with one minor change. The repair rep missed the appointment. At no time during the five-hour window did anyone show up. No need to go on with the repair saga. It’s just context for the rest of the story, to whit: During this process I communicated with the Customer Experience Center of this well-respected premium brand and told them about the terrible experience I was having and that it had the potential to sever my relationship with the brand – for more than just five hours. It was not the experience I expected from the brand whose name was associated with all sorts of positive brand imagery. I was told that the brand had no control over its after-sale service providers. These firms were independent contractors and I’d have to deal with them myself. Needless to say, no more experiences with this brand. The relationship is over. Diagnosis: Bad oversight of the customer’s entire journey with the brand. Moral: Give up any part of the customer experience and you give up the brand.

The only recent news story that may have gotten more press coverage than the release of Apple’s iPhone is the release of Paris Hilton. I’m not here to weigh in on that particular item. Rather, I would like to toss a brand question into the ring regarding the iPhone. What happens when one brand bets its future on the performance of another? By choosing AT&T as its exclusive carrier for the next two years Apple may be doing just that. Apple selected AT&T in part because the company allowed it to change everything people hated about cell phones. The problem is, one of the biggest things people hate about cell phones is still in AT&T’s arena: Its network and its reputation for inconsistent signals. While AT&T is working hard on next generation technology to remedy this, the brand’s reputation relative to call quality could have a negative effect on Apple’s grade-A reputation as a brand. The incredibly positive aura associated with the Apple brand could be diminished if the calling experience with the iPhone is less than Apple grade.

Now, generally, no one blames problems with their cell phone on the hardware. If there’s a problem, they assume it’s the carrier. This may mitigate any fallout to the Apple brand should the call experience with the iPhone be less than wonderful. While any brand partnership is a challenge, what remains to be seen in this case is whether Apple loyalists will be any less loyal if every aspect of the iPhone experience doesn’t live up to their expectations. Apple is, in a way, releasing the product with one hand tied behind its back.

And although the iPhone can be used one-handed, the brand may need both to defend itself against any less than stellar performance on its partner’s part. Stay tuned.

Terry Semel’s departure as CEO of Yahoo didn’t surprise me, just as it didn’t surprise anyone on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, or any number of blogging technorati. The company’s profits have been slipping for awhile now, in good part as a result of its slipping efforts to narrow Google’s lead as a search engine. Replacing Mr. Semel with Jerry Yang, one of Yahoo’s co-founders, offers some hope that passion can be restored to the brand. After all, who better than the inventor of the brand to recharge its status? But, from a pure brand POV, it’s going to take a lot more than just a change at the top to restore Yahoo’s place as a leading brand in the online world. For this, Yahoo is going to have to figure out what it wants to stand for –not who is standing at its helm. In other words, it needs to identity a single, simple something that consumers can understand and that they associate with the Yahoo brand –and the Yahoo brand only.

In BrandSimple, I write about how the best brands in the world have always been built on simple, relevantly different ideas that drive everything they do and that set them apart from the competition. As a brand, especially a brand trying to make it in a digitally- accelerated universe, you simply can’t succeed by being a little bit good at everything. Right now, Yahoo’s a little bit good at search, a little bit good at content, at attracting advertisers, at email, at convenience. As of this week, they’re even a little bit good at providing coverage of college athletics, as indicated by the purchase of Rivals.com. It’s a little bit too late for this. To succeed, the company is going to have to establish one thing to be really, really good at – better than any other brand - and ensure we care. Unfortunately, I don’t think the answer is in going back to the future. Mr. Yang and his team may have the best of intentions and I wish them luck. But, from a pure brander’s POV, my prediction is that they company will be sold to a brand that knows what it stands for and why buying Yahoo will add to its standing.

I have a friend who used to say that as long as Walter Cronkite was on the air he felt everything was going to be okay—even when he knew the world wasn’t okay. Well, the world isn’t okay and Walter Cronkite isn’t on the air anymore. But, based on recent ratings numbers, it seems that a lot of people these days feel about ABC’s Charles Gibson the way my friend felt about Mr. Cronkite. Why is the Charles Gibson brand clobbering the Brian Williams and Katie Couric brands in the evening news branding derby? It boils down to a BrandSimple answer; the essence of his brand. The Charles Gibson brand is all about authenticity. And in the evening news space authenticity is the gold standard of brand promises. It’s the most important brand benefit the anchor of a prime time news program can have. Charles Gibson, man as brand, looks and behaves like someone who’s been in the business for awhile. Someone who might have earned his stripes at a small town newspaper. Just the facts delivered with an appropriate degree of compassion. His branding is as real as his brand.

While the Brian Williams brand has a smooth and polished essence, it may be too smooth and polished, especially for viewers who want information, not a sophisticated performance. And, no matter how fervently she tries to distance herself from it, the essence of the Katie Couric brand is one of friendly conversationalist. A great brand for morning coffee, but not right for those seeking hard news from someone who comes across as having been in the trenches. Even in his Good Morning America Days, Mr. Gibson was genuinely self-effacing. No matter how much Brian Williams and Katie Couric try to close the branding gap, it’s going to be hard to do. They’d have to change the very essence of their brands which would hardly ring true. The reason Charles Gibson is winning the evening news branding game is that he has the right brand essence for the space and for the times. Charlie, as he’s referred to, is authentic.

