Category: branding

New phones, new owner won’t save the Nokia Brand

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In 2002, Nokia was number two in the list of super brands in Britain. by 2010 it was 89th.

In 2010 Nokia, sold 450 million handsets, outselling Apple 10 to one. In 2012 the firm sold 16 million of its flagship Lumia handsets. In the same period, Samsung sold 384 mobile phones while Apple sold 125 million iPhones.

By 2010 Nokia’s mobile phone market share had slid from 36.4 percent share in 2009 to 28.9%. Nokia still sells more mobile phones than any other company but consumers no longer want mobile phones, they want smartphones.

And at the heart of the smartphone is the operating system. By January 2011, Google’s Android, and its Chinese versions Tapas and OMS had become the top smartphone platform in the world with an 888% year-over-year growth.

Nokia’s Symbian system was a very close second with Research in Motion a distant third and Apple’s iOS way back in fourth. Microsoft’s mobile operating system barely warranted a mention with 4% of the market.

Under pressure in a market it once dominated Nokia panicked. Realising the key to smartphone sales is the OS, it began to muck about with Symbian, a perfectly good OS with no more flaws than the iOS.

But because of the now huge size of the organisation, issues bought up during the testing of touch screens and browsers were often ignored.

Desperate, Nokia launched the N-Gage with too few poor quality games and terrible network connectivity for multiplayers, the phone was blown away by the PSP and DS.

Next came another disaster, the Ovi. Nokia’s answer to the iTunes Store was an unmitigated disaster. In 2007, Nokia restarted its touchscreen development after deciding in 2006 that touchscreens were essentially a gimmick!

This delay meant that the N95 and N97, both good smartphones in their own right and with email, music players, the Internet and GPS as well as a slide out Querty keyboard were supposed to compete with the increasingly dominant and cool iPhone. Sadly they didn’t get anywhere near it.

Next up, the beautiful N8, launched in 3Q2010. Someone described the N8 as engineering porn with a 12 megapixel camera good enough for professional photographers. But the N8 was outsold 6 to one in Europe and did even worse in the tech savvy, gadget hungry and fast growing Asian markets.

By now frantic, no hysterical Nokia tried a completely new Linux based OS called MeeGo but it’s corporate heart wasn’t in it and MeeGo only got a year.

In October 2011, in what was seen by many to be a last throw of the dice, Nokia teamed up with Microsoft and launched the partnership with a US$112m global brand repositioning campaign launch of its first phone running on the Windows 7 operating system.

This was a big mistake. Microsoft’s Phone 7 had already launched in Q4/2010 on about twelve handsets from a number of manufacturers. During the quarter it achieved a meagre 1.5 million sales, earning it about a 2% market share and worse than Windows Mobile which had 4%.

During the same period, the latest version of Symbian (the all new user-friendly touch screen version that powers the N8) was launched on 3 Nokia smartphones and sold 5 million units. All Symbian products sold a respectable 32 million units.

The six month repositioning campaign, that was meant to regain lost market share from rivals Android, Apple and Blackberry failed and was soon consigned to the overflowing but ever popular positioning graveyard in the sky.

Yesterday on 21st October 2013, in a valiant but misguided attempt to steal some of Apple’s thunder, Nokia unveiled 2 new 6 inch window smartphones. These new smartphones are well designed and as always, have great hardware including a sensational camera, an app that displays the contents of the phone on a PC and more than one microphone.

Right phone, wrong OS
Right phone, wrong OS

These new phones, developed before the decision to sell the handset business to Microsoft for US$7.4 billion was made, could give Android and iOS phones a serious run for their money. Except there is a problem. The problem is that these great products run on Windows mobile. And Windows is a dying brand. Widows mobile owns only 4% of the global market. And that is unlikely to change.

Windows is a dying brand
Windows is a dying brand

Today, Windows mobile products don’t come close to delivering the experience Android and Apple smartphone products offer. And that won’t change. And if Nokia can’t offer a compelling experience, Nokia (or Microsoft) can’t save the Nokia brand.

Malaysia Airlines achieves 1 million Likes on Facebook

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Malaysia Airlines issued a press release yesterday announcing the airline has one million “Likes” on Facebook.

You don’t need me to tell you Facebook is massive. But I will. Facebook is massive. If it were a country it would be the third largest in terms of population, the largest in terms of area covered and probably the richest in terms of income.

So it is understandable that MAS wants to use Social Media and in particular Facebook, to build its business. Indeed, Khairul Syahar Khalid, Malaysia Airlines’ Head of Advertising & Promotions says, “Social Media is a new frontier for marketing, and as many brands have discovered, going on social media certainly pays.”

