Asking people to switch brands when they’re satisfied with what they’re using is one of the most challenging (and I would add, futile) tasks in marketing. This, however, is precisely what Nissan is trying to do with its latest ad campaign, which pits the Nissan Altima directly against Toyota’s best seller, the Camry.

The ads, which include quotes from car magazine reviews, go something like this:

“AutoWeek raves, ‘Toyota Camry is a perfectly boring automobile.’ Car and Driver gushes, ‘It’s dull as dishwater.’ Good thing quality doesn’t have to be boring — Nissan Altima undergoes over 5,000 quality tests and beats Camry in horsepower without sacrificing fuel efficiency. Some also say it’s a whole lot of fun. Good thing for you, quality doesn’t have to be boring.”

Why do I think this campaign won’t work? Because Camry buyers appreciate the reliability, predictability, and plain, no-frills quality of the Camry, to the point that they have made it the best selling car in America for 11 of the past 12 years. Camry buyers don’t want excitement. For them, boring and reliable is just good enough.

What do you think?

Soccer has been struggling to find its way into the mainstream of American sports for a long time. Since the late 70’s, when stars like Pelé and Beckenbauer were brought in to try to stir some interest, all attempts have been in vain. While the skill level of the U.S. men’s soccer team has improved greatly (the team is now a regular and consistent participant in the World Cup), soccer hasn’t become a big-time sport yet.

In my opinion, soccer has a branding problem and these are some of the reasons:

• Soccer is introduced to kids mainly as a girls’ sport. It is also promoted as a recreational activity, rather than a serious competitive sport. Boys, from an early age, are steered toward “real” sports like football, basketball and baseball.
• Male sports dominate TV air time. Until soccer is seen as a serious sport for guys it will not have the media coverage it needs to be catapulted into the mainstream.
• Soccer is popular in Europe, which gives the sport a certain “snob appeal” that doesn’t bode well with middle America. Competitive soccer in the U.S. is mainly a niche sport confined to some big cities on the coasts.
• Soccer has a low scoring frequency, which compared to football, basketball or even ice hockey makes it too slow for the average American spectator. Few U.S. sports fans are inclined to watch a 90 minute game that may end in a scoreless tie (can somebody say “I want my money back”?).
• The format under which soccer is played (two uninterrupted halves of 45 minutes each) doesn’t lend itself to frequent commercial breaks, which lowers its appeal to potential advertisers.
• The U.S. is not among the top 10 teams in the world. Americans love to win and can’t get easily excited about a sport where the U.S. team plays courageously and pretty well, but has never won a serious championship.

I am writing this post after the U.S. men’s soccer team has reached the finals of the Confederations Cup by beating No. 1 ranked (and overwhelming favorite) Spain, by playing with poise, courage and skill. They will be playing against Brazil for the title this Sunday.

A U.S. win, especially if it’s an exciting game, could be the beginning of a new era of soccer in the U.S., a re-branding of sorts that may change many of the current perceptions about the sport. I certainly hope so. If you’re reading this, tune into the game this Sunday at 2:30pm EST and cheer for team U.S.A. Those guys are working hard to make history and they deserve a lot of credit for what they’ve done so far.

The decision is backed by research that uncovered that the new logo was perceived as “diverse, modern, confident, and bold“, attributes that match what the University of Miami has become academically in the last few years.

UM may have hit the nail squarely in the head with this decision, since the “split U” logo is ubiquitous and instantly recognizable across the country (the collegiate equivalent of the Nike swoosh or the Target bulls eye).

In the “cons” column we could chalk in the negative associations that could rub off to the entire university if UM’s athletic program gets involved in some sort of scandal in the future (a scenario not unusual in collegiate sports).

Let’s hope that doesn’t happen and that the University of Miami ends up a winner with this important branding decision.

Photo Credits: The Consumerist

Many companies complicate their operations by trying to please everybody. Others, engage in activities that are not aligned with their goals and objectives, just because the other guys are doing them. The misguided belief that the customer (any customer) is always right often results in a muddled and unfocused brand, and operational inefficiencies.

Some companies, though, are not afraid of making tough choices, like deciding which customers they want to serve and what activities, processes and products they will focus on. Those who do create strong brands and efficient businesses.

For example, Internet banks are able to offer better rates to people who don’t mind banking online instead of a branch office.

Writers and musicians can increase their revenue by selling their work only on their website, a minor inconvenience that their true fans won’t mind.

