Borders, Boxes, Brexit and Bother

 

My recent visit to the UK as Summer fades into Autumn had its rather wonderful moments - heather against blue sky, for example. But there were more than enough moments of general botheration, summed up by this sort of thing:

 I did manage to get petrol for the drive back without getting knifed or the tyres of my German number-plated car slashed. But one incident which can be filed under “customer service - lack of” did rile me somewhat.

To cut a long story short, the phone and broadband in my UK house weren’t working. I rang the service provider from my German mobile phone to try and sort it out. They let me know that they wouldn’t deal with it directly, but would pass it on to Openreach. I wouldn’t be able to contact Openreach directly, but my provider would send me a text to let me know progress, when appointments were confirmed and suchlike.

- Oh, great - here’s my mobile number. It’s a German one. Hope that’s OK?

- No, sorry. We’re not allowed to take international numbers. Have you got another number we can call you on?

- Well, I have, but it’s not working if you remember. Can you make an exception?

- No, we can’t.

- Then how will you contact me?

- You’ll have to phone us.

- Right. You mean I have to call your helpline via my German phone, and possibly hang on for 20 minutes or so before I get a reply, in order to find out progress on repairing a fault with the service you supply?

- Yes. Is there anything else I can help you with today?

I bit my tongue at that point, but I will be writing a letter, for what good it will do.

I can’t help but wonder how many other people there must be in a similar situation with two homes in different countries through circumstance rather than choice. Banks, utility and service providers would do well to recognise these customers’ needs rather than treating them as an irritant to the system.

Globalism used to be the big dream, but it’s now become a dirty word. I do believe there is a place for both: roots/local and global, with all its advantages. It doesn’t necessarily mean Starbucks. HSBC UK have used this theme in their advertising for a few years now. Some of the ads are a touch cliched, but I do like Richard Ayoade as spokeperson for the brand.

The latest ad, about borders, is here   

As the ad industry becomes increasingly obsessed with identity and putting people in boxes, I hope one day the penny will drop that a box has multiple borders.  

Are your roots showing?

A long time ago, when I was still in the UK and working on the British Airways account, they set up a fascinating piece of international 'Britishness' research which looked at impressions of Great Britain in a number of countries around the world. This was qualitative research, and people in each country were asked to imagine a typical British town and what the characters were like there: policeman, doctor, teenager, manual worker and so on. It was rather like that 'Heaven and Hell'  joke, one version of which you can see above. And - surprise, surprise - there was little consistency in the way Britain was seen around the world - sweet and quaint in the US, compared to pushy and arrogant in Australia.

I've just read a long article in The Guardian about the rise of nation and place branding, which appears to be a booming business. Not just from the point of view of attracting tourists, but for governments to attract investors, workers, students, or to allocate resources and increase esteem generally internally and externally, much as you would use a Brand Purpose or Position.

It's not an easy job. Apart from an uneven playing field to start with (as in the differing impressions of US and Australia in the example above),  just think how quickly the overall impression of a country can change due to a change in its leadership. Obama's USA and Trump's USA - worlds apart. Or how a personality associated with a country or place can make or break impressions. Or how a natural disaster can overshadow everything. The article quotes Naomi Klein: Diversity and debate are the enemies of branding. Is it folly to try and reduce something as complex and multi-faceted as a place to a mere brand?

As mentioned in the article, Institute for Identity are having a good try. Their work sounds like a dream job - travelling around, getting the feel of the place, talking with the people, everyone from historians to lace-makers to film-makers.

And even if it seems a step too far to attempt to distill an entire country with all its dynamism, history and diversity down to a slogan and a logo, in these days of globalisation it's increasingly important for brands to be unique and authentic. And part of that has to come from the provenance. How has where the brand came from, where it was founded, informed its purpose and values? Instid have some useful tools and techniques on their website for getting a clearer understanding of a place - through the intellect, emotions and senses.

For brands, as for people, it's important to never forget where you came from.

His ideas will live on

I am very saddened to hear of the death yesterday, at 68, from pancreatic cancer, of Hans Rosling. For those who are not familiar with this Swedish 'edutainer', I blogged about him here.

Hans Rosling had a talent for explaining the world, life and the human universe on the basis of facts. It sounds dry, but it never was. As an example, here's a short article about 5 ways the world is doing better than you think. 

