Branding is relational, not transactional. It's about retention, not acquisition. I work with companies and governments to identify and develop the strategies required to build the relationships that ensure ongoing branding success.
I call it data driven branding & it should not be confused with creative driven branding.
I'm also a rugby nut & devoted family man, probably in that order, but don't tell my wife!
Bloom Consulting has just published the 2012 Bloom Consulting Country Brand Ranking which classifies countries based on the effectiveness of their country brand strategies and the impact this has on GDP.
the 2012 Country Brand ranking
In an email to me the Ranking was explained as having a different methodology to other indexes such as the Futurebrand or Simon Anholt rankings as it “conveys dozens of variables in order to position the countries by facts and mathematical algorithms instead of pure opinions, like other country branding rankings do”.
The ranking “takes into account both hard and soft data and includes ground breaking processes to show the relationship between the country’s economic performance and the projections of the country’s brand strategy.”
It doesn’t explain what those processes are, how it gets access to those projections or how it measures them but I do like the fact that someone is trying to develop branding metrics for destination branding initiatives.
“The methodology measures the coherency between the external messages of a country and its actual economic performance under a certain period of time.
The higher a country is on the list, the better they are compared to their competitors, in positioning themselves to attract either Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) or tourists”.
Bloom doesn’t believe that it is possible to develop a single promise for a country and this I agree with (and have been saying for years – please read this article on nation branding). We’re working with destinations in Asia trying to attract tourists from the region, talent from the country and heavy industries from North Asia and North America. Trying to create an umbrella promise for such diverse target markets will be an exercise in futility!
The email went on to say, “this year Bloom incorporated Online Search Demand (OSD) into the ranking. This looks at the gap between what countries are promoting (supply) and what investors and tourists are searching for (demand).
You can read the report and get more information on the methodology, from this page. Or you can look at an interactive version here.
What’s interesting from an Asian perspective is that Asian countries are big winners in 2012, especially in tourism. Although the USA was top for the second year running, eight Asian countries were in the top 25.
China was the top Asian country at 4th, Thailand 6th, Macao came in 8th, Hong Kong 13th, Malaysia 14th and Singapore 22nd.
Japan was down in 28th place, no doubt the Tsunami played a part although the Arab Spring didn’t seem to have too much of a negative impact on Eqypt which, all things considered did well to come in at 31st.
Today is a landmark day for retailing in the UK as Selfridges “The best department store in the world*” launches a “No-noise” experience at its major stores across the the country.
It’s a pretty cool concept, offering a Silence Room where customers can ‘find a moment of peace in a world where we are bombarded by a cacophony of information and stimulation’. Customers will be asked to leave their shoes, mobile phones and anything else that makes a noise at the door.
Interestingly the store also aims to reduce the visual noise and has encouraged some brands to offer ‘de-logoed’ products. Paul Smith and Heinz are already onboard with others expected to join in later.
There will also be meditation sessions, quiet music performances (that’ll be a challenge), art exhibitions and motion sensor window displays. Selfridges will also take its name off the classic yellow shopping bags.
You can see more about the Silence Room and other elements of the event on the Selfridges site.
Personally, I think this is a brilliant concept as it understands what customers are looking for and takes experiential branding to a new level. What do you think?
As the world attempts to shake loose the shackles of the economic meltdown, competition for tourists from both established and new markets is gathering pace.
But the new environment is an even more competitive one. There are almost 200 countries worldwide and over 100,000 places in Asia alone, actively seeking to attract and retain tourists.
As a result, it is increasingly important that destinations seeking domestic and international visitors have a well researched, structured, long-term strategy for increasing visibility & engaging the right segments to generate arrivals.
One relative newcomer to this tourism marketing battleground is the city of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, located on the island of Java and the capital of Indonesia. If you haven’t been to Jakarta I recommend you go as soon as possible because it is a fascinatiing destination.
I spotted this ad in a Malaysian daily recently.
Does this ad make you want to get more information on Jakarta?
