The Folly of What & Where Names

The Need for Change

I’m currently advising a couple of future-minded companies on changing their names.  Both of these organizations have outgrown their original monikers and need new titles to be effective long term.

They operate in completely different service areas, but their current titles suffer from a common flaw – an over emphasis on what they do and where they do it.

What & Where names – titles that state what you do and where you do it - are very common.  But putting industry and geographic references into a name give it a very limited shelf life.  In fact one of the companies that needs a new title is less than five years old.

A Naming Approach from Decades Past

What & Where names may have been effective in decades past, but not today.  Instant global exposure through the Internet renders geographic boundaries irrelevant in many sectors.  Technology, industry dynamics and customer expectations change too quickly today for geographic-industry style names to endure for any length of time.

Outgrown Company Names

Companies with What & Where names are invariably destined to outgrow them.  American Telephone & Telegraph outgrew its name.  So did the Radio Corporation of America, Canadian Tire and countless others.

A Visionary Title for 1901

The Royal Bank of Canada is another example.  Introduced as the visionary new title for the Merchants’ Bank of Halifax in 1901, the Royal Bank of Canada name positioned the company as far more substantial, upscale and sophisticated than its more parochial competitors such as the banks of Montreal, Toronto and Nova Scotia.

From Growth Asset to Liability

The Royal Bank of Canada name helped drive the growth of the company, making it the largest bank in the country.  But in the 1990s as the Royal Bank cast its gaze southward to the U.S. in search of additional growth opportunities, the name ran out of gas.  It was no longer a growth asset.  The name became a liability.

Company leaders came to realize there were three problems with the name.  The first was Royal.  The second was Bank.  The third was Canada.

Royal doesn’t play well in the States.  More than 230 years after the fact, Americans are still miffed about taxation without representation and the Red Coat occupation.  Bank comes across as a rather narrow transaction-focused term, especially in today’s market where the Royal Bank and similar organizations are involved in so many financial fields beyond traditional banking.

And when Americans see the word Canada, they think about hooligan hockey players and Arctic cold fronts sweeping down from the Great White North.  There are no connotations of world-class financial institutions linked to the word Canada.

An Abbreviation Retreat

In order to appeal to its primary growth market, the company decided to jettison its century old title.  It became an abbreviated shell of its former self, taking on the name RBC Financial Group.

In Canada the new moniker camouflaged the name’s appealing, historic meaning and required customers to reverse engineer an acronym to realize they were still dealing with the Royal Bank of Canada.

In the U.S. the name went from having a bad meaning to having no meaning at all.  Coming across as just another random collection of letters that collided in a bowl of alphabet soup, the RBC label failed to plant any appealing or relevant message in the minds of customers.

Inviting Confusion

The RBC name also created a new problem, poor differentiation.  It left the company prone to constant confusion with other alphabet soup named entities like RBS (formerly the Royal Bank of Scotland) which is also pursuing a U.S. expansion plan.

When geographic-industry names hit their limitation points, they almost inevitably degrade into a meaningless collection of letters.

Steer Clear of Geographic-Industry Names

Unless you’re planning to play small and stay small in a market segment that is immune from cultural and technological change, avoid What & Where names.

Putting a geographic and industry reference into a name is a guaranteed recipe for future obsolescence.

Beware of What & Where names.

Branding Lessons From The Ranch – Part 2

Anytime we venture into the realm of the intangible, there is a natural tendency to look back to the physical world for context and direction.  The familiar metaphors of windows, desktops and folders make the virtual environment of personal computers more familiar and approachable.  A popular personality profile tool taps into the imagery of lions, otters, beavers and golden retrievers to make the characteristics of various temperaments easier to understand.

Metaphoric Support

In the essential but intangible marketing discipline of branding, the cattle ranch can be a valuable source of insights for marketers.  In many ways branding a company in the marketplace is like branding a cow on the ranch.  Part 1 of Branding Lessons From the Ranch explored how the two forms of branding are similar.

But if you take the ranch concepts of branding and transplant them wholesale into the business world, you’ll make some serious mistakes.  There are some key differences between the ranch and marketplace forms of branding.

Is Brand Just Another Word For Logo?

In the ranching world there is a huge focus on the physical brand – the mark that gets seared into the backside of calves.  In cattle country there are entire museums dedicated to these brand marks and the irons used to produce them.

