Brand Happens

Lessons from retail: avoid jargon

While I'm between full-time employers, I'm working a part-time job in big-box retail this holiday season to earn a little Christmas cash. I'm also learning some value brand lessons, including this one:

Avoid the jargon - Every industry - and brand - has its own jargon. When used with people in the know, it speeds communication and delivery of the brand promise. When used with a new employee, however, it can create confusion and, in extreme cases, brand disconnect.

In my big-box retail job, I'm often asked to replenish products on the retail floor. The manager once asked me to replenish the "KCK" which, only when I asked, did I learn was the "Kohl's Cares For Kids" stuffed Dr. Seuss figures (100 percent of the proceeds goes to children's charities!). When I picked up the hangers at the POS ("point of sale"), I was asked "are you the something-something 27" which is a sort of second-in-command manager on the shift (I said I didn't know, but I didn't think so). And I've been asked to "fill or kill" "towers and tables" which means to replenish or remove the specialty sale displays that we put in the ailes for seasonal merchandise.

In each case, I had to ask for further explanation. When I thought I knew the answer, but realized I didn't, I had to guess. Imagine for a minute that the employee wasn't as willing to take risks or ask questions as am I. Would the use of jargon hinder or help the situation? Would the employee be able to quickly and efficiently demonstrate the brand in the presence of employees?

I'm guessing it's going to hurt communication and, potentially, the brand experience because of a delayed or - in the worst case - incorrect response by the employee.

Brand happens, and by taking a few extra seconds to use everyday language when engaging new employees, you can speed comprehension and let employees get on to the task of creating a great experience for your customers. 

Are there terms and phrases that mean only something to you as an insider? If so, how to you welcome in new employees and arm them with the tools to embrace your brand? 

Lessons from retail: employee orientation

While I'm between full-time employers, I'm working a part-time job in big-box retail this holiday season to earn a little Christmas cash. I'm also learning some value brand lessons, including this one:

Focus on the employee orientation - The best opportunity to maintain an amazing brand experience for customers is when a new employee joins your organization. At that critical moment, the organization can focus its resources on ensuring a great brand experience for everyone by offering a comprehensive and educational welcome to the new employee.

My first night in big-box retail, few people knew to expect me. And it took about 15 minutes to get me stationed at a computer for the next four and a half hours of back-to-back-to-back-to-back computer-based training modules. The modules were well done and intergrated enough that I quickly learned some of the processes and standards that this brand integrated into its experience. But I learned little else. I didn't learn the brand story or the emotional touchpoints that make the brand relevent to its target audience. 

And I realized what a huge opportunity it was to teach this part-time, short-term employee how to create long-term brand loyalty all the time. 

In more than 25 years of marketing communications, I - and many of my colleagues - have argued that a logo, business card, letterhead, brochure - and now, website or Facebook page - are the table stakes required to communicate your brand. I'm now adding an employee orientation or "onboard" process to my recommended first steps.

It's too simple of a concept to be ignored. It lays the ground work for the brand by explaining the technical procedures and emotional background for embracing an amazing brand. It creates confident and comfortable brand warrior. And it costs pennies.

It might look like this:

Technical processes and procedures:

1. Here are your insurance, W-2, confidentiality and other forms.
2. Here's how to use the time clock.
3. Here are your keys, and here's how to turn off the alarm.
4. Here are the emergency telephone numbers and procedures you should know.
5. Here's how to request/log vacation days.
6. Etc.

Emotional background:

1. Here's our story, why we're here.
2. Here's what that means in your job.
3. Here's what we expect of you.
4. Here's what you can expect from us.
5. Here's what our customers expect from you.
6. This is what our brand looks like.

You can't possibly explain every aspect of the job, but a good brand foundation allow employees to demonstrate the brand in a different, inviting, relevent and truthful manner every day, even if the technical aspects are not exactly right.

I've worked at places where policies, specific procedures and brand underpinnings emerged (evolved?) months, even years, after I joined the organization. I often joked "I must have missed that during the orientation!" It was funny at the time - and a more than a little frustrating - but until I saw it again in a different environment, I hadn't recognized the missed opportunity it was. 