In these days of negative thought and 'alternative facts', he will be sadly missed.

Leveraging our alignment

The first time I heard the noun "alignment" in a business meeting, I was puzzled. It was twenty years ago and I'd just started working on P&G brands across Europe. I knew the verb "to align", of course, in relation to text on a page, and the noun "alignment" in reference to planets from the horoscopes. But the question was: "are we in alignment?" It was rather as if the questioner had asked "are we in outer space?" Where was "alignment?"

Eventually, the penny dropped and I blurted out, "oh, you mean do we have our ducks in a row?" Of course, I had replaced a (to me) unusual figurative use of a word with a (to some) strange English idiom, and I'm not sure that got us any further.

Since then, of course, as more and more brands go global, the word "alignment" has become a regular part of the business vocabulary. But the problem remains that, however often we use it, it's a word that is being used figuratively and is, as such, open to interpretation. It's very easy to say, but not so easy to put into practice.

The next time you use the word "alignment", or write it down in a proposal, maybe as an objective, have a think about what you mean. Are you using it as a covert simile for "agreement"? Are you really saying - do as I say?

My aversion to the word when used in a business context is this. Normally, the word is applied to inanimate objects that need to be lined up in order to function - parts of a machine, words on a page and so on. And maybe, you could argue, that you are talking about parts of a process or organisation, so it's fair enough.

But is it? Those "parts" are inevitably made up of people, who have opinions, views, thoughts, ways of working. People are complex, as are the networks that they form. Rather than alignment, shouldn't we be thinking of leading networks of human beings to work together towards a common goal or vision that everyone agrees on?

Pseudo Choice

I'm reading a dystopian/speculative/sci-fi whatever-it's-called-these-days novel at the moment: Future Perfect by Katrina Mountfort. 150 years into the future, the human race live in CitiDomes rather reminiscent of Center Parcs, subscribe to a set of MindValues that wouldn't be out of place on a boardroom wall and have given up worshipping anything remotely spiritual. Instead, the idols are those that have BodyPerfect status and are the media darlings of the non-stop diet of reality shows. Needless to say, the BodyPerfect guys and girls look as if they have swooshed out of advertising stock photos.

It's fiction but it doesn't feel so far from the truth that we're seeing now. Chris Anderson's book The Long Tail is now 8 years old and while it's true that we do have endless choice, not only does Google make it difficult for us to find the end of the tail (or even the beginning of the end of the tail) - did you mean X? Show results for etc. etc. etc - but when it comes to it, most people are more comfortable not having to bother. Who goes beyond the first page of search engine results on a regular basis?

I wrote about conformity in my last post and I sometimes wonder in branding and advertising if we are seeing a mass-homogenisation, a group tending towards the mean. Although globalisation does have its benefits, it does mean that everyone is using those same corporate values, chasing the same perfect customer experience, latching onto the same cultural insights while believing they're creating something unique. It's not just the stock shots that we're all dipping into, but the strategic part, too.

I read a brilliant article in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago, which mentioned Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt School regarding "Pop Culture as an instrument of economic and political control, enforcing conformity behind a permissive screen."

Are we offering genuine choice with our brands and communication? Or, to quote Adorno, "Freedom to choose what is always the same?"

Eggsactly the same?

Some people would say "Eggs is Eggs," to which I'd probably launch into a discussion about fried and scrambled and poached and hard-boiled, not to mention duck and quail and...

Our travels at Easter took us back to the UK for a long-awaited wallow in Marmite and HP Sauce and Colman's Mustard and all the other exotic treats that are hard to come by here in Germany. But one thing I have never had a particular yearning for is Cadbury's Creme Eggs. I could certainly never eat more than one in any Easter season and I never spent too much time worrying whether I was a Biter or a Slurper or a Licker or however else You Were Meant To Eat Yours.

Easter Eggs for me, were always Big - a shell of chocolate that ideally broke conveniently in half to reveal a little bag of Buttons, or Roses, or Maltesers or somesuch, the whole thing delightfully impenetrable in foil and coloured cellophane and impractical boxes and ribbons.

When I moved to Germany, I got a culture shock. Here it was not about the size of the individual eggs, but about the quantity. About hiding and collecting. About variety and fifty shades of tin foil. And not just eggs, but bunnies and chicks and ladybirds and may bugs.

