Bad Branding

Why Bottled Water is Bad Branding

2010-03-22T11:10:00.000-07:00

This 8-minute video from The Story of Stuff creator Annie Leonard demonstrates the core principle of Deepening Relationships: if the branding isn't true, the truth comes out with justified anger, and the only factor is time.

"Bad branding" means you're not relying on the true points of value of your product, and instead chucking the empty and ugly truth down the road, where it will be uncovered later. This is what companies like Coke and Pepsi must do, because their products have so little true value in them. It may make billions and completely rewrite our culture, but it doesn't mean it's smart.

What this generation of consumer is finding out, is that there is only so long a lie can be sustained before its truth – and its consequences – show up like a big ugly monster. And we will see the shelf life of corporate lies getting shorter and shorter as communication becomes increasingly cheap and easy.

So what is the opposite of bad branding? The Hot Truth.

You Don't Say...

2010-01-28T09:38:00.000-08:00

I love adjectives. They are the flavors behind the spice, the character of a person, the experiences we all have. Branders love adjectives, too. For the most part, however, they don't know how to use them.

Adjectives are visceral. They well up inside of a person – born in the heart, in the gut. They arise and fall out of our mouths like lava, because they can't be contained anymore. Words are not this – words are in the brain, synaptic firings, quick and sparkly. They have no responsibility to the emotions, to the heart and gut. Words represent the meaning behind them – they aren't meaning. Say a word enough and meaning fades away completely. Adjectives are all meaning. So when you write an adjective down, make it a word, and attach it to you, you're diminishing its essence, taking away some of its natural power.

Branding tip: don't bother describing yourself for others.

Let's say you're opening a fashion boutique. You begin to ponder what adjectives can describe the shop. You want it to be "cutting-edge," "fun," "girly," "saucy," "bold," and "quirky," with just a "touch of goth." Now, how do you make that happen?

It's much better to be those things – in other words, to embody those adjectives – than to put the words on your marketing materials and promotions.

Adjectives are important, but not as important as who is saying them. When you put into words descriptions of your own product, the words are coming from the biased ego of the product's creator – you – and are therefore met with immediate skepticism by your audience. People may agree with you, but by telling them what you are, you attempt the impossible: controlling others' opinions of you.

You'll find the more you try to tell others what to think of you, the more resistance and rebellion you will get. Even if they would like to agree with you, they'll find ways to come up with their own words. People want to think for themselves.

The much more effective alternative is to keep the words to yourself, then make sure every day you walk into your boutique you can accurately describe it with those words. If you can do that – if your adjectives are accurate – it's more likely that others will be describing you with the same words, in their conversations and daily lives. Let other people describe what you are. If they aren't describing you in a way that you'd like, change yourself so they change their opinion of you. But don't try to take that power away from them by telling them what to say.

And that power of opinion is incredible. When someone else describes you, their words are exponentially more credible than when you say the same things about yourself. It's because they can be trusted more than you – by their friends, family, and by the very folks who would be interested in shopping at your boutique.

Plus, if your only efforts to be described a certain way is to describe yourself on paper, you remove your own accountability to yourself to be those things. The flawed logic goes: I'm saying it, so it must be true, and you then feel entitled to do nothing else to follow through on that idea. Nothing works this way.

The lazy, ineffective approach to changing people's opinions of you is to slap a new word on your sign.

Branding Tip: Be it, don't say it.

Outside Matches Inside

2010-01-20T08:13:00.000-08:00

The human mind is full of contradictions and paradoxes, which come about from beliefs about the world... the belief that all people are self-serving and wicked can exist alongside live and let live, in the mind of a single person. The deeper these beliefs dig in, the more conflict will arise both within the mind, and in outer experience. Following this line, entrenched belief systems of a company's leaders play a huge role in brand personality – so much so that they strike at the very core of a company's intentions. Consequently, this lack of emotional and psychological self-awareness often results in the best intentions working against best interests.

For example, Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, had many ties to the deaf community: his mother was deaf, he married a deaf woman, and befriended Helen Keller. But his strong opposition to intermarriage among deaf people, from fears about "contamination" of the human race by propagation of the deaf (even though statistically more deaf children are born by hearing parents) casts a pall over all his well-meaning schemes to 'improve' the world, in relation to the deaf. Thus, his school for deaf and hearing children failed within two years. His first national census for the Deaf in 1890, a great achievement, has a sour taste to it when considering his opinion of the deaf. The same can be said for his "Beaureau Volta," continuing today as the Bell Association for the Deaf, which in its language and efforts make deafness appear as an affliction that needs to be corrected, by things like cochlear implants and speech therapy. I'm sure Bell's self-contradicting marriage was a peach, too.