The ranch’s physical brand fixation might tempt you to think that a marketing brand is nothing more than a company’s logo.  Logos are incredibly important elements in a company’s overall identity.  Great logos are like pictures – they speak a thousand words.  The Golden Arches instantly communicate McDonald’s even to preliterate preschoolers.  The profile of a common piece of fruit with a missing bite identifies products as coming from Apple.

While logos are important, they are not the brand.  If you have an appealing logo, you have an appealing logo.  Don’t be misled into thinking that paying a graphic designer to concoct a corporate moniker is the same thing as developing a brand.

Dig Deep To Discover Identity

Your brand does not exist in the bright colors and smooth flowing lines of a logo.  Your brand is a much deeper and more emotional entity.  If you want to develop a bona fide brand, you need to do some corporate archaeology and dig deep into the principles, concepts and personality traits that your company genuinely possesses and holds to.

Once you’ve thoroughly discovered your company’s inner identity and expressed it in a one page Brand Identity Statement, then you’re ready to enlist the services of a graphic design professional.  If the first discussion of your brand doesn’t take place until you’re talking logo design, then you’ll have a shallow, surface level brand at best.

Outside-In

Cattle branding is one of the annual rites of spring on the ranch.  The calves that were born over the winter months and early spring are rounded up.  Each calf has a personal appointment with the ranch’s branding iron that has been pre-heated on a nearby campfire.  The mark that identifies ownership of the calf is applied from the outside in.

Inside-Out

In the marketplace the best branding is always Inside-Out, not Outside-In.  Inside-Out brands have a clear set of core values and a consistent philosophy that drives their business.  Inside-Out brands are committed to something beyond the company itself and as a result deliver more than just a product.

Outside-In companies on the other hand, are driven by external events, not internal values.  They discover the flavor of the month and then wrap a new advertising slogan around it.  They live in the world of “me too.”

In the coffee world, Starbucks is the Inside-Out brand that sets the standard in taste and customer experience.  Your local convenience store may have upgraded its beans in response to Starbucks, but it offers an imitation product at best and as a result commands imitation prices at best.

Inside-Out brands lead the way in experience, innovation, price and profit.  Outside-In companies are chameleons, forever destined to be imitators who compete solely on price.

A One-Time Event?

On the ranch, branding is a one-time event.  Once a calf has been marked with the ranch’s brand to establish ownership, there’s no reason for a repeat engagement.  It’s also highly unlikely that you’d ever get any self-respecting calf within searing distance of a hot branding iron for a second time.

Cattle brands are static, permanent physical things.  Marketing brands need to be living, evolving entities that remain relevant in a changing world.  In the marketplace, brands, just like the companies and products they represent, need to respond to changes in technology, changes made by competitors, and changes in customer expectations.

Back in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s Cadillac was the de facto standard in the luxury car market.  Cadillac land yachts, with suspension systems inspired by the pillow top mattress, ruled the day.  Then Mercedes, BMW and later Lexus redefined what a luxury car should be.  According to the new philosophy a luxury car should be tight, powerful, responsive, sporty and painstakingly engineered.  Affluent motorists bought into the new ideas and stopped buying Caddies.  Cadillac’s market share went into free fall.

How Cadillac Got Its Groove Back

Cadillac spent a decade trying to catch up by developing new models that would zig and also presumably zag.  Customer response was decidedly under-whelming.  The Cadillac brand became as relevant as the Commodore 64 is today.

By the late 90’s it was time for a bold reinvention of the brand.  Cadillac embraced a radical new “Art and Science” design concept that featured stacked headlights and sharp angular lines.  In 2002, the first new look Cadillac, the hyper-stylized CTS, hit the streets and instantly turned heads.  Today the CTS tops its category in the Consumers’ Most Wanted Vehicles survey.  So does its larger look-alike sister model the STS and the Escalade SUV, a favorite choice among rap stars and affluent suburban moms.

Cadillac is no longer imitating or following.  It’s leading the way.  And if you take a look in just about any new car showroom today, you’ll find models that have borrowed heavily on the “Art and Science” design.

If Cadillac had followed the ranch philosophy of one time branding it would be on a deathwatch.  Instead, it has reinvented its way back to prominence.

One time branding makes sense on the ranch.  In the marketplace it is a recipe for disaster.

