Branded Matters

Rebranding a City: The Devon Tower

Since we are in the branding business, I've watched with mixed anticipation and skepticism (along with many other Oklahomans) the ambitious plans of the new Devon Tower. Breaking ground today, the tower will forever alter the Oklahoma City skyline, "rebranding", (if you will), not just the skyline but perhaps the city as well.

We've worked with many companies who have gone through a rebranding process, a difficult process that forever changes not merely cosmetics, but the purpose, drive and meaning of a company. How do you go about it? What should be your motive and drive? A few lessons from Devon's rebranding of Oklahoma City:

1. Lead the change you want to become. Watch this short video to understand Larry Nichol's desire for a brighter future for Oklahoma City. Devon not only had ambitious plans for their company but also for the city and they proved their commitment by providing a loan to the city for improvements. Many consider Devon's tower the pinnacle of Oklahoma City's Core to Shore development. Once you build a brand that excites and motivates your own core, other changes will rapidly come.
2. Plan boldly and defy the dissenters.  When Devon made their plans public, everyone knew it would be difficult to back down; yet, when the economy began hitting formerly-believed-recession-proof Oklahoma, the plan was assailed by doubts. Devon let the excellence of their work be their own protest. When the power is finally turned on, all doubters will disappear and what remains will be a surviving testament to a daring idea.
   
3. Partner strategically: When the Devon team selected an architect, Nichols commented that they wanted a building that was "iconic" and decided to partner with someone who could deliver. It was imperative that they chose the right architect just as it is imperative that you choose the right architect for your brand. Devon started with a list of world-class designers. When you are making a decision that could stand for 100 years, it is a dramatic understatement to say that you know you must make it right. I've previously written about the Everlast rebranding, a brand that stood the test of time for nearly 100 years. Partner only with the best of the best and you are likely to end up with a remarkable, enduring impression.
4. Be open to change. Devon changed their plans for the height of the tower mid-stream, stating, "design of a project like this is a continuum." As with any design, be open to change until the first shovel hits the dirt and know that constant revision is the closest process towards perfection.
5. Celebrate what makes you different. Howard Roark's speech in The Fountainhead comes to mind. Individuality is as critical for a brand as it is for a person. Branding could, perhaps, even be considered the soul of the company: who you are, what you believe. The Devon tower is a dramatic statement about who the company is and who the company desires to be. There will be no question as to their distinctive prominence and commitment to all who view their "brand", clearly visible across the entire city skyline.
6. Realist alert: have lots of money. Seriously. No, it doesn't sound inspiring but it is true. Timing really is everything. Rebranding should coincide with dramatic successes, not failures. Unless you have such grave image concerns that force you to change your brand immediately, the best time for renewal is when things are going good, not when they are going bad. The reason is simple: you have the critical assets required to pull of such a monumental task in both capital and human resources. Though the Devon tower is being constructed during the current economic crisis, the plans had to be in the works for years. The Oklahoma economy was then roaring; it made perfect sense to expand their overcrowded space with a new world headquarters that they could afford to build. 

For more information and helpful links to rebranding articles, please visit a previous post I wrote on the subject: Rebranding: The Process of Self-Disruption.

Thanks to Steve Lackmeyer for his OKC Central blog, an insightful resources for happenings in Oklahoma, particularly downtown.

Why the Demand for Company Stores and Branded Apparel Programs Will Grow

Twitter is moving more and more mainstream everyday. Like Facebook, user profiles now transcend mere early adopters to the point that the average consumer is beginning to sign up and use the service with relative ease and comfort.

What does this have to do with branded stores?

Everything.

The comfort factor for purchasing and interacting online has grown exponentially. The concerns for security still exist but they no longer exist as a barrier to entry for many consumers; we'll happily purchase online through brands we know, trust, and love. Amazon's tremendous growth from merely an online bookseller to "purveyor of virtually anything" provides a simple testament to the fact that many consumers are far more comfortable purchasing online for a far wider variety of items than is traditionally thought (see this New York Times article, "Can Amazon Be the Wal-Mart of the Web?"). This could mean that custom items online, even branded items, might be coming into a time of their own online (finally), though not without many (many!) pioneers face down in the mud with arrows in their back.

