Marketing Communications Blog

Trademarks - to give or not to give

Recently worked with a client and we started a debate (that is still ongoing) about how to make your start-up grow and the value of its trademarks.

Some background - the company is a start-up, like TRULY a start-up, two guys in a garage. They do have products that are bringing in revenue, so, a successful startup. Now to the point - they have a technology that they license. They have given this technology a trademarked name. That name is not well known on the street (if at all), but, is known in the media as well as with all their partners (only two partners, but, better then none).

Next point - they want their partners to be succesful, so, one of the partners started to use the trademarked name of my client.

My client did not think that this was a bad thing - it would build their brand as well as insure the success of their partner.

I disagree'd, because:

1. It is my clients trademark, not their customers
2. It is my clients brand, not their customers

and, because, if my clients customer goes under, has to do a recall, has a virus, catched on fire, or whatever, it is my clients trademark that will lose all credibility, not their customers (of course, if money or death or liability issues are involved, the clients customer will be hurt).

Don't be so hasty to "share" your trademarks. The odds of it hurting more then helping are about 50/50, but, are you willing to take that risk?

Posted by blaine at 07:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Pricing affects perception also

Was meeting with a client the other day and we were discussing the building of a brand around a two new products that they wanted to introduce.  They are a small company with sales around $2M a year and a product breadth of eight different consumer products.

During the discussion of building the brand, we went down the path of "what price is the consumer willing to spend and will it help or hurt the brand?"  I discovered that the products were totally disparate in price - one was under $10 and the other was over $30 (cost). The cheaper item was sold for double the price of the more expensive item (retail). 

I told them that the profit margin was great, but, why continue to sell the more expensive product and, more importantly, why try and build a brand around it? The volume of the cheap product made up about 40% of their product line and the more expensive item had yet to be more then 5%.

In our discussions, I discovered that they thought the more expensive item would "allow" them (my client) to be perceived as a more quality conscience company.

Let me help you more understand the dilemma I was in - the products, at Retail were $129 and $99 (with the more expensive retail being the cheaper cost of the two products). Again, if the market will pay, good for them in charging over 100% margin. 

But, would it be worth it to build a brand name around the $99 item, when, obviously, it can be easily perceived as a quality product, but, is extremely niche, does not sell well, and could and should remain where it is, a small niche product that has a nice profit - i.e. remain the same.

More importantly to me, should BOTH products be linked? The same brand name. 

I can't go further on this right now, but, I think you can understand where I am going. Of course I will advise them on building the brand on both products, but, do they really want to? Where do they see the brands in five years? And, just as important, what do they want that brand to convey? 

Posted by blaine at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Branding vs. Business Model

Was speaking with a friend of mine who has just been hired by a software company to lead their marketing efforts.

We were talking about White Label branding and Ingredient branding, what the differences were, and what she should tell her company to do.

She kept getting more and more confused as to what to do and I became more and more frustrated because it became clear, very quickly, that the issue was not the branding but the business model of the company.

You see, the company wanted to get its software onto other companies hardware.  But, they wanted to keep and build their name/brand.

First - do they want to make money and survive or not? How far are they willing to go to make this happen (i.e. how much money are they willing to "not make" or "lose")?

Second - do they have a strategy over how they are going to build their brand?

Third - what have they done to bring both of these together?

So, lets walk through the above:

A company can sell their software for $10 (and the 3rd party wants the software and is willing to pay that amount). The $10 is profitable for them and they can survive as a company. But, the 3rd party will also say, "For this amount, we will not put your name on the product and we want you to label it as "our" software".

So, the strategy and business model can lead to the second step, by offering the 3rd party the software for $8, where the 3rd party gets the price break, but, the brand remains with the developer (my friends company).

Be clear, you must have a strategy for your brand that INCLUDES your business model when you are planning on making your brand famous. Without a strategy, you will waste money and time in trying to develop your brand.

Good luck my friend.

Posted by blaine at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Don't get caught up in the Branding Hysteria!!!