Applying These Ideas In Your Company

What’s the status of your company’s brand?  Has it fallen into some of the traps of ranching concept branding?

Do you have a crystal clear one page Brand Identity Statement that captures your company’s essence?  Have you clearly articulated your philosophy and core values?  Is your brand up to date?  Does it need of an update?

If your brand suffers from any ranching concept branding woes, or if you just want to make it stronger, register for the Branding Breakthrough Workshop taking place in Calgary on Tuesday September 18, 2007.  You’ll learn powerful strategies to make your brand and marketing messages much more targeted, appealing and effective.

Branding Lessons From The Ranch – Part 1

As is fitting for a branding expert, I live on a ranch.  Or at least it used to be a ranch.  Up until a half dozen years ago the ridge overlooking the Elbow River Valley was home to a herd of 250 Herefords.

Today the former rangeland is a thriving subdivision of jewel box bungalows and two storey walkouts surrounded by Kentucky Bluegrass lawns.

The cattle have left the land, but if you think back to the days of the ranch, there are some valuable branding lessons to ponder and profit from.

Branders in the marketplace can learn a lot from branders on the ranch.

A Brand Is A Declaration of Ownership

First and foremost, cattle branding is a declaration of ownership.  Singeing a distinctive mark into the backside of a calf permanently proclaims who it belongs to.

In the days of the old west, owners of branded cattle could confidently allow their herds to roam the open range knowing they would be able to identify their animals at round up time.

In the marketing world a brand is routinely used to identify the manufacturer.  A swoosh on the side of a tennis shoe announces the runner was made by Nike.  A three pointed star in a circle signifies the car is a Mercedes.

Own A Set Of Ideas

But the ownership lesson of branding goes much deeper than simply stamping your logo on the products you make.  Branding offers the sales-boosting possibility of owning a set of ideas.

Back when the first wave of Baby Boomers entered their cavity-prone years, Proctor & Gamble added fluoride to Crest toothpaste and transformed dental health forever.

Crest TV commercials featured an excited grade school child emerging from the dentist’s chair proclaiming “Look Mom, no cavities!”  P&G used the ads to brand Crest as the cavity prevention toothpaste.  By owning the concept of cavity prevention, Crest outsold every other toothpaste on the market.

What set of ideas does your company need to own to move to the top of the market?

A Brand Must Be Distinct

In the ranching world brands must be distinct.  A lack of distinctiveness breeds trouble.  If two adjacent ranches have similar brands a nasty feud is sure to follow.  The same holds true in marketing.

Trademark disputes are becoming ever more common.  Exxon and Kellogg’s have squared off in court over the use of tiger cartoon characters.  Exxon puts a tiger in your tank, while Kellogg’s uses Tony the Tiger to pitch Sugar Frosted Flakes.  Apple, the Beatles’ record label and Apple, the maker of the Mac computer and the iPod, have a long standing dispute over the use of the word Apple in music related services.

You’ll stay out of trouble if you select company and product names, logos and taglines that are hard to confuse with others.  However, there’s more at stake in brand distinctiveness than just reducing the risk of a legal battle.

If You Don’t Stand Out, You Compete On Price

If a product doesn’t stand out from its competitors, if it looks like other products and makes similar claims as other products, then the product is not a brand, it is a commodity that will always be relegated to competing on price.

Think About The iPod

Products that present a distinct message and personality, on the other hand, command higher prices and win a larger share of the market.  Think about the iPod.  Like all other MP3 players the iPod allows you to carry around hundreds of songs in your pocket.  But the iPod is different.  It has a one of a kind style and a hip personality that has captivated millions.  Devotees see the iPod, not as a music playback device, but as an extension of their own personalities.

The iPod dominates the market, especially in the hard drive category where it has commanded a market share of greater than 80%.  And the people buying iPods pay a hefty premium.  iPods typically cost 50-70% more than models with similar song capacity from other manufacturers.

How About Your Company?

How distinctive are the essential identifiers of your brand?  Take a look at the names you use to label your company, products and services.  Take a look at your logo, your tagline and marketing messages.  Then take a look at your competitors.  If the essential identifiers of your brand aren’t distinctly different, you have a problem.