That was the last century, though. And, as surely as Aldi and Lidl have nibbled away at the Tesco and Sainsbury stronghold, so the little eggs have melted British hearts. Inspired, maybe, by the British love of Mini Eggs and Creme Eggs, all sorts of scrumptious small eggs have appeared, along with the bunnies and chicks, many of them (shock!) invaders from the Continent.

Come the end of the Easter holidays, there won't be much difference in the expansion of your waistline whether you've gobbled down zillions of little ones or one Big One, but it is certainly interesting to reflect on Easter Eggs as globalisation in a sweet microcosm.

Kentish Crisps or Crisps of Kent?

The regional card is one that's been played by clever manufacturers for a few years now, tapping into all those feelings of local identity and anti-globalism. Who cares if the handmade crafting pushes the price way up over that of the big boys with their economies of scale?

Just back from holiday and I've seen two examples of doing it right, both of which play cleverly with local pride.

First exhibit is Kent Crisps, "from the Garden of England" whose flavours include Oyster & Vinegar and Roast Beef & Spitfire Ale. Just the thing for a lazy afternoon in the sunny garden of the local pub.

Crossing over the Channel, we discovered Breizh Cola, although it's been around for the last decade. This is what is apparently known as an "Altercola", rather like Afri Cola here in Germany. No personalised bottles, though...

Maybe one day, even these regional products won't be specific enough. Can we expect to see Kentish Crisps and Crisps of Kent one day? Or even Finistere and Morbihan Colas? Or whatever the equivalents are in Breizh?

Ozymandias

There's been something in the air over the last few weeks urging us to have a go at some of the biggest global brands. Stories about tax dodging, revelations about use of forced labour, Facebook postings about where NOT to do your Christmas shopping and a general disillusionment with the big boys.  The Havas CEO, David Jones, terms this "The age of damage" - these days, the people can rise against a corporation or authority that is not seen to be behaving responsibly via social media instantly and knock anything from 10-15% off your share price in a day.

The main victim in the UK seems to be Starbucks. I expect that there has been resentment against Starbucks brewing for a while and the recent tax revelations have brought it all to the fore. Starbucks is unlucky, in a way, as I suspect the brand has now become a symbol for the people to direct all their anti-global feeling towards.

It's got to the stage where Starbucks have had to release an Open Letter, where they admit that they have  "found making a profit in the UK to be difficult" and "not performed to our expectations."

But hang on. If I'd emerged from a ten year Rip Van Winkle-like sleep, I wouldn't believe how the mighty have fallen. Ten years ago, Starbucks was up there as the poster-boy of branding, along with Nike and Apple. I even have a book, published in 2002, by Scott Bedbury, called "A new brand world - 8 Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the 21st Century". The gold standard example is Starbucks.

In the introduction, Scott Bedbury states "Given the near collapse of public trust in large institutions - from major corporations like Enron and Worldcom to organisations like the Catholic Church - there has never been a more important time to establish and strengthen brand trust." Plus ca change, it seems.

The books lays out 8 principles for brand-building, including "everything matters" and "big doesn't have to be bad". It's all good stuff, still valid today.

But the principle that got to me most was the final one: "Relevance, simplicity, and humanity - not technology - will distinguish brands in the future."

It's a shame that Bedbury's successors at Starbucks don't seem to have practised what he preached.

Anywhere in the world

There's a lot of talk these days about the trend towards the local. Local produce - with many supermarket chains offering their own lines with certified provenance, or local (and for local read independent) coffee shops and restaurants - and all with the connection to social and mobile media, facilitating access in all senses of the word.

But it seems a shame that, for many people, these thoughts go out of the window and straight onto the local rubbish tip when it comes to holidays abroad. It's far easier to book something all-inclusive in an impeccably furnished but ultimately soulless hotel - which could be anywhere. Palaces of concrete like luxury cruise ships - and with about as much foundation, roots or local character.

The usual excuses justify this behaviour:

"It's great for the children with the Kid's Club"

"I don't want to risk a dodgy tummy or getting knifed in a backstreet on holiday"

"If you pay all-inclusive upfront, there aren't any hidden extras"

Well, no. There won't be any hidden extras. No nasty surprises, but no nice ones either.

Just endless stretches of sanitised, predictable, global-brand-for-discerning-guests.

