By Karen Holmes, 2002 Annual Meeting Speaker
Owner - Corporate & Marketing Communications, Inc.
Picture this – perhaps you remember – a crowd fills a massive public square (a la Buenos Aires), swaying and chanting “Gorditas, gorditas.” Soon a soulful-eyed Chihuahua sporting a black beret appears on the balcony. The crowd goes wild as he utters two simple, heartfelt words, “Viva! Gorditas!” It’s a scene right out of Evita and one of the cutest ads I’ve ever seen. It even inspired me to return to Taco Bell after many years’ absence. Apparently, however, I didn’t spend enough on gorditas to justify the campaign: Taco Bell failed to meet its sales forecast, said hasta la vista to ad agency Chiat Day and retired the dear little Chihuahua.
You see, Taco Bell found that it takes more than a cute dog to sell tacos. And this after spending mucho dinero on the immensely popular ads. What happened?
I certainly don’t claim expertise in the fast food advertising arena, but I do know that advertising constitutes only a small (albeit expensive) piece of branding and that no matter how extensive your branding efforts, if you don’t deliver on your brand promise, you’ve wasted a lot of time and pesos.
How do you avoid barking up the wrong tree? By doing your homework. That sounds obvious enough, doesn’t it? Gee, I wonder why companies constantly make this mistake. Even the federal government, if you can believe it, admits to not testing its five-year $929 million anti-drug campaign. When they finally did test recently, they discovered that the TV ads didn’t have the desired effect on kids, and shockingly, a few kids even said the commercials made them want to try drugs.
Unfortunately, financial services companies make the same mistakes.
So what to do? About the only thing you can do is research, get really clever and then test. Followed by more research. Start with baseline research among customers, prospects, distributors and employees. How do they perceive the company and its products and service? What do they want your company to deliver? What value do you bring them or should you bring them? Simultaneously study the face of the industry: What strategies do your competitors use? Where do your company and products fit? (If your company doesn’t have in-house expertise on conducting research, hire an expert firm. They really get into this stuff and will help you understand the findings).
Based on what you find, determine your brand positioning/brand promise. This is what makes your company stand apart from the others. Test to make sure it resonates with your target market. Look internally, and check against your baseline research: Is your positioning inspirational or is it reality? If inspirational (and most are), your business plan must support it and vice versa. What will it take to get there? How can you deliver what you promise? How do your employees need to behave so that your brand becomes a living, breathing thing? (Model, monitor and reward that behavior. Evaluate against brand values in employee appraisals). What about your infrastructure, culture and technology; can you really handle the type of service you promise? Don’t even think about communicating your brand externally until you’re there internally; re-think your brand if you know you’re never going to get there. (Yes, it’s horrible to have to scratch your exciting ideas, but better now than after a disastrous brand launch, which might hurt your company more than help it).
Next, determine the look, feel and messaging that best communicate your positioning. Take a look at all tangible elements of brand communication: logos (tricky if you’ve acquired a lot of companies lately), taglines, slogans, corporate colors. Develop graphic standards for print and electronic communications, communicate them widely, use them religiously and police their use everywhere in the company.
Then launch your brand to employees and distributors. Make sure you don’t blind-side them with new ads or brand communications you haven’t explained to them. These people really ARE your brand after all. (When it comes to independent distributors like insurance agents, this is a difficult thing indeed . . . a whole ’nother subject for another day). Communicate your brand in the voice and medium that matches your brand message. If you call yourself “the friendly company,” your internal and field communications should be friendly and personal, not bureaucratic in tone. If you emphasize high tech service, your communication medium should reflect that.
How will you get your brand out there? The options range from free (media coverage or company bylined articles and even customer service telephone scripts) to very costly (Super Bowl ads). Think radio; TV (cable or network?); billboards; Internet; sports, public service or charitable sponsorships; etc. Choose those where your target audience will get the most bang for your buck. For example, what magazines does your target read; what charities would they be partial to; what do they watch on TV? A media buying expert can save you bundles here.
If you decide to advertise, decide the purpose of your ads. Name awareness only? (A highly successful example is AFLAC and its duck – because the duck quacks “AFLAC”, 90% of Americans now recognize their name – up from about zero in early 2000). Brand personality? (Another great example: Conseco). Brand positioning? Specific product awareness/sales?
Test your ad concepts before you’ve spent millions producing them and millions more running them on TV or in the Wall Street Journal. Adjust accordingly and run your ads. Determine their impact. Then, if your ads prove successful over time, don’t rest contentedly. Conduct more research. Do people still get your brand message? Do they believe it? Is it still what they want or need to hear? Shift as necessary. Remember your business strategy and brand strategy need to stay aligned. In a nutshell, you could call branding a never-ending process.
Phew, this article could also go on and on, but space doesn’t permit complete coverage of this many-faceted and timely topic. I’d like to attribute the popularity of my workshop in Toronto to my reputation as a speaker, but alas, that just isn’t true. Fact is, the subject of branding could draw a crowd if a chimpanzee were giving the speech. (Or maybe not, but definitely a Chihuahua). It seems that many LCA and IMCA member companies currently find themselves in the process of branding or re-branding. Given that there’s a lot of clutter out there anyway, it looks like we can expect even more when this flurry of branding activity emerges. However, companies that do a careful job of brand positioning and a creative, yet effective, job of brand communication can successfully break through. It isn’t easy, but with perseverance, a sense of humor and human understanding, it can be done.
Kind of like teaching an old dog a new trick.. . .
Karen Holmes is a freelance writer and communications consultant with 23 years in the financial services industry, most recently as VP-Marketing Communications at ING. Her clients have included Conseco, GE Financial, ING and LCA.
Contact Karen at karen.holmes@attbi.com.
