A little bit of Mark...

Check out Stories by REL

2006-10-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

I've not been able to put as much time as I'd like into this blog because of a variety of excuses...none of them too very good. However, I'm part of the team blogging at Stories by REL, and I invite you to stop by there, check out our approach to brand management and story telling.

And thanks for visiting here for the past six months. It's a been a fun run.

Engage everyone in brand management

2006-08-24T21:54:00.000-05:00

The doorbell rang, earlier tonight and a neighbor, wearing a harness filled with a little baby, asked me to come restart her mower. When I arrived, I quickly started the mower and proceeded to mow the lawn, not wishing to see the tiny mom with the tinier baby struggle with the mower. Within a few seconds, I started wondering how she had accomplished the one trip around the lawn before the mower stopped. Pushing the mower was shear torture. I rested at the end of each trip around the yard, wondering why it was so difficult. After completing about one-quarter of the yard, I stopped to rest, and commented that I'd never used a mower this hard to push. As she started to walk over to see what my problem was, I realized what my problem was: it was a self-propelled mower, which I had not yet engaged. With the simple push of a lever, the mower practically did the job itself.

I laughed at myself, and then soon realized my experience was a metaphor for brand failure with some of our clients. Like the self-propelled mower, all the great brand management in the world does little good if the employees don't know how to use it, don't embrace the brand or don't own it every day.

My coworkers and I have been discussing this very issue lately, and realized that the failure of many of the brand management advice we give clients is directly attributed to the lack of follow through at the client level. When we include brand training at the front line, company-wide presentations and ongoing training, many clients say they'll avoid that cost and do it themselves.
Like picking a budget printer who has no contact with the designer or letting your in-house help desk team build the corporate website, internally launching the brand with only in-house resources is a recipe for disaster. In most cases, clients who come to us for brand management consultation and support don't have the team in-house to define the brand, let alone present the brand to the people responsible for owning the brand. The same outside viewpoint that discovers these clients' brands is also the best prepared to communicate that effort internally.

Even worse: someone completely outside the brand discernment process steps in at the last minute - without benefit of the lengthy, sometimes painful and always beneficial discussions - hijacks the process and the brand comes out the other end looking like its been through a mower.

The best way to attack the brand job: get many people involved in the beginning - the like-minded and the people most likely to puke on your ideas - in the middle and at the end, then let them get to work. It's a whole lot easier to get the job done that way.

Technorati Tags: employees, brand management, employee communication

Something weird is happening with Blogger

2006-08-18T17:14:00.000-05:00

This is a test to see if I can upload a photo. It worked a few seconds ago....

You get what you pay for with Blogger

2006-08-16T23:05:00.000-05:00

I started this blog about six months ago to say a few things about marketing, work out some of my ideas, discuss marketing and basically do like millions of others - have a take and see if anybody reads.

I've been writing less lately for a couple reasons: first, I've become quite busy with a number of other distractions and blogging has fallen to the bottom of the list. Second, I've become very frustrated with one little, tiny problem with Blogger: I can't post a picture!

Photos are an important part of the story and blogs are more interesting with a good photo. And there are millions of good photos available on the internet and from my own little digital camera (when I've not lost it on a vacation). But a few months ago, the FREE software just quit posting photos. (Weird, it started right after I lost my digital camera...as if MY digital camera was the interface to Blogger!). I've tried emailing technical support (quit laughing fellow bloggers), I've followed the message boards but nobody's addressed this issue. It's just not working.

I mentioned how brands can start to smell if nobody's paying attention. Well, something smells about the Blogger brand, and it's leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I'm going to have to do something about this soon.

Technorati Tags: Blogger problems, free blogware, technical support

Does your brand smell funny?

2006-08-16T22:33:00.000-05:00

First story: A few nights ago, I wandered into the kitchen for a little late night snack and some unfamilar, unpleasant odor hit me. When I asked my wife if she smelled it, she said she thought she smelled something earlier, and that it might be in the refrigerator drip tray. Now I didn't even know the refrigerator had a drip tray, so I proceeded to remove the little grill at the bottom of the fridge as my wife instructed, and then slowly pulled out the most disgusting puddle of hellish liquid this side of The French Quarter. Holding it as far away from my face as possible, I carried it outside, to the curb and then flushed it with the hose for a full five minutes. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect something that vile to be within feet of the food I eat. When I returned, my wife informed me that the water comes from the self-defrosting fridge and that she has to empty it two or three times a year, particularly with the humidity is up and the water doesn't evaporate.

Second story: I walked to lunch the other day, and at a fairly busy intersection on my route, I waited for a light. A guy on a nice looking motorcycle approached the red light and I thought to myself, "now there's one of the good motorcyclists. He's wearing a helmet, long pants, good boots: he's representing us motorcyclists." No sooner had I completed my thought did he blow right through the light and make a right turn without even the slightest pause. In all 50 states of the union, it's legal to make a right turn on red after a complete stop and yielding to all oncoming traffic.

Both stories are very representative of what happens in many organizations: the marketing or sales or management staff think everything's going fine, everybody understands the brand and everybody's living it. Then something starts to smell or someone blows through a stop light: someone ignores a rule, cuts a corner, shuts down early, blows off a customer and all the goodwill goes down the toilet. This is not an ongoing, low grade fever of failure that the zombies bring on: that kind of defect in the brand is pretty apparent. I'm talking about the occasional blip on the screen that goes unnoticed and unchallenged.

I like employees are your first line of brand defense, brand warriors unwilling to give an inch when it comes to protecting the reputation of their brand, unwilling to go to sleep on the job, unwilling to let the drawbridge down after hours.

And when one employee doesn't do the job, it's up to the others to let 'em know, hold them accountable. If employees are fully versed in the brand, are trained how to support the brand, tested to ensure they can protect the brand and empowered to defend the brand with every ounce of their being, they shouldn't be surprised when a co-worker holds them accountable.

