Last month, an article posted on this blog about a 66-year-old Oregon packaging company and its revenue-generating products for the produce industry was sent by one of their sales reps to his prospects and customers.  

It worked! 

Before long, the company reported an increase in sales directly linked to the blog post.  (http://tinyurl.com/l3cw6cc) 

Then a produce industry trade magazine discovered the post, lifted quotes from it and published an article about the astonishing financial performance of the company’s Home-Toters® produce merchandising bags.  It’s too soon to measure the effectiveness of that happy outcome (if it can directly be measured at all), but as with any productive Internet content, the post (and its derivatives) no doubt will have other lives.

Content marketing is a relatively new term based on a time-proven concept:  if you come across an idea (content) you can put to work in your business, you’re likely to send it along to a colleague or friend who can use it in theirs.   They, in turn, will spread it further—perhaps to places you’d never imagined, like that produce trade magazine.   

“Salespeople love great content, because it’s an opportunity to reach out to customers and offer them something of value without asking for something in return,” says Frank Strong, a PR professional quoted today in The Content Strategist (http://contently.com/strategist/ ), an online publication about content marketing.  Strong calls people like the packaging company rep “potential content champions.”  (http://tinyurl.com/nlgn7y7 )

The key word in that phrase may be “potential,” because content marketing is only now beginning to take hold in business people’s minds (especially C-suite execs), and its strategic potential is practically unfathomable.  Even an old hand like Bill Marriott, executive chairman and chairman of the board of
Marriott International, Inc., reportedly has taken to blogging after having been “evangelized” by an employee – he records his thoughts and depends on others to weave them into online content.  If you read Marriott’s blog, you’ll see it’s nothing more than good old fashioned storytelling – like his life-affirming post about “deciding to decide”.  (http://tinyurl.com/pxvnwf4  )

Anyone who’s read one of LinkedIn’s Influencer posts will have witnessed the appeal of content marketing.   “For the past couple of years, LinkedIn has been slowly and effectively doubling down on content,” writes Joe Lazauskas in The Content Strategist.  LinkedIn’s Head of Content Products, Ryan Roslansky, notes in the same article that LinkedIn Influencer posts "average nearly 31,000 pageviews and over 80 comments.”  (http://tinyurl.com/oomqb2l )  People are no longer just trolling for job opportunities on LinkedIn, they’re increasingly looking to the business networking site for content that will help their businesses become more successful.

So why not you?

TakeAway:  Got a valuable business story to share?  Extend your reach through content marketing.

Content © by Brian E. Faulkner.

Brian Faulkner is a Key Message expert.  He helps clients come up with words to set their businesses, brands and products apart and attract the customers they want most.  His strategic insights, and the words that go with them, have made a significant, often immediate difference for client companies over many years.  He thrives on strategic communication problem solving, complex subjects, new ideas, concepts-as-products, challenging marketing situations and demanding deadlines.  His "sweet spot" is smaller to moderate sized consumer products, retail, service and manufacturing companies that may have struggled to find just the right words to position their business, brands or products to competitive advantage.

Brian also is a three-time Emmy award winning Public Television writer and narrator of UNC-TV’s popular Our State magazine series, on the air since 2003.  

In these days of wimpy, overly "creative" taglines that seem to get changed on a whim, it's refreshing to find one that not only has real strategic muscle but uncommon lasting power deeply imbedded in product truth: Ford's tagline, Built Ford Tough.  

Ford's F-series pickup trucks (primarily the F-150) have reigned atop the North American truck sales leader board for 37 years -- 32 years if you include cars in the stats.  And their long running tagline can be credited with at least part of the success, according to Doug Scott, Ford's Truck Group marketing manager.  It’s our “brand promise,” he stated in a June 2013 usatoday.com story “... the essence of what we’re all about.”     (http://tinyurl.com/ol2rstv )

Built Ford Tough is powerful and punchy.  It communicates a strong product benefit in three simple words.  And includes Ford’s brand name!   In contrast, Chevy’s relatively new tagline, Find New Roads (applies to all Chevrolet models, including Silverado pickups), is not built for the ages because it fails to speak squarely to product benefits.  It’s more like an ad campaign theme that gets used only for a season.   

