Give them all a rest

From the days of the much-maligned Brand Onion (which occasionally shape-shifted into a pyramid, or a key, if you were at Unilever), I remember very few specific good examples.

But I can remember the endless debates:

Is X a functional benefit or an emotional benefit?

Does this go in Personality or Values?

What's the difference between an attribute and a benefit?

Is this meant to be how we're seen now, or where we want to be?

Fast forward a decade or two, and enter Kipling's "honest serving men" - or some of them - in a glorious glowing Golden Circle. It was all going to be simple - chuck out those endless debates and start with Why?

I've noticed in the last few years that those "honest serving men" are getting about a bit. Almost every presentation on a process or strategy is peppered with Hows and Whos and Whats.

However, the debates remain:

Do we mean Who or To Whom? (The grammar fanatics love this one!)

Is that the How or the What?

Is When important?

And in this article by Thomas Kolster the author (previously a proponent of Pupose and Why?) suggests that it's now all about the Who a brand can help people to become (so a kind of Who in the future). A brand is a coach, helping people "be more, do more, see more, experience more!". This Who "focuses on the role you can play enabling their beliefs and dreams, whereas Why focuses on your organisation's beliefs and dreams."

The "honest serving men" have done a sneaky pivot from a circle to an arrow (perhaps still golden?). Why has disappeared and taken Where with him:

This all feels suspiciously like a return to "what's in it for me" - or a simple statement of what your brand does for people - benefit, if you like.

Kipling's poem continues - and this is not often quoted -

But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine to five,
For I am busy then ...

I think he had a point, and don't intend to discuss the Whys and Wherefores ;)

The Gospel according to Powerpoint

I must make a confession. I am not a regular church-goer, either here in Germany or back in the UK. Having said that, I do have many memories of church from my childhood, and I have to say that most of those are related to what marketing people today would call the 'experience' rather than the 'communication.'

Church-related communication has always been charmingly amateur, in my experience. Amateur in a positive way: not slick, not 'professional', communication that looks hand-made. For all the 'hand-written' and 'hand-crafted' yet carefully designed communication that commercial brands and enterprises put out these days in an attempt to appear authentic, they could well take a leaf out of the local church's poster advertising the Summer Fete, or the parish magazine. It's amateur in the sense that the people producing these communications genuinely love what they are doing.

As for the 'experience' - well, that's quite different, and I'm not in any way alarmed by this inconsistency. My memories of the experience, certainly in retrospect, include feelings such as wonder at the mystery of it all and, yes, awe in its original sense. Whether it's stained glass windows, bells ringing, organ music, polished candlesticks and pews, ancient texts or stories from two thousand years ago, there is plenty to stimulate the mind, the senses and the spirit.

So imagine how I felt when I attended a church service on a recent trip to the UK (not to the beautiful church pictured above, I hasten to add) and heard the language of the boardroom and the management consultant. Now, admittedly, the management types pinched the idea of a 'vision' from the spiritual types to start with, but it was rather alarming to hear it played back in the context of a 'Vision Statement' for this particular church. Not just that, but talk of priorities and process, enablement and empowerment, roadmaps and workshops. I didn't actually hear mention of Change Drivers and KPIs but I suspect they may be part of the package.

My view of the beautiful stained glass windows was somewhat obscured by a series of posters depicting a number of 'pillars' relating to the 'Vision', which looked as if they had come from a Powerpoint design-your-own-strategy-presentation background format.

Maybe I'm over-sensitive and others less close to the world of business will welcome this more down-to-earth approach (is it?) - and maybe God moves in mysterious ways - but I would rather leave the bullshit bingo in the boardroom.

Blimey, did I really say that?

I'm reading a delightful novel at the moment: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. The story is that of a Russian aristocrat who is placed under indefinite house arrest by the Communists in the 1920s for writing a subversive poem. And that house arrest is in one of the grandest hotels in Moscow. The story rambles around the hotel with the Count, the eccentric characters he meets and the absurd situations in which he finds himself.

One such is the Second Meeting of the First Congress of the Moscow Branch of the All-Russian Union of Railway Workers. The Union's Charter is under discussion, particularly the 7th sentence of the 2nd paragraph, which concludes with what we marketeers (shhhh!) might call a Mission:

"... to facilitate communication and trade across the provinces."

