It is Friday morning and the coffee is on perculating away, you go to the fridge, "darn you have enough milk to feed a mouse, you jump in the car, it is 5.35am, you arrive at Coles and make you way to the fron door, but this time a man waves and points to his watch, he mouths, 6--- am! alright, when did this happen? it was just a short time back it was opened 24 hours, which I thought was not just a point of difference, but was a more considerate service to the consumer. So now Coles have closed their doors till 6.am, and just like safeways.
What are these decision makers basing their clever new decisions on? Let's face it, this country is basically run by the duopolous two, and so they can do what they like, stuff the customer! who shops at 5.30 in the morning anyway and besides, lets face it, the buyers aren't too bright anyway, and if we don't tell anyone we are taking a government approach to people and not tell them we are reduding our service, then they will never know.
Come on ALDI, grow and grow and make these bastards pay for their arrogance and their lack of understaning the customer and their needs.
QANTAS LOSES OUT TO VIRGIN BLUE
IN THE BEST BRAND BATTLE
The Brand Surgeon, Paul Harmer, surveyed 2,092 people aged 19-66 to help compile a list of the top 10 most liked and disliked brands on the market. Options covered a range of traditional commercial brands, internet and social media sites and personal brands.
The survey reveals that of the options Google (1) is the most liked brand out there, closely followed by Obama (2). On the flipside, surveyed individuals reacted most negatively towards brands such as Twitter (1) and Telstra (5). Comparisons of similar brands showed Virgin Blue (10) beating out Qantas (17) comprehensively for the title of best airline brand.
“What made this survey even more interesting were the two or three word comments made by participants. Whilst everyone voted for their top ten best and worst, there were some brands that polarised or stimulated intense opinion” said Paul Harmer, founder of The Brand Surgeon.
“Interestingly, some of the brands near the top of the best-brand list also appeared in the top ten most disliked brands. Commonwealth Bank showed this polarisation of opinion, with 906 people for (9) and 1146 against (2)”.
Over the past 25 years, branding strategist and author Paul Harmer has learned from the experts experiencing what it takes to achieve brand success. Harmer has worked with psychologists, top executives and some of the most successful brand owners on the planet. He has seen brand owners both struggle and thrive in creating the right powerful brand experience, producing the recipe for brand glue and greater profits.
The top 10 most liked brands on the survey were:
Google
Obama
Ikea
U-tube
Facebook
Mercedes
The Body Shop
Apple
Commonwealth Bank
Virgin Blue/ Samsung
October 09
A Surgeon takes a scalpel to isnack2.0
OK, so now the big news is, Goodbye to the isnack2.0 cheesy road. Yes' you all thought isnack2.0 was a ridiculous name and had about as much appeal as swine flu. Here we go again, we are going to be re-engaged with choosing what we think should be theworthy brand title. So now we can all go out and buy the remaining2 million jars as a collectors items, and guess what, we are going to continuously talk about the new
vegemite cheesy spread until the next, drum-roll please, rrrrrrrrrr and enter Vegemites
adopted brother MooSpread? Cheesliscous?CheeMite0.3? BoogerMite? Ok I give up!
You have a go at it.
Now this whole isnack2.0 reminds me of when Coca Cola introduced to the market in 1985,their new improved formula for Coca Cola and guess what? people hated it, there were cry's from the shores of Florida to the tip of the US Canadian border and beyond, 'bring it back, bring it back, I need my fix. The new name was a great flop leaving a bad taste in the mouths of the loyal brand fans. So what did Coke do? they went back to the original recipe re-introduced the old coke with a massive advertising campaign, their brand product was now called the Original Coca Cola. Sales went through the roof and they increased their market share up from their percentage of the market pre the launch of their new coke.
Some marketers believed the whole new formula thing was some clever slight of hand
marketing, the public didn't care, bought the elixir by the gallons and drank more of it than ever before. Now you have to ask yourself, but first let me make it clear, I don't want you to think I am suspicious or doubtful of the Vegemite managements values and philosophy in relation to market manipulation just so they could create more awareness of the new cheesyspread and the we go out and buy just to see what the hype is all about. No No No No. Alright then, Yes, Yes, Yes, OK I fess up, I am a little suspicious, but perhaps I am giving "Team Vegemite" too much credit in their brilliance of manipulating the market creating furor over naming it isnack2.0, perhaps it was poor judgment, well if so, it is earning them more attention and brand product awareness than they could ever of imagined.