People “get” the F-150 tagline right away, whereas Chevrolet's tagline needs explanation.   And they love buying Ford trucks.  Ford Motor Company has sold something like 34-million F-series pickups over 30 years – well over half a million during the 2014 model year alone.  Last month (March, 2014), 70,940 F-series pickups were sold in the U.S. despite bad weather that supposedly kept many buyers out of showrooms.  During the same month, 42,247 Chevy Silverados were sold – along with 42,532 Dodge Rams, barely edging out Silverado for once. 

For 2015, Ford is building their F-150s mostly out of Alcoa aluminum, including bed, cabs and doors, an innovation common to expensive sports and luxury cars but not pickups.  That’s raised some eyebrows, like Ford’s innovative EcoBoost V6 engine did a few years back before people decided they liked it – dealers as well as consumers.  To co-opt the purist sniffs, Ford has let it be known that the aluminum used in their new trucks is of a gauge similar to that used in Humvees and M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles.   The big bonus, of course, is that aluminum vs. steel takes 700 pounds off the truck’s weight.   Gas mileage is expected to improve by a fraction, but imagine how much more cargo you can carry and still have a lighter total weight going down the road than with last year’s F-150.

Ford’s new ride has been engineered to tote people and their stuff with style and convenience, whether a touch screen that responds to your work-gloved finger or the opportunity to lock / unlock your tailgate from the inside.  Price ranges from just under $25K to well north of twice that much if you load your truck up with lots of goodies, some of which help you work better, others that just help you enjoy the F-150 experience.   A hot-rod version called the Tremor (last of the 2014 steel bodied F-150s) is available now for "only" $38,545.

But what’s even more impressive than the F-150’s creature comforts, performance features or sales figures – at least to a marketer like me -- is the robustness and longevity of its tagline: 35 years and counting.  It’s “much more than a tagline,” says Ford’s Doug Scott.   And one reason why the best-selling car in America is a truck.   

So don’t expect Built Ford Tough to be retired any time soon. 

TakeAway:  Imbed your tagline in Marketable Truth.   And keep it around for a while.  

Marketable Truth © by Brian E. Faulkner
Content © by Brian E. Faulkner

Tags:  tagline, Ford tagline, Built Ford Tough, F-150, Chevy, Chevrolet, Silverado, Dodge Ram, Alcoa aluminum, aluminum F-150, EcoBoost

Brian Faulkner is a Key Message expert.  He helps clients come up with words to set their businesses, brands and products apart and attract the customers they want most.  His strategic insights, and the words that go with them, have made a significant, often immediate difference for client companies over many years.  He thrives on strategic communication problem solving, complex subjects, new ideas, concepts-as-products, challenging marketing situations and demanding deadlines.  His "sweet spot" is smaller to moderate sized consumer products, retail, service and manufacturing companies that may have struggled to find just the right words to position their business, brands or products to competitive advantage.

Brian also is a three-time Emmy award winning Public Television writer and narrator of UNC-TV’s popular Our State magazine series, on the air since 2003.  

Several months ago, after walking through our local Sears store, it occurred to me that Amazon.com should buy the American department store pioneer.  There would be two obvious advantages:

1)  It would give Amazon.com an immediate foot on the ground by way of 900+ "Sears" branded stores.

2)  It would give Sears (if it even survived the transaction) a badly needed marketing leg up – taking it back to its roots, so to speak, by providing a ready-made online “catalog” with ever-fresh new shopping options.

