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A brand is a long-term profitable bond between an offering and a customer. This relationship is based on economic, emotional and/or experiential value, backed by everyday operational excellence and consistently measurement, usually by customer profitability.
FusionBrand 2009.

For immediate release Contact: Marcus Osborne
29th April 2009 FusionBrand
marcus@fusionbrand.com

FAST GROWING STRATEGIC BRAND CONSULTANCY EXPANDS AGAIN TO MEET NEEDS OF FINANCIAL SECTOR

KUALA LUMPUR – After exhaustive qualitative and quantitative research, FusionBrand, Asia’s leading data-driven brand consultancy has identified a significant disconnect between the offerings of Malaysian banks and financial institutions and the evolving requirements for value of customers. As Bank Negara implements the last phase of the 10 year financial sector masterplan, this disconnect will impact significantly on the ability of local banks and financial institutions to compete with international competitors. In view of this, FusionBrand is creating a specialized department to work with banks and financial institutions to build profitable & sustainable brands using data driven brand strategies.

In the recent study of 1,000 Malaysians, 65% of respondents stated that they rely on financial advice from family and friends rather than relying on financial service institutions. Over 50% of respondents also stated that they are stopped from saving or investing money because of lack of good advice, lack of products they can understand, and lack of trust.

“Communication strategies using cluttered channels of media that promote products crammed with technical jargon to consumers already struggling in troubled economic times are not going to help the financial services industry compete in an increasingly liberalized space.” says Marcus Osborne, managing director of FusionBrand. “Our financial services industry needs to focus more on developing relationships with consumers and engaging those consumers with content that resonates with them and builds trust. This must be supported by a shift in mentality that moves the focus away from one of acquisition to one of retention and be backed up by excellence in customer service.”

FusionBrand predicts that the next round of liberalization will bring with it a wave of innovation that will put the customers requirements for value at the heart of financial sector brand development. Local banks and financial institutions that do not embrace these developments will struggle to survive. Responding to this impending demand, FusionBrand has set up a new team with specialized expertise from the financial services industry.

“In these challenging and increasingly competitive times, leading Malaysian financial institutions cannot be satisfied with creative driven one-size-fits-all branding solutions that concentrate on advertisements and expensive image building rather than development of true customer focused propositions that include needs based advice services, staff trained in relationship building and products that deliver recognised value to customers.” says Marcus. “Financial institutions demand partners with specialized marketing expertise to help connect and engage with new prospects and existing customers more profitably. With our extensive international experience in developing customer focused institutions we provide the skills, knowledge and experience banks and other financial institutions are looking for.”

I’m a big fan of VW. When I was a child, long car journeys were shortened by playing silly games. These included cricket, where you scored runs for each vehicle you spotted (I was a child in the sixties so there weren’t yet that many cars on the roads!). A common British made family saloon like a Morris Minor was worth 1 run, a less common one such as a Mini van (not to be confused with a Moke) two runs, an MGB four runs and so on. A wicket might be a Jag and a six was a Bentley.
We also used to play spot the Bug (Bug was the nickname given to the VW Beetle – Bug) because Bugs were still relatively unusual in the UK. The first person to see a VW Beetle and shout out ‘BUG’ won a sixpence.
Some years later, my third car was a Bug. The year was 1981 or 1982 and I was living in London. I saved up the money to buy a 1965 left hand drive Bug imported from Belgium. It was a six volt which meant the battery went flat every two or three months.

I put up with flat batteries for about a year as it was my first and only experience of an air cooled car. However, I’d had enough after I found myself scraping ice off the windscreen with an umbrella at 6.30am on a cold and miserable February morning. Of course, as time goes by, the bad times are forgotten and the good memories survive.

Which is why, almost 30 years later I’m wandering around a VW showroom at the Curve just outside Kuala Lumpur. This time I’m not looking for a car for myself. I’m looking for a car for my daughter. We promised her a Mini if she managed to secure 5 A’s in her SPM exams, the Malaysian equivalent of UK O levels. She’s a bright girl but she was going through a difficult period so we needed to offer some incentives aka bribes. She responded magnificently and secured not 5 but 7 A’s. An outstanding performance and one worthy of a mini.

But as we discussed her having a car and I remembered my years of driving a Austin Healey Sprite with a bench seat in the back similar to that of the Mini, I thought that maybe she should look at four door cars that are as cool as the Mini which is why I found myself in a VW showroom on a Sunday afternoon.

As we entered the minimalist showroom I realised that we as a family are actually looking for two cars because my wife is also looking to upgrade her six year old BMW 3 series. Within minutes of setting foot in the showroom my daughter was squealing with delight as she sat behind the wheel of the Golf GTI. I had a puzzled look on my face because I was unable to find the Tiguan advertised boldy on the window to the left of the entrance.

I spotted 2 sales reps in the showroom. One caught my eye but she was attending to a customer. As she looked at me I knew that she wanted to help but was unable to do so. The other rep wandered around the showroom as aimlessly as I. I caught his eye a couple of times but he just ignored me.