Maybe you once led the market and your competitors have caught up or have copied you.  Cavity prevention was a key differentiating factor for Crest in the 50’s and 60’s.  Today cavity prevention is common to every toothpaste.

If your brand has lost its distinctiveness, it’s time to blaze a new trail.  Don’t tumble into the mire of commodity status.

Branding Is A Long Term Decision

On the ranch, branding has life long implications.  Once branded, the calf will bear the mark for the rest of its life.

The Memory Of An Elephant

In the marketing world, branding isn’t necessarily permanent, but it is long term.  Once you get known for a certain product, service or attribute, the reputation will stick for years, maybe even decades.  The marketplace has the memory of an elephant.

Make sure that you choose brand level messages wisely.  Cultivate a reputation with customers that will stand the test of time.  Make a clear distinction between enduring brand defining values and tactical responses to current market dynamics.

Back in the late 90’s I encountered a number of companies that were adamant the official name of their fledgling organizations had to end in .com.  Most of those companies vanished when the bubble burst.  They made the mistake of tying their identity to a passing fad.

Getting It Right For Decades

There is also a valuable upside to the long term nature of branding.  When you hit the mark with the right company name, product title or tagline, you can run with it for a long time.  The investments you make in professional branding services can keep paying off for decades.

P&G has been selling soap under the Ivory name for more than 125 years.  Nike is still using the Just Do It tagline, which was first launched in 1985.  One of the longest enduring taglines still in use is the familiar slogan for Maxwell House coffee.  Maxwell House has been telling coffee drinkers it is “Good to the Last Drop” since 1915.

Branding in the marketplace is a lot like branding on the ranch.  But be careful how many cattle lessons you take into the marketplace.  In part 2 of Branding Lessons From The Ranch, I’ll explore the ways that branding a business is not like branding a cow.

The Top 5 B2B Super Bowl Ads of All Time

Two Spheres of Competition

Last night’s Super Bowl, like every NFL Championship extravaganza, had two spheres of competition.  The battle on the playing field and the battle on the TV screen.

The Victorious Colts

On the field, the 7 point favorite Indianapolis Colts beat the Chicago Bears 29-17 to win their first NFL title in franchise history.  Flamboyant quarterback Peyton Manning, finally got his Super Bowl ring and earned MVP honors in the process.

$2.6 Million for 30 Seconds

On the screen, advertisers eager to reach the largest TV audience of the year, shelled out a record $2.6 million for every 30 seconds of airtime.

Betting on Amateurs

Among the most notable advertising developments of Super Bowl XLI:  Doritos, Chevrolet and the NFL aired ads that were the brainchildren of amateur filmmakers.  Sprint presented its mobile broadband service as the cure to a serious condition called Connectile Dysfunction.  Coke, looking to bolster sagging soda sales, made a comeback appearance after a decade on the Super Bowl sidelines.

Super Sized Audience

Given the super sized audience, most of the commercials pitched consumer products.  But several business-to-business enterprises also hit the airwaves to take advantage of the one time each year they could count on a high number of corporate executives watching TV on a Sunday night.  My guess is the Super Bowl broadcast attracts a 100 times more executive viewers than Desperate Housewives.

FedEx Ground Doesn’t Mean Slow

The best of the B2B ads this year was a FedEx spot that argued that Ground doesn’t necessarily mean slow.  It provided some fun humor, but lacked the panache required to become all time favorite.  My Top 5 List remains intact for another year.  Here’s what makes these commercials stand above the rest.

1. Herding Cats

My favorite Super Bowl ad of all time debuted in 2000.  It gave a 60 second spot the feel of a great western movie, only with a feline twist.  It combined adventure, nostalgia and great cinematography, with a key for any Super Bowl ad, humor.

The advertiser was EDS (Electronic Data Systems) a company founded by Ross Perot, who became better known in the 1990’s as a two time candidate for U.S. President.

2. Caveman Courier

From Super Bowl XL (2006), Caveman Courier did a brilliant job of connecting with the emotions of FedEx’s real customer – the shipping clerks and administrative assistants who risk the wrath of a Neanderthal boss if an urgent package doesn’t make it to its destination on time.

FedEx went from the fantasy past to the fantasy future in its 2007 Moon Office ad.  FedEx did better in the past.  Moon Office didn’t come close to cracking the Top 5 List.