Then, today, I came across an article by retail commentator Robin Lewis, of The Roberts Report, that suggested that very thing, although his headline made it sound like the deal had already been struck.   (http://therobinreport.com/amazon-acquires-sears/)

It was with great relish that my parents took me to Sears in the 1950s -- I can still “feel” the place.  There were displays that caught your attention as soon as you walked through the door (always different, always fun).  And the wonderful aroma of freshly made buttered popcorn.

The Sears of my youth was the big box of its time.  It was a retail wonderland where you could buy just about anything, from clothes to bulky black-and-white TV sets (and the rooftop antennas you needed to make them work).  There were also Kenmore appliances and Craftsman tools  -- Mom would have no other washer, and Dad practically idealized Craftsman products.  

My birthday present one year was a shiny maroon J.C. Higgins two-wheel bicycle with wide fenders that actually kept rainwater off your back, coaster brakes and fat tires.  It was the real thing, not a sissy bike like we kids perceived the European “racing bikes” to be.

The same vast selection – and infinitely more – could be ordered from the Sears Wish Book, a printed catalog with many hundreds of pages, some of which found a liberal secondary use in rural outhouses during its early days.  Up through the early ‘40s you could even order a kit house through the Sears catalog – and have all 25 tons and 30-thousand+  parts of it delivered to your building site.  I ended up living in one during the 1970s.

My recent visit to a Sears store was just that: a visit.  Our little granddaughter wanted to ride up and down the escalator with Grandpa while her mother shopped at the Whole Foods next door (housed in what used to be the other half of the Sears store).  My brothers and I also loved the “moving stairs” in Sears all those years ago – and if truth be told, probably would have a go at them today were we fortunate enough to find ourselves together in a Sears store any time soon.     

The Sears store we visited with our granddaughter (in an otherwise bustling shopping center) was a sad shadow of the one that lives in my memory.   There were large expanses of empty floor space.   Prices posted on a spare display of clothing clearly were too high.   There weren’t many people around, save a few bored sales clerks gazing at rows of chattering big-screens, one of whom tried (somewhat desperately, it seemed) to sell us a mattress we had zero interest in buying.   

The store was well-kept (lots of time to sweep up) but appeared on the edge of abandonment, which inspired me to craft a variation on their  2009 tagline (Life. Well Spent).   Sears … Just About Spent. 

Back in the early ‘90s I had a conversation with a client who recently had left a high level Sears position --  just about the time the folks from Bentonville were beginning to make good on their notion to rise up and eat America.  The general drift of our discussion was that Sears had, indeed, lost its way – and that was years before Walmart got awesome big and before the Internet started chomping away at the retail space.  Amazon.com didn't launch until 1995!   So, could the tide finally be about to turn for the one-time American retail stalwart, thanks to one of its most voracious competitors?  

If so, I say “Go get ‘em!” Jeff Bezos.  And don’t forget the freshly made buttered popcorn.

TakeAway:   Resting on the tried and true may blind you to new ways of doing things and shut you out of a future you truly might have prospered in. 

© Brian E. Faulkner

Tags:  Sears, tagline, Amazon.com, The Lewis Report, Kenmore, Craftsman, J.C. Higgins, Sears Wish Book, Sears catalog, Whole Foods, Walmart, key message, wishy-washy taglines. 

Brian Faulkner is a Key Message expert.  He helps clients come up with words to set their businesses, brands and products apart and attract the customers they want most.  His strategic insights, and the words that go with them, have made a significant, often immediate difference for client companies over many years.  He thrives on strategic communication problem solving, complex subjects, new ideas, concepts-as-products, challenging marketing situations and demanding deadlines.  His "sweet spot" is smaller to moderate sized consumer products, retail, service and manufacturing companies that may have struggled to find just the right words to position their business, brands or products to competitive advantage.

Brian also is a three-time Emmy award winning Public Television writer and narrator of UNC-TV’s popular Our State magazine series, on the air since 2003.  

One of The Masters luminaries who didn’t appear on this year's leaderboard was Mercedes-Benz.  The German marque was far less a presence during the pinnacle golf event than 2012 tournament winner Bubba Watson and his 20-year-old playing partner, Jordan Spieth, but was well worth noting -- if you’re a brand marketer.   