After 14 minutes we left the showroom. A prospect in the market for 2 cars allowed to wander in, look around for 15 minutes and then wander out without so much as a “Hello, how may I help you?”

With vehicle sales in Malaysia forecast to drop by over 12% this year, the sales force, the brand guardians in the automotive sector, has to be on top of its game and take every opportunity given to qualify prospects and develop relationships with prospects otherwise the brands will not just be unable to compete, they will simply disappear.

Recently TM announced their new brand for TMI. Lot’s of full page ads and reports in the trade and consumer media on the ‘rebranding’ exercise. Most of the ‘re-branding’ exercises in Malaysia have consisted of a new logo or tagline or similar. Of course branding is much more than that. The organisation is the brand and a brand development or re-branding exercise is more than a new name, logo etc it’s also about matching corporate attributes with the customers need for value, and in particular in the telecoms sector, the service and speed and efficiency with which customer issues are dealt with.

Although this particular exercise involves TMI, a brand must not neglect its home base as it pursues international growth so we hope that the new brand will be corporate wide.

Based on the two interactions I have had with TM in the last couple of days, my initial thoughts are that TM may have made this an organisation wide exercise.

A massive storm, even by tropical standards had destroyed my telephone line, telephone and internet connection. It also blew out two apple airports, the mother board on both my electric gate and alarm system and a computer monitor. Trust me, when you have three kids, one of whom is a teenage girl, life is hell without Internet or phone!

So I needed to move fast. Firstly I contacted TM about the phone (I assumed, wrongly, that the Internet was OK). I emailed them the morning after the storm via the website complaint option but did not get an automatic response. This made me uneasy so I called TM about 8pm the same evening and reported the problem. My call was attended to within a couple of minutes and the details were taken and I was promised a response within 24 hours.

The next morning before 9.30am I got a call from a technician stating that he was on the way to check the problem. Around lunchtime he contacted me to tell me that he had fixed the problem but nobody was answering the phone in the house. I told him that I suspected the phone had also been affected. So he promised to go to my house and check it. He called me an hour later from my house to inform me that the cordless phone was indeed broken. Throughout the process he was polite and professional.

Once the phone was working I was able to check the Internet and now discovered that it was also affected. I called TM immediately. I had to wait nine minutes before I was attended to. It was late so I think this is borderline acceptable however, during the wait the same jingle played asking me to buy something that expired in 2007! When my call was finally attended to the representative went through the usual process of asking me to switch off the modem for a minute and so on. My only issue with the process was that she wanted me to hang up and call back which would have meant another wait, perhaps shorter, perhaps longer than the initial nine minutes. However when I insisted she wait, she didn’t argue. We couldn’t fix it so she made a report and gave me the report number.

We’ll wait and see how I get on. Traditionally, when the Internet is down it takes longer to be repaired than the phone.

Neverthless, at this stage TM as a (new, re-branded) organisation, has performed well and the signs are promising that this re-branding exercise is more than a new logo.

I tried to respond to this article in media magazine on the site but it wouldn’t let me, claimed my verification code (4 digits, even I can get that right!) was entered incorrectly.

So heres my response
Chris
You are right the agency business has been commoditised but you only have yourselves to blame because you all got yourselves into this mess because agencies lied to clients for so long which meant a price war was inevitable.

And you are right, there are some consultants out there making nice margins, but I’m not gloating.

But all that will change if you and your agency friends start to pass yourselves off as consultants. I beg you please don’t do it! You’ll ruin the consulting business just like you’ve ruined the creative business!

More on this later

Yet again the term rebranding is used in the wrong context. http://www.brandrepublic.asia/Media/newsarticle/2009_04/TMI-renamed-Axiata-Group-launches-rebrand-campaign/35062
The process of using an advertising company to drive any branding exercise is also doomed to failure but we won’t go there now.

Apparently this Saatchi led programme begins with a campaign to announce the name change, new look and identity. Once that is sorted, they’ll move onto the ‘new brand vision that comes with the new name.’

But this is not a re-branding exercise, it is nothing more than a change of name.

You can change the name of mutton to lamb and make a curry and serve it as lamb curry but but it is still mutton. The moment your guests try to eat it they know immediately that it is not lamb.

A name change cannot be linked to a brand vision because the brand vision should represents the requirements for value of the brand’s customers and has nothing to do with the corporate name, image or logo etc.

We’ll keep an eye on this story…

We’ve done a lot of work with Tourism Malaysia and judging by the feedback from those involved, the work was well received by TM and the Ministry. However, when it came to implementing our strategies, it all stopped when the new minister took office. I don’t want to get political on this blog but it really does my head in when I read comments like this:

Azalina (Tourism Minister) said issues of environment must also be given importance as it is a vital product in promoting tourism.

“In our advertisements, we portray blue seas and green forest, but when tourists arrive here, they see that our seas are polluted with oil spills or forest cleared.