And, oh dear, does the word 'facilitate' ever come in for some stick! Far too tepid and prim to suggest pounding steel and rippling manly muscles and shovelling coal! Some alternatives are suggested, such as to spur, to propel and to empower, which all come into hot debate. Eventually:

"... a suggestion came from a shy-looking lad in the tenth row that perhaps 'to facilitate' could be replaced with 'to enable and ensure.' This pairing, the lad explained (while his cheeks grew red as a raspberry), might encompass not only the laying of rails and the manning of engines, but the ongoing maintenance of the system ..."

And so, after more hot debate, the alternative is adopted.

If that one amused you, you may also find that this tickles your fancy, too. Perfect for collecting a few meaningless phrases to throw into the next strategy meeting. And I don't think many of us can put our hands on our hearts and say we've never used this kind of lingo.

I'm convinced that when researchers from the future find some of our strategy documents, they'll be as bemused as if those documents were in Russian - or Ancient Greek.

Talking of which ...

Don't just find your purpose

In the current depressing political atmosphere following the UK general election, I've been looking around to find something more upbeat and inspiring. I get the impression that it's time for some new blood on the UK political scene. It's positive that the younger people turned out in greater numbers to vote than for the referendum. Let's hope some of them get inspired to be more involved, actually change things. It can be done. This young man, at 33, is the youngest person to deliver a Commencement Speech at Harvard.



Mark - now Doctor - Zuckerberg addressed today's graduates as being from his generation. - the Millennials. His main message was about purpose:

My message was about purpose. As millennials, finding our purpose isn't enough. The challenge for our generation is to create a world where every single person has a sense of purpose.

What Mark Zuckerberg was saying is don't just pin your purpose on your (Facebook) wall, like a corporate mission statement, but get out and get doing. Where are the new generation-defining public works?

It's a good message for brands, too. So much time is spent in workshops and brainstorms trying to find a purpose, and even more in trying to articulate it. Your purpose doesn't have to be high-and-mighty . But once you've got it, get out there and do something with it.

The brand who saved the world?

Funny how fashions in marketing often go full circle.

Take 'Purpose'. For most of this decade so far, Purpose has been the marketing buzzword. I think a lot of it started with the popularity of Simon Sinek's 2009 book and talks - Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to take Action. Purpose has even found its way to be included as the 5th, or 6th, or 101st 'P' of marketing.

And just last week, I received a trend report from Trendwatching, entitled 'Big Brand Redemption', all about how Big Brands can be the solution (not the problem) when it comes to a sustainable, ethical, brighter future for us all, citing examples such as Unilever's Lifebuoy.

But, but, but. To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, or whatever. For every brand with high falutin' ideas about saving the world, there's another who wants to come down to earth. One of the biggest brand repositioning stories in the last year is from Coke with the move from 'Open Happiness' to the more functional 'Taste the Feeling'. To quote Marco de Quinto, the Coke CMO: We are a simple pleasure, a product that refreshes. Not one that's going to save the world. If by refreshing, you save the world, fine. We are going back to this truth.

And then, in Millward Brown's BrandZ: Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, this view is reflected:

pg 27: Brands may not need a purpose as high as saving humanity

Intro pg 5: Brands seem to be shifting from higher purpose (making the world better) to narrower purpose (making the customer's life better)

and

Brands do not need a higher purpose ... they need to be seen as improving the life of the consumer in some way

Hang on - isn't that what we used to call a benefit?

Warts and all

a relevant experiment from Jeff Scardino on Vimeo.
The relevant résumé is the first résumé that showcases your failures. To prove it works, I submitted two different applications for ten different job openings — one using my regular résumé and one using my relevant résumé.
www.therelevantresume.com

Whether it's Facebook status updates or ghastly round-robin emails at Christmas, pumping up achievements to Zeppelin-sized accomplishments, I'm always amused when someone starts to take the mick and sends something out along the lines of 'What a year we've had! In May I had an ingrowing toenail diagnosed and in September the cat was sick on the patio.'

It's much the same with CVs. I haven't updated mine for years, and I'm well aware that it probably does nothing to sell me or my meagre talents. I feel slightly queasy at the idea of describing myself as a 'results-orientated team player who pursues perfection with passion' or some or other similar twaddle.

So I was very pleased to hear about The Relevant Resume from copywriter Jeff Scardino. He has well and truly burst the bubble of those pompous, over-inflated but strangely similar CVs with his idea to 'showcase your failures'. He put his idea to the test, applying for jobs with a traditional CV and the warts-and-all version, including 'missed honors', 'bad references' and 'non skills'. And the warts-and-all version attracted far more positive attention.