3. 1984

No review of Super Bowl commercials would be complete without mention of Apple’s groundbreaking spot to launch the Macintosh.  Playing on the Big Brother imagery of George Orwell’s novel 1984, the spot positioned Apple as the agile, original and powerful alternative to group think.  The commercial concluded that because of the Macintosh, 1984 would be nothing like 1984.  Apple gave the ad an added mystique by airing it only once.

4. Brother Dominique

By today’s standards, a 1984 Macintosh is ancient technology.  But to provide some perspective of what a breakthrough it was at the time, go back just 7 years earlier to 1977 when the technological wonder being pitched was Xerox’s high volume photocopier that could print two pages every second.

The Brother Dominique ad looks dated 30 years after its debut in Super Bowl XI, but endures as an influential classic for introducing the product in the context of a story line and its subtle use of humor.

5. Running With The Squirrels

It is not often that a commercial is so successful that it inspires a sequel.  And it is far less often that the sequel is strong enough to stand on its own.  EDS did both.  It followed up Herding Cats with Running of the Squirrels a year later with excellent results.

What Are You Doing in Your Customer’s Mind?

As I walked into the store to pick up some contact lens solution I had a specific brand in mind.  But when it came time to make the actual buying decision, I changed my mind.

Why the Change In Mind?

Why?  Because a product name I encountered planted a new idea in my mind.  The name made me look at my buying decision in a new light and in the process won my business.

My experience with this surprisingly powerful name teaches a valuable lesson about selecting company, product and service names that you can use in your business.

Normally I buy the contact lens solution introduced to me in sample size by my optometrist.  But as I looked at all the products on the shelf that day, the optometrist-introduced brand was eliminated by the competing product with the thought-provoking name.

What Name Tipped the Balance?

What was the name that proved stronger than a professional endorsement?  Equate, a real English word that means to make equal; to treat, represent, or regard as equal, equivalent or comparable.

Equate is Wal-Mart’s house brand for a wide variety of personal care items like shampoo, cotton swabs, vitamins and in this case contact lens solution.

What makes the name so effective is the message that it conveys.  The name claims that Equate products are just as good as the national brand name products they sit next to on the shelves, only they cost less.

Changing Patterns of Thought

The first time I looked at the Equate name, it turned me into a comparison shopper.  The name prompted me to turn over the package and check the list of ingredients.  The ingredients listed on the Equate package were the same as on box of the national brand.  At the bottom of the Equate package I saw the name of the company that made the product for Wal-Mart.  It was a major international manufacturer.

The ingredients were the same.  The quality of the manufacturer was the same.  My conclusion – the products must be just the same, except the Equate product was a couple of bucks cheaper.  I put the Equate contact lens solution into the shopping basket and put the optometrist recommended brand back on the shelf.

What can we learn from my contact lens solution buying experience?

Learn How To Influence Customers

The first insight is that Wal-Mart’s success stems from more than just a legendary inventory management system and every day low prices.  Knowing how to influence consumers has a lot to do with Wal-Mart’s climb to become the world’s number 1 retailer.  More buying decisions get made inside a Wal-Mart than in any other business location.

The Incredible Power of Names

The second lesson is more wide reaching and can be readily applied to any business.  There is incredible power in naming.  Names form thought patterns.  If your company and product names create the right type of thought patterns, they can actually influence customer behavior and stimulate buying demand.

Draw Customers into Sales Cycle

Naming is your most important marketing decision.  Make sure that you choose names that will draw your customers into the sales cycle.

Some names create no magic at all in the customer’s mind.  Companies that take their title from a founder’s surname, only send a message about themselves.  They demonstrate no focus or concern for the customer.

Likewise with most acronym names.  They look like an accident in a bowl of alphabet soup and are void of appeal.  (For the story of a company that is wasting millions promoting its acronym name read the November issue of Brandscapes)

Fire Up the Brain Cells

The best company, product and service names fire up a customer’s brain cells.  They get the customer thinking about why they should buy the product.  They plant a compelling mental image.  They engage the customer’s sense of humour.

Want some examples?  Think about Quicken, the home finance software from Intuit.  Every time the name is mentioned, the product’s prime benefit gets restated.  Callaway Golf presents an image of explosive force with the title of its Big Bertha driver.  A Vancouver furniture store shows it has a sense of humour with its name, Sofa So Good.