It would appear that the people at the Jakarta tourism and culture department are looking to attract visitors to Jakarta with the promise of great shopping. However, as a consumer, without knowing anything about the rest of this campaign I can tell you that this ad needs work.
Firstly, what is the headline trying to tell us? Is it telling us that time is irrelevant? This is an existential argument and possibly true but in this situation not relevant. Perhaps it is saying, “don’t worry about time when you go shopping in Jakarta”? Or to be more specific, when you go shopping for shoes because after looking at this ad, am I wrong to assume Jakarta is a great place to buy shoes?
There is no call to action, the image of the shoe boxes looks photo shopped onto the main image and there isn’t a website address to gather more information.
So I took it on myself to google (other search engines are available) “Enjoy Jakarta” and arrived at the official Jakarta travel website where I couldn’t find any information on enjoying Jakarta, shopping or even shoe shopping.
Not the best introduction to what Jakarta has to offer
I spent some time on the site and for what it’s worth, I found the site very slow, difficult to navigate with limited information and English that needs proof reading before pubication. When I clicked on the “Why Jakarta” tab on the drop down menu, the information provided was hardly compelling and unlikely to attract investors. And talking of investors, is this a tourism site or a business site?
Not the most compelling of arguments
Moreover, I found the information above the fold didn’t match the information below the fold and when I clicked on Wine and Dine in the footer, all I got was a list of restaurants which to a first time visitor would mean nothing.
This won’t mean much to anyone
Today, audiences rely less on traditional media to source information, making them increasingly hard to reach. Furthermore, consumers are less inclined to see or be interested in a corporate driven message delivered across traditional media.
But as the reliance on traditional media diminishes, opportunities arise in new and social media. Where before, companies were dependent on content from the media owners, today they can create their own content that resonates with specific consumers and their interests.
Consumers too are developing their own content and it’s important that destination brands such as Jakarta understand this and provide channels for consumers to create and share content.
It is good to see Jakarta looking to encourage visitors to this exciting city but it will take more than the print campaign and website reviewed in this article to be successful.
More and more firms are using effective email campaigns in association with their social media initiatives to build brands. This is because an email campaign allows you to know who is opening your emails, which links they’re clicking on and how many of your them are forwarding your emails to their friends. The right product also means you will only pay when a recipient clicks through to the offer.
Malaysian firms are slowly waking up to the benefits of a good email campaign. Let me put that differently, Malaysian firms are waking up to the fact that email is an effective marketing tool. Which is good timing because according to a recent report from MarketingProfs, email returns the highest return on investment (ROI).
The problem is that too many Malaysian firms are trying to do their email campaigns ‘on the cheap’. often they do it inhouse or if they do outsource, they outsource to the cheapest company.
This means they often send out poor quality emails that can damage the brand. it is important to get the email and the content of your email right. Because this is the first interaction a potential customer will have with your brand. It is a great opportunity to make a good impression and start building the foundations you need to earn their trust and eventually make a sale.
Unfortunately, it is also a great opportunity to make a bad impression. And once you’ve made a bad impression, it is very dificult to build trust with a consumer who is already forming a negative opinion of you and your brand.
Not only should your email campaign resonate with your target markets, it also needs to be well written and to the point. If it is full of poor English or grammatical errors, you will create a bad impression with the recipient.
Below are two examples of emails I received recently. Although I haven’t included the subject line, take it from me they were almost as bad as the copy.
How to create a good email campaign
When you prepare an email campaign, the subject line is the most important element of the exercise because this is the first thing the recipient will see.
If there are spelling mistakes in the subject line, the reader will not have any faith in what you say from there on in. If you make outrageous claims in the subject line, the email will go straight to the trash.
Finally, if the subject line doesn’t state its point concisely, it will be ignored. Accept that it is impossible to include content in a subject line that will appeal to everyone on your mailing list. It may take more time but it is better to break up your database and rewrite different subject lines and body copy for different segments.