Were Vegemite trying to be cool with the isnack2.0 name? Perhaps you could say
isnack2.0 was the geeky, version of Vegemite, you know! Like Kevin Rudd, nerdy but
likeable, by some that is, and definitely on the cutting edge of self promotion and Y,Xgen web-speak.When it comes to strategythe main aim for any brand manager is to have his brand connect with people based on the brands identity,its personality and its relevance to their target market and their lives.
Irrespective of what the brand name represents the product must be good and I have to fessup I did buy a jar of the cheesy spread just so I could evaluate it and make up my own mind. And yes it's not bad, actually ok, gooey, cheesy and tastes ok on toast. I humbly give it a 5.0 out of a possible 10.0, and let me tell you, this comes from a big Vegemite fan who has been weaned on since an ankle biter. Let's face it, It doesn't have to be great, and let's be honest, just look at our leader Rudd, what has he done since being in power?? Ummmmhh I'll let you know when it happens. But let's get back to the real question here. Well, what do you think? What would you now call it?
I have to say, this is a good strategy which many businesses irrespective of their size can learn from. What is good about this fiasco was the way they have created such interest in marketing their cheesy product, as they had no brand name, created a competition, getting the Australian public involved and got tons of free publicity. Now that is good experiential marketing, and as that great philosopher Confucius once said, Tell me and I will forget, show me and I will remember, involve me and I will understand. Irrespective of what you thought of the isnack2.0 name this is a good lesson for those in business, It's all about involvement. If you want to increase your chances of success and sell your product, then get your prospective customers involved. Don't ignore the power of blogging your edgy proposition and look at social networking as a vehicle to spread your message and your brand.
Paul Harmer
The Brandsurgeon Branding Strategist Customer ExperienceConsultant
September 09
OK so we are nearing the end of the recession we never had here in Australia. However, trade is still down and businesses are suffering, so what do we need to do in these tough times? Now, you are probably expecting me to say its all in your marketing, well or trim your marketing budget, and continue to push ahead and invest in your brand building in a hope that you will get an edge on the competition. Well you are partly right, I am not an advocate of throwing money at your marketing, however I do think you need to keep your marketing budget steady, as a percentage of revenue. If you are confident in your projected sales, then you can expand on your marketing.
Here are some dont's: Don't drop your price and compete on being cheaper as a positioning strategy, as you can just as quickly lose a customer based on your price. OK lets play devils advocate, and lets say you are going to drop your price to compete against your competition, then if that is the case look at linking price changes to value change, and offer your product without the bells and whistles, trim down the offer or unbundle the offer and reduce the value along with the price. Give people the choice of buying at three different value options along with the pricing, you may be surprised at their choice and see them end up buy the middle priced option. If you are going to increase your pricing then add greater value and bundle your offer up. Make sure your brand proposition is about their gain. I took my partner and her father to one of our favorite restaurants which is in Malvern last Sunday. We looked over the new menu and we couldn't help but notice the increase in prices, corkage went from $5 a bottle to $7 a bottle, the meal my partners farther had was gnocchi with prawns and scallops, the price had increased by three dollars. The food was good and the services was also good, however in these tough times people are hurting and are watching their budget carefully, so as far as I am concerned the owners move to increase pricing considerably was a stupid and greed strategy, as his prices were high in the first place compared to the competition in the area. We decided we wouldn't be back for some time to come. It annoyed us all as there was such a large increase in price, and on principle thought it was more greed than necessity.
Price sensitivity in tough times can be a critical part of any business strategy, maintaining brand loyalty can sometimes be a fine line and price increases can sometimes be the tipping point. What this restaurant should of done was also add three or four meals which were smaller and simple to prepare where they do not have to spend valuable time on preparation and the overall costs are low. They could also look at including a glass of wine with the meal as an incentive. People will rationalise the perceived value are greater. the fact is, a glass of reasonable quality wine can cost a restaurant $1.30 per glass so the perceived value is far greater however the cost is low. This bundling offer works in all businesses.
Recessionary periods are a good time to introduce a new product, you only have to look brands who have successfully launched their products like, Monopoly, IBM personal computer, Disney, HP, Celotape, ipod, this list goes on. The 100 best Global brands are at least maintaining their marketing budgets, some are aggressively boosting their spending, however none are reducing their marketing spend.
August 09
A Story of opportunity
THis is an old story I thought I would share with you as it relates to many in business who are finding the going tough.