In addition to introducing the newest iteration of their S-Series super luxury car (complete with a zingy digital dash and a cabin perfuming option), Mercedes dedicated a portion of their Masters advertising to a philosophy voiced years ago by Gottlieb Daimler: “The best or nothing.” 

Quality is a difficult idea to wrap your head around.   Philip Crosby once said that “quality has much in common with sex.  Everyone is for it.”  As Professor Phaedrus says in Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, “I think there is such a thing as Quality, but as soon as you try to define it, something goes haywire.”   Even so, Mercedes seems to have figured it out.

“The best or nothing” has been around as a Mercedes-Benz marketing device since 2010.  They call the phrase a “brand claim,” and their employees have taken it up as a rallying cry.   A long-time brand claim by the founder of eminent piano maker Steinway & Sons, Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, expresses a similar philosophy:  “Build the best piano possible.  Sell it at the lowest price consistent with quality.”

That common note may be why, late in the 19th century, Heinrich’s son William and Gottlieb Daimler came together in New York to manufacture The American Mercedes, “an exact copy – part for part – of the great car of international reputation,” an enterprise cut short by William’s death at age 61. 

The purpose of a tagline, as distinct from a brand claim like Mercedes', is to speak with authority about competitive advantage, to set a business, product or service apart in a way that attracts qualified prospects and compels them to want to become customers.   Taglines are marketing heavyweights that speak directly to strategic benefits.   Of course, Mercedes-Benz doesn’t really need a tagline.   People who aspire to purchase a Mercedes already “get it.”   Most brands do need a tagline, however – and a muscular one at that.  But occasionally, like Mercedes-Benz, they also may have an opportunity to whisper about their brand, to tell their story in a softer voice than that with which their primary tagline speaks.  

Which is precisely what Mercedes-Benz has accomplished with their elegantly crafted Masters spots.

TakeAway:   Consider complementing your primary tagline from time to time with a “brand claim” that speaks to both present and future customers in a softer, but no less compelling, voice.

Tags:  Mercedes-Benz, Mercedes, The Masters, Bubba Watson, Jordan Spieth, brand marketing, Mercedes S-series, Gottlieb Daimler, The Best or Nothing, quality, Philip Crosby, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Steinway & Sons, Heinrich Engelhard Steinway, best piano, William Steinway, The American Mercedes, tagline, purpose of a tagline, competitive advantage, strategic benefits, brand claim

 © Brian E. Faulkner

Brian Faulkner is a Key Message expert.  He helps clients come up with words to set their businesses, brands and products apart and attract the customers they want most.  His strategic insights, and the words that go with them, have made a significant, often immediate difference for client companies over many years.  He thrives on strategic communication problem solving, complex subjects, new ideas, concepts-as-products, challenging marketing situations and demanding deadlines.  His "sweet spot" is smaller to moderate sized consumer products, retail, service and manufacturing companies that may have struggled to find just the right words to position their business, brands or products to competitive advantage.

Brian also is a three-time Emmy award winning Public Television writer and narrator of UNC-TV’s popular Our State magazine series, on the air since 2003.  

Advertising Age magazine is reporting that eBay wants to revamp its global brand and is soliciting creative pitches from ad agencies worldwide.   http://adage.com/article/agency-news/ebay-begins-global-creative-pitch-revamp-brand/292556/

Of course, everybody’s knows about eBay.  And most everybody knows what they do – some of us based on experience buying or selling on their site. 

So why is eBay looking for fresh thinking?

That usually means that a marketer would rather come up with something fresh and compelling to say than spend more and more money shouting louder and longer about the same old thing.   And eBay spends a lot.

My guess -- and it’s only that -- is that eBay the brand has become so familiar that it’s lost its punch.   There’s a big difference between awareness and understanding.   Understanding is the “What’s in it for me?” part of marketing.   It’s what ad agencies try to get at with “creative” that compels people to want to do business with their clients.