Without that level of commitment by everybody involved, a little stink can bring down the brand.

Technorati Tags: brand ownership, brand warrior, defending the brand, employee responsibility

Wrong too many times to hide

2006-07-31T19:57:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I wrote about truth. I think truth is often a casualty in business, a victim of ego. Few people are willing to admit the truth when it makes them look bad, or has the potential to look bad. I've been wrong too many times in my career to put my ego before the truth.

In my third job, I was the communications director for a dairy association. My expertise was writing newsletters. In this case, my main responsibility was to explain the value of the dairy check-off - a USDA mandated expenses dairy farmers paid to support generic dairy advertising. My secondary job was to promote ice cream, milk and other dairy products. Now, I'm a suburban kid through and through, always living in middle class neighborhoods in between the tough inner city and the hard working country. While I learned to appreciate the very hard work of dairy farmers and others involved in production agriculture, I did a lot of on-the-job training.

One day, while doing a radio interview promoting June Dairy Month, I delivered ice cream to a morning radio personality. To add a little fun, I also gave him an inflatable cow that was used in grocery store promotions. I told him "It's not too difficult traveling with an inflatable cow. He packs up real easily." Without missing a beat, the DJ said, "Uh, Mark. Aren't dairy cows female?" I can't remember my response but just remembering it still makes me laugh.

Another time, on the same job, I was taking ice cream to yet another radio station - DJs love ice cream in the morning - on an incredibly hot St. Louis summer day. I had the ice cream in a cooler and it was starting to melt, so I ran into a restaurant near the radio station and asked the manger for some ice to keep my ice cream cold. He looked puzzled, but gave it to me anyway. As I walked out the door, he asked "You know that ice is frozen at 32 degrees and ice cream melts above 0 degrees?" I said, "so?" That's when he told me that by putting ice on the ice cream I actually helped warm up the ice cream and made it melt faster!

Again, I laugh about it today, but I never put ice in the cooler with my ice cream!

I wonder if the guy who thought up new Coke can laugh about it today. Or the person who designed the Edsel or the Cadillac Cimmaron. What about the team that developed the Martha Steward version of The Apprentice?

Technorati Tags: ego in business, humility, bad business decisions, learning from mistakes

A truth about truth

2006-07-18T21:26:00.000-05:00

It was in my second job, as an editor of a company publication for a large insurance company, that I first learned the power of truth. And what people will do to avoid it.

I was writing a typical article about a committee's marketing planning efforts. I asked what the team was doing, who was on the team and when they expected to finish the work, and I got a blank stare from the manager who was my source. She said she didn't want to put a date out there because the team might held accountable to that date.

That's when I first learned the truth about truth: it's a moving target.

And I think that's why so many brands are so bland. Company's say one thing and act entirely different. There's no accountability to the brand.

And sometimes, there's not even a good attempt at being truthful. I was also the editor of a safety magazine for the insurance company, so I got to write articles about propane explosions, vehicle accidents, grain elevator accidents and other things that drive the cost of agribusiness insurance through the roof. On one particular site, the grain elevator manager told me to get on the manlift to go look at the site of a fire at the top of the building, then squeezed himself alongside me, saying "the insurance company doesn't like it when we do this, but it'll be okay this one time." I didn't bother to remind him I WAS THE INSURANCE COMPANY!

It was clear from my vantage point that the marketing effort was never going to be successful and that operation was an accident waiting to happen. Or was it the other way around?

Technorati Tags: truth in business, accountability, communications

Everybody has a story

2006-07-09T18:02:00.000-05:00

As an editor of a small trade magazine, I learned that everybody has a story. Even though I was a freshly graduated communications major, it was my job to figure it out.

I stumbled across a job at a small publishing firm in Collierville, Tennessee after I graduated. I was trying to return to the Memphis area because I was born there and through it would be an interesting place to settle down. The mom-and-pop publishing firm posed unique challenges because mom didn't get along with pop, and would drop in every few months to mess up everything in the name of "this is how we've always done it", and then leave in a huff for us to clean up. In between these visitations we would work hard to create three pretty good trade magazines covering the upholstered furniture, casegoods furniture and building materials industries.

We got good at finding stories because the publisher would sell an ad, and then send us off to write a story that would say something nice about the advertiser. When I'd ask what the story is, he'd tell me to "find it when you get there."

On one visit to a manufacturer - I cant' remember which one - I spent 30 exasperating minutes interviewing the plant manager only to realize that they were doing absolutely nothing that was newsworthy. Finally, almost all hope gone, I asked to take the obligatory tour of the plant, hoping that something would pop up.

And it did. The plant manager stood up from his desk and grabbed a cordless telephone to take with him. This was 1984 and cordless phones were expensive extravagance...and newsworthy. This manager would keep in touch with his plan supervisors via the cordless phone; a sort of high-tech management by walking around. It was a great story that simply appeared.

Another time, I was to interview the vice president of La-Z-Boy. It was the biggest interview I'd ever done, and I was a little nervous as I was lead into Pat Norton's leather-and-wood-filled office. A large man with pinstriped suit, Norton came out from behind a huge wooden desk and kindly invited me to have a seat on the luxurious leather sofa and asked if I minded if he had lunch brought in for us. I said no, and he quickly asked "what would you like on your hamburger?" This high-powered, highly paid executive was a regular at the local Wendy's, and he often had the juicy burgers brought in for guests. He ordered up two Norton specials, a specific combination of meat, cheese, pickles, etc. that he was known for. It was a great story, and it was the highlight of the article that focused on the humble, kind, soft-spoken vice president of one of the country's largest furniture manufacturers.

