The Origin of Brands Blog

Wal-Mart: To change or not to change, that was the question.

The word “branding” comes from the cattle ranching days of the Old West. The branding of livestock was a rigidly-enforced practice that helped to keep life peaceful and orderly.

 

All cattle look pretty much the same. Without a brand, no cowboy would know whose cattle are whose. Determining ownership would be a nightmare.

 

In the American West, cattle still graze freely and branding allows ranchers to easily identify their animals especially during the fall roundup.

 

(Of course, some ranchers keep their herds on fenced lots and in that case branding isn’t required but is often done anyway. And in business, if you have no competition you don't need a brand either.)

 

A brand is the special mark or identifying design owned by a rancher. Branding occurs when an owner’s branding iron is heated to red hot in a fire and is pressed against the side of the animal. Not a particularly pleasurable process for the animal but essential for the rancher.

 

 

In the marketplace, brands and branding are as essential as they are on the ranch. Without a brand, consumers would have difficulty differentiating one product from another. But while any company can put a mark on the side of a package, that doesn’t make the mark a powerful brand. Brands are only powerful when you can burn that same mark into the mind of the consumer as well. Ouch!

 

Burning the consumer’s mind is the key detail many companies miss. They think branding is putting their name and logo on the package. But that is only half the answer. Making a branding iron is the easy part. Holding the consumer down and burning that brand into the mind is the hard part.

 

The good news is that once you have burned your brand in the mind of the consumer it is practically permanent. An established brand is difficult to change and hard to forget. Unless you keep changing what the brand stands for to the point of no recognition.

 

It is important to keep the look of your branding iron consistent over time. Constant or drastic change can be a brand-killer.

 

(Of course, if nobody knows your brand, you can change it all you want. Marlboro was initially a women’s cigarette which was rebranded with cowboy imagery.)

 

It was no trouble for Marlboro to change from a woman’s to a man’s cigarette but they can’t change from the cowboys without dire consequences. Marlboro has wisely stuck to the same imagery, look and logo for over 50 years.

 

 

Why do companies want to change the look of their brand?  One reason is to keep the brand current and fresh. Or to attempt to change the position of the brand.

 

Making subtle changes over time to a brand is fine. It allows you to keep the logo fresh and up-to-date. The UPS logo has undergone 4 changes over 100 years but it still retains the same look, feel and most importantly the same color, brown. Consumers have hardly noticed the changes.

 

 

Sometimes a logo may not be perfect, but sudden, radical change to a well-known brand can be jarring, disturbing and destructive. This is the case with the latest changes to the Wal-Mart logo.

 

Since the launch of the company in 1962, Wal-Mart has made many subtle changes. But for the most part it has stuck to its traditional uppercase type. The brand is currently the world’s largest retailer meaning that its logo is burned into the minds of hundreds of millions of people around the world.

 

 

So what did they just announce? A drastic change.  Not a small change, but a change that makes me cringe.

 

To hyphenate or not to hyphenate? Uppercase or lowercase? Star or no star? Dark blue or light blue? One color or two colors? Let’s change everything!

 

One change would have been radical enough, but making all these changes at once will  disconnect Wal-Mart from its past. Which for the world’s largest retailer is stupid.

 

In general, it’s preferable to avoid hyphens in names and to use upper and lowercase letters rather than all-caps. But for Wal-Mart, its name and its typography are so well known that changing everything at once is dangerous.

 

What is even worse is the yellow starburst that Wal-Mart is adding to the end of its name. What the heck is that? I’ll tell you what it is. It is an attempt to make Wal-Mart look like a environmentally-friendly company and a big-box store that cares despite a record of union blocking and community commoditizing.

 

Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Gardner said: "This logo update is simply a reflection of the refreshed image of our stores and our renewed sense of purpose of helping people save money so they can live better."

 

Really? I think this logo update is an attempt by Wal-Mart to try and change the minds of consumers. To try to convince them that Wal-Mart has a renewed sense of purpose.

 

Has anybody mentioned Wal-Mart’s renewed sense of purpose to you? No one has mentioned it to me.