Brands are like a bowling alley: each employee can go after the same set of pins from a different angle....as long as they're on the right alley. With a proper employee orientation, you can get your employees bowling on the same lane in no time at all.

Volunteers need orientation, too
This is a critical opportunity to engage volunteers, too. Organizations don't have the same economic hold on volunteers that they do on employees: there's no price to pay if a volunteer leaves you tomorrow. A positive, comprehensive experience in the first days and weeks of working with a new organization, however, can pay huge dividends.

Brand happens, whether you prepare for it or not, so why not deliver the brand narrative early - during an orientation? You'll increase the chance that the brand conversation in your audience's mind is the right one if it starts correctly in the employee's mind.

What do you think? Does your organization take advantage of the employee orientation? Or are you missing an opportunity?

 

Add a little, add a lot

This winter has been pretty rough for many folks across the country. A foot of snow, 20-degree temps and a gusty wind along a highway can make a routine trip to Grandma's a death-defying excursion. Take away the wind, but add bright sunshine, and you have a perfect day of sledding. Just ask my boys after spending that afternoon at Grandpa Art's farm the Sunday after Christmas.

Little changes can mean a lot in your brand, too.

Target and Walmart are offer basically the same brand: add brighter lights and happy cashiers to Walmart, and you have Target. Add blue shirts and a more crowded floor to Target and you have Walmart.

It doesn't take big things to change your brand experience in a big way. I believe a key element of the Zappos.com brand, for example, is its free shipping, both ways, 365 days a year.

How would your brand change if:

• every employee smiled when they greeted your customers
• you wrote "thank you" and signed every invoice you sent out
• put a thought of the day in every shipment
• gave away a free sample of another product - without advertising it - with every purchase
• you stayed open just one hour more per day, or one more day per week
• your employees wore fun t-shirts on the retail floor
• you called random customers to ask if they were amazed by your service

Do you have any other ideas? What little thing can you add to your brand to add a lot, in 2010?

Color me confused.

Our clients at McLellan Marketing Group often need help going deep with their brands, making their brand promise authentic at every level of their organization so that it's authentic every time the consumer comes in contact with it. 

That's why it's so surprising to me to see brands - big brands, even - get it wrong even at the surface. 

On our trip back from Tennessee in late November, we came across a blue "Red Box" at a Walmart in northeast Missouri (that's my son Quinn with the confused look on his face). We were desperate for a new DVD for the kids since we still had several hours of driving left before we'd get back home. Nevertheless, it was a bit shocking.

The computer screen looked the same, and the header was a familiar red, and it was filled with the same fare we'd seen all the way down and back on our trip. But there was a bit of confusion that might have made the average - read, "less desperate" - buyer drive right on by, looking for another location to rent a cheap DVD.

My questions:

Who made that decision?

Who approved that decision?

Why?

Brand consistency is tough enough without screw ups at the surface. I first mentioned this a few years ago in a blog post about a McDonald's in Cameron, Missouri, that featured a series of red "golden arches" around the edge of an awning. I've also looked twice when I first saw a Two Men And A Truck franchise with two trucks parked in front (hide one of the trucks, please).

It's one thing when the disconnect is purposeful (think Yellow Truck Lines, which features an orange logo, or the Thompson Twins, the 1980s band featuring three guys, and one of them was African-American). But why do brands confuse customers by changing something as basic as the brand color after establishing that brand as an intrinsic part of the brand?

McDonald's is making a huge change: its famous red and gold logo is going green in Europe as it tries to make an environmental statement. It seems pretty radical to me, and others agree. Is this really the way to make a point?

I'm just confused.

Branding advice from the pulpit

While brand-surfing recently, I came across Breakthrough Media's website and this page that describes church branding. I'm passionate about branding and about my faith, having lead a branding process a few years back at my church, so I paid careful attention to this firm's point of view.

It makes a ton of sense...for churches AND for businesses. I've felt for years that church leaders need to embrace brand as a way to establish connections with their members, and this article lays that ground work. Even better: secular businesses and organizations can gain a clearer understanding of brand management - specifically, brand identity - by reading this article...just read "my company" or "my industry" whenever the author writes "church." Go ahead and give it a try.

