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A Powerful Brand Can Help Increase Your Sales.

1/30/2015

Tags: GM, General Motors, Starbucks, Steinway, Nike, BMW
Some years ago, an auto dealer client approached my small marketing communication company with a challenging problem: how to sell more GM parts to other GM dealers. The dealers were falling behind on repairing their customers’ cars because they couldn’t get parts from GM quickly enough. Our client discovered that by stocking fast moving parts in depth and shipping them overnight at a slight price premium, they could beat General Motors to the punch, help dealers get their customers’ cars out the door faster and make more efficient use of their service bays.

“You’re not selling parts to these dealers so much as you’re selling time,” we suggested. And recommended creating a brand focused primarily on time rather than the parts themselves.

The brand logo was designed to look like a packing crate stencil. And it worked. It wasn’t long before the GM zone manager told my client, “I see your Quik-Ship stickers wherever I go!” Their powerful brand with its built-in competitive story helped them earn millions and millions of incremental dollars over the years, which is precisely what a powerful brand should do.

Brand As Promise:

A brand is more than a catchy phrase or attractive logo.
It may include both of these, of course, but at heart a brand is a promise. A promise you make to your customers.
Starbucks promises a predictable mix of coffee concoctions and social context. They're so well known that they no longer even include "Starbucks" in their logo.

Brand As Song:

A brand is like a song. And the marketer’s job is to create a brand with a melody the customer wants to hear -- like when some tune sticks in your mind and won’t let go.

The right “brand-song” helps your business, product or service stand out against other brands. Steinway is a great example.

Brand As Persona:

A properly positioned brand embodies the qualities and values people think of when they see or hear about your brand.

It’s a lot like thinking about someone you like – or even how you see yourself. A personality comes to mind, perhaps not in so many words, but (hopefully) as a good feeling. Which is why Nike's famous "swoop" works so well.

Brand As Filter:

Your brand should attract qualified prospects and filter out the rest. If I have $20,000 to spend on a new car, I won’t be showing up at the BMW store. Their brand, which promises a blend of German engineering and exhilarating performance at a relatively high price, excludes me but attracts people who want -- and can afford -- the Ultimate Driving Machine.

Brand As Story:

A successful brand tells a unique competitive story. It carves out a “blue ocean” of fresh strategic mindspace, uncontested by others and unique to you. It speaks with a clear, definitive voice, whether your business is your brand or whether you make / market / sell branded products or services. It connects you to your customers, clients, patients, students, etc. in a personal way ... and helps make your business sing.

TakeAway: Does your brand sing a song people want to hear?

Content © by Brian E. Faulkner Photos © by Brian E. Faulkner

Tags: GM, Starbucks, Steinway, Nike, BMW

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"Quality" Razor Doesn't QUite Cut It.

1/28/2015

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I’m a sucker for quality. A finely polished product surface will get me every time. I love the satisfying sound a car door makes when it closes properly (and the window operators don’t rattle like they did on some older American cars). Not to mention underwear T-shirts that don’t shrink with their first wash (even using cold water and a low dryer setting). And razor blades that glide smoothly over your face while effortlessly removing that morning’s growth.

So I was pretty excited to hear about Harry’s Razors. They’ve been around going on two years and have popped up recently online. Read their well-crafted ad copy and you’d think you’ve found shaving Nirvana:

Like most of you, we’ve long had to choose between over-priced,
over-marketed razors that disrespect your intelligence,
and low quality, cheap razors that disrespect your face.
We knew there had to be a better way,
so we created Harry’s as a return to the essential:
a great shave at a fair price.

I wanted one - right away. Problem is I no longer shave, thanks to a 5-year-old beard I trim once a week – if that. But during my many decades of shaving, I mostly used the cheap blue grocery store blades that lasted about three days before they reared up and tried to bite my face off.

So the Harry’s ad caught my eye. It had a quality look and made quality promises:

We spent over a year meticulously crafting our first Harry’s line.
Our blades are made by German engineers with decades of experience honing high-grade steel.
Our handles were designed to blend timeless simplicity and modern ergonomics.
Our shaving cream comes from the same chemists who make creams for high-end brands.
The result: a set of modern shaving products made with respect for the tradition of a good, clean shave.

Since I was not going to try them myself, I consulted razorpedia.com for Harry’s Razor reviews.

Some men liked them and credited Harry’s for eliminating razor burn. Others did not like the product for reasons that ranged from “dull after three days” to rust on the blades, slippery handles and poor value compared to products available at retail – not to mention Harry’s shave cream, which nobody seemed to like.

I, too, was disappointed – that so many of the reviewers were disappointed. Because I like Harry’s sell. It's creative, credible and makes you want to try the product. But as one reviewer opined, the company seems “more concerned with marketing brand association and identification than with how their razor works.”

Harry’s differentiation is threefold: (1) a great shave, (2) a fair price, and (3) direct sales. Unfortunately, razorpedia reviewers suggest that the product needs refinement and isn’t always the best value. That leaves direct selling as the lead dog pulling this sled, which likely will be enough to establish a market beachhead for Harry’s while they improve the product.