I’m not a worldwide ad agency, just a guy in North Carolina with a blog about communicating competitive advantage.   But for what it’s worth, here’s my tagline contribution to eBay’s global branding wish list:

eBay:  The Easiest Way to Buy and Sell Your Stuff – All Over the World.

Easy Pleezy. 

TakeAway:   Freshen your message before your old one runs out of gas.

Tags:  eBay, competitive advantage, Advertising Age, tagline, brand, branding, global branding, creative pitch, marketing

Brian Faulkner is a Key Message expert.  He helps clients come up with words to set their businesses, brands and products apart and attract the customers they want most.  His strategic insights, and the words that go with them, have made a significant, often immediate difference for client companies over many years.  (see Client Comments)

He thrives on strategic communication problem solving, complex subjects, new ideas, concepts-as-products, challenging marketing situations and demanding deadlines.  His "sweet spot" is smaller to moderate sized consumer products, retail, service and manufacturing companies that may have struggled to find just the right words to position their business, brands or products to competitive advantage.

Brian also is a three-time Emmy award winning Public Television writer and narrator of UNC-TV’s popular Our State magazine series, on the air since 2003.  

Went shopping for a new laptop last weekend at Best Buy.  Over the years, I have avoided Best Buy because it’s too big and sometimes too loud and because the help doesn’t always know what they’re talking about.  Truth is I don’t like big box stores in general.  I miss the small, more specialized, more personable shops (and shopkeepers) that used to populate our towns and cities. 

But if I want a wide variety of laptops to select from – at least in Piedmont North Carolina, there is no choice other than to frequent Best Buy, or one of the office boxes. 

So there we were, two somewhat older, would-be Best Buy customers wandering around trying to figure which laptop from a mind-numbing array of choices would best suit my wife.  Within minutes, a young guy in a blue Best Buy shirt appeared, briefly inquired about our needs and said he’d find someone to help us out – a positive start!  Then he (and apparently his helper) … disappeared.   Later, after having selected an HP laptop totally on our own, he approached us again as we sauntered over to the camera department and went through the same routine again, not realizing that he had spoken to us fifteen minutes earlier.

In the camera department, I asked another blue-shirt about a specific Canon product that they were likely to have in stock considering the price range of cameras already on display.  “No,” the clerk said.  “We don’t have that one.”  He wandered off.

Hmmm …

Then I turned around, and there – at eye level on an end cap display – was the camera I’d inquired about in all its promotional glory!

The clerk came back.  I pointed out the display.  He seemed genuinely shocked.  Then said that the camera department “expert” would be back from lunch in a few minutes and that we should hang around and talk to him.   We did.   He didn’t.   After a while, the clerk returned with news that the expert wasn’t actually working that day and that we should come back during the week.

Hmmm …

So on to checkout.  Only one register open, and there was a line.   After a while, it was our turn.   The young woman behind the register acted bored beyond hope and asked far too many pre-programmed questions, which was one reason the line moved so slowly.   After completing our single-item transaction, her final note of disdain was to mutter “Thank you, have a great day” in a tone that made me want to dope-slap her (or her manager, or his/her manager, or the president of the company).

One miscue I can handle, but five?

1.  The disappearing greeter, Part I.

2.  The disappearing greeter, Part II.

3.  The uninformed camera clerk.

4.  The missing expert.

5.  The disappointing checkout.

Best Buy had five chances to shine but muffed them all.   Sure, the company is having trouble finding its way in a world that’s getting more expansive on one hand (think Amazon.com) and more specialized on the other (think Apple stores).   If they don’t reinvent themselves – and soon, upstart competitors, including those yet to emerge, will eat their lunch and their dinner.