 

Changing the logo won’t change the brand in the mind. The only way to change what people think about Wal-Mart is to generate favorable publicity. The company has been making progress in this area with a more media-friendly CEO, Lee Scott, and by promoting energy-efficient light bulbs and a discounted drug program. I congratulate Wal-Mart for their PR, but question their radical logotype redesign.

 

For consumers who had problems with Wal-Mart’s brand the new logo won’t change their minds, slapping lipstick on a pig does little good either. For consumers who love to shop and save money at Wal-Mart (and there are a lot more of these consumers) the new logo is likely to confuse and frustrate. It is like your wife coming home with a new Mohawk, she might hope it makes her suddenly look young and rebellious but her family knows nothing could be further from the truth.

LinkedIn: Dull by Design

The way to build a powerful brand is not by emulating the leader and trying to be better. History proves time and again that the best strategy for going against the leader is to do the opposite.

 

Since the rise of MySpace we have seen hundreds of copycat social networking sites popup. They all target the same juicy younger demographic. A better idea is do the opposite. If MySpace is for younger, cool kids; make your brand for older, geeky adults. That is exactly what LinkedIn did.

 

But first let’s look back to see how the social network category started. MySpace got into the mind first by focusing on music. MySpace was the perfect place for independent artists to share music and for fans to congregate. It has been reported that 8 million artists have been discovered by MySpace. Young people with endless hours to waste decorating their MySpace pages made the site the place for online socializing.

 

The initial focus on music was the difference between MySpace and a host of other brands like Friendster, Multiply and others that were also vying to be the first social-networking site in the mind. Music gave people a reason to choose MySpace over the others.

 

At the beginning of any new category there are usually many players. It is like conception. After sex, you have millions of sperm racing to get to that egg to fertilize it. Some are too early, some are bad swimmers, some get lost, and some are lazy. Only one lucky and smart sperm makes it and bam the race is over. The winner is chosen; fertilization is complete. No more winners.

 

The same thing happens in branding. The sex is the exciting new technology, idea or service. The sperm are the initial companies that want to build a brand. The egg is the consumer’s mind. Conception occurs when one company comes up with the right strategy and the right name at the right time.

 

Eight years ago, Creative Technology was the first to launch a hard-drive MP3 player, the Creative Nomad Jukebox. Creative got onto the market first but never go into the mind. Today, of course, Creative is nowhere and Apple’s iPod dominates the market and is seen as the originator of the category.

 

Why did iPod win? iPod won because it had the better name and a focused product line and strategy. Creative made everything: flash-memory MP3 players, hard-drive MP3 players, speakers and a whole host of other electronic products. Apple’s iPod focused on the hard-drive MP3 player and hammered home the idea that it held over 1,000 songs. The iPod got into the mind first and the rest is history.

 

History is actually filled of stories like this. To succeed, brands don’t need to be in the marketplace first; they need to get in the mind first.

• Yuengling was the first beer on the marketplace, but Budweiser was first in the mind.
• Duryea was the first automobile on the road, but Ford was the first car in the mind.
• MITS Altair 8800 was the first microcomputer, but Apple was the first microcomputer in the mind.

In social networking, MySpace was first in the mind and like first-born children has been wildly successful. A recent study showed that first-born children are smarter than their siblings and more likely to become CEOs. But like in any family, there is always room for a few more kids.

 

The second-born brand in the mind was Facebook which was not simply a copycat of MySpace. Facebook narrowed its focus to a small and exclusive market: college students. In fact, if you weren’t a college student you weren’t allowed to be a Facebook member.

 

Good things happen when you narrow the focus. For one thing, a narrow focus gives you an opportunity to use a unique and distinctive name. Facebook is the word used to describe the handout given to most college freshman when they arrive at orientation.

 

New students are given a book filled with all the photos, names, hometowns and majors of the entering class. The analogy was the perfect way to describe the site and what it was meant for. Plus Facebook’s clean and simple design distinguished it from the cluttered look of MySpace. The opposite of any strategy usually works quite well.

 

Today, of course, Facebook is open to everybody. But not starting that way was a wise move. It is like exclusive distribution which is also very effective in establishing a brand. (Exclusive distribution gives a retailer a reason to stock and promote a brand.)

 

Now we have the third child, LinkedIn, who is growing up fast as younger siblings always seem to do. But LinkedIn is not your teenager’s social networking site. It is just the opposite. It is intentionally dull and boring with no video and just a few photos.