And pay special attention to point 5: a good brand awakens the heart.

Bonus for churches: in case you've never read it, I suggest you drop by Chuchmarketingsucks.com as soon as you finish the post above! It's a blog designed to "frustrate, educate and motivate the church to communicate, with uncompromising clarity, the truth of Jesus Christ." And it does it well!

Baked in or painted on?

How ironic that the week that I read Mike Wagner's tweet about brands "being baked in or painted on" I also hear that Norwalk, Iowa is getting ready to "brand" themselves with a new logo and tag line. If the process was going to go deeper, it wasn't evident in the news story. I can't find the story to link it here, but it doesn't really matter because on any given day, you can find a community starting a process to "brand" themselves.

It usually starts with a consultant promising an attractive new logo and an engaging tag line that will synthesize the community's aspirations and fuel economic development. And it usually ends with an acceptable logo, a benign tag line and little else to actually help the community establish a relevant difference. It's a painted on brand, at best, and a costly effort that gives legitimate brand discernment and brand management a bad reputation at worst.

Sometimes, the consultant doesn't go any farther and sometimes, the community runs out of political capital before it runs out of brand capital. In a few rare cases, the brand resonates and is embraced by residents and leaders alike....community decisions are built on a solid brand foundation. And everybody says "of course!" 

It's much easier to get there in an organization than a community. I understand that. But should we use that as an excuse not to push harder, go deeper and create something of lasting value?

• Shouldn't we build our economic development efforts on a brand...deciding what kind of business we'll recruit and which kinds we won't based on how they fit instead of how much money they'll bring in?
• Shouldn't we use dwindling tax revenues to strategically support those initiatives that build on the brand rather than detract from it? 
• Can we say NO to development that moves us away from the brand and yes to improvements that strengthen it?

I think small towns like Norwalk have a better chance at identifying a unique brand position because there are fewer cooks in the kitchen. But they have to be on the same page of the cook book.

The Tagline Guru posted this survey of city names awhile back. I've kept a dog-eared printed copy in my office for months, and I refer to it often to remind myself to make sure brand strategies are integral to the organization, the community or the business. Many are clever and some actually are different and relevant. Take a look and let me know which ones you think represent a baked in brand and which ones are just painted on.

LinkedIn vs. Facebook: can't we all just get along?

I was at a networking group meeting a week or so ago when a colleague asked me why he should be on LinkedIn. After explaining a few of the opportunities that present themselves with the social network site (public profiles, polls, groups, etc.), I kept thinking about it and discussing it with colleagues...especially in contrast to Facebook, another powerful social networking site that can be even more addicting...or powerful.

The two sites, while often thought of as competitors for time and energy, can actually co-exist quite nicely in the social networking strategy of many professionals willing to work out the details. Let's start by looking at the cold hard facts.

According to Facebook's own statistics:

• More than 250 million active users
• More than 120 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day
• More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college
• The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older
• Average user has 120 friends on the site
• More than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
• More than 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day
• More than 8 million users become fans of Pages each day
• There are more than 30 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

Now, let's look at LinkedIn:

• LinkedIn has over 45 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the world.
• A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and about half of our members are outside the U.S.
• Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.

Let's look beyond the numbers, at the application and opportunity each site offers.

Active vs. Passive
I believe Facebook shines as an active resource, one that is very fluid and dynamic. The information about the users network changes from minute to minute. Facebook provides an outlet for a wide variety of users so you are likely to read someone's opinion on a business book or what they had for breakfast. They may tell you they're going into a movie and give an instant review on their way out, thanks to mobile applications now available for Facebook. This active nature makes Facebook very personal and very addictive because it's like having coffee with hundreds of your closest friends. It unfolds throughout the day, throughout the week much like a video of one's life.