The point is: that end-user, the person who orders the branded shirt, hat or mug is far more comfortable purchasing online than even a year ago and is not only comfortable with it but actually expects dynamic technologies that deliver from the brands they interact with. That means that if you are an employer with an employee store or a non-profit with a store that provides branded items to your donors, the demand for these goods will continue to grow because the audience they are intended for is purchasing online to a greater extent than ever before. In fact, according to Internet Retailer, a recent study conducted by Forrester Research, Inc. revealed that "42% of online retailers increased their online visitor-to-order conversion rates during the first half of this year compared to the same period last year."

Add the continued growth in handheld technologies to the increasing availability of Wi-Fi plus home computing that replaces television sets for mainstream media/entertainment and you'll have a formerly timid consumer that's confident to interact and purchase with your brand and do so much easier than ever before. The bleeding edge of technology might not be as far (these days) from the mainstream as most might think.

Links that Matter, September 2009

• Warren Buffet on scheduling meetings
• Social Media Policies from 80+ Organizations
• 5 Ways to Get Your Blog Indexed by Google in 24 Hours
• artists are entrepreneurs and marketers, too
• 14 Practical Ways to Use Evernote - If you haven't discovered Evernote you must check it out, see also: Evernote: An Essential Organization Tool for SMBs
• 5 Trust Agents Who Are Changing the Face of Twitter
• Two new ways to search: Bing's Visual Search and Google's Fast Flip
• 29 Ways to Collect Email Addresses for Your Business
• Technology + MarCom Will Power Tomorrow's Brand Strategy
• 100 Days of Fry
  

Did You Know 4.0

The following is from XPLANE, creators of Shift Happens, "facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology":

Netflix Fulfillment Center: Operations Becomes Marketing

Hacking Netflix, an independent blog, was invited this summer to tour a Netflix's operation which gave us a glimpse inside a fulfillment center that processes upwards of 90,000 discs per day. I was intrigued by the Netflix warehouse photos from both a marketers perspective and from an operations perspective. Since our little niche is half fulfillment center, half marketing, I was fascinated by the utilization of ones basic operations as a marketing tool.

A post earlier this year from The Head of Zeus Jones defined how this type of marketing is "an aspect of internal operations that has been made transparent to customers and in doing so has become a driver of loyalty or additional business". The Zeus Jones post highlights several examples of companies that have capitalized on their operations as a way to further enhance customer loyalty, such as Zappos free shipping upgrades and Apple's brick manufacturing process.

Our company creates and distributes over 50,000 packages of branded products per year; processing 90,000 per day obviously requires a lot of automation, labor, and innovation. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words as a peek inside a Netflix operations center clearly expresses the Netflix standard for quality and service far more than any mission or vision statement could. As you glance at these photos, you understand that at the end of the day, what really matters, (just as in our business), is whether or not the customer received the right product in the most expeditious manner possible. If marketing is defined as a way to "create the customer, keep the customer, and satisfy the customer" then pulling back the curtain to explain how a company operates is an integral foundation for ones marketing and operations success.

Promotional Products that Matter: Secure Ink

  Remember the movie, "Catch Me if You Can", starring Leonardo Decaprio and Tom Hanks? The movie was based on the real life story of Frank Abegnale (movie trailer, here). In the 1960s Abegnale passed bad checks totaling an approximate 2.6 million dollars over the course of five years (more about Frank, here). After serving some time, Abegnale was released and began a consulting business to help prevent fraud. Eventually, Abgenale's experience helped lead the promotional products industry to work on a new form of ink that would help prevent check washing. A perfect promotional product for financial institutions, this ink is available in promotional pens from Bic as well as Uni-Ball (Sanford B2B).

In an age of unprecedented uncertainty, (particularly for banks), it is imperative that security is translated through a bank's brand to its customers. Pens that help prevent fraud are one more way for a brand to disguish itself from all the other "me, toos" in the banking business. Bic and Sanford sell only through promotional products distributors, if you need more information about these pens, please email me here.