 

In terms of a brand with profit potential, I think LinkedIn has the best chance for success. It may not be sexy but it serves a function and appeals to a broad and distinctive market with deep pockets and who are not fickle in changing brands like teens.

 

LinkedIn is the first professional social networking site for businesspeople. The private company just raised an additional $53 million in capital which currently values the company at $1 billion. More valuable than MySpace which News Corporation paid $580 in 2005 but less than the $15 billion value assigned to Facebook last year.

 

More important than its current valuation is the fact that the LinkedIn brand is solid because it was built on solid branding principles. LinkedIn did the opposite. It’s a social network for the serious, professional white-collar worker who wants to get ahead by staying in touch. Getting a job usually comes down to who you know not always what you know.

 

In terms of size, both MySpace and Facebook are huge. Each has 115 million users worldwide, while LinkedIn has only 23 million. But in the end, LinkedIn could represent a much larger and far more lucrative market than the pimple-popping teens at MySpace and Facebook. These two sites attract younger people who have little money and move on to the next big thing much more quickly than us older folks.

 

There’s a big reason why everyone over 30 should be on LinkedIn instead of MySpace or Facebook. Using Facebook at work is likely to get you fired. Using LinkedIn could land you in the corner office. It’s the revenge of the nerds at its finest.

 

 

Join my LinkedIn network today!

 

Ni hao from China!

  

Ni hao! Hello from China! Above is my name Laura Ries in Chinese. As I sit here in Guangzhou, China after also visiting and giving speeches in Beijing and Shanghai this week, I am left to wonder about the future of Chinese brands in the world.

As a first-time host of the Olympic Games this summer and talk of being the next global superpower, China is on top of the world. It is a place of great excitement, potential and opportunity. But living up to its potential won’t be easy.

Japan, the land of the rising sun, was predicted to take over the world in the 1980s. It didn’t happen. Despite a reputation for high intelligence, hard work and high quality goods, Japan wasn’t able to capitalize on its potential because it forgot to build powerful brands.

There are a few exceptions in Japan like Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Nintendo. But other than a handful of companies, Japan is line-extension society. A country of companies that make everything and put their name on everything. Brands like Mitsubishi, Hitachi and even Sony have become meaningless brands in the mind. And despite huge sales figures they fail to make significant profits due to the weakness of the brands.

When you don’t have a powerful brand, you are forced to sell on price. And when you sell on price, it is hard to make money.

The good news, in my opinion, is that China will experience rapid growth in the next 7 years, like Japan did in the 1980s. The bad news is that the Chinese economy will eventually hit the wall much like Japan’s did in the 1990s. Right now because of its cheap labor costs and reputation for quality, China has an enormous advantage. But as the country prospers, wages will go up, prices will go up and the country’s low-cost export business will move to Vietnam and other cheaper places.

China’s key to maintaining economic growth is to take advantage of this attention and low-cost production right now and use it to build powerful brands. Brands that own something in the mind. Germany is perhaps the most expensive place in the world to manufacture anything, but the country is successful because they build powerful brands like Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

So did I see the rise of powerful brands in China? Nope. Exactly the opposite. It is a branding mess over here. Everybody makes everything. Just like they do in Japan.

Chang Hong was the dominant brand of television sets. So what did they do next? Expanded. Today Chang Hong makes refrigerators, air conditioners, semi-conductors and commercial electronics. Today they make everything but money. Ten years ago they had net profits of 2 billion Yuan. Today they are losing money.

Chunlan was once China’s largest air-conditioner manufacturer. Then they expanded into motorcycles, automobiles and heavy equipment. And after three years of negative revenues and losing 400 million Yuan last year, they were delisted from the stock market. It would be like Harley-Davidson making fork lifts, cars and air-conditioners. It would sound crazy in America, but it is happening every day in China.

There are a few exceptions. Gree focused on air-conditioners and become the country’s leading company. While the competition expanded and lost focus. Gree built a brand and today dominates the market. Unfortunately, examples like Gree are hard to come by. Because if China can get its branding right, the country will become a force to be reckoned with on the world stage for decades to come.