Encik Khairul adds, “We have positioned social media at the forefront of our marketing mix. We will be pushing the boundaries even further with our next marketing plans, all of which will see the social media platforms at the forefront. We want to continue to engage with our fans globally at a much deeper level whilst growing our footprint further. Growing our engagement with fans globally has contributed significantly to our business turnaround successes.”

Crediting Social Media with providing a significant contribution to the improvements in the airline’s performances recently is interesting and shows how important is Social Media.

Personally I think it is exciting that MAS is pushing the boundaries even further on social media, especially after the dreadful advertising campaign that is still being run. For more on that campaign please refer to this article

To thank fans for helping the airline reach one million ‘Likes’ on Facebook, MAS created a video with their social media ambassador, Malaysian singer Yuna. The video has been viewed 2,000 times since its launch a week ago.

Incidentally, I believe the Malaysian government has missed a trick here because I think Yuna should be the face of the Malaysia Nation Brand. You can read more about that here.

But how important are Facebook ‘Likes’? Are they a relevant metric for a business? What do they tell us and how can we leverage them?

The bad news is that 96% (BrandGlue goes even further, stating that only 0.02% of fans who ‘Like’ a page ever return) of ‘fans’ never return to a page after liking it. Moreover on Facebook, most posts are seen only by about 10% of fans.

Another little known fact about Facebook is that when fans create new posts on your Facebook page, other fans don’t necessarily see them. In other words, just because you go to your fan page doesn’t mean your fans are doing the same.

Consumers are increasingly sceptical about Facebook ‘Likes’ because it it is so easy and cheap to buy them. Twipquick is offering 100,000 Facebook ‘Likes’ for about US$750.

Any social media strategy must have clearly defined target markets and relevant customer data and content must be developed that will resonate with those customers. This content must resonate with those target markets. After all, there aren’t any groups for 18-35 year olds on Facebook.

MAS must avoid taking its advertising campaigns and trying to push them out across social media. Taking a video and dubbing it into the local language is not a social media strategy. This is simply mass economy marketing and there is no place for that model in the social economy where customers not companies define brands.

MAS must engage consumers and encourage them to contribute to the MAS story and then share and encourage the sharing of that content whilst enabling multiple channels for consumers to interact through.

At the same time, MAS must not forget its existing customers. MAS has millions of frequent flyer members but it currently neglects these existing customers, despite spending a lot of money to acquire them.

You need to track the reputation of your brand online: Infographic

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Recently I was asked to map out a plan to develop some substance around the CEO of a major organization in Malaysia. The belief was that although he heads a hugely successful company, his personal brand lacks gravitas and this may count against the firm in the long run.

And they were right because the reputation of a CEO is inextricably linked to the reputation of a company. Just look at the fortunes of any CEO who had a good reputation then lost it.

Or the fortunes of a business whose reputation was painstakingly built over years, only to fall in a heartbeat because of C level indiscretions or dodgy practices.

Here in Malaysia errant CEOs generally leave quietly so we don’t often hear about such reputational issues but there are plenty of examples of the above. Because of the increasingly litigious nature of society, I’m not going to name names but think of the automotive, aviation, banking, steel and telecommunications industries amongst others and you should be able to work out who I am talking about.

Even in the consumer trenches, a company with a poorly respected CEO or dodgy reputation is going to struggle to find enough customers to build a brand. After all, would you buy from a company with a poor reputation? If a company with a questionable reputation submits a tender to your company, would you consider them? With so many alternatives in the market, there is no need to do so.

Even if the CEO has a solid reputation, he is often the difference between the company and a competitor. If he lacks charisma he may struggle to compete effectively. Tracking his reputation online will enable firms to identify what issues to address, in which channels and where and when. The effectiveness of solutions can be tracked and improved almost immediately.

In today’s social economy, where consumers not companies define brands it is imperative that every organization tracks its reputation online. This is even more important here in Asia where consumers are more likely to take to social media to complain and raise issues rather than connect directly with a company.

Unfortunately many companies still don’t see the benefit of tracking their reputation. Hopefully that will change with this handy infographic from Digital Firefly which shows why companies need to make reputation management a top priority – NOW!

Tracking your reputation online has never been more important
Tracking your reputation online has never been more important

Great example of how to use video to build interest in a brand

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The 1970s are considered to be the decade in which Hollywood rebranded itself after the collapse of the studio system of the 1960s. Independent filmmakers (at the time) such as Scorsese, Lucas and Spielberg all got their breaks in the 1970s creating such iconic movies as Jaws, Star Wars, Raging Bull, The Godfather, Raiders, ET and Chinatown.