Promotional Products that Matter is a new "best of" series where I troll the industry's half million products in search of the most unique and important branded products you could use. After eighteen years, I've seen more than my share of CPS (known, affectionately, in the industry as cheap, plastic ... um, stuff). If you're tired of buying promo items that have very little impact, stay tuned. I promise to bring only proven ideas that will matter to your bottom line.

Additional resources from last week's ASI class on social media

Thanks to everyone who came to "Marketing in a Web 2.0 World" at ASI Chicago, following are the additional resources I mentioned, arranged so you can drill down by topic; I hope they are helpful:

Twitter:

• Twitter Search
• Twitter Local
• The Top 21 Twitter Applications from TechCrunch
• Follow these awesome Tweeple for best Twitter-use practices: PromoGirl360, JasonABlack, RosalieMarcus, ASICentral
• Twictionary: the dictionary for Twitters
• Five Must Ask Twitter Questions from Chief Marketer
• How to Use Twitter for Marketing and PR
• Twitter is My Help Desk from Duct Tape Marketing
• Seven Easy Steps to Make a Twitter Profile Page from Musings of a Housewife
• Power Twittering with Tweetdeck from Serve the Song
• How to Create Groups for Twitter from Mashable
• How to Speak Twitter from BusinessWeek
  

Blogging:

• Why Your Business Blog Is an Annuity via HubSpot
• Haste, Scorned: Blogging at a Snail's Pace from the NYT (I loved this!)
• 25 Tips to Make Blogging Work for Your Business from Conversation Agent
• Why Does My Business Need a Blog? from the Everything Typepad blog
• 13 Idea-Starters for Stuck Bloggers from Michael Hyatt
• Amazing Blogs: The 1-2-3 Plan Every Blogger Should Know from copyblogger
  

LinkedIn:

• LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover from Guy Kawasaki
• How LinkedIn helps me close deals and market myself better
• Here's how LinkedIn changed the way we do business
• Adding Anchor Text Links to LinkedIn Profiles from John Jantsch

Facebook:

• How to Use Facebook for Professional Networking from Aneta Hall
• Facebook Fail: How to Use Facebook Privacy Settings and Avoid Disaster from Mashable
• Improving Sharing Through Control, Simplicity and Connection from the Facebook blog

Misc:

• IBM's Social Computing Guidelines An excellent resource for larger companies needing to provide guidelines for their employees, (as representatives of the company), regarding the use of social media.
• Your Status Updates on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter: a Snapshot in Time from AriWriter
• An Executive Guide to Social Media from BusinessWeek
• Email Newsletters that Customers Actually Read from BusinessWeek
• A List of Social Media Marketing Examples from Being Peter Kim
• Great Examples of How Operations Can Become Marketing from the Head of Zeus Jones
• How to Filter and Manage Your Online Social Life from Lifehacker
• 5 Ways to Take Control of Your Personal Brand Today from Dan Schawbel
• Get Your Google Profile On!
• Search Engine Marketing and PR (an Edelman Digital White Paper)
• 5 Essential Steps to Make Your Site Search and Social Media Friendly from Lee Odden
•   Ifyou were in the class, you know we tried to show this video: Trunkslammers from RightSleeve

Quick note: I'm often asked, if you had to choose between online networking and offline networking (cold calling, clubs, organizations, etc.), what would you choose? My answer is always the same: it's not an either/or proposition. Determine who your primary target market is and just get after it, relentlessly, both online and offline.

Now, excuse me while I prepare for a full week of cold calling ...

ASI's Counselor Magazine recently conducted a poll of more than 230 distributors and their use of social networking sites. According to ASI, the results (at right) mirror national trends with continual increases in the utilization of these tools to help build and nurture a network of contacts. 

If you are in the Chicago area, I hope you can join me this Tuesday, July 21st from 1:30 to 3:30 at the ASI Show as we'll dig a little deeper into what distributors are doing online to help grow their businesses (details here). My presentation, entitled "Marketing in a Web 2.0 World: How Small Business Can Be Heard in a Big Way" will include industry highlights of viral video, Facebook, LinkedIn, the use of white papers, blogs, Twitter, and more.