I'm still looking for stories today. As part of the brand strategy process we use at my firm, we ask a lot of questions and challenge our clients to be truthful about who they are and who they want to me. It's the first step in producing brands that are different, inviting, relevant and truthful.

And I learned how to do it at my very first job more than 20 years ago.

Technorati Tags: story telling, brand management, brand communications, Wendy's, La-Z-Boy

A tale of two tours

2006-06-20T22:25:00.000-05:00

On the recent trip to Colorado, I had the opportunity to see how two organizations use their manufacturing operation as a brand building tool, and realize that there are more than one way to tell a story.

First up was the Coors plant in Golden, Colorado. I'm a huge Coors fan and really looked forward to seeing the plant and tasting the samples! When we first arrived at a well-signed parking lot, we quickly got on a small tour bus that covered several blocks of Golden. The driver told us a few things about Golden but we couldn't here it over the bad public address system.

We soon arrived at the plant entrance and were assigned tickets - labels from the various Coors-produced products. What a cool idea! When the "Zima" group was called together about 10 minutes later, we gathered together for a brief explanation of the process and those under age 35 had their IDs checked for the sampling room, and given a paper band to wear on their wrist.

You can't always get close to the actual process, so the 20-something cutie that gave our tour, would point out points of interest through a window, and then stop at a video display to show the details in a produced segment of two to five minutes in length. This happened several times before we arrived at a long hallway lined with product displays. The tour guide briefly touched on each product - including original Coors, Coors Light, Coors Non-alcoholic, Keystone, Keystone Light, Keystone Premium, Killian's Irish Red, Blue Moon, Zima and the recently acquired Molson brand products from Canada.

Then, we moved into the tasting room, which was spacious and staffed with enough people to handle the groups of 10-15 people quickly and efficiently, serving up almost all of the brands available from the brewer. The surprise: we were offered full 16-ounce glasses, limit three. I don't know about you, but if I drank three of those in 30 minutes, I wouldn't be able to drive out of the parking lot, let alone leave Golden (not that it would be a bad thing to be stranded in a tasting room of a brewery)!

Then, as with any good plant tour, we exited through the well-appointed gift shop loaded with everything-Coors, back onto the bus and back to the parking lot with a friendly "did everybody have a good time?" from the driver.

The tour was polished, but not overly so. We went down some narrow corridors and steps. I saw elevators, but they seemed off the beaten path and not very user friendly. The nooks and crannies proved that the tour came after the plant, not the other way around. Overall, it was a good use of the company's brand management investment, in my opinion, and it helped expose me to some other Coors-owned brands that I wasn't aware of.

On the way through Denver a week later, we toured the Hammond's Candies factory tour in Denver. It was a much different kind of tour, but every bit as valuable to the brand. Our group was given tickets and asked to wait in a parlor-type room, and unlike the brewery tour, the free samples were on a small counter on one side of the room, along with some historical displays and newspaper clippings on the walls. Kids were encouraged to wear a paper hat just like the workers wore in the factory.

When we were called to begin the tour, a young women with a thick accent asked us to sit on benches in front of a large screen TV, where she used a remote control to start up a DVD explaining the company's history and the process. The opening image had burned into the screen, leaving a ghostly image behind throughout the film. After asking if this was anybody's first time throughout the plant (about 10 of the 20 or so people in our group had been there before), she escorted us into the factory and used a microphone to explain the process of making candies by hand that we were seeing through large display windows. She was very pleasant, but a little hard to understand. And she was very engaged, not afraid to answer questions by addressing the person asking the question specifically.

At the end, we were, once again, directed to exit through a retail show room where we could purchase myriad products we had just seen manufactured, including discounted items on the "oops" table that didn't meet the company's standards for custom-made orders or weren't' exactly the right shape.

This was not as slick as the Coors presentation, but every bit as effective. Above each station in the factory hung a low-budget but neatly printed sign that described the job being done there. The process was quaint, as were the barber poles, candy canes and other sundries they sold. I was a little surprised, however, to see a small selection of non-Hammond branded items - including Gummy Bears and Necco Wafers - for sale in the store. We also saw assorted chocolate covered raisins, peanuts and other items that we had not heard mention of.

The tour, however, was a very good use of marketing funds, again, in my opinion. The evidence, to me, was the number of people who had already been on the tour had come back for another round.

The brand point: if you have a manufacturing operation, figure out a way to get your customers closer to it. Use explanatory graphics and or a video to tell the parts of the story that can't easily be told in person. And get connected to your customer!

Technorati Tags: brand management, factory tours, Hammond's Candies, Coors Brewery

Me dost think thou protests too much about soccer

2006-06-15T12:51:00.000-05:00

I'm backtracking on my earlier post that soccer's got a brand problem. If we use Kathy Sierra's love/hate model, I think soccer - specifically soccer in the U.S. - will be just fine. MLS fans are showing up, teams are starting to make some money and the soccer-haters are besides themselves.

Did you see them come out of the woodwork in the aftermath of the Men's National Team 0-3 drubbing in their World Cup opener. They fell all over themselves announcing that this proves that soccer will never make it here.

I think all it proves is that soccer is hated by a certain group, to the point of distraction. I think many baseball, basketball and hockey fans are coming unglued with the amount of publicity the sport has gotten and can't stand sharing the spotlight. Why would they be so vocal?

I watch the standings and will catch a few innings of Cardinals baseball game on TV, but I really don't care for the sport; I don't understand its nuances. The NBA is a snoozer until the playoffs for all but the most rabid of fans. And hockey on TV has never been a draw because you don't get the added benefit of the crowd that is every bit as important as the action on the ice. But you don' hear me or others slamming those sports in message boards or on blogs. I just don't care much for them.

To me, they're like Brussels sprouts, South Park and beauty pageants: they don't make it on my radar.