To this day, the Deaf Community, which considers itself a minority culture like any other, holds resentment and anger toward Bell, for his efforts toward them. So the very audience the Bell foundations and family seek to serve, do so by alienating the majority of it. What are left are parents of deaf children who don't know about the larger, welcoming, normalized culture that exists for their children, who see deafness as a problem, rather than simply a character trait.

Consequently, the Bell organizations work outside of and without the endorsement of the greater Deaf Community, and the efforts of the Deaf Community, to be accepted and seen as valid, are complicated by Bell's efforts.

This conflict all stems from Bell's belief system that deafness is a problem, institutionalized in an organization, and contnued by like-minded individuals. Now the situation is much more complex than what can be covered in a blog entry. However, denying the importance of, or worse, ignoring the existence of the belief systems at the heart of your business can result in major unintended conflicts when you take it to market.

Taking a deep look at why you want to go into this or that business is just as important as figuring out how you'll go about it.

Jimbo-Ree

2010-01-04T11:29:00.000-08:00

In a definite lack of sensitivity for an otherwise quality retailer, Gymboree's new "Lil' Bully" line comes at exactly the wrong moment (if there were any right one).

Bullying in schools is currently a localized, viral epidemic – abusive behaviors in the schoolyard spreading quickly through communities before parents have a chance to respond appropriately to the situation. Bullying and suicide among children seem to be naturally linked, and bully behavior has come under proper focus since the Columbine massacre.

A recent South Park episode has inspired groups of kids in the US, Canada, and UK to "Kick a Ginger." In this climate, Gymboree is being socially irresponsible.

Why bad branding? Everything else about Gymboree has an air of delightful cuteness. Even as it encourages gender roles to a fault and perpetuates stereotypes, it does so with preciousness – after all what parent doesn't want to dress their little boy or girl up like a doll sometimes? But instead of sticking to trucks, ladybugs and racecars, a simple play on an animal name (and possibly encouraged by a recently successful bulldog line), with this stereotype Gymboree has crossed over into the socially inappropriate. This reveals a corporate naivete more than anything, but it is still unwelcome, and will ding Gymboree's figures, albeit marginally and invsibly.

Jos. A Bankrupt - A lesson in discounts

2009-12-17T00:09:00.000-08:00

If you are a retailer of men's suits, do not make it appear that you are perpetually going out of business. That is the well-claimed territory of rug and furniture stores. Jos. A. Bank constantly advertises discounts of its products. And if there is one rule about bad branding everyone should heed, it is that discounting your product literally decreases your value. How can you claim to have "the finest men's clothing at" your store when it is so cheap, and you are so desperate to get rid of it all through crazy sales?

These are men's suits – a product category that is associated with wealth and class. Bargain hunters are rarely dressing in Armani. So I must assume, by the persistent "buy one get two free" and similar ad campaigns, that at least one of the following is true:

1. Jos. A Bank is desperate for shoppers. 2. Jos. A. Bank suits aren't very good. 3. I shouldn't ever expect to pay full price for a suit from Jos. A. Bank.

Here are the problems with discounts:

1. Discounts sacrifice profit. You can't stay in business without making a profit. And discounting, no matter the volume, equals a downward trend in growth. Wal*Mart is cheap, but it spends a lot of time muscling down the cost of its products to tenths of a cent. Now, Jos. A. Bank may be doing this – but then #2 above would be true. Cutting costs means cutting quality.

2. Discounts bring quality into question. Things of quality cost money. Things that don't deserve full price aren't worth buying at any price. And whether or not your product is worth its price, giving it a price lower than it is worth frames it as "low-quality."

3. Discounts assume nobody would buy the products otherwise. Discounts exude low self-esteem. There is, after all, something to the axiom think rich, grow rich. Sticking to a price means that there is something worth sticking up for. If people know you'll move the price down, they'l know to wait for you to do so.

4. Discounts literally decrease value. Value is the ratio between what something costs and what it is worth. When you lower price, you may mistakenly think that you're properly affecting that ratio. However, price is such a vehicle of the overall message of a product, a stated price affects people's ideas of what something is worth. A car that costs $250,000 is, perceptually, more valuable than a car that costs $50,000 – say they're both luxury vehicles. But make either of those cars $15,000, and people will wonder what is wrong with them. Simply by lowering price, you can successfully devalue a luxury item.