Once you get to the body of the email, a good rule of thumb is that less is more. Don’t waffle on and on about how great is your product or use textbook marketing jargon that confuses the reader and drives them away from the product.
Keep the email simple. Remember, you are not trying to make a sale, only get the recipient to interact with your brand. Explain what you have to offer, where the recipient can get it or gather more information, who you are and why they should buy your product or service.
Finally and most importantly, focus more on the benefits of your product not the features.
Get the message right, and email is an effective and inexpensive way to make sales, grow your customer base and build a valuable, profitable brand. Used wrongly and it is a complete waste of your time and the recipient’s time and instead of making sales and building your brand you will actually damage your brand.
There was an interesting interview with Tony Fadell in the Daily Telegraph last week. Tony Fadell is the inventor of the iPod and although the interview is meant to focus on his patest invention – smart thermostats – the conversation keeps coming back to his time at Apple.
What I found most interesting was Apple’s approach to doing business. Tony Fadell talks about branding in a refreshing, relevant way. He says, ““If you’re a company focused on competitors,” he says, “you’ll be a follower. And you’ll talk to the media about all sorts of stuff. But if you’re a company focused on the consumer you’ll talk about the products that you’ve got and how to get the most out of them.”
This is so, so true. In the customer economy, if you spend all your time looking at what your competitors are doing and then try to replicate it, you are always going to be playing catchup.
But more importantly, this is the wrong place to look because companies don’t define brands anymore, customers do. And also, loyalty is a lot harder to earn and certainly isn’t earned by a traditional, corporate driven positioning strategy.
Apple talks about it’s products but more importantly, it lets consumers talk about its products and you need to build an environment where consumers can talk about your brand. Don’t be afraid to be talked about because it is already happening anyway.
In the social economies of Asia, giving consumers platforms or building communities for them to discuss your brand allows you to track the conversations and get involved when need be.
Critically it allows you to identify and engage with influential consumers, those people other consumers listen to. Because brands need to understand that in the customer economy, success will be determined by relationships not transactions. An automotive dealer doesn’t sell cars, they build relationships with people looking to make their lives more interesting, exciting or easier.
As that relationship evolves and solutions provided, they seek introductions to others who may also join the family by buying the product. This requires an investment in the product and also in the relationships. But the investment in the product can be determined by the needs of the customers.
Take a leaf out of the Apple book and look to your customers not your competitors to build your brand.
Luxury brands are working hard to keep up with a more dynamic environment with more discerning, knowledgeable customers who have different requirements for value. To retain these customers requires a greater understanding of the those requirements and less emphasis on the mass economy tools such as positioning, reach, awareness.
Loyalty is also less of a factor as consumers see their exclusivity watered down as luxury brands go mainstream and sell their product to anyone. Those brands that don’t understand customer requirements for value may lead to brand deflation, according to Michael Bleby in this article for BRW in Australia
More and more companies are moving toward a direct to consumer sales model. There are a number of reasons for this and it can be a tricky process to implement without upsetting the existing distribution ecosystem but let’s not go there for now.
But this move will see an increase in Direct Marketing. Direct Marketing should be included in any Malaysian business’s brand strategy, whether business to business or business to consumer. And it is a tactic that has plenty of room for growth as it is currently under appreciated and under utilized.
Because the quality of Direct Marketing in Malaysia and the mining and management of data must improve before consumers will pay attention.
What is direct marketing?
In a nutshell, direct marketing is the way in which a supplier of goods or services contacts an end user, normally a consumer or business. Direct marketing includes any mail sent via traditional post or email, brochures, magazine inserts, leaflets and catalogs.
With the direct to consumer sales model, it is also common to include telemarketing and face to face sales as elements of direct marketing
The existing model
If you want to at best create a bad first impression of your brand and at worst ensure an instant negative impact on the reputation of your brand, prepare a badly written product or services document on your desktop, use fonts that are hard to read or have a thick bold type face and whatever you do, don’t spell check the document.