Soccer, on the other hand, is on the radar of many sports fans. And during this period of time every four years, the rest of the American sports landscape gets nervous that soccer, someday, may actually reach its potential here, too.

Update 6/19/06: It seems that a lot of people are taking notice. Check out the ratings...soccer during the day on cable is beating out hockey finals on broadcast in primetime!

Technorati Tags: World Cup, soccer, MLS, MLB, NBA, sports fans

Photo: Reuters

Maybe it was just that time of the season

2006-06-11T22:10:00.000-05:00

We were munching down on our $3.95 piece of chocolate cake in a small bakery along the Blue River running through Breckenridge, Colorado last week. Eating didn't slow us down from making plans for our next meal, and we asked the cute chick behind the bakery counter if a certain restaurant was any good. She gushed, "Yes, it is." and nothing more.

That's the kind of less-than-friendly responses we got from people in this tourist-dependent mountain town. The website says that friends are welcome, so it was quite a shock to see the brand disconnect between the communication and the reality. Perhaps it was simply that time of the month, er, season - they must have been dog-tired from the winter ski season and hadn't yet geared up for the summer season that, by the closed attractions, must start around June 15th.

The front desk guy at the time share resort that had invited our friends to visit treated her like the guy behind the glass at a hotel that rents rooms by the hour. When he couldn't find her reservation, he told her "sit down over there and I'll got figure out the problem." When my friend relayed this incident to the salesperson showing her the resort, the salesperson replied "that's because you aren't an owner." I wasn't there so I don't know if this was said in jest as a bizarre sales pitch or if she really believed it, but it, too, was shocking. She was more important than an owner: she was a prospective owner!

We received the opposite treatment from a man in the tiny town of Fairplay, a burg on the other side of Hoosier Pass from Breckenridge. It was a small mountain town that catered, I'm sure, to workers and residents more than the occasional tourist who stumbled into town. We were considering driving over Boreas Pass, and when we pulled up to ask directions and get some feedback on the safety of crossing the pass in our gas-sucking family minivan, he was quite friendly, telling us that it was a nice drive, not a bad road because it had been regraded two years ago. Then he gave us perfect directions to two different parks in which we could have our picnic lunch.

It was a completely different experience. Two contacts with locals divided by a mountain, and a world apart.

The town of Breckenridge and the entire area was beautiful. Clean. Easy to get around. But, based on our experience, the Breckenridge brand warriors need to get everybody on the same page.

This is a great picture from The Korky on Flickr...I lost my camera somewhere along the way :(

Technorati Tags: Breckenridge Colorado, tourism, community branding

I met a zombie in Ogallala

2006-06-11T22:08:00.000-05:00

We managed to survive a six-day vacation across three states without once stopping at the Golden Arches, but we did meet a zombie at an Ogallala, Nebraska Wendy's.

It was a clear summer evening, and darkness hung in the air as we entered the largely empty Wendy's restaurant to get a late night meal. After standing at the counter for a couple of minutes, Wes stepped up, looked at the cash register and then yelled at someone in the back, saying "You didn't sign out at the register." He then turn to us and asked us if he could take our order.

I should have said, "I doubt it" and moved on. It took 15 minutes to get two rather large orders of burgers, chicken nuggets, fries, baked potatoes and a drink. They had no chicken nuggets, but it would take about three minutes, we told us. After ordering baked potatoes, he said they didn't have any potatoes, then he said it would take two minutes to get some more, and asked us if we wanted to wait.

After several other missteps, he started to tell us his tale of woe; how he'd been there since 10 that morning, went home for an hour before returning, and how two others had called in sick and they only had one person preparing food. And there was a manager there because I saw her void part of the order he screwed up.

This wasn't Wes' fault. He was tired. He was overworked. It was his manager's fault and the owner's fault and Wendy's fault. They didn't prepare him to own his brand. They didn't empower him to treat people right, no matter the time of day. He didn't know or care about the Wendy's brand; he was just earning a paycheck.

Mike Wagner calls these types of workers zombies, and they can ruin the good work of a brand owner. Wendy's has a lot of minimum wage workers but I've never seen one this willing to stab the brand in the back, all because of lack of sleep.

Ogallala Extra: We also stopped in at a small grocery store and had a great brand experience. It was late so one of the two entrances were locked, as is common when stores are open late. Although we would have appreciated a "use other door" sign, we were greeted by a sweetheart of a cashier who smiled warmly while checking us out, let us out the locked door when we asked about it, and then held it open for another confused late-night shopper. I can't remember the store name or the employee's name but I'll go back if I ever get to Ogallala.

Technorati Tags: Ogallala, Nebraska, Wendy's, brand owners, brand management, employee training

Utah gets to the point with its plate

2006-06-11T21:22:00.000-05:00

The Brand Warrior was on vacation last week, driving across Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado for a few days in the mountains. You don't earn the title "brand warrior" by shutting down for a few days, so brand observations kept coming along with the miles on the family minivan.

As we played the old license plate game (Okay, the adults played the game while the kids watched videos, played Gameboy and asked "are we there yet?" every 14.3 minutes) I started thinking about the valuable little piece of real estate every state owns on the back - and sometimes the front - of their citizens' cars.
And I began to make a few unscientific observations about the role license plates play in brand management and the success or failure many of them have achieved.