It was also a period (no pun intended) when some of the scariest horror movies such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Exorcist (in my opinion the scariest film ever), The Shining and Carrie which was possibly the forerunner of the teen horror flick, were released.

But for every successful blockbuster, I think that something like 7 fail. And those failures can be really, really expensive. John Carter, released in 2012 is rumoured to have lost RM250 million (US$90 million), despite a RM330 (US$100 million) million marketing campaign.

So in an attempt to reduce failures and to squeeze more money out of a successful franchise, Hollywood likes to remake films. The latest of which is Carrie. I saw Carrie when I was 14. I wish I hadn’t. Carrie is an outsider, her mother is a religious nut and all of her classmates hate her. But Carrie has special powers. Telekinesis powers which means that she can mess with your mind, especially when you piss her off. Add in her first period, pigs blood, a prom, nasty girls etc. You can imagine the rest.

But the movie still has to be sold. And selling a movie is not easy. Especially as international audiences are often the difference between a success and failure – John Carter only took US$80 million in the States, over US$100 million came from Asia. So they decided to come up with a digital marketing campaign whereby they would lay the foundations with a video and then encourage consumers to do the rest.

So far the video has received almost 10 million views in 2 days. The cost? Maybe RM320,000 (US$100,000). Sure a viral campaign is nothing new but it shows that marketing departments need to open their eyes to the social economy and in some sectors, there actually may be one size fits all solutions.

Poor database management can destroy your brand’s credibility

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My inbox is overflowing with ‘invitations’ to attend numerous conventions, exhibitions, masterclasses, seminars and so on. I don’t know where these guys get my email address but I must be on every mailing list from Malaysia to Mexico.

I’ve trained my junk mail filter to send most of them to the trash without me having to do it manually but somehow, quite a few still get through. One company is particularly good at getting around my filter and I find myself actually reading the subject line or even some of the copy, especially when I can’t find anything with which to self harm which is what I would prefer to do.

Normally I just swear at the sender, make a note of the company name and promise myself that I will never, ever attend one of their events and then just trash the email. But I thought I’d share this one with you so that if you are in the event or seminar business, you might learn something.

Here is a section of their most recent email

Not quite relevant to brand consultants
Not quite relevant to brand consultants

Of course her earlier email was included so I’m going to share part of it with you

Who is responsible for boilers? Are you serious?
Who is responsible for boilers? Are you serious?

You can draw your own conclusions from this farcical attempt to get the head of boiler operations at a brand consultancy to attend a seminar, the benefits of which are according to the email, “boiler efficiency, improved water strategy and analysis, better understanding of modern boiler burner operations as well as easier identification of its failures, by reducing cost and increasing safety and finally better understanding of legal requirements of Dosh”

Tosh more like. If you must use email campaigns to try and drum up business, here are 5 top tips for an email campaign:

1) Give recipients an opt out from your list. This email doesn’t even allow me to unsubscribe, which may well be illegal.
2) Segment your list or risk destroying your brand. You’ve collected information, use it properly. Failure to do so may see you embarrassed on a blog.
3) Make your subject line creative, short and sweet.
4) Less is more. Trust me, the more emails I get, the more determined I am not to attend any of the seminars listed.
5) Track your customer activities. If they don’t respond to any emails, get in contact and find out why.

There you are, despite annoying me I’ve given you some sound and free advice. I shall be sending this post to Anna. Feel free to send it to anyone who keeps sending you irrelevant emails.

Endless possibilities have ceased to be endless

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It’s official, the new tagline that was supposed to launch the Malaysia Nation Brand will not now be used. The official launch for “Endless Possibilities” was supposed to be yesterday however it was cancelled. You can read more about the cancellation here.

Oops

My sources tell me that McKinsey, Futurebrand, Leo Burnett, McCann Erickson and O&M were all involved although I haven’t confirmed this. Ignoring the fact that not one of them bothered to Google the phrase “Endless Possibilities” before giving it the Prime Minister and causing him much embarrassment, my main concern is that the whole sorry process will be repeated once again and we’ll see them trying to retrofit the Malaysia Nation Brand around a tagline.

This is not the way to build a Nation Brand. You can get insights into how to build a nation brand here and here

New Audi short film sends Carrie Mathison to jail

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Okay, here we have yet another beautifully executed short film, this time from Audi featuring not one but two Claire Danes or is it Dans? Desperate to get to New York, she has to make a choice between making the almost 700 mile journey in a chauffeur driven non descript American tank or drive herself in a Audi A6 Diesel.