One brand with huge potential is Chery. With oil costs soaring to over $130 dollars a barrel and greater concern for the environment, the future for compact cars is colossal. There is a giant hole in the mind and in the marketplace for a compact, low-cost car brand. And China is the perfect country to fill it. They even have a car brand that is ready to roll, the Chery.

The wildly successful Chery QQ fits the bill on all accounts. Compact, cheap and chic. The problem? Chery isn’t staying focused. We read in the papers that Chery engineers are now at work on developing 40 or 50 new car models at least 10 of which could be ready for production this year. Building bigger and more expensive cars will totally undermine Chery’s compact position in the mind. Not to mention the fact that building new models will take the company’s attention away from improving the QQ.

It is exactly what happened to Saturn. At first, Saturn was a wildly-successful a one-model, one-price, affordable, compact car. Then they expanded into bigger, more expensive Saturns. The brand today is a weak brand losing substantial amounts of money. You can just build a brand and forget it. You need to constantly update and stay on top of it. When you expand the brand, it takes time and resources away from the maintenance task.

In just a few weeks the best athletes in the world will travel to Beijing to compete in the Olympic Games. How do you get to the Olympics? How do you get to be the best athlete in the world? By training for many different events? No.

You get to the Olympics by practicing one sport, one event, one distance, one stroke, your whole life. Winning a gold medal takes discipline, commitment and focus. Winning a gold medal in the Branding Olympics takes a similar commitment.

Shanghai speech.

 

The Lion & Al. Not sure who is scarier.

Our articles appear monthly in China Marketing magazine.

Great Product, Lousy Brand

 

 

Just because you have a great idea and make a great product (or deliver a great service) doesn’t mean you will build a powerful brand and enjoy great success. This sad truth sometimes becomes personal when a product I love makes egregious branding errors. In fact, it really makes my blood boil.

 

I am an avid walker. I love walking in New York City going up the avenues and through the park. I love walking in Paris to the Eiffel Tower and through the Tullieries. I love hiking in the mountains of Austria and around the volcanoes in Maui.

 

I am also into fitness and new exercise trends and gadgets. I have all sorts of wobble boards, weighted balls, body bars, ankle weights, abdominal wheels and yoga mats. I also have an elliptical machine, Rollerblades,  an inversion table and now MBT shoes.

 

I love my MBT shoes, but their branding stinks.

 

The point of a brand name is to get into the mind of the consumer. The better your name, the easier it is to get into the mind. Think BlackBerry.

 

The point of a category name is to define the niche your brand occupies in the mind. Ideally you want to be first in a new category. This will give you credibility, authenticity and instant leadership. Think Red Bull and energy drink. If you aren’t first, then you want to be the opposite of the competition. Think Monster, the 16-oz energy drink and the No.2 brand.

 

The point of a tagline (or positioning statement) is to give consumers a verbal message to share with one another. The test of a good tagline goes like this: If somebody asks you why you bought the brand will the tagline explain it? Does it use words consumers would use? Does it even make any sense?

 

Why did you buy Barilla pasta? Because it is “Italy’s #1 pasta.”

 

Why did you buy a Toyota? Because they are “moving forward?”

 

While I can see the Barilla conversation happening. I could never see the Toyota one happening. Don’t Toyotas go in reverse anymore?

 

MBT fails on all three counts.

 

 

The name: MBT.

 

Launching a brand with meaningless initials is the kiss of death. While companies like IBM and GE might be known by their initials, they actually stand for International Business Machines and General Electric. They can get away with the shorthand because they are leaders and have been around forever, IBM has been around for 84 years and GE 116 years. When you are that old and that established, you can use initials. Note: neither company ever changed their name to the initials.

 

Nobody knows what MBT stands for. When nobody knows your name, you can’t use initials. It just makes a bad name worse. Initials are much more difficult to remember than a name and initials communicate nothing about your brand.

 

What MBT stands for is Masai Barefoot Technology. Of course the full name is no good either. I doubt any tribe in Kenya would be running around in $250 shoes. And the shoes are so big and so klutzy-looking that calling them “barefoot technology” is non-sensical even if it is true. The research might say they re-create the positive effects of walking barefoot, but they don’t give that impression at first glance. And perception is everything.