Plates serve one of three roles, by my estimation: simple identification, brand building and marketing. The plates on trucks seem to be the best example of identification. Use simple helvetica letters for the state name and big letters for the plate. Brand building plates simply remind you about the state, whether it's important to you or not. Illinois is a good example with it's "Land of Lincoln" tagline. So is Ohio with its claim to be "the birthplace of aviation" to trump North Carolina's claim on the Wright Brothers. None of those claims, however, do a very good of attracting visitors. The best marketing plate, in my humble opinion, is that of Utah. The plate reads "Ski Utah". Simple, direct and active. They don't want you to live there, they don't want you to visit there, they don't want you to look for history there. They just want you to ski there. The rest will come when you ski there. Brilliant!
Plates are a great way to make money. In the old days, each state had but one version and no pictures. Along the way between Des Moines, Iowa and Breckenridge, Colorado we spotted at least a dozen different versions of Colorado plates. And I'm not talking a template with a different type of emblem for a special cause. I'm talking totally, completely different plates. The Colorado DMV website lists 82 different types of plates! They must make a fortune off license and registration fees in Colorado (they don't make it off hotel charges: our bill for one night in Golden included the room rate and one line item for taxes of about $2.70!). A quick web search shows that Tennessee has 90 different plates, California has 11 versions and 117 different logos, mostly for specific military groups. And Texas, where everything including the DOT budget is bigger, has more than 120 different plates to share your message.
Some plates are beautiful, but illegible. The Minnesota plate is as stunning as the lake country but you can't read it unless it's standing still. Illinois has replaced the familiar blue box and san serif type with a new, white, simple plate with "Illinois" spelled out in stunning cursive, but you can hardly read it unless you're driving at the same exact speed in the other guy's blind spot!

If license plate graphics interest you, check out this site for a more technical history of each state's plate and some good reference photos. Illinois gives visitors a history of license plates here.

So, hats off to Utah for making use of a great little piece of real estate to support its brand. The rest of the states - or at least the 33 we saw on our trip - could use a little work. Make it different, inviting, relevant and truthful and you'll make it yours Tennessee, or Illinois, or Texas.

Technorati Tags: license plates, state marketing, tourism marketing

Brand ownership moment in a garage

2006-05-30T13:13:00.000-05:00

In no other business, in my humble opinion, is brand more clearly defined as a reputation than in the auto repair business.

That's a sensitive subject today because I took our 2000 Town and Country Van in for an oil change and a brake inspection and found out that I need new brakes. If I really do need brakes, it's better to know now than as we roll down a mountain in Colorado next week. If I don't really need brakes, it's par for the course for an industry that carries plenty of dubious baggage.

I say this because I've been spoiled. We had a great mechanic: Randy was trustworthy, neighborly, and fair. He would tell us when we didn't need to do anything to the car. He was typical small-town America and we never once questioned his judgement or his estimate of what was needed to keep our family vehicles safe. He closed up his shop a month or so ago, and went to work repairing a company's fleet vehicles, much to the dismay of his loyal customer base, of which we were one household. Now, we're back at the mercy of an industry that gets intself on 60 Minutes about every two or three years because it performs so poorly and instills such little trust in its customers.

Today, I took the van to the local Tuffy franchise near my office. The owner was cordial, and several in our office had experienced good service from them in the past, but I still had more than a little trepidation when I heard the estimate.

Just last week, I took our 98 Lumina in for an oil change and the manager tried to upsell me on several fluid system flushes that would cost about $250. Now, I've never changed those other fluids and it was entirely believable that they needed flushed, but he'd never mentioned that during previous oil changes. And those services are on sale this month! One coworker said they almost always find $300 worth of work that needs to be done, and always say you need a serpentine belt. The estimate from fixing my brakes was $372. And the 129,000-mile Lumina would soon need a serpentine belt, he told me last week.

I really don't think they're taking me, but I just don't know for sure. I just think it's an unfortunate coincindence: My brakes need work and Randy's not there to take care of it. And the industry's brand got in the way. I hope this place proves me wrong.

Flickr photo from Jon Haynes

Technorati Tags: auto repair, reputation management

Does your brand make you puke?

2006-05-26T12:56:00.000-05:00

Brand ownership isn't easy. In fact, its very difficult because we've all been taught to suppress our natural creativity. The only time we take our eyes off the bottom line is when we wrap our hands around what Hugh McLeod calls business porn - the stories of great brands, great businesses and great lives in the pages of Fast Company, In Search of Excellence, and others - dreaming of immersing ourselves in the self-satisfaction of a good brand, an invigorating work environment and or job that doesn't make us puke.

This is what it looks like.

Mike Wagner's post about Blu Dot gives us some clues about what the alternative might look like. In his post is this clue:

"Andrew Blauvelt, design director and curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is a big fan – and a customer who owns several pieces. He raves, “They take a lighthearted approach, but are still serious about solving design problems. Their furniture has spirit and ingenuity; a down-to-earth appeal."

It's not about making money - although they made $7.5 million last year, according to Mike. It's about why they are in business: to solve design problems. And look at the picture: they're smiling. They enjoy their job! If you can't love what you're doing, why do it?

How do you know you don't love your job? How do you know that you're not even close to owning your brand? You start saying things like:

"We can't spend money on marketing until we make a few more sales?"
"We can do that in house and save a lot of money."
"Customer service and quality are our strengths."
"I'm getting tired of our logo. Let's freshen it up."
"What's that going to cost."

Most of the people at Blu Dot, at Southwest Airlines, at Starbucks love their work. And it shows.
How do people know you love your job? And what are you willing to do to change?

Technorati Tags: new job, careers, love your job, career planning

Bad customer service you gotta love

2006-05-26T11:44:00.000-05:00

Last night, I popped a new, refilled ink cartridge into my printer to find it wouldn't work. I called the Walgreen's technical service number on the cartridge and was greeted with a thick, but delightful female British accent. I began by explaining my problem, telling the lady my printer type, etc. but was soundly cut off with "Just a minute, love, I'll ask the questions." And then she proceeded to ask my name, address, telephone and email address. I could hardly keep laughing as I dutifully answered her questions before she told me that a technical services person would call me back shortly.