The Man and The Hot Dog
A man lived by the side of the road and sold hot dogs. He was hard of hearing so he had no radio. He had trouble with his eyes so he read no newspaper, nor did he watch TV. But, he sold great hot dogs. He put a sign up on the highway telling how great they were. He stood by the side of the road and cried, “Hey, You, want to buy a great hot dog?” And people came and they bought.
So, he increased his meat and bun order. He bought a bigger stove to take care of his trade. Then, one day his son came home from University to help him. His son said, “Dad, haven't you heard the news about the recession? The economy is really bad. The unemployment situation is terrible. The energy situation is worse.”
Whereupon the hot dog man thought, “Well my son's been to University. He reads the newspapers and listens to the radio, he ought to know.”
So the father cut down on his meat and bun order. He took down his advertising signs. He no longer bothered to stand by the side of the road and yell, “Wanna buy my hot dogs?” And his hot dog sales fell almost over night.
“You're right son,” The hot dog man said to his boy. “We certainly are in the middle of a bad recession!”
July 09
Small Business Strategy
Is your Brand Proposition out of touch?
The current downturn everyone is experiencing has certainly had us looking at what it is we are doing in our businesses and also in our private lives. I, like many of my clients are reevaluating our priorities and also refocusing on what are our greatest strengths. Are we making the most of our skills and our strongest points when it comes to meeting the needs of our target market?
Questions to consider
Have you asked yourself whether your client's needs have changed? Do you know where their greatest pain lies? Like clients of mine, I am also a client of other businesses and professionals, I am also spending money on improving my brand proposition by spending in the areas which are going to give me a good return, "I hope". '
Are the changes you are making in your Brands proposition going to greatly benefit your clients and prospective ones, do the changes show a relationship with the direct needs of your clients and the challenges they are experiencing?. Believe me, your clients are making changes as a result of the economic strain which is impacting the majority of sme's and also the larger companies.
Are your products and services being repositioned to meet the needs of your market? Have a close look at the changes you have made in your brands proposition and put it up against your findings. A friend of mine in Ireland is a part owner of a graphics company. Their business accounts were around 5 million euro in the previous year, their business has dropped by 80% over the last 10 months and as you can guess, this is killing them and their business.
This could have been avoided by asking some critical questions about their own proposition and further exploring the needs of their existing clients and prospective one's. Frustratingly my friend tells me, 'they also had failed to do this although in a crisis meeting one of the partners insisted on surveying their clients directly to find out where their client 's pain is . He said we should be looking at either dropping our prices, create more specialty services, and add greater value to our current offer, after all , our clients are hurting he argued. The CEO argued it would send the wrong message about the company and dilute the value of the brand, and this is out of the question!
Yep! You guessed it, they are now in the process of winding up the business. This could have been avoided, and as far as I am concerned was arrogance and stupidity rolled into one. I think it is critical for all businesses on all levels to look at making changes to the brands proposition by placing themselves in the clients shoes. Be the client and ask yourself what are the changes that need to happen for the business to not only survive but also grow .Get a real understanding of your existing clients and prospective markets greatest needs.
Ask yourself, why would they use my product or service over the competition? And what drives the customers decision making. What is it that differentiates us? Are you willing to make some changes and drop your prices on certain products or rejuvenated services, can you offer the client an add-on creating greater value, can you show that the price you are currently charging is going to benefit them to the point where the cost is outweighed by the profit. What is it you are willing to sacrifice?
Lets not forget that the market, (your clients) needs are changing all the time, what was great last month may be obsolete tomorrow in terms of their needs. Trends are forever changing.
I have always been a big believer in letting the product or service offer sell itself and as most businesses out there are small there is a great advantage. You can make changes more rapidly than the bigger companies, you can adjust to the markets needs with far greater speed. Let your offer reek of benefits and it will sell itself, there will be no need to do the big sell.
As a word of caution and I say this from my experience with another company I have worked with recently . They decided to offer a cheaper alternative, however it was also an inferior cheaper quality product. They lost a major client due to this move. So the message is ,be very careful of your decision making. Don't lose sight of your values and your Brand promise.
Twitter has attracted tremendous attention from the media and celebrities, but there is much uncertainty about Twitter's purpose. Is Twitter a communications service for friends and groups, a means of expressing yourself freely, or simply a marketing tool?
We examined the activity of a random sample of 300,000 Twitter users in May 2009 to find out how people are using the service. We then compared our findings to activity on other social networks and online content production venues. Our findings are very surprising.
