Equity for Punks
While the supermarket shelves are bulging with new product lines brand loyalty is shrinking faster than an MP’s expense account.
The markets have moved beyond mature to overcapacity. Choice might still be king but increasingly it's confusion that rules.
Unless of course your offering equity for punks.
Stuff that Sticks
Archive for October 2009
Global warming, economic tornados, depressions, scattered showers, downturns and consumer whirl winds, which thanks to the rapidly changing digital landscape can appear as if from nowhere. There’s a lot of weather around these days.
This page is dedicated to the weather and some of the lessons that can be learned from those who would predict such a little understood and mercurial phenomena.
Michael Fish and his glass ball.
If any of the following articles pique your interest or if you have any weather observations that you think might be of interest we’d love to hear from you.
Co creation. That perennial buzzword is once again upon us, in fact has been for sometime. Rather like Halley’s comet its appearance leaves some transfixed and others holding their breath sure that nothing good can come of it.
In a recent co-creative initiative Kraft decided that customers should be invited to come up with the name for their new more spreadable version of Vegemite. Whilst there is nothing new about investing customers with participatory powers, Kraft had already used this method to name the original vegemite, somewhere along the way the plot appears to have been lost.
By handing over responsibility for the naming of the brand this little spot of ‘co-creation’ had accident waiting to happen written all over it.
And so it was that users of this, one of Kraft’s flagship brands were asked together with a panel of online voters to speak their minds and cast their vote.
The decree was handed down and duly enacted.
From that day hence new even more spreadable Vegemite would be known throughout the land as iSnack 2.0.
Simon Talbot, head of Kraft corporate affairs was according to an article written for brandchannel, reported as saying…
“Vegemite iSnack2.0 was chosen based on its personal call to action, relevance to snacking and clear identification of a new and different Vegemite to the original.”
Yes indeed.
Will there be a Vegemite iSnack3.0?
Given that nothing spreads faster than bad news I don’t think we’ll have to hold our breath for too long.
The average UK supermarket now has 30,000 lines (twice as many as 10 years ago). In the USA you can choose from 53 varieties of Crest toothpaste.
Stuffed to the gunwales with choice, customers are increasingly losing their appetite for the ever-growing menu of product benefits and price deals on offer – 3000 advertising messages per day and that’s just for starters. Churn as it is aptly called in marketing circles is on the increase. While the supermarket shelves are bulging with new product lines brand loyalty is shrinking faster than an MP’s expense account.
Amid the seemingly endless choices in reality we have less choice. BMW’s might not break down but neither do Skodas. Lancôme and Clinique offer innovative anti-wrinkle formulas but so does Boots own skincare range. According to food experts Scottish Salmon sold at the no frills supermarket chain Lidl tastes as good as, if not better than, that sold at Harrods.
Fortunately the answer to this increasingly worrisome problem, assuming you are not an MP, is right beneath our noses. In a world overflowing with apparent choice the brands that catch our eye and ultimately get us to stick around for longer are those that offer values over value for money. In a material world meaning comes at a premium. What customers are really looking to have the answer to is not what it does or how much it costs but, what does it mean about me?
It’s not what you do but who you know
Social networks, those giant free flowing entities whose statistics read like country populations, Facebook garnered 100 million users in 9 months, have revolutionized the way we communicate and do business. Yet despite all the talk and the investment many companies continue to act and behave like closed social networks.
Keeping us at arms length they are happy to tell us about their products and services but other than a cursory… we are passionate about; tomato sauce, coffee, toothpaste… fill in the blank space… do we really know who they are and what they stand for? Let’s face it would you really want to strike up a relationship with someone whose main and only passion was tomato sauce?
While these brands, and they are still in the majority, are content to plug the same old message sticky brands have been able to take full advantage of social media. Inviting consumers in to share their values sticky brands have redefined how they engage their customers. Like all good storytellers they don’t tell us who they are they show us.
Car brands, with perhaps the exception of Honda, have been slow to pick up on this one. A report by the New York Times points out that “only about 20 percent of car shoppers stayed with the same brand when they purchased a new vehicle.”
While the other car companies spend their marketing budgets on promoting their hybrid, “green” diesel, “smart” and aspirational qualities Honda has developed a series of commercials that feature a selection of Honda owners with the message “everyone knows somebody who loves their Honda.” Customers are invited to participate in the Honda Facebook experiment. Honda provides the common interest to bring their guests together, and talk about what interests them the most – and that’s not Honda.
Honda take the back seat and allow their customers to drive the conversation
By taking a back seat Honda are obeying the cardinal rule that governs social media; companies set the agenda, customers drive the conversation. Companies with closed social networks have a tendency to keep their customer databases close to their chest Honda has turned theirs into a showcase, one which is open for everyone to see and… this is the important bit – be seen.
All well and good for the likes of Honda, who have the resource, heritage and global clout to play in the big league. But what of the David’s, the brands few people have heard of who find themselves up against the corporate Goliaths?
BrewDog are a small independent brewery that have all the hallmarks of a sticky brand in the making. As you might expect they are in their own words: ‘committed to making the best beer from the finest ingredients.’ While having a good product is essential, you can’t have a winning brand without it, beer isn’t what BrewDog is really selling.
As with Honda what’s really on the menu is vision with a large side order of values. In BrewDog’s case the menu reads as follows…
‘BrewDog is about breaking rules, taking risks, upsetting trends and unsettling institutions but first and foremost, great tasting beer.’ Come and join us on a journey…
To join them on their journey BrewDog are offering: ‘10,000 Brew Dog loving individuals…[the chance]… to… buy into the Brew Dog dream and share in…[their].. vision.
One of the key ingredients to building a successful company isn’t just what goes into the product, fine though their hops might be, but what and who goes into the brand.
By inviting customers to share their vision BrewDog are creating a fan club of loyal followers who will wave the BrewDog flag at every opportunity. Why? Because in doing so what they, the loyal BrewDog customers, are really talking about are themselves, who they are and what they stand for.
By giving their customers a stake in the company Honda and BrewDog are steeling a march on those brands that are content to talk about what they do and how much it costs. In BrewDogs case, no pun intended, the equity is all the more sticky because it has both social and monetary value.
While more than a few companies have gone bottoms up over the last year it doesn’t look like BrewDog will be suffering from the economic hangover anytime soon.
Cheers!