Was actually strolling through some web marketing advice the other day and came across some discussion on brands and how you should build them.

I thought it was a pretty good article (not great), but, pretty good.  Why?

Because they said "Your web name is your brand".  Which I kind of disagree with. Your brand better be bigger then your web.  Yes, you may have only enough money right now to have a website and not do advertising or promotions, etc., but, the brand better be strategized to be bigger then this.

What do I mean....hmm...Okay, I have a client. She has a website, called www.kittykatgraphics.com. (Long name, huh?) If you were to go to this site, you would see beautiful artwork - typical wall mounted pictures, but, also those same pictures put on unique items (like tops of boxes, tables, etc.). When I spoke with her about the name - and how hard it may be for someone to remember it, she said "I don't care about the website name, the brand that I want to build is my name".

That's great - so, why not put your name all over the website - instead of in the area of "About the Artist". Why not put the name front and center (the name was already taken by another individual).

She did.

Why? Because she knew, after discussions with her, that she needed to start building her brand/name. That eventually, if she were to move into a gallery, or a retail store, that her name would be used, not the website name.

Okay, so, back to my point. Sometimes, the website can't be the brand, OR, the website limits the growth of the brand. The brand has to be bigger then the product, the website, the marketing, etc.

In other words, when you are thinking about building your brand - remember something, THE BRAND TIES EVERYTHING TOGETHER - or - it is the glue that holds everything together.

Posted by blaine at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Pet Poison and the Brand

Just had to follow-up on this and what I had written earlier about this.

Remember how I alluded to the fact that the Pet Food BRANDS left the food manufacturer out to dry (since they shipped the poison, they should be the ones that fall on the sword)? Well, sadly, companies don't realize that consumers don't always expect the right company to fall on the sword.

Watching the news this morning, they interviewed pet owners, who ALL SAID:

"You would expect, from these major brands, that charge more money for better ingredients, to have done a better job."

No, they didn't say "You would expect, from the guys who supply the materials to the brand, that they would have done a better job".

I am amazed that these companies continue to sit back and watch this blow over - which, don't get me wrong, it will, but, this is an opportunity for the brands.  Sadly, they don't see it.

Posted by blaine at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Branding Success Notes

A lot of you have been writing me about the values of a successful brand - or - what makes a brand(name) successful?

Here are the three that I think are very important:

• Intrinsic Values: When a brand (name) is mentioned, an image or idea is conveyed - this image or idea transcends the product context
• Expansiveness: The brand (name) is able to support multiple messages and be able to grow and adapt with product change
• Credibility: The brand (name) is believeable among consumers, within the product's category or context

I know, I know, these three are mentioned in most branding and marketing books, but, I keep getting the questions and I am here to help.

Continue writing me if there are more questions on this and I will post.

Posted by blaine at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

To recall or not to recall - WHAT DO WE DO???

By now, everyone knows that petfood is killing pets.

And, everyone is now saying - why aren't the petfood "brands" doing more? Why is it all coming down to the manufacturer that has to do everything and not the brand? Why aren't the brand names doing something for the pet owners?

The debate is just heating up and I'm sure that there will be many case studies done in colleges around the world on what was done, what should have been done, and how it could have been done better.

I'm sure that you are surprised that the brands haven't done more - I am.

Here are incredible brands, known very well, doing nothing.

So, here is my case study:

1) Own up to the mistake and apologize - publicly.
2) Make restitution to the pet owners - the manufacturer is out millions and millions of dollars, but, the brand can only lose it's image (which, of course, also affects the bottom line) - so, to provide a $1000 or even $10000 to the 20 pets that have been proven to have died from this trajedy is nothing, compared to saving the brand.
3) Be the FIRST to come forward (see #1) - don't be the last. This almost reminds me of a surreal movie, where the first one to step forward will be killed (where I believe the first one to step forward will be applauded).
4) Immediately come out with a recall of ALL of your products from that category. I have a pet and we feed them IAM's wet food - so, if I was CMO at IAM's, I would pull all of the IAM's wet food from every store and replace it (of course, I would inspect all food coming back and destroy the bad).
5) Get out front and discuss this - get on all the TV programs - discuss what happened, and talk about what we are going to do to correct it. What we are thought we did right (i.e. safety and quality control).

