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January 20, 2009
Scholz & Friends on Marketing's Shift
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Brand & Identity
Scholz & Friends, a network of agencies based out of Europe, produced a three and a half minute piece called Dramatic Shift in Marketing Reality. It's a well-told tale of how branding and marketing has shifted over the past 75 years.
This is further evidence of why the personality of your organization matters more than ever before.
(Thanks to Kem Meyer for the link.)
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January 13, 2009
Your Personality Can't Come From the Negative
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Brand & Identity
During a Discovery meeting last month with a Personality Profile client, I was working with a Personality Advisor as we guided the client team through the many steps to identifying their organization's personality. About an hour into the meeting, a reoccurring theme began to emerge. I've seen it before, but never has it been so clear as on this particular day.
One of the driving forces in helping a client to identify their personality is to help them think about what makes them unique. If you offer burgers and fries just like the place next door, why should I come to your place and not theirs? If you sell cars and they sell cars, why should I buy a car from you? If you help feed children and they help feed children, why do I want to help you feed more children?
Your answers to these questions will help identity the unique personality traits that make you, you.
The problem with the client conversation on this particular day was that so many on the team kept answering questions in the negative. Instead of focusing on the positive attributes that made them unique as an organization, they were dwelling on everything they were not.
We're NOT a place for those people.
We're NOT the cheapest place in town.
We're NOT like them.
We're NOT designed like that.
Well if you're NOT any of those things, what are you? When pressed, the conversation seemed to get even more negative. So if you're not a place for these people, how about those people? "No way! We're not for those people either!"
If you want to know who you are as an organization, you've got to take a stand for what you are for. Not what you're not for.
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December 17, 2008
Death of Taglines
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Marketing
The "Made to Stick" brothers, Dan Heath and Chip Heath, deliver stellar advice yet again in their latest Fast Company column, "Kill the Slogans Dead," as they admonish us to "fight the urge to think in clever taglines."
Slogans, argue the Heaths, are not anything new. "The Oxford English Dictionary traces [the word slogan] back to the year 1513, referring to a battle cry of Scottish Highlanders." Slogans were often displayed on their coat of arms, including this gem from the Donnachaidh clan: "Fierce when roused."
The "slogan-virus" is rampant these days and it's the antidote to a good story. "When you have a big idea, make it come alive with a story. Make it real, color in some details, let it be something people care about. Just don't make it snappy."
This is one of the things I appreciate about the Personality Profile™. Instead of a crescendo at the end unveiling a great tagline, the process results in a frame-by-frame story that captures the essence of the organization. The Profile becomes a framework for decision making and storytelling, with everyone working from the same page.
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December 1, 2008
Millennials, Changing the Rules of Business
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Business
Geoff Gloeckler wrote a great article for BusinessWeek about Millennials' invasion of B-Schools, and how they're shaping the future of business. Hint: it looks a lot different than how we know it today.
Millennials were born between 1980 and 2000 and there are 78 million of them in the U.S., bigger than the baby boomer population. Millennials, says Gloeckler, are "a demographic tsunami that will soon be remaking business schools on a grand scale."
Politically galvanized, [Millennials] are in some ways even more influential, helping propel Barack Obama to the Presidency on Nov. 4. Generalizations about them should, like all generalizations, be applied with caution. But they like personal attention and are used to getting information how they want it, when they want it. They are strong-willed, passionate, optimistic, and eager to work.
Since first appearing in the workforce in 2002, members of this so-called Millennial Generation have been praised and derided in equal measure—for their tech knowhow and idealism, their unrealistic career expectations, and their doting "helicopter" parents, who hover over their kids obsessively. Beginning as a trickle last year, the flow of Millennials into B-schools will become a flood this year and next, as the bulk of Gen Y begins entering the prime B-school age group of 26 to 28. When that happens, B-school will never be the same.
Which means business will never be the same.
I can't wait to see how Millennials (Generation WE) help shape the identity and soul of new organizations. I also look forward to their leadership in resurfacing and returning to righteous roots that are embedded in so many existing organizations, but have been lost to a Wall Street worldview over the past 50 years.
With new success measures like the Triple Bottom Line and B Corporation, as well as conversations like GOOD, I'm encouraged to see where things are headed with the future of business.
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November 18, 2008
Dubai, Booming 'Soulless' City
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Business
Una Galani and Edward Hadas wrote a short piece in the November issue of Fortune magazine about Abu Dhabi and Dubai. These two desert siblings are an hour away from each other, but the soul and identity of these respective cities are miles and miles a part. For starters, Abu Dhabi is oil rich. Dubai doesn't have a drop of oil.
Dubai has garnered a lot of press over the last several years as being a haven for billionaires and ordinary tourists, "drawn by a relaxed attitude to Islamic norms, absurdly opulent hotels, and man-made islands." It has been built on three core values: capital, competence, and ambition.