They didn't call back last night, and hadn't as of early this morning. Nevertheless, it was an interesting example of bad service that left me with a smile on my face. She was entertaining and I didn't expect to get a good answer anyway. I guess that's what happens when you go in with low expectations.

Today, Mike Wagner reminded me that Ireland has embraced the world's customer service work, so I figure that's where she was when I called. I think I interrupted her tea time!

Technorati Tags: Ireland, customer service, call centers

Who's your mama?

2006-05-15T13:23:00.000-05:00

Mike Wagner's done it again. He's lobbed a timely brand-centric post linking moments of truth in the family with brand moments of truth in business. He cites the mom-delivered line "That's how we do things in this family" as the ultimate brand management dictum.

While Mike reminded me in an offline conversation that many companies (dis)function like families, I found myself wondering how would we act if our moms actually worked alongside us every day?

Would we use only brand-appropriate language?
Would we be more diligent about sending thank you notes to our clients and vendors?
Would we get our work done on time, checking it twice before leaving the office?
Would we say please and thank you - and mean it - to our co-workers?
Would we follow up on our promises to others?

Or would we slip out at night, hang out with undesirable vendors and drink cheap beer?

Technorati Tags: mother's day, brand, disfunctional families, disfunctional businesses

A personal brand that hits close to home

2006-05-14T10:38:00.000-05:00

I went to a going-away party for my wife’s co-worker and discovered the power and longevity of a personal brand.

At the party, a guy name Jerry sat down next to me and introduced himself. He had spent a lifetime in various manufacturing jobs, and even did a little marketing, so that’s what we talked about. When I shared that my father worked his whole career in manufacturing, at International Harvester in the Quad Cities (of Iowa and Illinois), he cocked his head quizzically and asked his name. When I told him by dad was John True, his eyebrows shot up and his eyes practically bugged out. Knowing that my dad had a reputation as a tough man with whom you didn’t want to tangle, I thought I was staring at a victim and asked with great trepidation “where you one of the guys on his good side or his bad side?”

A smile came over his face, followed by an excruciating long pause, after which he started to tell me how much he admired my father, how calm and quiet my father had been when he supervised Jerry and others at that plant. He said my father was a gentile man, never said a bad thing about anybody, never spoke in anger, never raised his voice and was always fair. He said, second only to his first employer (a man to whom he’d run in an instant if he needed Jerry’s help), my dad was the man he respected most in this world. Through the tears welling up in my eyes, I could see Jerry admired my father deeply.

He told stories, shared names of co-workers I remember my dad talking about, and made the evening very enjoyable.

On the way home, though, I began to think about my dad, and realized how short of that brand I’d fallen in my own career. While I think I’m a fair person, I don’t know that anyone would notice because I’m as far from quiet and gentile as you can get. And I’ve been known to speak in anger about people, raise my voice and fly off the handle. With a smile on his face, my boss once said “Mark, if there were a war, you’d be the first one to get your head blown off!”

While my clients sometimes believe that I take ideas too personally, in reality, I take their brand very personally. If an idea supports my client’s brand, I’ll defend it loudly even when the client doesn’t seem to care. My title is brand warrior, not brand guesser or supporter or guy-who-will-tell-you-what-you-want-to-hear. The title of this blog reflects this brand because a little bit of Mark goes a long way. And I believe my brand represents passion for ideas and a penchant for action.

I think my dad had a passion for people and for empathy.

Talking to my wife, I told her of my concern that I’d fallen short of the standard John True set. She reminded me that he and I have something in common: the role we play with clients. After retirement, he did some consulting, and would quietly observe managers in their environment before offering advice. He offered constructive criticism in a calm, quiet and personable manner. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t speak poorly of the man. He was fair. And that’s the job he was paid to do.

In my role as a consultant, helping clients understand their brand and use it to drive forward everything they do, I think I can put a little John True into my work. I can be the voice of the brand, but lower the volume, slow it down a little.

That’s when I realized a little bit of John True lasts a long time.

Technorati Tags: personal brands, client relationships, leadership, marketing consulting

Sports logo blog's a winner

2006-05-10T12:32:00.000-05:00

If you want to combine your marketing interests with your sports interests, check out the Sports Logo Pundit Blog. The guy's admittedly an amateur design critic, and he's sometimes a bit harsh in his commentary - such as on the Connecticut Defenders logo pictured here - but he's not afraid to share his opinions. Besides, logos are really subjective, and everyone has an opinion.

I'll be visiting regularly because he writes quick, clear and concise about logos I know and many that are new to me. I'm also a logo junkie from way back (have you ever seen the Memphis Rogues' logo from the 1970s North American Soccer League?). And I'm fascinated by the money sports teams make on gear while generating interest and unequalled brand loyalty.

Technorati Tags: sports logos, sports marketing

Soccer's got a brand problem

2006-05-08T22:42:00.000-05:00

First of all, I'm a soccer fan. I've played the game - slowly and rather awkwardly - for more than 20 years and watched it with interest for about 10 years. It's a sport, not unlike baseball, that takes a lot of experience to understand. I watch a little baseball but I don't get anywhere near as much out of it as real baseball aficionados. And while I don't know all the intricacies of soccer, I imagine I know a lot more about that game that the average American.

I know...that's not saying much. Americans generally despise the game of soccer. They think it's slow. They think it's boring. They think it's not worth their time. Some sports journalists and on-air personalities actually go out of their way to blaspheme the sport rather than simply ignore what they don't understand.

Yes, soccer has a brand problem.

For the last 10 to 15 years, people have been forecasting that millions of youth players would grow up to be fans and soccer would boom in America. That never happened because the kids grew up and were told by the culture that soccer was foreign, it was uncool and boring. Even in my home town, the high school football coach has openly insulted players who even hint that they want to play soccer when they're not in football season.