An Italian restaurant in my neighborhood serves a killer lasagna only the first Wednesday of the month. They don’t take reservations and the average waiting time is about an hour.

As a company, the trick to “have it your way” and still build a thriving business is to focus on your best customers (in the case of Internet banks, the relatively young and web savvy), find out what is important to them (higher interest rates), and what is not important to them (branch offices).

Some companies have even been able to create entirely new market niches just by observing an existing industry, challenging the validity of some of the standard practices and assumptions, and incorporating elements that nobody else is focusing on.

If you would like to read real case studies of companies that became successful following this approach, I recommend reading Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant, by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.

One of the challenges of building our personal brand in this increasingly globalized world is how to combat the different stereotypes associated with our national or ethnic origin. As in all re-branding exercises the task is not easy, but here are four approaches that have worked for me:

1. Give people a chance to know you: most people embrace stereotypes because they don’t know better. Once they get to know you, though, they will see that you are just like everybody else: a unique individual with a distinct personality and many different qualities.
2. If the stereotypes assigned to your nationality have negative connotations work hard to combat them: For example, a stereotype frequently associated with individuals of Hispanic origin is that we procrastinate and are always “fashionably late”. That is why I am always on time and finish my projects before the established deadline. I don’t want to be associated with behaviors that don’t respect or value other people’s time.
3. If the stereotypes have positive connotations, embrace them: For example, Hispanics are assumed to be very family-oriented. I completely subscribe to the point of view that family should be priority #1, so in that regard the stereotype helps me get that particular message across.
4. Don’t sweat the small stuff: I don’t remember how many times, when people learn that I live in Miami and speak Spanish, say goodbye to me with a loud and cheery “hasta la vista!” (a term that nobody in Latin America uses any more). In those cases, rather than coming across as a snob and lecturing about the petty idiosyncrasies of the Spanish language, I just smile and wave back.

Do you have any experiences of your own that you would like to share?

In other cases the name change is a calculated gamble: replacing a familiar but boring name with a new, more memorable and brandable one. Sometimes this gamble pays off handsomely: just read the success story of the Big Ass Fan Company (formerly known as the HVLS Fan Company).

If your new brand name is a catchy word, but completely unrelated to your line of business (like Apple or Yahoo!) effective branding (or re-branding) usually takes time and money…or a lot of creativity.

An example of creativity in action is how a company called GotVMail (a small business voice mail service provider) is going about changing its name to Grasshopper:

To spread the word fast and accelerate the name recognition of their new brand, they decided to mail FedEx packages to “5,000 of the most influential people in America” (there must be a typo somewhere since I received one ;)  containing a handsomely designed bag full of chocolate-covered grasshoppers (they are a popular snack in Thailand).

Written on one side of the bag is this dare:  “You’re a risk-taker, a dream-realizer.  What’s left to do that you haven’t already done?  Eat a grasshopper.”

Attached to the bag is a tag with an individual serial number (mine is 3248 of 5000) that says: “Entrepreneurs can change the world.  Join the movement now!  grasshopper.com/idea.”

While it’s still too early to quantify the results of this campaign, it is undeniable that it has already generated a significant amount of buzz: one excellent example of how the right combination of creativity and social media savvy can make a message go viral.

Here are, in my opinion, the five main characteristics of an expert:

1. Knowledgeable: You can’t be called an expert if you don’t know your subject matter. Being intimately familiar with the technical aspects of your job is absolutely necessary, and it is the first step on the road to expertise.
2. Experienced: Experts need to apply the theory and face many different scenarios. A physician may easily recognize the symptoms of an illness, but the right treatment will depend on each individual patient. You may have read about how to manage people, but until you’re actually in charge of a team and deal with real personalities and real conflicts you can’t really call yourself an expert manager of people.
3. Well Rounded: An expert who only cares about his/her subject matter is not really an expert. For example, a good SEO must also have an understanding of subjects like marketing and PR. If you want to become an expert at something, seek to also learn near-neighbor disciplines.
4. Up-to-Date: Knowledge changes fast. That’s why experts are always thirsty for new information. It’s not uncommon to see top experts attending seminars given by other experts, trying to learn something new. Experts reinvest part of their revenues in education. Experts experiment constantly.
5. Humble: Should you call yourself and expert?  Just as PR is more credible than advertising (because it is what other people are saying about you), it is more effective to let others call you an expert instead of blowing your own horn. Work hard at becoming good at what you do, get good mentors, gather honest testimonials, attract links from quality sites, and land mentions in important media, and you won’t need to hard-sell others on your expert status.