Abu Dhabi, on the other hand, has provided a lot of the funding to build Dubai. It is also attempting to learn from Dubai's excesses. "[Abu Dhabi] is pointedly marketing itself to foreign investors as a cultural center and 'sustainable' city."
As the available credit for Dubai's rapid expansion is tightened, "the squeeze might ultimately be good for [Dubai's] competence if the government focuses its more limited resources on infrastructure - as any visitor can attest, the city's own transport system is woeful - and tries to add some community to a place often described as soulless."
I'm not so sure you can just add "community" to a place with an identity and soul that never included it or incorporated it in the first place. Most of the labor was imported to build the city. The buying and selling of property in Dubai is done mostly on making a profit, not a home. Slapping a community label on a brand that exudes commodity is going to be a real challenge.
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October 7, 2008
Generations Change, Not Personality
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Research
Last year I wrote a review of Mind Your X's and Y's: Satisfying the 10 Cravings of a New Generation of Consumers by Lisa Johnson. The book is a fascinating peak into the minds of the next generation.
Along these same lines, Adweek ran a great opinion piece last week from Deborah Morrison, a professor of advertising at the University of Oregon. The article is a punchy piece of pithiness that is both relevant and researched. Although Morrsion is writing in the context of why the ad industry will change because of the next generation, her points are applicable to a wide range of industries.
Personality Advisors are keenly aware of these generational trends when it comes to their profiling work with clients. Although the personality of the organization does not necessarily change with each passing generation, the expression of that personality does. So while messaging, style guides and structures may come and go based on generational differences, the personality of the organization will continue to serve as a compass for onward advance.
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September 15, 2008
The Persuaders, Still As Relevant As Ever
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Advertising
This past weekend I watched the PBS Frontline special The Persuaders. It was produced several years ago and, despite a few tired and expired examples, its message is quite timely.
NYU professor Douglas Rushkoff, a correspondent for Frontline, embarks upon a 90-minute expose on the ad industry, and its continual struggle to fight through the clutter with more clutter. Loaded with interviews of industry veterans, including a look at the psychology behind consumer decisions, this show is both powerful and frightening.
Not surprising, much of the conversation about persuasion comes back to personal identity and meaning. How we feel and how we define who we are—especially through our purchases—is the foundation for a persuader's playbook.
If you haven't seen The Persuaders, I encourage you to check it out. You can view it online, order it from PBS, or add it to your Netflix queue. You can also read the synopsis online.
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September 8, 2008
We Lost Our Mojo
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Brand & Identity
Ernie Graham owns a real estate business in Telluride, Colorado. His company is no stranger to a tough economy, but there's one lesson that Ernie has learned along the way that so many businesses are bypassing these days.
Norm Brodsky, in his September 2008 Inc. magazine column, tells the story of Ernie and how easy it is to be distracted and even hijacked by growth and opportunity.
In Ernie's case, it was a move to a new office that would ultimately cause him to realize that they had lost their "mojo." The staff was no longer unified. Walk-ups were higher than ever, but they weren't the right kind of customer. He even described his partner as "ships passing in the night." A far cry from the solid business they had been building together for years.
The lesson in Ernie's story, and in so many businesses today, is that when you loose sight of your roots, success is usually artificial and almost never sustainable. From Starbucks to Ford, businesses are learning—often the hard way—the value of knowing who they are deep down by rediscovering their roots.
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September 2, 2008
Soul Searching Exercise
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Brand & Identity
There's a lot of talk on this blog about finding your soul and discovering who you are as an organization. We're pretty passionate about it because unless you know who you are, your business and brand will continue to suffer the consequences of an ill-formed, non-existent, or dysfunctional personality.
Finding the soul of your organization is not an easy task, but it's a critical first-step in laying the foundation of your personality.
Often times, the first thing a Personality Advisor does with a client—before guiding them through their Personality Profile (21 business frames and 21 brand frames), starts with a soul searching exercise.
For those of you playing along at home, you can begin with the Building Momentum white paper to get your wheels turning. The four R's you're trying to identify are:
Continue reading "Soul Searching Exercise"
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August 28, 2008
Quiksilver Ad Contradiction
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Brand & Identity
Flipping through the September/October 2008 issue of GOOD magazine, I came upon this ad from Quiksilver. When you zoom in on the ad copy, you read this:
Just as I was reaching a point in my life where I was beginning to feel part of something, I've become restless for a new me.
When you know who you are, new ideas are icing.
Excuse me Mr. or Mrs. Quiksilver Ad Copywriter, but if I'm always restless for a new me, how will I ever know who I am? And if I don't know who I am, according to your ad copy, I guess new ideas will never come to me.
Therein lies the rub. Too many organizations today are restless and, in the name of innovation, they are continually trying to figure out what it means to be who they are. A restless person without a sense of who they are will always be on the lookout for a new "me." The same goes for companies.
Yes, I realize this is just an ad and its attempting to catch the GOOD hipster's attention by its pithy copy and identity searching vibe. However, it does speak to the continuing unfolding drama of people and companies that lack a true understanding of identity.
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