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Complex Language Weakening Brands

from the Brand Strategy Insider

“Call the law enforcement officers. We’re being robbed.”

Not a likely scenario. What the average person is much more apt to say is: “Call the cops. We’re being robbed.”

Unfortunately, marketing people are not average persons. Marketing people are much more likely to elevate their languages until, in some cases, they lose their meanings.

A few years back a senior marketing person at United Parcel Service asked me what I thought of the company’s trademark.

I like it, I said, but what UPS really needs is a motivating idea or rallying cry, something like: UPS delivers more parcels to more people in more places than any other company in the world.

UPS, he said, is not in the parcel delivery business.

Huh. That came as a big surprise to me. We’re a customer and I always thought that UPS was in the parcel delivery business.

No. UPS is in the logistics business.

He wasn’t joking. At the time UPS was in the process of repainting some 88,000 vehicles with its new theme: Synchronizing the World of Commerce.

A serious impediment to communications is this constant upgrading of the language. No aspect of life is left untouched by the upgrade police. Not only does a term have to be politically correct, it has to be as long and as complicated as possible.
Maintenance men are now physical plant managers.

Janitors are now custodial engineers.

Garbage collectors are now sanitary engineers.

A business strategy is now a business model.

Accounting firms are now professional service firms.

The purchasing department is now the procurement department.

The personnel department is now the human relations department. (At Electronic Data Systems, the HR department has become the Leadership and Change Management department.)

Fireworks are now pyrotechnics.

A jail is now a correctional facility. Anyone setting off the pyrotechnics illegally will be sent to a correctional facility.

It would be amusing if the problem hasn’t become a serious impediment to marketing. Many firms, for example, call themselves financial services companies. What’s a financial services company?

If you want to buy banking services, you go to a bank like Bank of America.

If you want to buy insurance, you go to an insurance company like State Farm.

If you want to buy stocks, bonds or mutual funds, you go to a brokerage firm like Merrill Lynch.

Let’s go to a financial services company to get our finances serviced, is not the way people talk. People talk in terms of specifics, not generalities.

As a matter of fact, it’s easier to go from the specific to the general than vice versa. People know that a drug store sells a lot more things than just drugs. Toiletries, candy, soft drinks, stationery, photo supplies, etc. Should a drug store (pardon me, pharmacy) describe itself as a personal services store? I think not.

Boston Chicken was a huge hit when they first opened its doors. It was the first fast food restaurant chain to focus on rotisserie chicken for the take-home dinner market. But then it added turkey, meatloaf, ham and other items to the menu and changed its name to Boston Market.

Everybody knows what a chicken dinner is, but what’s a market dinner No wonder, the company went bankrupt.

The same principle holds true among marketing companies. You probably know of many famous advertising agencies and many famous PR agencies, but how many famous marketing communications agencies do you know of? Name one.

When in doubt, use the narrowest possible term to describe your category. Let the mind do the upgrading, not your marketing.

Why Making the Logo Bigger Can be a Big Mistake.

by Amy Phillips, Creative Director

It’s a problem that comes up in design 101, and is waged by art directors everywhere. The dilemma of whether to engage the audience or hit them over the head with a client’s logo has endured since David Ogilvy penned his first headline.

Clients who spend money on a web banner or TV commercial naturally want to get the most out of their ad dollars. But pushing the logo into someone’s face as often as a 30-second spot or a tile-sized Web banner will allow, isn’t really the best way to do it. Viewers are way too sophisticated for this tactic. And now they have technology to back them up. One click of the mouse or the remote control, and your logo and the rest of your message are history.

Unless you quickly establish why your ad is relevant to them, they’re unlikely to register anything else. Just think of it as the, what’s-in-it-for-me? syndrome. The people you’re trying to reach are caught up in their own lives. If at home, there are phones ringing, children crying, dinners boiling over and bills that need paying.  At the office, things are even worse. Deadlines loom, sales goals beckon and bosses demand answers. “Now what were you trying to sell me?”