I think there's something that can be learned here for brands, too. Sometimes it's the non-perfect bits that don't fit, the stuff you're not good at, which makes you the perfect choice.

Which would you rather be?

For global brands, especially those in retail or fast-food, consistency is still high on the list of desired ways to communicate and behave. We want to be sure that the customer has a similar experience in each of our outlets, and that the picture of the brand he or she gets from our communication is clear and doesn't contradict the reality.

This is fair enough up to a certain point. Of course we want someone in a strange town to recognise our coffee shop and feel a sense of familiarity and knowing what to expect. And design manuals do have a place in terms of making sure that our badges and logos don't start running off and doing their own thing. This is the positive side of consistency - stability and constancy, reliability if you like.

But is it enough? The buzz words describing brands in the 21st century also include a lot about flexibility, adaptability, agility and 'embracing diversity'. And can you really stay ahead if you never pleasantly surprise your customers? Consistency can also mean lack of change, lack of deviation, uniformity.

When people talk of consistency in relation to brands, it is worth looking behind the word to see what the speaker really means. If it starts to sound like speaking with one voice (dictated from some global HQ), regardless of who we are speaking with, dressing in a brand uniform with no regard for individuality, carrying our "matching luggage," then warning bells should sound. This is about control of the organisation, not doing the best for the customers.

I prefer to use the word integrity with its dual meaning of unity/coherence/a whole and the quality of honesty.

It's more difficult to achieve, but in the end, which is more likely to attract more support - a consistent brand or a brand with integrity? 

Brand Bauble?

Bored of Brand Onions? Peed off with Positioning? Miserable about Missions?

Then look no further than this wonderful seasonal antidote to Marketing blah-blah, The *Santa* Brand Book, from Quiet Room.

My favourite pages are the one that discovers that Hagrid is encroaching on *Santa*'s space, based on the dimensions of fattiness and beardiness. And the instructions, with example, in "How to deploy language in the customer relationship."

A couple of choice quotes:

*Santa* - the industry standard for child-cenric gift-delivery solutions

and

Our brand essence is the very essence of our brand

Ho, ho, ho!

Co-opting out

I read a good blog recently from Mark Bonchek in the Harvard Business Review Blog entitled Purpose is good. Shared purpose is better. The author looks at a number of Mission Statements and similar statements of Brand or Company Purpose and comes to the conclusion that we should think about whether our Brand Purpose takes the preposition "for" or "with".

Here are two examples in a similar category:

Dunkin Donuts: Make and serve the freshest, most delicious coffee and donuts quickly and courteously in  modern, well-merchandised stores

Starbucks: Our Mission: to inspire and nurture the human spirit - one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time

The Dunkin Donuts statement, and the other examples of "for" purposes that the author gives are very product or category-focussed and are about "delivery" rather than "participation". The Starbucks example - and the rest of the "with" examples - are less about the product, but more about the human benefit.

Mark Bonchek argues that the "with" statements are the way we should be going as customers become co-creators.

I'm with him. Up to a point.

You see, I think that there are some brands that are more about participation and co-creation than others. Football Clubs are an obvious example, as well as sports brands generally. Brands that have an element of creativity or DIY at their heart, from Apple to IKEA to Lego also fit the bill.

But there are other lower interest categories where I don't want to co-create or join a community. I want to trust the brand to get on and provide me with a good service or product that does the job. This can be anything from the more complex, necessary evils like Insurance or Financial Services right down to the literally bog-standard everyday products such as bog roll and bog cleaner.

More unexpectedly perhaps, I don't necessarily want to get into co-creating or clubbing with certain luxury brands. I like these to maintain their glamour, their mystique, their superior expertise that's beyond mere mortals such as I.

And, to be honest, when I go for a good coffee and a donut, I'd like just that, rather than any botched-up attempts to inspire and nurture my spirit. That takes something other than a triple-skinny-sodapop-creme-fluff.

Good foundations

If you're looking for stories about your brand to imbue it with substance and authenticity, you can do worse than look back at the person or people who founded it. More often than not, you should be able to trace back to the original idea or purpose that launched the brand, which may be more interesting than whatever is currently written on the brand's Mission Statement.

Many brands are unthinkable without their founders - Steve Jobs and Apple, for example, or IKEA and Ingvar Kamprad, whose initials give the first two letters of the brand acronym and whose legendary cost-consciousness pervades the IKEA ethos.

Even under Unilever ownership, the names and personalities of Ben (Cohen) and Jerry (Greenfield) and the Vermont provenance drive the premium ice-cream brand.