In the old days of the North American Soccer league (NASL) during the 1970s, the plan was to develop US-born players and personalities that would draw fans. Purists got impatient and started importing has-beens from around the world because they had a name, and fans abandoned ship. They even resorted to a minimum quota of American-born players on each team. American fans couldn't pronounce that players' names (even when they only had one name, ala Pele). David Litterer has assembled a nice history of the sport in America, and the U.S. Soccer Federation features an abbreviated timeline here.

About that time, I remember reading in sports magazines that the short shorts, the fit bods and the flowing manes on the young, good-looking players would attract women in droves. Again, it never happened.

Up until the last few years, the men's national team would play friendlies (those are games that don't count toward any league standings or tournaments) against Mexico in San Diego, against Poland in Chicago and against Ireland in Boston just to assure a good gate. Now that the team is getting combative - they're ranked number 5 in the world the last time I looked - they play competitive games against Mexico and Costa Rica in the snow of Columbus, Ohio. And a growing audience is paying attention. During the 1994 World Cup, the American hosts - who many thought would fail miserably - drew an record average of 67,000 spectators per game!

The women's national team has been the cream of the crop around the world for a decade, and it made media stars out of several of its regulars, including Mia Hamm, but the buzz has fizzled with the retirement of key players, and the women's pro soccer league has folded when interest faded after winning the Women's World Cup held in the US in 1999 and reaching the semi-finals on its home turf again in 2003.

And Major League Soccer (MLS) has only managed to get one weekly game on ESPN2, a few on the limited Fox Sports Channel and subscription packages with Dish Network or Direct TV. Starved for viewers, MLS fans on non-LA teams have to wait for the weekly game between the LA Galaxy and their home team because ESPN follows the team around like a homeless puppy. The league championship game pops up on ABC in the fall like a spring mushroom, with little to no promotion on the broadcast station. Only a few MLS teams play in soccer-specific stadia, the Home Depot Center in California, however, is a jewel.

With the steroid scandals in baseball, the inflated egos of the NBA, the NHL strike of last year, it would seem that soccer has a huge advantage right now to make some hay. And the men's national team is going into next month's World Cup finals in Germany with its highest ranking ever: fourth in the world.

I'm looking for answers: what's it going to take for soccer to explode in this country? Does America simply expect a winner? Can American's support a sport that we didn't invent? (Think about it...even American football borrowed the name from soccer, known in the rest of the world as football.)

What will happen the men's national team comes home from Germany with a nice piece of hardware? It looks good for a U.S. team loaded with talented young players like Landon Donovan (pictured), Brian Ching, DeMarcus Beasley who have earned a few caps (games played) in international competition, joining veterans Claudio Reyna, Kasey Keller and Eddie Pope to form the most talented and deep US Men's National Team ever.

If they did win, how long would that keep the fickle America sports fan happy?

A wonder if John - a PR pro and soccer nut - has an idea on this subject?

Technorati Tags: World Cup Soccer, MLS, Claudio Reyna, Landon Donovan, DeMarcus Beasley, Kasey Keller, Brian Ching, soccer, football, spectator sports, NHL, NBA

Why do franchisees buy franchises?

2006-05-02T00:20:00.000-05:00

I stopped by one of my favorite sandwich shops tonight, a Blimpie owned by one of the most engaging franchisees I’ve ever run into. He and his wife work behind the counter at their two stores because they’ve seen what happens when minimum-wage zombies are put in charge of a business.

It was slow, as it has been every time I’ve visited in the past year or so, and I got to talk to him about his business. Traffic and sales have been lousy for over a year, and the high price of gas has killed store traffic even more lately. He’s spent thousands of dollars redesigning the store in bright colors, and keeps the place spotless.

He went on to explain that the national Blimpie office is in a mess, and has quit supporting the franchisees with advertising. The result is a lawsuit by a bunch of franchisees and subfranchisors. They claim misappropriation of funds and accuse Blimpie and its CEO Jeffrey Endervelt of entering into agreements with Pepsi and a large turkey supplier that resulted in higher costs for lesser quality products. Endervelt recently resigned as CEO, chairman and president, which might have been a good thing to do after last year’s makeover of the Blimpie brand identity.

The local owner said he always believed that a great product and great service was all it was going to take to make a living. In fact, the Blimpie sandwich is arguably comparable to sandwiches from competitors Subway and Quizno’s, and these two Blimpie owners set a high standard for engaging service but they’ve not seen the success they expected. He admits that the price points are a little bit higher than the competitors, and now they are getting beat up by Panera Bread and brown baggers.

The Subway sandwich shops I’ve seen don’t exactly scream "clean," yet the chain has been ranked the number one franchise opportunity in Entrepreneur magazine’s “Franchise 500” rankings for 14 of the last 18 years, and first place since 2001. Note: Blimpe comes in at #88, behind Hungry Howies Pizza & Subs, Panera Bread, Arby's, Carl's Junior, Denny's,Burger King, Hardee's, KFC, Dairy Queen, Popeye's, Church's Chicken, Hot Stuff Foods, Taco Bell, Quizno's Subs, Sonic, and McDonald's.

Of course, like any franchise, Quizno’s has had its own problems with franchisees.

So I wonder why entrepreneurs decide to buy a franchise. Why buy a Blimpie? Are the branding package, the opportunity to learn from other franchisees, the resources and the promise of ongoing support really worth it? Is the instant recognizability worth the restrictions? Can you really believe what you read in the Uniform Franchise Offering Circular (UFOC)?

I’m really curious about the pros and cons of franchising, so entrepreneurs out there let me know what you think.

In the meantime, I may stop by Blimpie again soon and suggest that he start again without the baggage of the franchise, without the expensive overhead, without the high-cost ingredients. He’s learned how to do it. He’s learned how not to do it. And I think he can do it better.