Please…do yourself and your company a very big favor. Don’t let all your hard work and good money go to waste on an audience that isn’t paying attention. Engage them first. Then they might even be interested in your logo.

My Advertising Internship Experience at PeakBiety

by Haris Silic

Finding an internship with an advertising agency in Tampa is not an easy task, to say the least. Hence my uncontrollable joy when Amy Phillips, PeakBiety Creative Director, offered me a summer internship position back in July.

I am a senior at The Art Institute of Tampa, pursuing a BA in Advertising. This degree is quite different than the BFA in Graphic Design, since the focus is more on strategy development and less on creative. However, in order to stay competitive in the industry, I have had to work hard on advancing both my creative execution as well as my strategic skills.

At PeakBiety, I have been able to apply both of those skill sets. I’ve worked on design solutions for their Tampa and central Florida-based clients and created a comprehensive SEO strategy for PeakBiety itself.  I really feel like I have been exposed to all functions of an advertising agency.

Haris giving a presentation on SEO stategy

Haris giving a presentation on SEO strategy

My advice to anyone looking for an advertising internship in the Tampa Bay area is to stay flexible. Try to obtain as many different skill sets for your tool belt as possible through your education and be able to apply them. Internships at premier advertising agencies in Tampa, such as PeakBiety, are very limited and competition is strong, but it was definitely worth the fight.

Good luck future interns of PeakBiety!

The Importance of Creative Strategies

by Glen Peak

As I was watching Justin Timberlake’s crowdsourcing effort for his 901 Tequila brand, I was amazed at his proposal.

With almost no information about the product’s goals, messaging or even target market available, how can he hope to get relevant ideas that will generate interest in the brand beyond the first five minutes of buzz?

I can’t “prove” this, but it’s my sense that a lot of advertising—all media forms, including sales collateral—is developed without a clear-cut creative strategy. This sense, born out of experience, seems particularly true in smaller companies that might not have a fully staffed or thoroughly trained marketing department. I’ve also seen loosely defined (if not completely undefined) assignments coming out of larger companies as well. My point? Operating without a well-defined strategy for creative work presents huge risks:

• The audience won’t “get” or understand the value of the product/service, and the dollars spent to produce and distribute the message and materials are significantly wasted.
• The client and agency have no foundation to assess the creative work and render judgment on whether it can work – no matter “how clever” it is in someone’s judgment.
• The strategy makes the agency’s work more focused and therefore, more likely to produce on-target work in less time (read: “save money”).
• When clients and agencies agree to a strategy up front, it minimizes chances for disappointment in the work.

So, if it’s this important, why isn’t there a strategy written to guide the development of all types of advertising? This includes: sales brochures, web content, commercials, ads, etc.

Probable answer: It’s hard work, takes time, is not glamorous and requires studying the target audience’s needs and wants. It involves getting into their heads, deciding what’s unique about your advertising style and knowing how the competition has presented themselves.

So, how often have you looked at some piece of communication and wondered, “Why should I value this product or service? How will it benefit me?” or “How is this different from what I am now using or doing?”

A good advertising agency will insist on a strategy agreement at the beginning to avoid wasting time and money. There are even tests that can be applied to judging the merit of the strategy itself, but we’ll save that for another blog post…

This invisible sales tool will net you visible results.

By Glen Peak, President

You can’t touch it or feel it, but it’s there.  It’s not a pie chart, a graph, an ad or an endorsement.  Yet it can encompass all those things. It can turn prospects into buyers and skeptics into believers.  It’s the difference between brand X and brand Nike. I’m talking about the power of perception(SM).

Even if brand X makes a shoe every bit as good as Nike, it’s unlikely to net half the price—a disparity that hinges on perception. Granted, Nike has spent billions of dollars carefully cultivating its perception.  But even a company with only a small budget can achieve visible results by controlling the way people view its brand.  Which would you rather own:  A watch?  Or, a precisely crafted timepiece worthy of passing on to future generations? I’m sure you see what I mean.

So while your brand’s perception may not be something you can touch or feel, its impact will be clearly seen on your bottom line.

For a step-by-step guide on how to build perception, request a copy of our white paper, “Corporate branding.”