Of our sample (300,542 users, collected in May 2009), 80% are followed by or follow at least one user. By comparison, only 60 to 65% of other online social networks' members had at least one friend (when these networks were at a similar level of development). This suggests that actual users (as opposed to the media at large) understand how Twitter works.
Although men and women follow a similar number of Twitter users, men have 15% more followers than women. Men also have more reciprocated relationships, in which two users follow each other. This "follower split" suggests that women are driven less by followers than men, or have more stringent thresholds for reciprocating relationships. This is intriguing, especially given that females hold a slight majority on Twitter: we found that men comprise 45% of Twitter users, while women represent 55%. To get this figure, we cross-referenced users' "real names" against a database of 40,000 strongly gendered names.
Even more interesting is who follows whom. We found that an average man is almost twice more likely to follow another man than a woman. Similarly, an average woman is 25% more likely to follow a man than a woman. Finally, an average man is 40% more likely to be followed by another man than by a woman. These results cannot be explained by different tweeting activity - both men and women tweet at the same rate.
These results are stunning given what previous research has found in the context of online social networks. On a typical online social network, most of the activity is focused around women - men follow content produced by women they do and do not know, and women follow content produced by women they knowi. Generally, men receive comparatively little attention from other men or from women. We wonder to what extent this pattern of results arises because men and women find the content produced by other men on Twitter more compelling than on a typical social network, and men find the content produced by women less compelling (because of a lack of photo sharing, detailed biographies, etc.).
Twitter's usage patterns are also very different from a typical on-line social network. A typical Twitter user contributes very rarely. Among Twitter users, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one. This translates into over half of Twitter users tweeting less than once every 74 days.
At the same time there is a small contingent of users who are very active. Specifically, the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets. On a typical online social network, the top 10% of users account for 30% of all production. To put Twitter in perspective, consider an unlikely analogue - Wikipedia. There, the top 15% of the most prolific editors account for 90% of Wikipedia's edits ii. In other words, the pattern of contributions on Twitter is more concentrated among the few top users than is the case on Wikipedia, even though Wikipedia is clearly not a communications tool. This implies that Twitter's resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network.
Bill Heil is a graduating MBA student at Harvard Business School, and will start at Adobe Systems as a Product Manager in the fall. Mikolaj Jan Piskorski is an Assistant Professor of Strategy at HBS who teaches a Second Year elective entitled Competing with Social Networks. Bill undertook research for parts of this article in the context of that class.
i Piskorski, Mikolaj Jan. "Networks as covers: Evidence from an on-line social network." Working Paper, Harvard Business School. ii Piskorski, Mikolaj Jan and Andreea Gorbatai, "Social structure of collaboration on Wikipedia." Working Paper, Harvard Business School.
Why do Australians trust private brands more than any other of our pacific neighbours.
Whether it be Coles "choice", budget $martbuy, Woolworths "Home Brand" or IGA's Black & Gold labels many consumers have grown to trust in these home brands.
What is it that these dominating giants in Australia are doing to gained our trust?
What are the implications of private label growing and dominating over other brands who are competing against perhaps their own product, but in a coles, IGA or Woolworths home brand lable?
Are we going to be swamped by these private label giants resulting in a reduced choice of brands?
What are the impications for private label manufacturers who are now competing against their own product dressed in a private label, are they going to be squeezed of the shelves and become slaves to the big boys?
What are the benefits of private label versus other brands and what are the pitfalls for consumers?
Does Private Label Swamping means less choice With less space on the shelves the majors will most likely back their own label and keep culling the slower selling lines. The point is in any business, you need to back your best selling products if you want to make a dollar, there is no point in supporting slower sellers, it would be bad business and not in the interest of the consumer and company long term. What is obvious is, small brands need to lift their game and work on their brand, its message and the experience it provides for the customer. They must be as competitive as ever and offer practical and emotional benefits to the consumer.. Independent brand owners need to make a strong statement about their brand and story if they want to survive the private label attack. What they are up against though is a private lavel catagory which prices their products at around 30 percent below other big-name brands with over 230 of their own low budget products. This has gotto hurt the independents. Private house brand labels have offered the customer a solid product at a very competitive price and they have constantly delivered on their budget brandpromise. This is quite powerful in the customers minds making their choice a lot easier when it comes to value and the familly budget. The the private house brand label positioning becomes more convincing resulting in greater stickiness and loyalty.