5. Discounts attract cheapskates. Once you give people the idea that a price can be lowered, they hope the price can go even lower. A discount is appropriate when you capitulate, trading breaking even for making a profit. Cusotmers don't know where that line is, and "cheap" means "as cheap as possible."

The lesson: lowering price is a failing game that demands your customers see your products as not worth their money. It's bad branding.

"Let's Go See Avatar"

2009-12-07T03:07:00.000-08:00

Just in case you weren't aware that advertising is getting a bit desperate and sad, if you watched Fox's Bones this week, you saw about the crassest possible of advertising tie-ins ever attempted in a television show.

Since the co-star of the show has a role in James Cameron's upcoming Avatar, someone decided it would be the perfect opportunity to plug the movie by shamelessly weaving it into the plot of the episode. Bad Branding.

First of all, if you're interested in the movie, this will do nothing to make you want to see it more. You'd go to see it anyway. Secondly, if you're a fan of Bones, you may or may not be the kind of person who would want to see Avatar, and vice-versa. This is thoughtless marketing with no notion of audience or resonance.

After my wife watched this, and she's a big fan of Bones, she said she didn't know anything about Avatar. So Bones not only pissed her off (she kept expressing her disgust at the show while watching it), it also failed to inform her of any value the movie would have for her.

So blindly dumb, it has already made the rounds of blog entries. According to Cameron Cubbison at Poptimal:
"...Avatar is being released by Fox. That doesn’t mean you get to bastardize the television show to plug an overhyped movie that doesn’t need any more marketing. Emma Watts, president of production at Fox…are you behind this? Is this your doing you greedy crass turd?"

Um, this isn't the kind of reaction such a concerted and detailed marketing idea should get.

Webex at a Distance

2009-12-01T16:43:00.000-08:00

The internet is rapidly outmoding television, giving us a more versatile, interactive, and information-driven media tool. Television is still great for getting a message out to lots of people at once. But it is expensive, invasive, and exclusive.

The great thing about the internet is that it allows the customer-company relationship to become quickly intimate. Skype, Google, and a whole host of web companies give users great products for free, and even others give us the ability to try something before buying it – like Webex. So why is Webex making it so hard for me to like something I already want?

Though it seems to be the leading choice when it comes to web conferencing solutions, Webex's stiff-arm promotional efforts made me run to look for other options, and I found some.

This "demo video" alienates me from any true value Webex may have for me. Everything about Webex's promotional push is distant, from the emotionally distant actress, to my attempts to try out the product, to an increasingly elaborate pricing system that reveals its web as I try to get closer. When I tried to join in on a live demo, I just got this creepily slick video again. But since I gave them my info to try the live demo I got an unwelcome call from a Webex sales agent. I told him Webex lied to me about a live demo and I wasn't interested anymore.

And what I've heard from users of Webex is that it's not simple at all, but rather complicated. Webex, you've lost me.

Obama lets lobbyists visit White House

2009-11-26T06:21:00.000-08:00

According to this report at Huffingtonpost, the White House visitor list includes many industry and corporate leaders, but also the CEO the lobbying firm PhRMA, and other interest group leaders.
Hailed as one of the strongest brands of 2008 by Fast Company Magazine, the Obama Campaign made a pledge that no lobbyists would be allowed in the Obama White House. Barack Obama's ability to appear sincere was one of his great strengths during the campaign, and, however innocuous (after all, who wouldn't expect representatives of industry and interest to have the ear of the president?), this runs a counter-message to his promise: that equals bad branding.

We see Obama's poll numbers slip during the time of this article, and there has been much talk about the discrepancies between Obama the candidate and Obama the president.

UPDATED 11/27/09
OBAMA PUSHES HUNDREDS OF LOBBYISTS OFF FEDERAL ADVISORY BOARDS
This article covers a move that is much more in line with Obama's pledge with regard to lobbyists. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I hope it gets the attention it deserves.

Palin PISSES OFF her fans!

2009-11-21T13:27:00.000-08:00

Let me say first, I'm not a fan of Sarah Palin. But I must admit she has achieved uncanny resonance with a significant swath of angry white morons in this country. But as far as political resonance, the kind that could get you elected, there are really not enough fans to speak of.

Why, then, with such a thin slice of followers, why would you ever piss off your tiny little tribe? Sarah Palin's book tour has inspired many of her fans to wait in long lines to spend 15 seconds with her at the book signing table. And in this one instance, she left them in the cold and rain without signing any books! What an idiot. But you must admit, this is in character for Sarah Palin!