I hope so.   Because I want to see these entrepreneurs succeed.

As for me, I’m still on the lookout for an underwear T that won’t shrink with that first wash! Don’t you just hate how they ride up on your tummy?

TakeAway: Don’t make a quality claim unless your product absolutely, positively lives up to it.

Content © by Brian E. Faulkner

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Buick's Da Bomb!

1/17/2015

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Buick Avenir Concept Car (GM Image)

Two things:

(1) When I was a kid I thought Buicks were clunky.
(2) Until now, I have never once used the words “Da Bomb” in a sentence.

For some reason I most recall the ’58 Buick, a whale of a car festooned with chrome. It wasn’t as stylish as the ’58 Chevy (my two lively great aunts drove a sleek black Impala convertible that my brothers and I lusted after). One of our boring neighbors had a boring ’58 Buick. So clunky seems about right.

Fast forward “many” years, where I find a dark green 2000 Buick LeSabre parked in my garage. We inherited it from my father, who picked it out of a Florida car dealer’s reject row in 2005. It was a low mileage car with a few scratches and minor dents and a small handful of annoying maintenance issues the dealer didn’t want to address. That (and the price) suited Dad because he was tired of babying his near-mint, always garaged black ’78 Oldsmobile Cutlass, which had of late been demolished in an accident (not Dad’s fault). He drove the Buick for four years, adding dents and dings of his own as his eyesight deteriorated.

Dad was never much of a car guy, even though he worked in the business. He never bought a new car, preferring older models with plenty of life left in them on which somebody else had assumed much of the depreciation. Even so, he would have liked the looks of Buick’s new concept car, the Avenir, making rounds on the Internet this week.

It’s “Da bomb!” – a gorgeous, curvaceous sculpture in sheet metal if I’ve even seen one, with flowing lines reminiscent of luxury marques from the ‘30s. It caught my eye immediately. Even the performance-at-all-costs mavens at online auto site Jalopnik.com (a typical headline: “Watch This Screaming 911 Porsche Rally Car Demolish Mountain Roads”), acclaimed Avenir as “The Gorgeous RWD Buick We’ve Been Waiting For”.

“Buick, for once, has the hottest new car in Detroit,” headlined Yahoo Finance, despite the aggressive supercars, hefty pickups and extended range electric models that largely dominated publicity stemming from this year’s North American International Auto Show.

“After growing Buick sales 11% in the U.S. last year, GM is trying to capitalize on the brand’s momentum,” reported CNBC auto writer Phil LeBeau, even though “momentum” is not a word that would have been used to describe Buick sales until more recent years. The brand was all but written off by the time of GM’s 2009 bankruptcy, and speculation was that it wouldn’t be long before Buick followed the fate of sister-brand Oldsmobile, discontinued in 2004.

If not for the Chinese, that may well have been the car’s fate.

“General Motors isn’t thinking of the U.S. with the Avenir,” said Dave Sullivan, an analyst with AutoPacific, quoted in Rick Newman’s Yahoo article, “it’s thinking of the Chinese market.” And placing a halo over the Buick brand -- using marketing words like this:

“The Pinnacle of Buick Luxury, Design and Technology … a sophisticated and intuitive expression of the premium automotive experience,” a position now largely occupied by the likes of Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Lexus and Audi.

But Buick is already Da Bomb in China, where it’s enjoyed distribution for over 100 years. The brand is GM’s biggest seller there, accounting for around 14% of China’s new car sales. Sullivan reports sale of 3.5 million GM-partnered automobiles in China during 2014, “where people have been salivating for a car like this,” vs. only 2.9 million GM brand cars sold in the U.S. For this American automaker, the tail (growth of their brands in China) is wagging the dog with a proliferation of attractively styled new Buicks that appeal on both sides of the Pacific, of late even including an innovative -- and attractive -- new 2+2 convertible called the Cascada.

So what about me?

Well, I’m a lot like my Dad. I’d be more likely to wait on the Avenir until some 3-5 year old models become available. But then there’s that “LUXURY INTERIOR … REIMAGINED”, as Buick puts it. To my eye, the Avenir interior looks more like some stylist’s exercise in excess than a comfy place in which to enjoy and drive the vehicle -- just the opposite of the car’s conservatively classy exterior design.

But, as my mirror reminds me, I’m not thirty (or forty or fifty) anymore.

So give me the concept car exterior plus the simple, analog gauge-rich interior from my dad’s LeSabre and I’ll go for it -- Lord willing, maybe somewhere around 2020. Or, maybe I'd go for Buick's new Cascada convertible, a production model you're likely to see on the road sometime soon. I've always loved a drop-top, and on this new Buick (their first convertible in 25 years), you can raise the top at the first hint of rain and put it back down when the sun comes out -- while traveling up to 31 mph!

TakeAway: Your customers will tell you where your brand ultimately can go. Listen to what they have to say and build your future on that.

Content © by Brian E. Faulkner

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Does Coach Have An Image Problem?