Capitalize on the Opportunity

Naming is an incredible marketing opportunity.  Capitalize on it.  Don’t settle for a name that leaves the customer unengaged.

What About Your Company?

What does your company name do in the mind of customers?  If it sends a non-message or the wrong message, contact Identicor for help.

Should You Spend $30 Million to Make a Bad Name Famous?

This fall I’ve been conducting a simple one-question survey that illustrates an important lesson in naming companies or products.  Here’s the question:

What does LP mean to you?

If you’re like the majority of people surveyed in person, you think that LP stands for Long Play – as in the big black 33 RPM records that were the music delivery system of choice before cassette tapes, compact discs and now MP3 files.

Maybe You Think Like a Lawyer

If Long Play is too obvious for you, maybe you think like a lawyer and read LP as shorthand for Limited Partnership.  Or maybe you’re in the petroleum industry and see LP as Liquid Propane.  Or perhaps you are medically minded and to you LP means Lung Puncture.

All of these responses are valid and understandable, but none is anywhere close to the meaning that a U.S. lumber company wants you to associate with the letters LP.

Renaming an NFL Stadium

The lumber company wants to claim a prominent place on the North American stage, so it entered the high stakes game of professional sports venue title rights.  Back in the summer the company doled out a tidy $30 million to the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League to rename their stadium LP Field for the next decade.

Apparently the lumber executives figure that if sportscasters say “LP Field” a few thousand times over the next 10 years, the company will become famous.

Doing the Wrong Thing in the Customer’s Mind

But as the survey illustrates, the lumber barons are sadly mistaken.  They are doing the wrong thing in the customer’s mind.

If the Name Is Not Unique, Fame Will Not Follow

They are not creating interest in a lumber company.  They are only reminding people of the meaning they already attach to the letters LP – and it’s not Louisiana-Pacific, the original long form name of the lumber company.

A Waste of $30 Million

At the end of the contract, the company will have little to show for its investment other than a $30 million void in its bank account.  LP will still only mean Long Play to a huge portion of the North American populace.

What the Lumber Company Should Have Done

Assuming that attaining North American prominence is a good marketing goal for the company, it should have signed, not a 10 year contract for $30 million, but a 9 year deal for $27 million.

The Company Needs a Unique Name

The extra dollars could have financed a renaming project and an enormous awareness campaign.  The first step – create a powerful new name unique to the lumber company.

By coming up with a memorable new title, the company would realize the full potential of its stadium naming contract.  After a few years of exposure, the company under its new title would become far better known than it is as LP.

With $3 million to publicize the new name, the company could have done a lot.  They could have bought T-shirts and ball caps for all their employees plus 70,000 fans at a Titans game.

They could have poured money into advertising or into goodwill projects that would generate warm feelings and major amounts of positive media exposure.  The company could have expanded its support of Habitat for Humanity, bought an entire section of season tickets for underprivileged kids to see NFL games or sponsored community football leagues.

This alternate strategy would have given LP a name that would turn into a high value asset, unique to the lumber company.  With the North America-wide exposure of its NFL stadium, the marketing boost would have been huge.  Instead the company is stuck with a name that will always be plagued with confusion, being mistaken as an old fashioned iPod.

What About Your Company?

What does your company name do in the mind of customers?  If it sends a non-message or the wrong message, contact Identicor for help.  And pay close attention to the December issue of Brandscapes.  It will tell the story of how the world’s largest retailer uses effective product naming to create buying demand.

How Much Is Your Brand Worth?

Did you see the BusinessWeek issue last month on global brands?  It had a fascinating cover story on how businesses become more valuable by building strong brands.

Each year BusinessWeek teams up with Interbrand and a small army of Wall Street analysts to assign a financial value to the world’s Top 100 brands.  The number crunchers predict each company’s five year earnings and sales.  Then they take out operating costs, taxes and interest charges for the capital being used.  They even deduct the value of intangible items like management strength and patents.  After the final deductions are made, the remaining number is the amount of each company’s revenues that come from its brand alone.

The King of Global Brands

Not surprisingly, Coca-Cola is once again the king of global brands.  It topped the list this year with a brand value of $67 billion.  The Coke name alone, because it is known to billions of people worldwide and is generally well regarded, is worth $67 billion.