Harvey Mackay wrote one of the quintessential business books on networking, "Dig Your Well Before Your Thirsty: The Only Networking Book You'll Ever Need". In it, Mackay's wisdom is as valuable today for online networking as it was when it was published in 1997 (when the term "social networking" referred to physical, not virtual, handshakes). Following are a few quotes from the book:

• For most people networking is a learned behavior, like learning to swim. It is a gradual - and often painful, even scary - process of trial and error, small incremental steps, and finally a few breakthroughs. Fortunately, there are several tried and true techniques for overcoming this Fear of Trying.
• The really big networking mistakes people make in their lives come from the risks they never take.
• There's a reason they call them "connections." You have to connect.
• Networking is not a numbers game. The idea is not to see how many people you can meet; the idea is to compile a list of people you can count on.
• I don't know what I'll be doing a year from now, but whatever it is, undoubtedly, will be based on the contacts I make today.

Who are your top ten must-read bloggers?

I use NetNewsWire for my RSS feeds (if RSS is new to you, click here for a tutorial). Being the info junkie that I am, I have about 172 feeds in my reader. Now, I obviously don't have time to read 172 updates every day but I do have a list of top tens that I do read everyday (or at least every other day). My top ten are mostly a-list bloggers and are as follows (in no particular order):

1. Micro Persuasion (Steve Rubel)
2. 43 Folders (Merlin Mann)
3. Michael Hyatt
4. BlogWrite for CEOs (Debbie Weil)
5. How to Change the World (Guy Kawasaki)
6. Seth Godin
7. Duct Tape Marketing (John Jantsch)
8. Web Ink Now (David Meerman Scott)
9. copyblogger
10.  ProBlogger (Darren Rowse)

I'm looking for more good reads, who do you follow? Email me your recommendation or blog about it and send me a tweet (or trackback to this post).

Company stores: outsource or in-house?

Occasionally, I'll correspond with prospects (clients, even) on the subject of whether to outsource their company store or manage it in-house (I received a similar comment regarding this today). One thing I've learned about company stores is, despite their similarities, no two are alike: each have an eCommerce platform (purchase order options, credit card, points, gift certificates, approval processes, etc.) and each require some element of warehousing, distribution, procurement, and creative marketing but they are vastly different based on products, usage, and purchasers.

The most common trait they share is one of priority: each store is designed to create, make available and distribute branded products (print, apparel, advertising specialties) to a select audience as efficiently as possible. Getting branded products from concept to delivery is the most important criteria by which each store should be evaluated.

John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing recently wrote a simple but powerful blogpost directed toward marketers: The Five Things People Really Buy. John exhorts marketing professionals to make sure they communicate to prospects how their products and solutions are going to:

1. Make them more money
2. Save them more time
3. Allow them to avoid the frustration of doing stuff they don't like (like wasting time and money)
4. Help them save or not lose money today and in the future
5. Help them feel better about themselves
   

The bold emphasis is mine (not John's) but these highlight the common responses clients have repeated to us once we have successfully launched and managed a store for them. Creating a company store to manage branded materials saves time, helps outsource the things they don't like doing (or don't want to do) and helps them save or not lose money by bringing their branded products into a controlled environment.

When trying to decide whether or not to outsource your company store, the most important criteria by which each store should be evaluated, getting branded products from concept to delivery as efficiently as possible, should remain central in your consideration. Even if you can create, manage, make available, and distribute more efficiently than an outsourced vendor, you should still cautiously consider it. Becoming a fulfillment center requires warehousing, inventory, call center help and more, and some companies are doing it; most, however, prefer the alternative. Why?

When a CEO asked me why they shouldn't just manage their store in-house, I replied with a question, "Aren't you in the business of selling ______? Isn't selling ____ your #1 priority?" To elaborate, perhaps one should ask a few more questions:

1. Would diverting the time, energy and resources of your staff away from your most critical priority be worth it?
2. Does your current brand management system support your #1 priority? If so, is it worth the disruption to test your theory?
3. If you have no existing system for managing branded materials, do you create from scratch what already exists and if so, to what purpose?

Deciding to outsource or manage in-house is not merely a question of available resources, it is one of prioritization. Heed your #1 priority or opportunity costs are certain to abound. Instead of, "can we do it?", or "how do we do it?", the critical question to ask is, "should we do it?"