It really isn't that hard. It makes sense to let the food manufacturer stand out there, on their own and die - which they are going to do anyway. But, again, as a pet owner, I had questions about the "brands" quality and caring.  As I'm sure that there are millions of others (pet owners) that have questions also.

The one thing, ONE THING that you have as a company, that must be protected at ALL costs, is your brand. To stand to one side and let something else affect it is not correct. You, as a future or current CMO or Marketing Executive, should NOT allow something like this to happen.

Posted by blaine at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Branding

Recently, we were part of helping a mid-size company re-brand itself, as its technology was changing from what it was for the past 10 years to a new technology (but, in the same market).

The organization already had an internal branding division (called a Mar/Com team) and thought they "knew" how to re-brand the company. After months and months of work by outside agencies (which we were one of) and hundreds of thousands of dollars, the company decided to go with what their internal division came up with.

The company was headquartered overseas and was listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange, with the symbol being TECH (this is not the real stock symbol, but will suffice to show how branding can go horribly wrong).

The name of the company (what it was for the past 10+ years) was ABC, Leaders in Technology, Inc (this is also not their real name).

The internal division decided to not change the NASDAQ symbol, which was TECH.  But, the company, as previously mentioned, was changing its direction from technology to consumer goods. So, for the 10+ years it was on the stock exchange, the name of TECH meant something - to be exact, it meant and stood for the technology that they were in. So, investors and investment analysts saw no change in one of the most fundamental of re-branding efforts - it stayed the same.

The company (and internal branding division or Mar/Com team - which, by the way, understood the English language only in a rudimentary way) decided to make the next two changes to their existing brand, thus, insuring that the world market would understand their new markets and direction (again, it is good to remember that nothing was changed at NASDAQ):

• They decided to remove the "Leaders in Technology" from the name of their company "ABC, Leaders in Technology, Inc.".  Now the name of the company became ABC, Inc.
  
• They also decided to make the name of their company in small letters, abc, Inc.

Now, on all their brochures, press releases, financial statements, etc., it looks like this:

"abc, Inc. announced to today a new car for the working mom. It not only gets...."

Every brochure, sign, etc. begins with the incorrect English being used; i.e. starting a sentence without capitalizing the first letter.

Because the company devoted so much time and money to the effort, and it was thought up from their internal division, they have not realized that they are committing a major error in the English language, as well as remaining to investors what they were before they re-branded themselves.

Every time a person, who has any skills of the English language sees a booklet, their web-site, etc., they all think "oh, they have a typo". 

The company did not "announce" their new brand either to the markets - but, just started putting out collateral with their new name on it (talk about confusion in the market place). By the way, they did not want to spend the $200 it would take to put out a press release or the $3000 to do a direct mail to all their customers and accounts informing them of this change (after they spent $100,000's already).

I even recently overheard someone speaking about abc.  Here is how the conversation went:

"Are you aware of the new product from ABC?" said person one.

"No, who is ABC?" said person two.

Person one responded with, "You know them, the company that doesn't know English and spells their name all in small letters?"

"Oh yeah, what were they thinking..." and the conversation turned from their new product to how they don't know English.

I hope that you understand the lesson here - that companies (small to mid-size) should be known for their technology or product or service, not their name and brand.

A brand should compliment their product line, not detract from it.  The brand will come naturally as the company grows - who knew what Coca-Cola was 80 years ago? or IBM? or even Microsoft? With time and the correct marketing, the brand will emerge. 

abc, Inc. made a fatal mistake which will continue to keep them flawed, they did not listen to the cultures existing in the market place (which the various agencies all pointed out).

Posted by blaine at 04:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Public Relations

There is much information on this subject, but, I want to talk about what I consider the KEY to making a PR program/campaign work (or be successful).