Technorati Tags: Blimpie, Quizno's, Subway, franchising

Entrepreneurs trip out of the blocks

2006-05-01T22:34:00.000-05:00

Stan DeVaughn is singing a sweet tune in his latest post over at Branding Post blog. In his post about the long distance between "vast vision and a half-vast go-to-market effort," he zooms in on the lack of a brand. "Hint: It's not about the logo" he writes.

In my post about short-sighted entrepreneurs a few weeks ago, I thought this was because most entrepreneurs are in love with their ideas and can't believe that anybody wouldn't also love them. In fact, these are the same business owners who believe that a great product can sell itself and marketing is something you do after you make a few sales.

One more great tip for start-ups from Branding Post: branding "demands that you see through the target’s eyes, stand in his loafers, and know precisely how he describes and feels the problem you profess to solve for him."

Wow. That takes a lot of work, a lot of vision and a lot of humility.

Technorati Tags: go-to-market, entrepreneurs, starting a business

May Fast Company opens with fast start

2006-04-30T23:20:00.000-05:00

The May 2006 issue of Fast Company hit my mailbox yesterday, and it got out of the blocks quickly with “Fast Talk: voices from the creative front lines,” interviews with five brand warriors from the world of sports. Except for the cheesy photo of the Oakland Raiders’ Patty Herrera wearing shoulder pads, it was a great look into the strategies these pros employ to make their brands different, inviting, relevant and truthful.

The aforementioned Herrera, a former Raiderette, is now the director of multicultural initiatives for Raider Nation. She overseas outreach to minority communities, and has helped the black and silver connect with Hispanics, Chinese, German and, even, Navajo. In the interview by Michael A. Prospero, Herrera says “The Raiders have always been about being different from the rest, which is why we decided to broadcast Raiders games in Navajo; to unite the Navajo Nation with the Raider Nation.”

Tom Whaley, executive vice president of the St. Paul Saints, has one of the most intriguing jobs, serving up bizarre activities to keep families coming back to fill the 6,000-seat minor-league baseball season all summer long. Under his guidance, the team started using live pigs to deliver baseballs because they thought mascots were becoming too fluffy. And for 2006, they’ll feature “ballet parking” – ballerinas who’ll park your car. The bespeckled Whaley says “If we just did baseball, we’d probably have 1,000 people here each night.”

The article also includes interviews with Paul Brooks, president of NASCAR digital entertainment and broadcasting (“Everything we do with technology is about giving fans the choice of how they want to watch the race.”); Tanya Van Court, vice president and general manager of ESPN broadband and interactive television (“The appetite for video on demand online is growing, and a year from now, it’s going to be insatiable.”); and Brett Yormark, president and CEO of the New Jersey Nets (“We’re fortunate to have great character guys like Jason Kidd and Vince Carter on our roster, so if I can exploit that in a positive way, why not? Our All Access campaign puts them in touch with fans…”).

These folks are winners that we can all learn a few things from. Check out their programs and their sites and see if you can apply their game plan to your operation.

Technorati Tags: sports marketing, Oakland Raiders, New Jersey Nets, NASCAR, St. Paul Saints, ESPN360, brand

Please put your hands up and back away from the table

2006-04-28T23:00:00.000-05:00

Professional organizations that support communicators - such as IABC, of which I've been a member for a good part of the past 20 years - are always saying that communicators need to earn a seat at the management table. They need to support the organization's goals, speak management’s language and get serious about business. If they don't, the line goes, they'll be seen only as tacticians for the rest of their lowly careers.

Ron Shewchuk recently posted on this subject and, if you're involved with corporate communications either inside or outside the organization, I think it's worth your time to read his comments. They're really insightful.

Here’s a taste:

“Well, I’m here today to tell you that I’ve been a temporary dinner guest at that strategic table more than a few times in my long and sordid career. And I’m ready to share a little secret: most of the time the guests are insane and the food is undercooked, overcooked, rotten or poisoned. Very few decisions actually ever get made. Long-term direction is often nothing more than the path of least resistance, or whatever your cranky investors are insisting you do next. And battle tactics are devised in a very deep, cushy bunker in which the primary goal is not victory, but self-preservation.

“Want to have the ear of your CEO? Fat chance. So few chief executives actually listen to anyone, let alone a lowly communicator, that you might as well just forget it.”

After going through a litany of reasons the strategic communicator is a myth, Ron ends solidly with some very practical application in the third of the three-part series. Frankly, his tips parallel some of the things I wrote in my “be subversive” series, but he forgets one important foundation: brand.

If communicators want to get to the table – and have the courage to go there – they need to be brand warriors. They need to either fly under the radar, slowly communicating the brand standards internally, or be loud and proud about the value of brand, so that everybody starts asking “what’s with that guy?” They need to hold others accountable to the brand: write about the brand and how others are using it to make every decision. And they need to help people establish guidelines and deadlines and communicate them so they can’t cop out when the going gets tough.

Yes, it’s going to make some people angry. Some people are going to fight it. In the end, however, you’ll not only be at the table, I think you be standing on top of the table, holding up the brand as a shield against all things ordinary.

Or you’ll be out the door, pounding the street for a new and better opportunity.

Technorati Tags: IABC, communications, brand, marketing, careers, management

A little bit more of Scoble

2006-04-24T22:52:00.000-05:00

I wish every corporate communications pro would read at least one short segment in Robert Scoble's interview in Communication World. In answer to a question about organizations being threatened by blogs, the A-lister answers:

"The fact of the matter is (corporations are) out of control and they're just holding on to a memory. When I talk about blogging to big companies, I see fear: I see a memory of the way the world used to be."

For more about the article - the online version of Communication World is not posted yet - check out IABC's engaging blog, IABC Commons.

Technorati Tags: Robert Scoble, IABC, corporate communications