Rounding out the Top 10 are the three most influential players in computer software, services and microchips; a pair of conglomerates, one best known for its role in all things electrical, the other for its cell phones; two automobile manufacturers; an entertainment and theme park icon; and a fast food mega chain that sells a lot of Coca-Cola.  By name, the rest of the Top 10 in order are: Microsoft, IBM, GE, Intel, Nokia, Toyota, Disney, McDonald’s and Mercedes-Benz.

Google the Biggest Winner

The biggest gainer on this year’s list is Google.  The value of the Google brand increased an unprecedented 46% in value from 2005, making it the world’s 24th most valuable brand name.  Now pegged at $12.4 billion, Google has surpassed Sony, Ford, Nike and Apple.  The dominant search engine’s brand worth is now double the value of Yahoo!

How Much Is Your Brand Worth?

While the article crunches the numbers on the world’s biggest brands, it raises an interesting question for every business:  How much is your brand worth?

If someone walked through the front door of your office this afternoon with checkbook in hand, what price would you fetch for your business?  How much of the total price tag could be attributed to your brand?

What Makes a Brand Valuable

While you would have to borrow some of the Wall Street analysts to put a hard number on your brand’s value, there are some straightforward factors you can ponder to determine your brand’s strength.

Is Your Brand a Known Entity?

Is your company a known entity in its industry?  Does its reputation extend into the broader business community?

Better known is better valued.  All things being equal, established brands that regularly get their name in front of clients are more valuable than newcomers or companies that may have been around for a while, but do little to get on the radar.

Smart, strategic advertising is an investment in your brand’s value.  What are you doing to become better known?

What Are You Known For?

It’s good for a brand to be known, as long as it is known for the right things.  Ford’s Edsel got lots of attention, but only as a design disaster.

If a research company called up a dozen of your customers and asked them to describe your company, what kind of story would they tell?  Would it be positive?  Would it accurately reflect your range of services?

Do you have the reputation among your customers that you want the broader market to know about?  If the brand story your customers tell is different than the story you want to present to the marketplace, spend some time to create a new brand promise and then deliver on it.

Don’t rush into being famous if the spotlight will only expose a spotty reputation.

Where Do You Rank in Your Industry?

Are you a conqueror, a contender or a commodity?  Do you dominate your segment the way Heinz rules ketchup or the iPod defines MP3 players?  Or, are you a contender, one of a half dozen players vying for market share?  Or are you an indistinct entity always forced to compete on price?

If your brand is on the commodity or even the contender section of the scale, create a plan to move up.  With successful execution, higher profits await.  If you’re in a conqueror position, continue to advance.  You’re the target everyone has their eyes on.  Make your brand impossible to surpass.

How’s Your Brand’s Momentum?

Is your brand a rising star or a sitting duck?  Is the value of your brand growing like gangbusters or stuck in a rut?  What are your plans to be more valuable a year from now?

Get a Boost From a Sub-Brand

Sometimes the most effective way to boost momentum is to introduce a new sub-brand.  Motorola has redefined itself in the last year or so, bringing in a new head of global marketing from Apple.  Instead of viewing itself as a technical product seller, the company has been thinking about the experience its products provide for consumers.  The new focus on the customer’s experience led to the RAZR, which is arguably the coolest and hottest selling mobile phone on the market.

Motorola increased the value of its brand by 18% last year, due largely to its sub-brand investment in RAZR.

What sub-brand potential is lurking in your business?

What Will Your Story Be In 5 Years?

If these quick brand value assessment factors have exposed some growth areas, what action will you take to be a more valuable brand five years from now?  If you want to develop a professional game plan for increasing your brand’s value, contact Identicor for a complimentary 1 hour assessment.

Fun As A Competitive Advantage

An Olympic Example

An interesting contrast and a valuable branding lesson emerged from the winter Olympics in Turin Italy this month.

On one side was the high profile, star studded Canadian Men’s Hockey Team.  On the other, a little known member of the Canadian women’s speed skating team.

All Star Talent

The men’s hockey squad, overflowing with NHL All Star talent, was the defending Olympic Champion.  The team’s gold medal match victory over the Americans in Salt Lake City in 2002 was one of the proudest moments in Canadian history since Paul Henderson’s final game heroics against the Soviets in 1972.