As investors line up with bids for Chrysler, I’d like to offer a bit of advice from a brand perspective. While the company has many fine autos on its assembly lines, I’d hazard a guess that there are few consumers who could tell you exactly what the Chrysler brand stands for. Mention that Chrysler is introducing a new model and ask people what they expect it to look like, who it might appeal to, and how it would drive, and you’d most likely get a blank stare. Blank stares are not good when it comes to branding.

The first rule of building a successful brand is to simply and crisply define what you want it to represent in the minds of consumers. If you can’t clearly define what makes your brand different, you’re never going to have a brand that’s worth more than an “Oh yeah. I think my uncle owned one of those.”

Second, once the new owners of DaimlerChrysler establish a differentiated meaning for the Chrysler brand, they’ve got to focus relentlessly on bringing it to life. The way Chrysler automobiles are engineered, the way they drive, the way they look. This means being ruthless about examining the entire portfolio of current offerings and determining which deliver on the Chrysler brand and which don’t. While PT Cruiser, Sebring, Town and Country, and Crossfire are all nice cars with nice names, nice doesn’t win in the brand game. If these sub-brands don’t have what it takes to drive home the Chrysler name they’re not worth having on the lot. Those who bid for Chrysler must be willing to put every dollar behind defining and supporting the Chrysler name, and the Chrysler name only.

While this advice is a lot easier to offer up than it is to achieve, it’s essential that those reaching for their checkbooks take heed. Before considering a bid for Chrylser, they must figure out what they’re going to do with it once they own it. The most powerful brands on the planet succeed because they stand for something different and relevant. Just as all the advertising in the world can’t help a brand with an identity crisis neither can the deepest investment wallet. Spend - and brand - wisely.

In my book, BrandSimple, I talk about JetBlue. Over the past few days everyone has been talking about JetBlue, but not for any of the reasons I chose to talk about it. I used it as an example of a brand that succeeded as a result of identifying something meaningfully different to offer people who want or need to fly. Unlike the big, ambiguous airlines, JetBlue found a way to put the “humanity back into flying.” This phrase became the driving force behind everything the little brand did to make flying fun, from its airfares to its personnel, to its in-flight entertainment. Last week, as thousands of people were stranded at JFK and cancellation reports multiplied as quickly as news reports, flying JetBlue was anything but fun. It proved to be no different than any other airline – any other big airline that is.

CEO, David Neeleman, took on the immediate challenge by doing exactly what he should have done. He apologized and took the hit as the company’s most senior officer without any excuses. His business model was off course and he would do whatever necessary to fix it, no easy task now that the company has grown from a small team of mavericks to a sprawling organization. While this is all well and a very good start, it’s nowhere near the size of the challenge the airline has ahead of it as a brand. It wasn’t the fact that passengers were left on the tarmac that made it a newsworthy story. It was that JetBlue had broken its brand promise. To repair its promise, JetBlue has to figure out how to “put the humanity back into flying,” but this time as a larger company – something that will be very hard to do at its value price point. The proof of its newly repaired promise will require more than Mr. Neeleman spontaneously showing up to greet passengers. And while a noble gesture, it will take more than a passengers’ Bill of Rights which only serves to placate flyers if the experience gets too bad. While immediate crisis control will help JetBlue survive in the short term, it’s the longer term the airline must consider. It must find a meaningfully different way to make its original brand promise fly again, this time on a higher level. Don’t underestimate the JetBlue team. It’s in their company culture to make this happen. And I, for one, have full confidence they will.

Now that the thermometer has returned to normal winter levels in many parts of the country and snow continues to bury poor Oswego, New York it might be hard to think about the recent devastating report on global warming. But, thankfully, people are thinking. And while most want to jump into action, they’re not exactly sure what they’re supposed to do. They know global warming is bad. They know it’s a reality. And, while most people know it has to do with greenhouse gases and fossil fuels, they’re not exactly sure how to help, much as they want to. My belief is that one way to help them help is by means of a simple branding signal. I’m not saying to brand global warming per se. The phrase, sadly, speaks for itself. But rather, I recommend creating an evocative, easily interpreted branding cue that simply and clearly communicates to people that by using a particular product or service they won’t be contributing to global warming. In fact, in some cases, they may actually be mitigating its effects. Like branding signals of any sort this one must convey the intent behind the promise without need for any explanation. It must speak for itself.

Much like the construction industry is using “EnergyStar” to signal energy efficiency in specific products and services, and PepsiCo, Inc. is using the green “SmartSpot” to signal healthier snack choices, a global warming branding signal (for lack of a better phrase) would act in a similar manner. It would visually alert people to the benefits of making one product choice over another. With so many brands and so much brand chatter, people need and use branding signals to help them make choices relevant to their needs. Global warming, while relevant to everyone, is a complicated issue. Give people a simple way to understand what does or doesn’t contribute to its effects and my guess is that they’ll pay close attention. In fact, given the choice of melting oceans, hurricanes, and the eventual destruction of our planet, my guess is that this is a little branding signal that would be greatly appreciated.

With all the news surrounding Ford bringing back the Taurus, and AT&T doing away with the Cingular name, I wrote an article that appeared on Brandweek’s site last week.