The film imagines, in an amusing, if predictable way what the journey would be like in each vehicle. So the chauffeur turns out to be a massive bore who used to be in a band (unnecessary surgery) and happens to have a tape with him. And the clunky dashboard still accepts tape. Of course the car needs to stop for petrol and gets a puncture and they meet some strange people and finally Claire Danes gets arrested (not sure why) and ends up in jail.

The alternative journey in the Audi features the star driving herself to New York. Of course this journey is the complete opposite, all autumn colours, perfect sunset, calming music, open spaces and time for a picnic with puppies, yes puppies. She makes it to New York in plenty of time and everything is fine and as she’s about to go on stage she manages to squeeze in a line about the Audi fuel efficiency.

Meanwhile, in the alternative journey she ends up in a dive where she may meet an old flame.

All good clean fun I suppose.

5 lessons to be learned from the “Endless Possibilities” Branding blunder

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On the 5th September 2013, I reported that the newly developed tagline for Malaysia “Endless Possibilities” would not be used. You can read the full story here. The official launch was supposed to be on 17th September 2013 but this has now officially been ‘postponed’. This is a hugely embarrassing situation.

Malaysia tagline: Dead in the water
Malaysia tagline: Dead in the water

Background
According to an article in the Malaysian Insider on 12th September 2013, “…the campaign and tagline was refined by two foreign consultancies and a market research firm after discussions with officials from the Prime Minister’s Department.”

The article goes on to say, “”The consultants refined it from the phrase ‘Endless Opportunities’ which was used in a speech to ‘Endless Possibilities’.”

“An advertising agency was then called in to create the logo, which the Tourism Ministry used together with the tagline last year before it was used in Davos.”

This process began in December 2011 and the new tagline was given its first outing by the Tourism Ministry in Dubai in 2012. It was due to be launched officially on 17th September 2013, almost two years after the project was initiated. You only need to read this blog or those of any other destination branding experts to know this is not the way to build a destination brand. So what can we learn from this nightmare?

Here are 5 general lessons we can learn to ensure that next time the Malaysia Nation Brand project is executed properly:

1) If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, YOU CANNOT DEVELOP A TAGLINE AND THEN RETROFIT A BRAND AROUND THAT TAGLINE USING ADVERTISING AND PROMOTIONS. It is a fundamental of branding. If you are responsible for developing a Nation Brand you must understand this. I don’t care if someone gives you a tagline and tells you to build a brand around it. It simply is not possible and you have to stand your ground.
2) A tagline is not a brand. Let me say it again, A TAGLINE IS NOT A BRAND. Too many taglines have made promises the Nation couldn’t possibly keep, have left potential customers underwhelmed, have been lost in the clutter of advertising noise or have been ruined by an event beyond the control of the Nation. Moreover, we live in a social economy. What is the first thing a prospect will do when he hears a tagline? He will look to the Internet to find out what is being said about the country. If he sees more negativity than positivity, he’ll believe what others are saying, not what the Nation says. It won’t matter how much you spend on corporate driven messages pushed out across mass media that try to convince him otherwise.
3) Ask yourself how many great ads you remember from yesterday or the day before. Not many, right? Even those in the industry find this a tough question. There is so much advertising noise that it is very hard for a campaign to be seen, let alone remembered and acted upon. There is a place for advertising countries, but not for using advertising to gain traction for the brand.
4) Just because you hire a research company to do your research, doesn’t mean you’ll get the right research. And if you are starting with a tagline and trying to retrofit your brand around that tagline, your research is going to be flawed before it even starts. After all, how can you develop the right research methodology if you are starting from the wrong place?
5) If you insist on starting with a tagline, Google it first before you do anything. A Google search of “Endless Possibilities” throws up 13 million results including destinations that have already used it – Mongolia, Israel, Sagada, corporations – BHS India and conferences, t-shirts, singers etc. Every stage of every element of any brand development should be checked and double checked again.

13 million results requires some investigation before acceptance
13 million results requires some investigation before acceptance

There are other, more specific lessons that can be learned from this issue but there is nothing to be gained by outlining them here. Let’s just hope that to avoid any more lost time and money, the project will now be carried out the way it should have been in the first place.

Case studies of how two Malaysian brands used technology in a crisis

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This article looks at two high profile situations in Malaysia and how these very different institutions used technology and social media to communicate with and engage stakeholders during a crisis.

Case study one: Syabas
Syabas (pronounced Sha-bas) provides water to the state of Selangor, the largest and most developed state in Malaysia. Following a diesel spillage on the Selangor river (a major source of water) at the end of August 2013, Syabas shut down four treatment plants, essentially cutting off water supply to nearly 1 million homes. I was personally affected by this issue and was without water for over 24 hours.