Another example is what Guinness is doing. Arguably already one of the world's strongest and story-rich brands, Guinness has established "Arthur's Day" in honour of the founder, Arthur Guinness. Until 3 years ago, Arthur Guinness was a signature on the label and no more, but the 27th September is now designated as a day to "paint the town black" amid musical performance and celebration - to the benefit of the Arthur Guinness Fund for social good.

And the advertising comes from Saatchi & Saatchi, an agency who knows more about the strength of founders' names than most, even if the founders in question have moved on.

Expectations exceeded

Missions Statements and corporate intent posters are forever blathering on about "exceeding customer expectations," or sometimes it's "over-delivering on". Not something I take much notice of, as usually none of these companies bother to find out what their customers expect, anyway.

Recently, however, I really have had my expectations exceeded, and, boy, does it feel good! A classic example of how a company can right wrongs and then some.

Back in November, Apple recalled its first generation iPod nano, due to a potential flaw in the battery. Annoyingly, this is probably the only gadget in the field of consumer electronics where I've ever been an early adopter in my life - I've had the thing for about 6 years.

I dutifully dug it out and went through Apple's complicated recall policy instructions. OK, the instructions were not so complicated, but it was all a bit of a faff. The packaging didn't turn up when it was meant to, all emails were of the "no reply" variety, a visit to the Apple Store scored a zero on the helpful scale - I began to think I was dealing with PayPal.

But...the arrival this week of a sparkly new clip-on iPod Touch with a massive 8 GB (the old thing was 2 GB, I think), which was immediately grabbed hold of and pronounced as "coo-el" by my 11-year-old more than made up for all that.

Apple, you have exceeded this customer's expectations. Thanks!

A thousand boring Powerpoint Slides

Everyone in marketing and advertising needs a reality check now and again, if you'll excuse the ghastly buzz word. And you may get yours from playing buzz word bingo in boring client meetings, or putting together absurd brand positioning models as I used to do in my Saatchi days - reminder to self, pull those out - they could be worth something to someone.

So this blog entry is a blatant plug for a very funny man who knows his marketing and can see the absurd side of the brand onion. (What? An onion doesn't have sides?) I used one of his cartoons here and hope you have time to have a look at Tom Fishburne's site.

I love the Mission Statement cartoon and the ones about the fun you can have with focus groups as well as the brand positioning cartoon that introduces the splendid concept of a Brand Butterfly. And check out "The Tower of Eco Babel" if you're working on a sustainability project.

Most of all, I love this quote: "If a picture tells a thousand words, a cartoon tells a thousand boring Powerpoint slides."

What's the Big Idea?

Sometime in the 90s, possibility not for the first time and probably not for the last time, "advertising" became a dirty word. We felt it particularly strongly at Saatchi in those days as the out-of-love suffix was wrenched away from our letterheads, our telephonist's lips, our pencils.

We were no longer "Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising". We were "Saatchi & Saatchi - The Ideas Company". Nothing wrong with that - we were all quite cock-a-hoop about being an Ideas Business in an Ideas Economy. When I went freelance, I toyed for some time with the name "Ideas for Sale" before settling on "Secret Agency."

But I recently found the website of The Joined-Up Company which reminded me that ideas are not ideas are not ideas. And, it may be worth saying that there are some of these idea genres where The-agencies-formerly-known-as-advertising do have a more natural talent than others:

Business Idea - it's about beliefs, structure, objectives: what makes the business profitable?

Brand Idea - classic long-term meaning and mission

Communications Idea - how media in the broadest sense are used to keep the brand strong and the business profitable - and, not to forget...

Creative Idea

I was also going to mention Advertising Idea. But that may simply be a Bad Idea.

Corporate Playground

I have been spending rather a lot of time at airports recently and before I get onto this blog, I feel compelled to say that unlike the lady above, I never travel in a white suit. The probability of turbulence plus coffee has always been a touch too much on the high side for me.

One thing that always strikes me about airports is that they are the one public place where all the corporate ads can come out to play. Images rarely seen outside the Annual Report & Accounts or Trade Journals can present themselves to a captive audience of movers, shakers and decision-makers in all their glory. Unfortunately, they have all had the same idea.

The truth about air travel is still this: no-one in an airport is in a normal frame of mind, with the exception of the people who work there every day - and my guess is that these corporate ads aren't aimed at the girl that hands out see-through plastic bags or the guy that drives elderly passengers around on one of those buggies.