What does it mean for consumers Without doubt the consumer is the winner here. As much as many consumers don't like the major retailers dominating over the competition, what it has done is put the onnus on the other competing big brands to lift their game. In many ways it is good for competition, however I am sure many big brand and others would not agree with me saying they are starting to dominate the market and undermining Aussie brands Aussie jobs, it all comes at a cost so consumers have expressed. .
A recent study by market researcher AC Nielsen shows that 99 per cent of Australian households consistently purchase house brands, with each household spending an average of $145.70 on them in the three months to September this year(2007). Buyers are most keen on packaged cakes (more than 72 per cent bought are private label) plus staple food items such as eggs (more than 57 per cent), milk (about 50 per cent), packaged cheese (nearly 30 per cent) and bread (more than 31 per cent). Overall, private labels enjoyed a 19.4 per cent share of the packaged grocery sector, a rise of 1.5 per cent over the past two years. However the status-conscious among us may have hidden them under the brand names in our trolleys and pushed them to the back of our pantries out of sight of the odd visitor, however one thing for sure is we've always bought them and always will just as long as the maintain their quality and price differentiation.
The question which I have to ake myself though is , what are the supermarkets doing to make the shopping experience more enjoyable, more interactive? Are they going to lye back on their domination and lack of competition or are they going to make a paradigm shift and make shopping an enoyable fun experience. The more competive pricing strategy of coles and Woolworths has not come about because they are kind hearted people, it has developed due to the Aldi group coming to Australias shores back in January of 2001. They know the supermarket world quite well having strarted in Germany back in 1948. If it wern't for their brand migration to Australia, we would be still paying for overpriced products in a less competitive market.
My experience with my banks fee hikes and less service.
Branding is nothing more or nothing less than heart. Businesses on all levels who understand this will constantly win over the competition. It constantly comes back to the experience you create, and this brings me to my experience with banks. What are they thinking? or perhaps the question really is, what are they feeling? They act with no feelings, well why should they? they have investors to consider, so the story goes!. They are out of touch still, with understanding the emotional needs of the customers. People are sick & tired of being treated like fools and numbers.
The bank who reaches out and connects by creating an experience which meets the emotional needs of the customer will in the end be the winner. It is about what is inside you and your company that counts. It is about passion and what it is that you value and care about. Corporations who understand this are the success stories of tomorrow. The word and action of CARE is becoming COOL. Greed is becoming less cool by the hour. Demand Service, Demand Respect and if they don't give it, then jump ship.
I went along to my gym after work for some feel-good exercises with the hope of reducing my wine infused stomach. I did my workout and after the slog I looked forward to a warm shower. As I made my way to a brief soaking, I had to pass by discarded bottles, tags from someones newly bought shorts, a paper cup and finally in the shower a used container of Garnier shampoo. OK you may be thinking "yeh well that isn't too uncommon" well you may be right, but when the same bottle in the shower was there from the previous day and the rubbish had been on the floor since I first walked an hour before, then you have to wonder what in the hell is going on. Who wants to be surrounded by rubbish of any kind at any time, anywhere, especially at a well known branded so called health center? When on the way out I walked past the receptionists and asked them how often the change rooms get cleaned, their answer was every day.
This is just plain dumb, and I can say this is a regular happening, it isn't so much a one time situation. The question you have to ask yourself is "What is management thinking"? where are the systems they should have in place to keep the venue standards up to the so called values of the company, their brand image and reputation?
If businesses like health centers want to remain in business they have to look at getting it right so the experience of being in their gym a pleasant memorable one.
The question is, Why doesn't the management and staff get it? The effect it has on their brand image can be devastating!
Some Brandsurgery needed
November 2008
Self Punishment
Recently my partner and I went to the theatre to see the famous Jerry Lewis. It was a wonderful retrospective look at this very funny mans contribution to comedy and feel good humour. It was a great show and fun entertainment! However before the show started and before the last bell rang we decided to enjoy a glass of wine. The line was 16 deep and there were two lines? Yet only one side of the four sided bar was being used.
OK, I can understand that in hard times we need to trim our business costs, however what are the losses when you have a captured market but you are only able to provided a portion of the sales due to a lack of service? It amazes me to see this type of business stupidity, for next time my partner and I will go outside the cinema to the café around the corner and have a wine of two with a snack. If business owners really want to build their business they have to take calculated risks and service their potential market. You cannot create brand advocates if you are pissing them off. We need to have the customer experiencing your brand in a positive and productive way if we expect to create stickiness and build our business.