LinkedIn seems, on the other hand, seems to be much more passive. The information doesn't seem to change as often, despite the opportunity to create groups of like-minded individuals and myriad interactive tools such as discussions and polls. From my experience, users tend to be professionals who use it to expand their business contacts, network and position themselves for career changes. The recommendation feature is a powerful way to expand your credibility. Much like a resume on steroids, LinkedIn is a snapshot of your life today. It may change tomorrow or next week, but it's relatively stable picture of who you are.

Relationships vs. Introductions
Because of its fluid nature, Facebook seems to create relationships. It gives people a lot of information about their friends and reason to communicate..often...and play games and give presents as if the relationship took place in the same physical community. The information - and the photos - is often very personal, and, when shared with the right audience, tends to help create tight-knit groups of friends.

LinkedIn users maintain a more professional demeanor, preferring to share carefully selected information about their skills, their experience and their professional profile. Because it's less active, it tends to serve as a resume, introducing users to others who may not even be linked in them (using public profiles, for example).

Why not both?
Earlier on in social networking - just a few short years ago - users seemed to believe that they had to choose one or the other, or one or two of many different social networking sites. They struggled with maintaining a professional posture and a personal posture, creating a schizophrenic social networking presence that rarely stayed separate.

Instead, I think it makes more sense to carefully maintain both a presence on Facebook and on LinkedIn to provide an additive effect, leveraging the passive snapshot with the active video across the social media spectrum. Add in your Twitter account and a blog and you have a powerful social media personal that consistently and continually expresses your brand not matter the application. If you're not ready to commit to that omnipresent Internet profile, wade into social media carefully, listening to the conversation and adding to it when you're ready.

Two of the first places to start looking and listening, however, are LinkedIn and Facebook.    

Question: What's the one thing about Facebook or LinkedIn that you wish someone would have shared with you when you started using it?

This post is not intended to be a complete guide to LinkedIn or Facebook. There are plenty of other resources including these that will get you deeper into these powerful resources:

• The LinkedIn Blog
• The LinkedIn User Manual
• The Getting Started article on Facebook
• All Facebook: the unofficial Facebook Resource and
• Mashable: The Social Media Guide

Like watching a train wreck: it doesn't have to happen

I have to admit that while watching a documentary called Indoctrinate U this weekend, I enjoyed the ill-prepared staff at our nation's universities squirm or flea under the glare of the video camera lights. Especially fun: when film producer and host Evan Coyne Maloney dropped in at the diversity office of one large state university to ask why its faculty had a 14 to 1 ratio of Democrats to Republicans, they scurried like rats on a sinking ship, even warning the diversity officer not to come into the building.  

It was as devastating to the higher education as anything Michael Moore ever did to General Motors or any of his other victims.

While I grinned inside, I wondered how these victims of ambush videography might have otherwise reacted. In the past, corporate America feared the words "60 Minutes is here to talk to you." Today, Michael Moore clones, citizen journalists and low cost, tiny video cameras mean ambush potential lies around every corner.

What's a brand to do to stay on its toes at all times?

First, understand that documentary producers with video cameras are just one threat a brand faces every day. The casual blogger, active Twitterer or well-connected maven in the city park can be just as devastating if you set them off with inconsistent service or a defective product. Myriad examples (including a messy Kohl's store and overactive Domino's Pizza employees) show what can happen when when the average citizen produces content and puts it on the Internet. And as we all know, the Internet is forever...it can take a very long time to recover from a million-hit YouTube video.

Second, arm employees with a strong understanding of the brand. Clearly communicate the brand expectation early and often. Practice brand management in safe environments like workshops, one-on-one training and employee reviews. Share brand management stories in formal and informal meetings, including weekly or monthly staff meetings: let people know what it looks like so they're ready. And be ready to release employees who don't get it (see Zappos).

Third, once the brand is set, give the employees the freedom to act. In Made to Stick, authors Dan Heath and Chip Heath warn that most plans don't survive contact with the enemy, so leaders should focus instead on the commander's intent. That means letting subordinates figure out how to achieve the commander's intent in their own job, in their own way. If the commander's intent is to be the most energetic provider of a service, for example, then let the employees figure that out within the framework established in the communication stage and get out of their way (again, see Zappos for this best practice in action).