Rebranding An Advertising Agency

By Amy Phillips, Creative Director

When I joined PeakBiety branding + advertising, about 3.5 years ago, it was as if the agency adopted me into a family (and I had adopted an agency). My new digs had a different name on the door and a foreign brand identity everywhere. An identity I had not been involved in creating. It was like wearing someone else’s shoes that didn’t quite fit but I began to get used to them. Or so I thought…

During my first month on the job, a project was opened for a “New Agency Brochure.” What started out as a straightforward concept involving optical illusions and “The Power of Perception,” evolved into much more than a mere brochure. You know the concept is on target when the title of the brochure begins to be considered as a new brand promise.

By the time the creative group had the collective epiphany that we were looking at much more than a new agency brochure, senior management saw the writing on the wall. Literally, the creative team started plastering the walls of the agency with our new iconography and colorful identity. New logo, brand promise, letterhead package, signage, website—you name it—it followed. And the evolution and extension was quite natural as it usually is when the “big idea” is so strategic.

Normally, it’s not easy for an advertising agency to rebrand itself. Brand building for a company, particularly an advertising agency, is an incredibly arduous task even with an in-house design team. Not only is finding time to work on it a problem—when we are busy with paying clients—but feeling satisfied with the work is another. Why do the cobbler’s children have no shoes? Because working on your own stuff can be paralyzing. The self-conscious process is more than intimidating. The work not only needs to be effective at capturing the essence of our company. It needs to be a model of the best of the best. We hold our own branding up as an example of the quality and attention to detail our clients should and could give to their own brands.

The story here is about how branding, or rebranding, can be a journey over time. What starts out as a simple idea gets sharpened, fine-tuned, polished and extended. It becomes embraced and loved by those who have created it and stand by it. More important, it can convey what an entire company stands for. It’s the essence of collaboration and the fruition of consensus. Then, when the right style and design are applied, it sings loud and clear.

“Advertising Taglines Lose Their Starring Role In Ads” by T.L. Stanley. An exerpt from Brandweek.

For generations, taglines have served as the foundation for advertising—a short statement poised to deliver the brand message in a memorable way. Today, there is some consensus that the tactic is on life support.

The reasons range from ever-shorter tenures of CMOs (13 months on average, according to recent research) to ever-splintering consumer demographics.

“It used to be on the list of deliverables,” said Mike Wolfsohn, vp/executive creative director at Ignited, Los Angeles. “It was mandatory.” He suggested marketers be bold and definitive about taglines, or skip them all together.

When it comes to developing a hit tagline, there is no set formula, Wolfsohn said. There is little commonality in ones that work.

“Treat it heroically,” he said. “Celebrate it. Don’t relegate it to 8-point type in the lower right-hand corner.”

Too often, taglines are used as safety nets out of a fear that the rest of the campaign isn’t communicating well enough, he said.

These slogans are often more utilitarian and less emotional. They tend to be fed through the focus group mill until they’re watered down beyond recognition. That process does not produce “Think Different,” “Got Milk?” or “Just Do It.”

“If the Nike tagline were suggested today, the question back would probably be, ‘Just do what?’” said Wolfsohn. “There’s a level of trepidation now that people won’t get it and they won’t be able to parrot the idea back to you. So, taglines get over defined.”

That’s when they loose strength and become meaningless, he said.

For a slogan to stick, it’s not just coming up with five catchy words or less, said Landor & Associates’ managing director Allen Adamson. It’s vital to weave that message through all the communications and the very brand DNA itself.

“It has to be the right promise, with the brand living up to it, expressed in a sticky unexpected way,” Adamson said. “And then you have to spend money and stay with it for the long haul.”

He points to GE’s “Imagination at Work” as a break-through tagline because it’s more than a slogan. “It’s the business strategy,” he said. “It’s the mission of the company.”

What’s your opinion on taglines?  Or, as we prefer to call them, brand promises?  Should we stick with one memorable line that sums up the brand?  Or, should we vary the message with the market?  We’d appreciate your thoughts.