No, everyone is jet-lagged, disorientated, tense about the forthcoming meeting, annoyed that they'll be late home, miffed that they'll miss their connection, nervous about just how good the security controls are, insulted by being manhandled and demands that they remove yet more articles of clothing...and the sum total is that, however big a mover, however huge a shaker, however ginormous a decision-maker, nobody is in control.

And so, the gallery of corporate visual delights of a parallel world - of calm seas, endless skies, reflections of nature's glory, vast expanses of green, hopeful sunrises, satisfying sunsets, rowing teams pulling together in perfect harmony and the intricacies of a humming bird's wings seem to mock rather than inspire. They feel like the visual equivalent of the calming music played to cattle before the slaughter.

In combination with the contrived names that many of these companies sport - which give no clue as to whether they are in pharmaceuticals or insurance, engineering or financial consultancy - the net result is that they bypass the busy executive and float, unattended to, like the aluminum intricacies of the airport's roof structure.

Why, oh why?

"I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew)

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who."

Rudyard Kipling, from "Just So Stories"

Whatever field you work in, as long as it involves information-gathering, you'll probably have come across some model, tool or principle based on Kipling's "honest serving men."

And it's not just journalism or police investigation that are well-served by these six honest men, but the world of brands and branding, too. One of the first positioning tools that I came across in my work with brands was something called the Brand Square. I still use it to this day.

It asks, very simply:

WHO are we?

WHAT do we do?

For WHOM do we do it?

HOW do we do it?

There's a very useful book and website by Simon Sinek for looking at brands and organisations which puts the serving man conspicuous by his absence from the Brand Square at the start: Start with Why. Here, it's argued that, unless you define your Why? - your purpose, cause or belief, you can't really go into the How? (guiding principles) or What? (tangible proof).

This is great thinking and something particularly relevant for brands that are an organisation. To have a reason for being beyond making profit gives a brand or organisation sustainable value.

But - a word of caution. In the same way that some brands are not naturals for social media (no, I don't want to enter into a relationship with toilet paper...) there are some brands where the Why for the brand should not be pushed or forced. If you end up constructing one of those Mission Statements that's all about "the relentless pursuit of quality solutions to passionately meet customer needs", maybe your time is better spent defining the more pragmatic issues - the Who? What? and How? clearly and uniquely.

Don't join the professionals

Cricketer turned journalist Ed Smith has written an article in this quarter's Intelligent Life that I would like to stand up and applaud.

It's about how the concept of professionalism has taken over in every imaginable sphere, from sports to teaching to nursing to journalism.

The consequence being, that in our relentless pursuit of "professionalism", the word "amateur" has come to mean second-rate and slapdash.

He tells an horrific tale of the Kent County Cricket Team arguing for days over the exact wording of a "Core Covenant" rather than practising their cricket.

Modern-day professionalism is obsessed with coaches and consultants, with questionnaires and measurement, and with Mission Statements of the "to be the leader in creating value for customers through market leadership" sort.

Ed Smith quotes John Kay, academic, economist and columnist:

"Whatever our sphere of work, we have to distinguish between what is analytically soluble and what is essentially mysterious. And often the most successful methods fall into the latter category."

Hear, hear. "Amateur" used to mean someone who did something for the love of it. My Mission Statement for next year is to be decidedly more amateur.

Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit

Trendbüro have recently developed a "Value Index" to look at which values seem to be particularly pertinent to Germans today. Rather than the usual practice of constructing a questionnaire and interviewing, Trendbüro have analysed 150,000 German-speaking blogs, forums and communities. This method strikes me as one of the great new things you can do now with data in Web 2.0 - analyse real behaviour in terms of conversations, rather than confronting people with an artificial interview situation and words out of context.

Anyway, the results are as follows - the Top 11 German values:

1. Freedom

2. Success

3. Family

4. =Health and Safety (these two always seem to pop up together!)

6. Nature

7. Simplicity

8. Recognition

9. Justice

10. Authenticity

11. Self-realisation

Trendbüro seem to be rather surprised at the results, not because punctuality and efficiency are nowhere to be seen, but because those marketing darlings Authenticity and Self-realisation are on the lowest rungs. I'm not that surprised. Authenticity has always seemed a bit of a phoney thing to me. I know I'm authentic, if the value is being ascribed to me. And if a brand has to bang on about its authenticity, well, then I think it protests too much. Passion falls into the same camp.

In fact, it's just as well that the German National Anthem doesn't start off with "Authentizität und Selbstverwirklichung und Leidenschaft" as this would sound like a musical Mission Statement.