In the case of Indoctrinate U and other similar documentaries, the people on camera made good drama by making bad decisions. They weren't armed with the right story, weren't prepared to act on that story and/or weren't empowered to deliver that story in a manner that would disarm the opponent. Instead, they were more interested in the camera and taking a defensive posture..and calling campus security.

It was fun to watch, but it didn't need to happen.    

  

Who's going take advantage of this milestone moment?

This is a milestone moment for automobile dealers in the US. Chrysler's closing dealerships - even the successful ones - and General Motors is emerging from bankruptcy with an eye on selling via ebay. It's time dealers quit doing business as usual.

Will any of them have the courage to shake things up?

I've written about the Big Three a few times, such as when they went bobbing for bucks with the feds, when I questioned Buick's choice of Tiger Woods as a spokesperson or when I wondered if anybody had the guts to really be different. But never before has there been this kind of opportunity to step up, shake things up and blow up the automobile dealership.

Is anybody willing to amp up the value proposition, making the buying experience more important than the product itself?

• Which dealer is going to offer a service nobody else does?
• Which dealer will stay open late enough to serve second-shift workers?
• Which dealer will simplify the buying process?
• Which dealer will truly emphasize a consultative selling process that focuses on what the customer needs instead of what the dealer has to sell?
• Which dealer will offer a focused product line based on that consultative selling instead of the line offered by the dealer?
• Which dealer will say "enough is enough" and create truly unique and relevant marketing communications?

Let me know...I want to work with that dealership!

UPDATE: GM is backing out of it's contracts. Seems that dealers have an opportunity to leverage their position too. 

Media relations is a whole new game

"Help us help you."

That was the key message delivered by three editorial producers and backed up by a full-time media relations pro at today's IABC/Iowa meeting. The convergence of media and the reduction in staff at newspapers, radio stations and in television stations has created a whole new reality for marketers with a message.

I've been attending meetings of Iowa's chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators for more than 25 years. In the early 1980's, an IBM representative predicted the end of newspapers and other printed communication, replaced by electronic text sent via computers. Today's meeting was even more incredible.

I think I said "wow" at least three times.

• The Des Moines Register's Larry Ballard admitted that economics have forced the Register to shrink its news staff and form relationships with former competitors, WHO-TV, to share resources including video for the Register's website. He said "you've never had as good of a chance to have your message printed 'as is' as you have right now!" That doesn't mean it can be one-side fluff pieces, but there's fewer gatekeepers than ever before, and they have to produce content continuously, not just once a day. Wow!

• Jay Wells, of the Des Moines Radio Group, echoes Larry's comments about the pressure to produce. Even though he delivers news two minutes at a time, he's a one-man band, responsible for gathering news for all the stations in the Group (owned by Saga Communications) in addition to his responsibilities as on-air personality for KIOA 93.3 and Lite 104.1. He told the group to make it easy for him to use and he'll use it. Double wow!

• WHO-TV 13's Patrick Dix, morning and noon news anchor told of numerous efforts by the station to bring media relations professionals and others into the news room to get to know the reporters and anchors and learn how to provide information over the past several years, before telling us that nobody - not one person - has ever taken them up on the offer. "Take me out for a cup of coffee so I can get to know you," he pleaded to the 40+ corporate and agency communications pros in the office. Triple wow! 

Despite these opportunities, the news guys called us "professional communicators" out, saying they still are expected to toe line and produce the corporate story when and where and how they are asked to produce it. And woe to the reporter who doesn't get the story 100 percent correct. Dix admitted he's likely to pay special attention to a story pitch when he at least knows the person pitching the story, and they know him!

 Social media maven and "PR Princess" Claire Celsi supported the claims made by the guys to her left and right on the panel, and provided great advice for using social media, including blogs. "Bloggers should be treated just like the media, even though they don't always think they are media," she advised. Getting to know bloggers is just as important as getting to know reporters and editors, she added.

It was an eye-opening moment for me, and I hope for others in the room. In similar presentations in the past, the panelists have spent their time being brutally honest about the bad manners exhibited by my communications bretheran. This time, they handed out advice as valuable as precious stones.

I wonder if we we're listening.