According to one angry fan, "I feel like I don't want to support Sarah."
There is a higher power at work. Hooray.

Blackberry: All You Need

2009-11-21T13:08:00.000-08:00

I like the Beatles. But get ready... there are going to be many more ads with Beatles songs in them, and for years to come. Blackberry is one of the first to bite, with All You Need Is Love, and lots of "inspiring" situations that have... maybe? something to do with? Blackberry?

I have a rule about covering songs: make it better than the original. Instead, this is douche-rock of the highest magnitude. When the sing the line "It's easy," it sounds like "diseasey." That's not good, man.

And then how about conveying something valuable about the product you're selling? Branding has, to its detriment, become too much about selling a lifestyle, to where the actual thing being bought is lost completely into the background. It's a gimmick of the 90's that became the whole strategy of this decade. and it's failing.

The situations in this series of commercials are idyllic. That means they are virtually unattainable. The feelings, environments, and relationships are false. If you're trying to sell me on just a lifestyle, sell me one I can achieve.

Palm Pre Nirvana - Okay... it's a PHONE!

2009-11-21T13:00:00.000-08:00

This is possibly the most overblown, ridiculous hype-sational ad of 2009. Virtually everything about this commercial annoys me – from the pious, vapid woman, to the non-sequitor Chinese dance squad. It makes me want to actually tell people not to buy it, even though I have no clue about the product.

It seems to be a PDA+ phone, but from this commercial, I can't be sure. Bravo, Palm. You're going out with a kaboom.

Starbucks Via

2009-11-21T12:36:00.000-08:00

I love Starbucks, because it, perhaps more than any large company, is doing the kind of strategic branding that I preach – except with Starbucks Via. And some of the things that Via involves runs directly against the grain of Starbucks' very strong strategy.

Firstly, Via involves aggressive marketing. When it came out, I was subject to daily coaxing by cashiers and baristas to buy it, give it a try, give it another try, etc. No other time have Starbucks employees been used so blatantly as salespeople. I think this aggressive selling is unfair to them and is way out of character.

Secondly, Via involves advertisement. Starbucks has never had to rely on advertising, since its stores are in virtually every neighborhood. This was the strategy of exposure they went for, saving huge sums of money by not having to advertise. Suddenly, I'm seeing Starbucks Via commercials on TV. This is also way out of Starbucks' character.

One saving grace is that Via does taste good, and it is convenient. And the Via-selling isn't going to keep me from going to Starbucks, but more choices in this direction will lose me as a customer. They could have marketed Via in a way much more subtle and fitting manner.

"___" Heads

2009-11-21T01:30:00.000-08:00

The Blue Shield "____" Happens campaign is particularly shortsighted, offensive, and socially retarded.

For one, I don't know why a heartless health insurance company, in this climate, would choose to draw attention to itself at all. Why remind people of the profit that you make off sick people? If I were a health insurance company, my brand strategy would be stay hidden.

Next, please don't pretend, with cutesy, rudimentary humor, that you have any sort of humanity. I feel sorry for the actors in these commercials, who clearly need the money, or they wouldn't sell themselves off to a complete falsehood like this. The disingenuous deliveries in all these performances speaks volumes.

Most notably, when one is asked to complete the sentence "___" happens, what word comes to mind? So what advertising mastermind decided to put disembodied heads of the brand's customers in place of that word... Doesn't that make Blue Shields's customers shitheads?

Well, I guess I'm a shithead, because I have Blue Shield. Like I have a choice. Recenty, a former spokesperson for Blue Shield turned on the company and is now starring in a documentary against the insurance company.

Hey, why didn't you take all the money you spent on this national ad campaign and cut a few genuinely needy patients off your greedy little list of denied coverages. Pricks.

Ram: My Tank is Full

2009-11-21T00:50:00.000-08:00

Do truck drivers want poetry? This is the question I ask with this bit of bad branding.

By the way, Ram advertisers, what exactly does "my tank is full" mean, what does it add, and who do you think actually cares?

I think Ram could have done better by putting an ad out with images of the truck, talked about how rugged and tough it is, and reminded people that the Ram truck is a worthy option when considering which car to buy.

Instead they treat us to some embarrassing poetry, while reminding us that it costs an arm and a leg to fill the whopping tanks of trucks like these. And in the execution, going for all style and no worth (beyond status symbol), I think Dodge Ram has really added nothing of value to its failing product.