When my taps ran dry, the first thing I did was go to the Syabas website where I was greeted by a pop up press release telling me there was no water. I also found a 1800 number. I called the number and a recorded message told me to go back to the website. I revisited the website which told me that I was living in an area that was affected by the shut down. This wasn’t really very helpful as I new this because my taps were dry.

Not really helpful
Not really helpful

So my next stop was Twitter. I found the Syabas Twitter feed and fired off some tweets asking for more specific information that would allow me to plan for my family of seven who could not shower, flush toilets, wash clothes and make contingency plans for our open house scheduled for Sunday 1st September.

None of my tweets generated a response. I was stunned to find Syabas has over 10,000 followers on Twitter but doesn’t follow one person. I appreciate that not many companies have the resources to listen to what their customers are doing all the time however, one of the key reasons for being on Twitter is to be able to quickly identify conversations and trends about their business, their brand and their services.

No followers makes it hard to use Twitter effectively
No followers makes it hard to use Twitter effectively

This then allows brands to address issues in a transparent, prompt and empathetic manner and also leverage positive comments and discussions, join in with the conversation and encourage engagement.

So after trying the 1800 number, the website and the Twitter page, my last resort to try and get some actionable data to help me plan ahead was to go to the Syabas Facebook page.

No luck on Facebook because Syabas had disabled the comments function which meant that I could follow them but couldn’t make any comments! As they were only reposting the press releases posted on the website, this was pointless. So I was unable to source any information that was relevant to me or get specific answers to specific problems.

Please listen to us but don't ask us anything
Please listen to us but don’t ask us anything

Incredibly, Syabas was on every social media platform yet was using those platforms not to engage with consumers but to broadcast only the messages it wanted consumers to hear. All Syabas seemed to want to do was push generic and pointless press releases to consumers. Yet the whole point of these platforms is to allow consumers to interact with the brand and get closure on personal issues.

And this is particularly relevant when it comes to negative issues or complaints. During a recent stay at the Marina Bay Sands, I complained on Twitter. Within 30 minutes the MBS was following me and asked me to follow them back so that they could send me a Direct message. Not only did this make me feel someone was listening, it also allowed them to take my complaint out of the public domain. The Marina Bay Sands has 8,500 followers and follows almost 1,700 people.

The irony of this situation is that Syabas actually dealt with the physical problem very efficiently and the water was back online to over 650,000 consumers within 36 hours. But by then it was too late and what could have been a PR success turned into a social media nightmare as frustrated consumers turned to forums, online newspapers and social media to vent their anger.

Case study two: Sekolah Sri Cempaka
Sekolah Sri Cempaka is a private school in Malaysia. It quickly embraced the arrival of technology in the classroom and places a great emphasis on communicating with students via its digital platform, Schoology. On Saturday 7th September 2013 a fire broke out at the school in the exclusive neighbourhood of Damansara Heights in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur.

Within an hour Twitter was awash with chatter and soon after images of the fire were all over Twitter and Facebook. This fire could not have come at a worse time for the school with students busily preparing for critical exams.

The school quickly announced the fire simultaneously on Twitter and Facebook. The school then expanded its reach on both Social Media and the school Intranet to communicate with concerned students and parents.

Openness and transparency, success factors for social media
Openness and transparency, success factors for social media

Throughout the next 36 hours numerous rumours developed and began to spread however, the school was quick to inform stakeholders of the real situation. By acting quickly and in a transparent, engaging manner, students and parents were reassured and potentially damaging rumours were negated, before they got out of control.

As the crisis unfolded, the school maintained contact with students and parents. Sharing with them the important developments – news of the damage, the fire department inspection, plans by the school, discussions with the education ministry and so on. This gave concerned and busy parents a regular stream of credible information which allowed them to plan ahead.

cem2

The new technological landscape is here to stay. Here are five things you must do now to prepare your company for a crisis:

1. Every company, government department and institution should have a clear, transparent, policy on social media and a clearly defined social media crisis management strategy to address comments/posts on the website or social media pages during the crisis. And this should be part of a grater social media plan.
2. Make sure you have enough properly trained staff to administer your social media pages and respond to issues raised by angry consumers.
3. Unless there is a potential threat to your organisation or your staff, transparency is key.
4. Always, always, always engage. Ignoring consumers or shutting down conversations is the worst thing you can do.
5. Have a back up solution ready for such situations.

These two institutions responded very differently to a crisis. One got it right, one didn’t. Which one best represents your brand?