Brand Autonomy

In these days of globalisation, it's always refreshing to see brands that haven't succumbed to international "consistency", despite being bought up by a global corporation.

The Elmex dental care range is a good example in Germany. It's made by the Swiss company GABA International AG, which is, in turn, owned by Colgate-Palmolive, although you wouldn't know it. It would have been tempting, when the brand was bought in 2004, to stamp the Colgate name on the brand and let the Elmex name fade out. Or, worse still, an "Elmex is now Colgate" campaign.

But, sensibly, the brand has been allowed autonomy, which reflects local values and sensibilities. Elmex is a serious brand. While the P&G, Unilever and Colgate brands push their luck with "whitening" on the German and mid-European audience, Elmex isn't having any of that. It remains single-minded on caries prevention, with a range of products that covers just the necessary - and does not veer into the cosmetic.

The un-gimmicky children's range and recommendations from dentists during kindergarten visits means that customers are locked in early, and the worthy and dependable tone appeals to German mothers. There is even a menthol-free range for people on homeopathic treatment - which touches the German or Swiss psyche much better than the promise of Hollywood whiteness.

Elmex is a brand that shows how global ownership and local relevance can be compatible.

Facts, gaps and headaches

My immediate pre-holiday period was marred this year by the annoying minutiae of the internet, specifically two companies that are products of the internet age. I'm still debating which caused me more headaches; PayPal for their inability to attend to someone hacking into an account I set up a couple of years ago and have only used once or Ryanair for their ghastly, horrid booking system. I know, I know...if you want a cheap holiday, you just have to grit your teeth...

So, a week of no internet, no emails, no global brands shoving their logos in my face (OK, I did spot a Lidl and an IKEA from a distance but their blue and yellow logos actually look quite jolly against a sun-saturated sky) was just what was needed.

And a link to a wonderful organisation from a colleague on my return has restored my faith in the power of the internet when in the hands of the right people. Gapminder is an organisation dedicated to replacing myths with a fact-based world view. Data and graphics are used to great effect in their presentations and videos to explain what is happening in the world.

Particularly recommended is a TED talk from Hans Rosling, pictured above, on the magic washing machine that produces books and professors. Much more constructive than PayPal.

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.

Mad Bank

Banks and other financial institutions have had a rough time of it recently - some wrongly, some rightly. Most have a pressing need to maintain or rebuild their customers' trust but I'm not sure that all are going about it the right way.

I've already blogged about one company that is taking the approach of changing its name and branding to sound less like a solid, reliable kind of place that you'd be happy to let handle your money and more like an entry for the Eurovision Song Contest (yes, that's you, "Aviva"). And now, maybe because "bank" is such a dirty word, the Deutsche Bank is adopting an even more radical approach.

It has been announced that the Deutsche Bank is going to remove its name from its branding, leaving just the logo and the tagline "Passion to Perform" in a hand-written style.

Now, I have lived in Germany for fourteen years and I have to admit that seeing a dark blue box with "Passion to Perform" scrawled underneath it conjures up High School Musical or The Kids from Fame. But not Deutsche Bank - or any other sort of bank.

So, why? Well, firstly, to emulate "other exclusive and premium global brands". And secondly, apparently "...everyone looks for personality in business...it helps us decide who we trust..."

I don't know about you but if asked who I'd rather trust with my money, a "personality" or a bank, even in these days of mad, bad and dangerous-to-know banks, I'd probably go for that option.

Wir sind We

Trendbüro and slogans.de have updated their analysis of advertising
slogans from the German-speaking world. I blogged about last year's study here.

Interesting that only one of the trends has remained - Gemeinschaft, or "Feeling of Community". I'll come back to that later. As far as the others go, I guess that brands have taken a step down from idealism onto a lower but more realistic rung. Which is not a bad thing in the current climate.

So Exklusivität has become the more accessible Qualität, the rather idealistic Nachhaltigkeit (Sustainability) has moved to a more basic Leistung (Performance) and the theoretical, non-specific Orientation has outed itself as a clear direction: Optimismus. It seems that brands have to give a good specific account of themselves in the here-and-now to appeal to people today.

Going back to "Gemeinschaft". The experts at Trendbüro detect a broadening of the "Wir" feeling across borders to "We", suggesting a sort of Global Cuddlefest. They could be right, but I take a different angle. I am convinced that Mr Obama has succeeded in making English socially acceptable once more, after the rejection of the language by "Old Europe" a few years back. And I expect we'll see English slogans in German advertising gain ground once more. As long as Douglas don't go back to "Come in and find Out."