Next, print 10,000 copies and shove them in letterboxes at office and/or apartment complexes in the Klang Valley. Don’t bother to record how many are delivered to each destination and ignore whether or not your product or service has any relevance to the occupants.
Then go back to your office and wait for the phone to ring (assuming you included your number on the document – and believe me, some don’t).
With this approach, the best you can hope for is that the leaflet will be used as a place mat for lunch or simply allowed to fall on the floor by the letterboxes. Hardly an inspiring ‘moment of truth’ first time experience for your brand and potential customers.
If there isn’t a response to the exercise, does this mean the ‘Direct Marketing campaign’ is unsuccessful? Absolutely not, what it means is that a very good tool has been used wrongly.
Another way to damage your brand is to send the wrong material to the wrong people. Credit card companies are renowned for sending credit card application forms to children.
Why am I receiving this sort of mail? – Note to self, do not use this company for training.
Little wonder consumers lose faith in financial institutions when they make such glaring mistakes. Think of the money wasted on buying the list of names, designing and writing content for brochures, envelopes, postage, administration and so on.
Email is still one of the most effective forms of communication with open rates of 22%, click through rates of 8% and conversion rates of 1.5%. But it must be done properly. The common approach is to buy a list of names (normally the cheapest) and carpet bomb that list with every offering you have.
Conference and training providers do this. They don’t bother who the recipient is and what he does, they simply fire off an email offering agile this, scrum that to their mailing list each time they have a new event or training seminar. Research suggests most executives have a spam filter that directs this mail straight to the trash.
The UK has some of the toughest privacy laws in the world yet Direct Marketing is still one of the most effective forms of brand development.
In 2011, UK firms spent RM14.5 billion on direct marketing which was responsible for 23% of all sales and generated RM196 billion of business. Direct marketing is effective in the UK because it is used properly.
How to do it properly
The key for all direct marketing is get the customer information right in the first place and keep it updated accurately thereafter. Well targeted communications can improve response rates by 300%.
If you don’t have the resources to compile data, outsource. There are many firms offering data collection, cleansing and data suppression services and it is money well spent.
Next, take some time to think about what you are doing and why. Are you looking to make a sale or build a customer base? Free tip, it should be the latter. Once you know what you are doing and why, think about the channel.
Determine which is the right channel. Should you use email, magazine or newspaper inserts or other. If you have a lot to say or want to show off images, an email is probably not the right channel to use unless you have a very niche product and a very well researched database. Many firms simply programme their servers to reject any email with an attachment.
Measurement
Measurement is critical in any campaign but especially so in Direct Marketing. Understand what the exercise is going to cost so that you know what your break even point is. Also measure response rates from specific segments and determine why prospects don’t buy.
Personalise each communication
If you want to stand out from the competition and have a chance of connecting, every communication should be personalised to ensure a chance of engagement. Personalisation is dificult and time consuming because it requires attention to detail but worth the investment because it instantly makes the recipient feel recognised and important.
Content is king
Content is critical, especially if you are selling a luxury product. Yes I am aware that Malaysia is a price driven and discount defined market but I disagree that that is all it is. It has got to that stage because consumers have been let down by advertisers so often and for so long that they now focus on price and price alone.
But as many luxury retailers, developers and service providers will tell you, provide a high quality service and product and consumers suddenly seem less focused on price and more focused on the experience and the prestige.
So make your content interesting. The example below is from a property developer trying to get wealthy buyers to part with millions of dollars. I doubt they will be successful with this copy.
Make content interesting, it’s not rocket science!
There is an edict within Direct Marketing industry that says, “Right offer, right person, right time.” It isn’t complicated, it just means that to be successful, start up, SMEs and GLCs need to up their game.
Put an end to poorly thought out, badly designed, written and untargeted material and use quality direct marketing to build quality brands.
And as it happens, I’ve never managed to secure any consulting projects with automotive brands. So as buying a car is probably the second largest investment most of us will make, I decided to use this opportunity to carry out a mini brand audit of those brands I visited.