The Best Buy merchandising concept emerged in the late ‘70s after the owner of a small chain of Minnesota stereo shops discovered the power of discounting following a store fire.  Five years later, the enterprise was renamed Best Buy and took off like it was being chased by the future, with innovative store formats and ever more product categories, including appliances.   By 1992 they were a billion dollar company and expanding nationally as more and more personal technology came on line to sell.  With more than 600 stores in the U.S., Best Buy glided into the Millennium as if nothing could slow their inevitability.  By 2007, they were in China – with eyes on other international locations. 

But pervasive market change had begun chewing away at their success, including online gaming, music streaming, online merchandising and (of late) software migration to the cloud.   Strategic disruptor Amazon.com sold their first book online in 1995.  And reached a billion dollars by 2001.  Today, they’re busily selling the everything from A-Z that Jeff Bezos envisioned from the start.  

Years ago -- centuries in terms of business change, Wachovia Bank rolled out their Personal Banker concept.  It paired customers with a branch banker who stuck around instead of rotating into the next training slot, as seemed the usual banking custom.  “You Have a Personal Banker at Wachovia,” proclaimed their tagline.  It was true.  And it worked!   For a long time.

There were two keys to the success of Personal Banker:

(1)  It maximized (and managed) the customer experience: created value by creating valuable relationships. 

(2)  It was authentic.  Wachovia delivered on their promise, day in and day out.

But what about Best Buy?  They clearly need a fresh approach, perhaps one as bold and innovative as the concept that first set them apart.  However, instead of looking to selection, scope and scale (even price) for differentiation, there may be strategic ground to be gained in activating their sales culture.

Like Wachovia Bank did so effectively with Personal Bankers, people power can be let loose relatively quickly and provide an enduring source of competitive advantage.   Under this scenario, Best Buy would hire (and retain) a top tier of professional sales consultants whose primary mission is to create valuable customer relationships, product knowledge experts who have been granted the autonomy to give their loyal customers set-apart service (essentially an expansion of Best Buy’s Geek Squad concept).   The consultants would be amply rewarded, based on metrics like better conversion, more frequent purchases by “their” customers, increased average transactions, time in grade, etc., and newer employees would aspire to join their ranks.  Customer satisfaction and repeat business would skyrocket.  Service complaints would begin fading away. 

Transforming Best Buy’s sales culture into a high performance human asset may sound like a stretch.  But even if the idea were only moderately successful, it beats the heck out of the errors, ignorance and indifference that pervaded our recent Best Buy laptop shopping experience.  And it certainly would give the company a long-term competitive advantage worth shouting about.

To be fair, Renew Blue, a Best Buy performance improvement initiative designed (in part) to “reinvigorate and rejuvenate the customer experience” has been underway for just over a year.  But for the moment, these two Best Buy shoppers are in no hurry to come back -- although when the new laptop breaks, we’ll be first in line to check out the Geek Squad.

TakeAway:   Differentiate your business, brand or product in a meaningful and enduring way.  Create value by creating valuable relationships.  Reward the people who make it happen.   Then tell the marketplace about your success – instead of letting it shape you.   People will want to be your customers.   And will return again and again.

© Brian E. Faulkner.

Related posts: 
www.brianefaulkner.com/1/post/2014/01/minimum-wage-should-be-stricken-from-our-business-vocabulary.html
www.brianefaulkner.com/1/post/2014/02/mr-grumpy-gets-his-due.html

Brian Faulkner is a Key Message expert.  He helps clients come up with words to set their businesses, brands and products apart and attract the customers they want most.  His strategic insights, and the words that go with them, have made a significant, often immediate difference for client companies.  He thrives on strategic communication problem solving, complex subjects, new ideas, concepts-as-products, challenging marketing situations and demanding deadlines.  His "sweet spot" is smaller to moderate sized consumer products, retail, service and manufacturing companies that may have struggled to find just the right words to position their business, brands or products to competitive advantage.

Brian also is a three-time Emmy award winning Public Television writer and narrator of UNC-TV’s popular Our State magazine series, on the air since 2003.