“In order to attract tourists, we must not show something that looks good in the advertisement and not in reality,”

Oh really?

On page 3 of the March 19th edition of the New Straits Times (NST) was a full page full colour (FPFC) ad for Patek Philippe. On page 3 of the March 20th edition of the same publication was a full page black and white (FPBW) ad for Prada.

The NST is the only English language broadsheet in Malaysia. Actually it was a broadsheet but now it’s a tabloid or junior broadsheet as they like to be known. Anyway, it’s still considered to be the premier newspaper in Malaysia in terms of readership quality. In much the same way as the South China Morning Post (SCMP) is in Hong Kong and the Straits Times (ST) is in Singapore.

Why would such prestigious brands advertise in the 2nd most expensive position of a daily newspaper in a developing country? Even though most readers are unable to remember any print ads they see in a newspaper 30 minutes after closing the newspaper, I know why an advertising agency or media planner would recommend such a tactic in a developed country. Daily newspaper readerships are high and representation amongst ABC 1 and other relevant demographics are also significant. Furthermore, it’s quick, easy, generates high commissions, appeals to the brand owners ego and of course it’s highly profitable because materials only need to be created once.

But Malaysia is not yet a developed country. A quick search on the net finds a rather old PWC report, that states ‘the mean monthly gross income per Malaysian household increased from MYR2,472 in 1999 to MYR3,011 in 2002, denoting average growth of 6.8% per annum’. So if we use that growth rate to bring us up to 2008, the mean monthly gross income per Malaysian household is now RM4,468 or US$1,191. Don’t forget that is gross and does not take into account the impact of the economic crisis.

A quick glance at shop.com reveals a virtual rack of Prada suits retailing at between US$1,000 – US$1,950 or RM3,750 – RM7,312.50. Another quick glance at thefinestwatches.com has PP watches ranging from US$10,000 – US$140,000 or RM37,500 – RM525,000.

According to the NST media pack, for the period July 2007 – June 2008, the daily circulation was 136,530 and the daily readership 416,000. That’s 3.07 readers per newspaper. Of those 416,000 readers, 45,000 or 10.8% has a monthly household income of RM10,000 and above. Actually this is an assumption because the rate card doesn’t actually state if this is a monthly or annual figure.

There are no figures for household incomes above RM10,000 so one assumes that the advertising agency and/or the media planners have researched this figure and are of the opinion that a household earning over RM10,000 can afford a Prada suit or a Patek Philippe watch. Anecdotal empirical research disputes this assumption. But never mind. The ad agencies or media planners have convinced the client that this channel will reach these 45,000 prospects and make them aware of the brands. But in this day and age, is the tactic of attempting to reach as many consumers as possible, whoever they are, and making them aware of a brand, the most effective use of valuable marketing resources?

This tactic, developed over 50 years ago and possibly relevant in Malaysia as recently as 15 years ago, when there was limited competition and few conduits to consumers, hopes that the consumer will be interested in the product, has time and the inclination to study the ad, develop a bond with the product, remember the product the next time they go to a mall and then have time to visit the boutique to try the product. Essentially a strategy based on hope!

If the budget is large enough to allow the ads to be run often enough then maybe, just maybe someone will eventually purchase the product. What makes this highly unlikely for Patek Philippe is that they don’t have a boutique in Malaysia! So even if a consumer has remembered the product and is wandering around a mall looking for a PP boutique, they won’t find it! So then they have to visit every watch shop to ask if they stock PP. This will throw a lot of temptation their way as they are confronted with numerous offerings from competitors! Of course they could just call the number in the ad and find out where the product is stocked. Unfortunately, the contact number in the ad is a Singapore number!

There was a local Malaysian number in the Prada ad so we called the number. Unfortunately it was the number of a boutique that doesn’t stock the suit in the ad. They gave us a number of another boutique and asked us to call them! That’s right, make the valuable consumer do all the work. We called the other branch and they didn’t know what we were talking about so took our number and promised to call us back which they did 20 minutes later with a pretty good explanation of the sizes available and so on. However they let us go without any commitment to visit the store.

So how would we develop a luxury brand in Malaysia?

1) Build a database of your prospects and customers
2) Segment your database
4) Only a limited number of consumers can afford your product. Find out where they go and what they do and then do it too
5) Develop communications strategies for those segments based on their individual requirements for value
4) If you want your prospects or customers to buy your product, don’t expect them to have to work hard to give you their hard earned income
6) Make every step of the process easy for them. Better still, where possible, do it for them
7) Mass circulation publications are for toothpaste not US$140,000 watches
8) Awareness is irrelevant, engagement is key
9) Creativity will not build a brand
10) What is needed to build brands is long term bond between the brand and existing customers to encourage these customers to become ambassadors. Stop selling products and start building relationships.

Welcome to my blog. I’m still working on the first post and should have it ready by end of !st week of April 2009!