A press release, a press kit, or having a PR agency is all nice, but, it all comes down to the interview (just like a job).

You have one chance to "sell" yourself and you have one chance to "sell" your product/service.

Both are important, but, rarely does the product "sell" itself. YOU have to sell the product, and, what I believe to be the only way, is that you have to sell yourself.

You have to be considered an "expert" in the field (that your product or service will be in), an "expert" on the product, and, something very few people do, is become an expert on the competition.

When I mention competition, many people do Press Tours where they "slam" the competition, by saying "it is no good because A, B, C, and ours is better because of X, Y, and Z".

Of course your product is better, but, by slamming the competition, you look like a typical PR hack hyping your product. Let the editor/analyst come to their own awareness to what makes your product better. This is easily accomplished by stating the facts about your product - of course you know what makes your product better, but, "present" that information so that you lead the editor/analyst to discover what advantage your product/service has over the competition.

Here is an example:

"What makes your product better then others?" asks the analyst.

"Well, you will have to come to your own conclusions about what makes our product better or worse, but, let me tell you about ours - it can do A, where most of our competitors can only do B; ours can do D, which is not as great as our competitors who do C, but, because we can do D, it allows us to do E also".

I hope you get the idea.

Work on what you will say. It is an extremely difficult skill to master an interview - that's why they have media training - for those individuals who can't "handle" an interview that may be combative or even uncaring.

This blog entry is a bit rambling - just trying to get you guys to think about your marketing and the do's and don'ts.

Lastly, I just said that some interviews can be uncaring. Let me give you this for an example of what I mean:

"Hi, my name is Blaine. Thanks for seeing me today - I am really excited to show you are latest product and what it is going to do for the world," I said, shaking a reporters hand in his office.

I could tell immediately that he was very very sad (because he had tears in his eyes).

"Ahh, are you okay?" I asked.

"I just got a call and my dog died", he said, holding back the sobs.

"Ohh, I'm so sorry. Do you want to cancel the meeting and do some other time?"

"Noooo, let's get this over with".

The interview, as you should be able to figure out, was not the best. The reporter kept breaking down crying. I ended it after 15 minutes.

In fact, twice in my life, I have gotten up and left an interview - because one got into the politics of Israel (I worked for an Israeli firm) and how wrong/bad/etc. they were and no matter what I did, we couldn't get off this issue unless I stated that Israel was an evil country - and the other was because no matter what I did (for a product) and said, the reporter would not listen to me, she just kept putting the product down and how much of a failure it was going to be; no matter what statement I made, it was met with a sneer and the statement "I don't believe it and I know you are lying". After 40 minutes of this, we ended the interview (the product went on to make over $500M in sales).

Those two interviews above were over 20 years of doing interviews - 2 out of a couple thousand - 2 that asked me to surrender my morals and ethics. I still fill bad to this day that I did this, but, no regrets, just sad that they came from this perspective.

Posted by blaine at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What's in a brand?

What's in a brand and the politics that may be behind it.

I have wanted to write this down for some time and am finally going to do it.

I worked for a little known company (now no longer around), called Olympus Image Systems Inc. (OISI) in 1994 - 1995. They were a subsidiary of Olympus Japan (mostly known for their film camera's).  We were given a small budget and one year to justify our "life" - i.e. sell enough products to become self-sustaining.

I was the product manager and was given various products to try and "market/sell" to the U.S. market.

We were first given a Magneto Optical (MO) drive (which we launched the same month that the Iomega Zip drive came out). This was not very successful - even though it was a much better product, but, was twice the cost.

With the MO drive, I learned that price truely did drive sales, and not necessarily having a better product.

After this, we were given a CD-R drive (which we sold for $6000).  This also failed - yes, we sold some, but, not enough for Olympus Japan to keep us in the business; the MO drives did better).

And then, we were given our final product, with Olympus Japan saying "Here is your final product, if you can't sell this, then, we will shut you down".

It was a digital camera.