1/8/2015

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Got to thinking about Coach, Inc.’s brand image today after reading an article that questioned the company’s potential acquisition of fashion footwear brand Stuart Weitzman to complement their own nascent shoe line, reportedly the first of an array of “lifestyle” products to take them beyond handbags.

Krystina Gustafson speculates in her CNBC.com article that, while Weitzman will add to overall Coach sales, it may not do much for the brand’s image, which needs some propping up. She also quotes Robert Konik, an analyst with the global investment banking firm Jeffries, who suggests (in a note to investors) that Coach has, indeed, lost some of its pricing power.

The brand may have at long last fallen out of favor with high end shoppers, Gustafson adds, because of “stale product, over-distribution and damaged brand equity from its high presence at outlet malls.”

Back in the late ‘80s, I helped their president, Lew Frankfort, with a Coach positioning speech he presented to an audience of marketing and sales reps. Frankfort led development of the Coach business from the early ‘80s until his retirement late last year as executive chairman, during which he was instrumental in expanding the fashion leather handbag’s company’s revenue and global footprint by many orders of magnitude.

My brief connection with him occurred during the company’s Sara Lee days, when the Chicago-based food and apparel giant was making acquisitions and launching initiatives in direct retail. The corporation’s desire back then, via their Sara Lee Direct division, was to maximize the potential of its well-known brands, and what they discovered through research (if I recall correctly, conducted by McKinsey) was that if Coach products were sold in high end department store boutiques as well as Coach-owned retail stores, aggregate sales would increase. That appears logical enough at first glance, but the fear was that department store sales would eat into Coach store sales – and begin eroding their price premium. At that time, their flagship Manhattan store was said to do more sales per square foot than any other retailer in America.

But department store sales of Coach bags did not cannibalize sales in the company’s own stores. And soon, the logic went, why not try outlet malls, since Sara Lee Direct already was knee deep in building off-price stores for its Hanes, L’eggs and Bali brands. So Coach stores began turning up at the better outlet malls, a presence that remains today.

But there’s the rub. Without denying the considerable growth of Coach, Inc. over the years, a portion of which clearly must have come from its outlet mall business, one does wonder whether their exalted brand name has been diminished by its continued presence in discount retail settings, where the merchandise isn’t always the same as that you’d find in New York, Beverly Hills or Tokyo. For instance, in the third quarter of 2010, “87-percent of the merchandise at Coach outlet stores was manufactured for the outlet,” according to a 2011 article at palmbeachpost.com. “The rest was made up of items that came from the retail stores - perhaps excess inventory, or returns, or items that were no longer in season.”

“The outlet bag is just not the same quality, won't have the same details, as the one at the retail store for $1,200," noted Howard Davidowitz, chairman of national retail consulting and investment banking firm Davidowitz & Associates Inc., in the article -- although you still can cop a deal at your nearest Coach outlet store from time to time. “A pink Mia handbag from Coach’s Madison collection was found on discount for $175 recently at the Vero Fashion Outlet," the same article noted,"plus an additional 20 percent off that was being offered on everything in the store for a final price of $140. That same handbag was available by special order at the Coach retail store in The Gardens Mall — still at the full original price of $358.”

Even so, I must admit that seeing a Coach store in an outlet mall these days rather disappoints me.

The CNBC article notes that a pair of Stuart Weitzman pumps sell at a considerable premium over a Coach branded pair (assuming equal product style and quality, one would think). So apparently Coach does, indeed, have some pricing headroom to make up because of the downward pull on their premium image, an opportunity that they’ve created for themselves by associating the brand with outlet settings for so many years.

Meanwhile, I will continue to enjoy use of the Coach Bleeker Flap Briefcase I acquired back in the ‘80s. It’s been through the wars -- including one minor flood that devastated its contents, and it still looks and performs great. Let’s hope the company’s image does that well over the long run as Coach grows into those “lifestyle” products.

TakeAway: If you’re marketing a premium product, stick with a price that commands -- and builds on -- your brand’s premium positioning.

For additional discussion about sticking to premium product pricing, using Godiva chocolates as an example: http://www.brianefaulkner.com/blog/godivas-alluring-words-enduring-promise

Content © by Brian E. Faulkner

Sources: http://www.cnbc.com/id/102314069
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/business/outlet-stores-are-you-getting-a-good-deal-or-just-/nLpgZ/

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sample blog:

This is a sample blog for writer Brian E. Faulkner. It presents stories about brands that do an especially good job communicating competitive advantage. Stories are gleaned from the business press, personal experience and occasional interviews. Updates are made from time to time, and every so often there will be a post of general interest -- about things like success, passion, social trends, etc.

Author

Brian Faulkner is a writer and strategic communication consultant who helps business clients explain their competitive advantage in compelling and enduring ways.

He also is a five-time Emmy award winning Public Television writer & narrator for a highly-rated and well-loved magazine series.

A Powerful Brand Can Help Increase Your Sales.

Brand As Promise:

Brand As Song:

Brand As Persona:

Brand As Filter:

Brand As Story:

"Quality" Razor Doesn't QUite Cut It.

Buick's Da Bomb!

Does Coach Have An Image Problem?

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