So today (Sunday) I visited the Audi, Mercedes, Peugeot, Land Rover & VW showrooms in Kuala Lumpur. Excluding the luxury marques – Aston Martin, Rolls Royce and Bentley, these are considered top end cars in Malaysia.
The automotive sector here in Malaysia is really tough, especially as the middle class market, although growing is still rather small. In fact, between them these brands probably sell no more than 10,000 units per annum of which 60% are Mercedes.
Furthermore, with import duties higher than anywhere else in the world and an increasingly bleak global economy that looks like it will catch up with south east Asia in 2013, you would expect these guys to have some of the best sales people in the industry.
Well here’s my ‘mini’ report card on my experiences and the ability of these top marques to sell their products.
Firstly though, some background information.
1) Not one of the sales people that attended to me asked for my business card.
2) Only one sales person asked my name.
3) Only one of them asked me what car I currently drive.
4) One of the sales people who was very pleasant, could not pronounce the name of her brand. I’d like to add that this brand name is bloody hard to pronounce for English people so must be impossible for a native Chinese speaker. But…
5) At one of the showrooms I was told if I bought the car today I could get free Sat Nav (GPS). When I asked whether it covered Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand I was told no, it covered France – I swear to god that is the truth!
So, in reverse order, here is my report card on my experiences with these brands and a brief explanation. WARNING: It makes for distressing reading.
5=) VW.
VW comes in last, way last. Not really a result of the salesman’s ability or inability to sell because he was a very nice guy and anyway we didn’t get a chance to test his sales ability because the VW in Malaysia doesn’t come with Sat Nav (GPS) and in my opinion, at that level if you don’t have Sat Nav, you are not in the game.
5=) Land Rover
Joint last is Land Rover. Again, not a result of the ability or inability to sell because we didn’t get a chance to find out. There weren’t any sales people to attend to me because they were all out doing test drives. That’s no excuse. When your cheapest car – the Freelander 2 – is RM271,000 (US$90,000) and your most popular car – the Evogue – has a long waiting list, you need to be on top of your game. I wasn’t the only person to walk out frustrated.
3=) Peugeot
I really liked the top of the range 508 GT but the sales person seemed to want to sell me something cheaper. Maybe she was on a higher commission to sell that car or maybe she was just using price to make a quick sale.
3=) Audi
The Audi lady was nice and gave a good description of Quattro to my wife who really looked as if she was interested. But she didn’t ask me anything about what car I drive, how old is it etc, etc. Where’s the relationship building?
1) Mercedes Benz
Apparently, the sales lady here was working in the Mercedes showroom in Glasgow, Scotland for 10 years but is now back in Malaysia. In 20 years of living in Malaysia, this was the first time I have heard a Malaysian speaking with a Glaswegian accent! But crucially she was miles ahead of the rest with her product knowledge, attempts to build rapport, personality and sales ability. Not too pushy, not too technical and she asked for my name at the right time in the discussion and when I gave her my first name she asked for my surname so she could address me as Mr Osborne – top talent.
I’m not here to criticize, only to offer feedback to help people and brands. Viewed for what it is – feedback, every brand on this page can learn from my experiences. Sales is no longer about taking orders or convincing someone of something. It is now about building rapport and delivering value, on an individual basis. If you don’t have the training or the skills to do that you will lose business, lots of it.
All of these brands spend a lot on advertising to draw people into their showrooms. And they may be happy with their sales but my question is, would any of them be happier with less advertising spend and increased sales as a result of better customer engagement skills? Of course they would.
Newsweek’s announcement that it will transition to an all digital format in 2013 is hardly a surprise. Such global magazines are increasingly expensive to produce and in a niche world, less relevant.
Newsweek – almost 80 years in print
But the bigger impact will come in the way advertisers communicate with consumers.
