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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.

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.