It is in this environment that Guy Kawasaki earned his chops as an entrepreneur. The former Apple evangelist, venture capitalist and founder of Internet ventures Truemors  and Alltop, has distilled decades of experience in his latest book, Reality Check, and does it in a way that is both informative and entertaining.

The book is thick but you won’t find filler or superfluous content. The chapters are short and focused on very specific business topics, from how to send effective email, to how to deliver a presentation, to how to prepare an effective business plan, to how to make a pitch.

They are often written in a list-of-top-tips format that makes identifying the main takeaways easy. Also, since each chapter deals with a specific topic, you can read them in the order you want at any time.

Guy also enlisted the help of top experts to write some of the chapters, like Penelope Trunk on career advice or Garr Reynolds on presentation design, so you’ll be learning from the best.

If you’ve already read Guy’s other books or his blog, you may find some of the material repeated. However, the value of Reality Check is in the way the content has been organized and summarized, and enhanced with new material to form a cohesive volume that covers virtually every aspect of running a business.

If you want to be successful in the business world, either as an entrepreneur or as an employee, this book will definitely give you an edge. Highly recommended.

What users want and don’t want in a mobile site

When accessing the web from their phone, users want easy navigation with only a few options, pages that render fast, and quick access to the content. They usually don’t want sidebars, menus with a hundred different options, icons and banners, and excessive formatting.

Where to start

I used a service called Mofuse, which makes creating a mobile site a snap. Go to mofuse.com and sign up for an account. You will be prompted to choose a sub-domain. You can choose yoursite to get a URL such as yoursite.mofuse.mobi

Next, you’ll be prompted to add your RSS feed. Mofuse will take your feed and make it the default home page of your new mobile site; it will show as a collection of links, starting with your most recent post, more or less like this:

Customizing your mobile site

I didn’t want my mobile site to default to my RSS feed. Instead, I decided to create a menu with three different options: Blog, About and Contact.

To do this, take a look at the Your Mobile Content section of your control panel’s right sidebar, click on the link to your RSS feed, and change the title to “Blog”.

Next, go to the Add Content section in the sidebar and click on the Add a New Page link to create your About page (you can put a picture of yourself with a brief paragraph about you or your elevator pitch). Do the same to create your Contact page.

After you do this, Mofuse will automatically create the menu and it will show in your mobile site’s homepage.

Finally, go back to the Your Mobile Content section and organize the three links in the order you want. This is how they look on my mobile blog:

Adding a logo

Go to the Make It Unique section of the sidebar, click on Your Logo, and upload it. If you want a tagline to go with it, go the the Add Content section and click on the Edit Homepage link. Then, just type your tagline. This is how it looks on my mobile site:

Using your own domain

Mofuse gives you the option of using your own domain or sub-domain. The universally accepted convention is to create a subdomain of your main site using just the letter “m”. For me, it is: m.shoestringbranding.com. To create it:

• Go to your domain registrar or hosting account control panel and edit the DNS records to create an alias called m.yoursite.com and point it to yoursite.mofuse.mobi. (if this sounds too technical to do by yourself, email tech support with your request).
• Go back to the Make It Unique section on your Mofuse control panel and click on the Custom Domain link, to set it up as m.yoursite.com.

Remove advertising

By default, Mofuse will show small Google Adsense ads at the top and/or bottom of your mobile pages. You can remove them by clicking on the Monetize link in the Other section of the sidebar and unchecking the box next to “Yes, I want to make money with my mobile site”.

You also have the option to remove the “Powered by Mofuse” icon from the bottom of your pages, but I decided to leave it, since I’m extremely happy with the service and wouldn’t mind more people knowing about it.

Publicizing your mobile site

Click on the Mobi Badge link in the Promote/Integrate section of your control panel’s right side bar and choose one of the “mobile-friendly” icons. Get the HTML and paste in on your blog’s sidebar, to let people know that you have a mobile friendly site.

If you want to get really technical, generate a QR code for your mobile blog and put it in your stationary or other printed material. QR codes are two-dimensional bar codes that can be read by mobile phones. Go to this page and type in your mobile site URL to generate your QR code.

Mine looks like this:

To enable your mobile phone to read QR codes, you need to download a QR-Code reader. Once you do that, the reader will turn your camera phone into a scanner: just take a picture of your QR code and you will automatically be transported to your mobile site.

That’s all there is to it. I hope this brief tutorial is clear enough and that it encourages you to build your mobile-friendly blog. Let me know how it goes.