Go, logo!

There's been a rather hot-under-the-collar debate recently in the usually delightfully restrained-in-a-gentlemanly-way blog Unmitigated England, one of my favourites. But it's a subject that is bound to raise tempers: the destruction of perfectly good brands and logos in the name of globalisation.

The Walls/Langnese "Heartbrand" case is one example, as is the Norwich Union/Aviva story that I commented on a couple of blogs back.

It has to be said that, whatever their current problems, the automobile industry doesn't play this game, thank goodness. Can you imagine BMW deciding that the "Bayern" part of their initials was too parochial and small-fry for the brave new global world? Or Mercedes deciding that their 100 plus year-old logo wasn't really reflecting innovative international synergy? Maybe it's because these "logos" are badges made of good old metal substance rather than Powerpoint will o' the wisps. Perhaps some of the FMCG companies could bear that in mind when they next babble on about "brand value".

That's not my name

These days, very little of my savings (not that they amount
to much), insurance, pension or any other financial affairs are sitting in the UK. For members of my family, it's a different matter. I was recently amused and a touch annoyed to see a customer missive from the insurance company formerly known as Norwich Union.

Now, Norwich Union are changing their name and luckily I missed the mega-budget TV ads put together to inform people of this fact. But I soon caught up with these and the company's ridiculous justification for their name change on the website for the "new" name, Aviva.

The TV ads and the blurb on the website commit just about every error in the argument that it's possible to make. In the TV ads, we're treated to a "host of A-List celebrities" who seemingly only reached that stellar status through carefully chosen stage names. But none of these people achieved success but then decided to change their name to something completely different just because they wanted to play on the global stage, did they? The blurb on the website tells us that "sometimes a simple change of name can unlock the potential that was there all along. Celebrities do it all the time..." Hmmm, I can't recall Madonna, the queen of re-invention, changing her name with each new persona or new man. And while we're on the subject, just remember you're an insurance and financial services company, not a celebrity. Some celebrities do all manner of distasteful things "all the time", but I don't really want my insurer following suit.

Then Norwich Union start really getting a bit too big for their boots, throwing in the statement that "for us, it was just a case of outgrowing the name we started out with". If you look at Interbrand's fastest growing brands, I think you'll find that most of them stick to their names. Can you imagine Apple thinking: "oh dear, an apple is, sort of...small. Can't we call ourselves one-million-acre-banana-plantation instead to give more an idea of scale?"

The name itself - Aviva - is described as "perfect for us because it's short, memorable and feels positive and lively." Apart from sounding like either a product for people of a certain age with bladder weakness or a Eurovision Song Contest entry, I am not sure that I want my pensions and insurance company too positive and lively. How about solid, honest and reliable?

But the customer letter is the worst item of the whole sorry lot. Here we are reassured by those lively, positive Aviva people (who I am now convinced are transvestites in sequins with bladder problems) that "our name change will make absolutely no difference to your relationship with us."

I think the customers should be the judge of that, thank you.

Global Genie

Discussion of the good and evil of global brands seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon, arising, I would guess, about 15 years ago in the wake of "No Logo".

So I was amused to read one character's rather zealous viewpoint in a much older novel: “Now what you need in this little old island, and what is needed in all the countries of Europe west of the so-called Iron Curtain, and even more I imagine…in all the countries of Europe east of the so-called Iron Curtain as well as in the backward lands of the Far East and the backward lands of Africa, is some greater precognition of and practice of (but practice cannot come without knowledge) our American way of living. I should like to see a bottle of Coca Cola on every table in England, on every table in France…When I say a bottle of Coca Cola I mean it metaphorically speaking, I mean it as an outward and visible sign of something inward and spiritual, I mean it as if each Coca Cola bottle contained a djinn, and as if that djinn was our great American civilization ready to spring out of each bottle and cover the whole global universe with its great wide wings.”

The novel is Nancy Mitford's "The Blessing" from 1951, a wonderful study of culture-clash, often overlooked for her more famous works. The character is the superbly verbose Hector Dexter, who I am sure would be one of the top bananas at P&G if he was around in the 21st Century.