We were very excited, because we knew that this would be a big hit in the U.S. market - but, we had one problem - a very BIG problem. Olympus America did NOT want us to use the Olympus brand when selling it and we could NOT use their existing sales force that already sold into camera stores.

Olympus America had a large revenue stream from its film camera sales and did not want to lose any of that to digital camera's (they were on a different P&L then we were).

So, we at OISI had to come up with a sales force and a brand that we could sell this under. What we came up with was having a distributor in Boston sell the digital camera's under their name. Their name was Camedia.

Within a few months, we could not get enough digital camera's from Olympus Japan, as everyone we received, we sold (to Camedia, who then sold to the general market).

Olympus Japan now recognized that OISI had a product that was selling and profitable - but, it no longer wanted us on their books.  They decided to shut us down and roll the staff and products into Olympus America.

Olympus America, when hearing this (and very upset because the digital camera was eating into their film camera sells), had to agree to the merger, but, had a problem - they now had a new brand of digital camera's, which did not have the Olympus brand name on them.

Olympus America ended up buying the name from Camedia (for a hefty sum).

This is why, if you are ever shopping for a digital camera, you see the Camedia name on the Olympus products.

Because Olympus America did no research on digital camera's (and that film camera's were on their death-bed), they chose not to allow their brand to be shared, and thus now have a name (brand) on their camera's that does not make 100% sense.

But, now, I hope you do understand the "sense" as to why they have this name.

We failed in part because we did not convince Olympus America that it was unwise to not let us have the Olympus brand, but, looking back on it, the blame was small on us, as we were going up against a company that had sold film camera's for over 30 years and it did not want to "change".

So, when launching new products, think it through. Your Brand has equity and can be used to make a success of new products.

By the way, the MO drive and CD-R were both marketed under the Olympus name, but, because they weren't competing directly with other existing products (at Olympus America), it was okay.

Posted by blaine at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What's in a brand name?

If you go out and start following (or researching or studying) brands, you quickly become overwhelmed.  Of course, Coca-Cola, Disney, and Ford are brought up in every study or article you read, and, I'm sure, alot more of them that you and 100 other people can name.

I don't want to talk about those guys.  I want to talk about the guys that have strong brands, IN their industry, and are content to keep it that way (why does National Semiconductor or RedHat need to have an international, consumer aware, brand? They don't - they let the market that they are in make their brand).

Too many times in my career have I come to a company where they want an International brand, recognized the world over.

How many times have I sat down with them and said "Why?". 

For example, when I worked at M-Systems, a semi-conductor company, they came up with a consumer product that they wanted to market to the world. No one knew who M-Systems was (except in the semi-conductor world), so, how can you enter the consumer market with no name AND with a name that is technology friendly, not consumer friendly?

We came up with a more friendly name for the division and the product (not M-Systems), and marketed the name around the world. Over two years, the name became recognizable, NOT by the consumer (which is not what I wanted), but, by the buyers of our products (i.e. retail chains).

Because the name became recognizable - there wasn't a month that went by in the first two years that at least 3 magazines/webzines weren't covering it - they knew they had to have it.

Which, in turn, boosted revenue at M-Systems by 700%.

Originally, the CEO wanted the brand to be known world-wide, like Microsoft. With a budget of less then $500K. Riiiggghhhttt.

But, with $500K, the brand became recognizable by the people that mattered most to M-Systems, the buyer.

The last year that I was at M-Systems and was marketing this product, we had a budget of $1M (after five years of incredible growth) with sales of over $500M.

Branding is, in my terms, awareness. Making your target audience aware that this product is out there (which we did through a brand - not associated with semi-conductors, but with consumers (even though the consumer was rarely exposed to the brand)).

When you are considering "building a brand", there are many different approaches.  Don't give up to easily, as the budget can be minimal, or there is alot of resistence from the executives or board.  Stick to your guns - understand your audience and market that you are attacking, and build the brand for them - you may get lucky and the brand may bleed into other markets - but, first and foremost, you will increase revenue and profits!!!

Let the awareness of the brand build your brand - especially if you have a limited budget.

Posted by blaine at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)