According to research carried out by comScore, more tablet users are reading magazines and newspapers on their tablets.
comScore talked to 6,000 tablet users over a 3 month period (I’m not sure of the geographic locations of the participants) and overall, 11.5% of tablet owners read a newspaper on their tablets ‘almost every day’ or ‘at least once a week.’
Tablets are not cheap and this is reflected in the income levels of the participants as half of tablet owners who read a newspaper on their device have household incomes of US$75,000 or more.
Readers of tablets and newspapers online are also more likely to be younger, with adults aged 25-34 accounting for 27% of newspaper readers and 28% of magazine readers on tablets.
Other research from GfK MRI found impressive engagement rates for digital advertising across tablets. They surveyed 30,000 ads across 1,000 magazine issues earlier this year and found 55% noted or read a digital ad on a tablet or e-reader.
And of those, 52% interacted with the ad as a result.
So does Newsweek’s decision and the changing way in which we source our news and current affairs information mean that this mean the end of the newspaper and magazine?
Absolutely not, especially in developing countries where many of the population are still not online or prefer to source their information from traditional sources.
But it does mean that many brands, especially luxury brands aimed at more affluent users, don’t need to waste resources on pointless ads on page 3 of daily newspapers.
New data means Gucci can target ads more effectively
After all, if affluent readers are sourcing their news from tablets, why advertise a luxury product in a traditional newspaper or magazine, especially when the engagement rates are so high?
I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Naumi hotel in Singapore and as I’m travelling down south, I thought it would be a good opportunity to try the place. Sadly when I attempted to book online, the hotel was full.
The next day I was reading an online newspaper and noticed an ad for the Naumi. I thought that maybe they’ve freed up some rooms and I can get to stay there after all.
Unfortunately, the hotel was still fully booked. In fact, after further research, the hotel is fully booked and in just about every room category, with one or two exceptions, for the next 12 months at least. I didn’t look past 12 months so it could even be longer.
Massive digital campaign despite being fully booked for a year
Since I saw the ad almost a week ago, I have continued to see Naumi ads across a wide variety of online sites, both local and international.
So why is the Naumi advertising? Isn’t this a total waste of an advertising budget? Is this an example of why CEOs are losing patience with CMOs? I can only assume it’s not a one off ad but in fact part of a campaign. If I am right, how much is this campaign costing and if the hotel is full for 12 months, what is the point?
Despite being fully booked, the hotel continues to advertise
When creating a digital campaign, reach and frequency are irrelevant. If those words were used in the pitch to you then you need to sack the agency. Because all they tell you is how many people saw your ad and how often they saw it.
You are probably wondering if they are perhaps using it as a lead generation exercise. Well I thought the same thing and that as I left the site they would try to grab some data from me.
It’s a logical thought because banner ads are not that effective. The general consensus of opinion is that the number of visitors who actually click on a banner ad is only 0.2%, which equates to one in 500 visitors that actually click on the ad.
And just because they click on the ad, doesn’t mean they automatically become customers. The seller, in this case the Naumi hotel still has to convert those visitors into prospects.
There are various ways of doing this, depending on your business. For the Naumi hotel, this is obviously to get the visitor to book a room. However if the hotel doesn’t have any rooms and simply tells the visitor this, the whole exercise has been a complete waste of time and money.
Of course the visitor may return, but then again they may not after all, how many visitors that have been disappointed, return to the scene of their disappointment? Or they may go on to build a relationship with another hotel.
Surely it would have made sense for the hotel to offer an apology (I don’t know about you, but when a firm apologises for being successful, I am hooked) and ask me for an email address so they can start to build a relationship with me?
And to use the campaign more effectively, I would create an offer whereby any visitors that register, will be offered a free upgrade when they book at a later date.
But no, they spent that money creating a campaign to get me to their website and then when I get there its like the place has closed down.
I bet the marketing department is reporting an increasing rate of visitors to the website but so what.
Digital advertising is not just about the campaign – the creativity, the reach, the frequency, the impressions, the clicks etc.
It is about the data, the source of the lead, the influencers and ultimately conversions that generate ROI.
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