High Expectations

Every red-blooded Canadian hockey fan was expecting a repeat performance in Turin.  But when they hit the ice, they hit the ice.  The All Stars fell flat.  They were tight and ineffective.  They stumbled in the round robin tournament, suffering shut out losses to both Switzerland and Finland.

Advice from the Great One

In discussing the disappointing performance with the media, the team’s General Manager Wayne Gretzky – a guy who knows a few things about winning – said the problem wasn’t that the players weren’t serious or intense enough, but that they weren’t having enough fun.  The Olympics in Gretzky’s view should be one of the best weeks of a player’s life.

No Medal, No Fun

But despite of the Great One’s pep talk, Team Canada was knocked out of the medal round by the Russians, finishing 7th.  No gold.  No silver.  No bronze.  No fun.

A Strategy of Joy

Contrast the men’s hockey team with speed skater Sarah Hughes and her performance in the 5,000 metre event.  In a fabulous example of positive self-talk, Sarah wrote herself a one-word note prior to the race.  The one word was Joy.  Her goal was to have a great time, to have an exuberant amount of fun.

Sarah captured the spirit of fun that eluded Joe Sakic and company.  Joyful Sarah went home with the gold medal.

The Importance of Fun in Business

In the world of Olympic competition, fun appears to be a vital component for peak performance.  But how about in business?  Can fun be a competitive advantage for a brand?  Absolutely.

Fun in the Sky

For an example, think about West Jet, or if you’re one of Brandscapes’ American readers, think Southwest Airlines, the oft-copied pioneer in airline fun.

Both Southwest and West Jet have made fun part of their cultures.  It’s an expression of who they are.  Every time they touch their customers, they make them smile.  They’ve also made their investors smile.  These fun airlines have consistently turned in financial results that have left their stodgy competitors grounded.

West Jet Is Fun Everywhere

West Jet makes it fun to fly.  Fun to listen to safety instructions.  Fun to read an annual report.

West Jet even makes it fun to wait for the next available telephone reservation agent.  West Jet has a fabulous sound loop to entertain you while on hold.  My favorite line from the loop is: “If you’ve been waiting to speak to a reservation agent for more than 90 seconds, hit star 5 5 5 three times.  It won’t get your call answered any faster, but it might make you feel better.”

Good for Employees, Good for Customers

Fun sparks creativity.  It draws people together.  It builds team unity.  A culture of fun brings out the best in your employees.  When your employees are at their best, they do a great job of attracting new customers.  And once treated to a fun experience, customers keep coming back for more.

How to Make Your Brand Fun

So if fun is a branding advantage, how do you make your brand fun?  Well, don’t start by taking a comedy class.

Fun Starts With Great Service

The foundation for fun is the hard work of service excellence.  Make sure your business performs the basics flawlessly and consistently.  If West Jet or Southwest flights were consistently late, all their antics wouldn’t be fun, but a comedy cover up for poor service.  If Sarah Hughes hadn’t put in the long grueling training hours, a “be happy” attitude wouldn’t have elevated her to the podium.  Before customers will enter into the fun you offer, you need to meet their needs.

Let Personality Show Through

Once customer needs are looked after then you can add the fun.  You can add fun by letting the lighter side of your personality show through.  Give your employees permission to be themselves.  If you have an enjoyable culture, let your customers in on it.  One of my clients has regular staff outings.  They have a great time no matter what obstacles come up.  Here’s what they reported in their year-end client newsletter:

“Our tents almost floated away but no one drowned at our annual staff camping trip one soggy weekend in June. We're still not sure if we'll be doing the camping thing again.”

Fun By Design

Great graphic design can make your brand more fun.  Ask your designer for ideas on how to lighten up your logo or add a touch of playfulness to your website.  And if you use advertising to promote your business, you can make your ads fun.

Advertising Fun

My very funny colleague Michael Kerr told me about a motel in Brandon that had a fire.  Fortunately the blaze was contained to half of the building.  Soon the motel was back up in business with a special on “non-smoking rooms.”

How Fun Is Your Brand?

Not every business can or should be as much fun as West Jet or Disneyland.  And I’m not suggesting that you do a Robin Williams stand up routine before a high stakes sales presentation.  But if you add just a moderate dose of fun to every client interaction, you’ll lay a foundation for solid customer loyalty.

If you’re up against an equally competent competitor, fun could be the difference that ensures you get the business.