 

Furthermore, they don’t even own mbt.com! The brand’s website is swissmasaius.com. If you have a bad name, at least you should own the bad name website.

 

What MBT needs is a name like Crocs. Simple, different, memorable and a name alludes to the product. If Crocs were called PSTs (Plastic Shoe Technology), they would never have become the billion-dollar brand they are today.

 

 

The category: What is the category? Nobody knows.

 

MBT calls itself “physiological footwear.” Huh? What is that? Nobody is going to use that as a category name. What kind of physiological footwear do you wear? I don’t think so.

A category name should contain simple words and be easy to understand. And don’t trademark it. If you want to get big, you need your category to get big. And for your category to get big, you need competition.  As long as you are the leading brand, having a flock of followers behind you is a good thing.

 

What are some good category names: energy drink, sports drink, energy bar, expensive coffee, wireless email, safe car, packaged salad, performance underwear, natural cosmetics, organic groceries. Of course, the brands that dominates these categories are the brands that introduced the category (Red Bull, Gatorade, PowerBar, Starbucks, BlackBerry, Volvo, Fresh Express, Under Armour, The Body Shop and Whole Foods.)

 

In this emerging shoe category there are several brands and several words floating around to describe them. There is no consistency and no one idea to describe the category that makes sense to consumers. This is going to be devastating to MBT. Some call them “rolly shoes.” I call them “rockers.” Others call them wobbly or balance shoes. The names are all over the place.

 

Another company makes a flip-flop version called FitFlop which it says has “patent-pending micro-wobbleboard technology.” Walking with wobble boards on my feet doesn’t seem like a safe idea. Nor a good branding idea.

 

All this chaos undermines the potential of the category because nobody understands it or knows what to call it. While MBT has avid fans like me, they don’t have a clear message for the general public or the media to spread the word.

 

In addition to the confusion over the category name, there is confusion over the benefit of the shoes. MBT’s benefits range from the ridiculous “cellulite removal” to the relatively tame “improved posture.”

 

A brand should have one clear benefit. The benefit like the category name should be simple, specific, understandable and believable. For MBT is could be: “Makes every walk a workout.” Or “Get 30% more workout in every step.” The more crazy the benefit the less believable it is.

 

For Amazon.com the benefit was “30% off all books.” For iPod the benefit was “1,000 songs.” For Papa John’s Pizza the benefit is “better ingredients, better pizza.”

 

 

The tagline: First problem, MBT has two. Second problem, neither is any good.

 

Brands should have one tagline and use it everywhere: websites, advertising, letterheads, business cards etc. Having a brand tagline “physiological footwear” and an advertising tagline “the anti-shoe” makes no sense. Two taglines are not better than one.

 

Obviously the agency for MBT took one look at the current brand tagline and said we can’t use that!

 

 

So they came up with “The anti-shoe.” The anti-shoe? MBTs are the biggest, ugliest shoes ever made! How can they ever be known as the anti-shoe? Answer: they can’t.

 

But they can be known as the ultimate workout shoe. Every step, every day is a workout.

 

The thing I like most about MBT shoes is that they are so different looking. Every single time I wear them people notice these shoes and stop me to comment on MBTs. They are like the lime in the top of the Corona bottle. You can’t miss the difference.

 

Geox is a fantastic shoe brand known as “breathable shoes,” but the difference is unnoticeable. Unless you look at the bottom of somebody’s feet, there is no way to see the holes that allow the shoes to breathe.

 

When people see MBTs, they can’t help but to ask: What are they? What do they do? Do they work? Where did I get them? When this happens it pains me because the brand is missing a big opportunity. My answers to these questions are weak because the brand is weak. The terrible name, a shaky position and unnamed category leave me with a difficult story to tell about them. Without word of mouth no brand can thrive.

 

If you are single, you might get a pair of MBT shoes. For some reason guys at the gym see these shoes as the perfect excuse to come and talk to me. One guy said “At first I thought you had the funny shoes because one leg was shorter than the other.” Guess he thought that was a funny line.

 

MBT has got to be careful because FitFlop is moving in. They have a memorable and descriptive name along with a cleaver tagline "It's the flip-flop with the gym built in."

 

MBT shoes are a great product but a lousy brand. Such a shame.

Sign Language

Understanding politics is as easy as reading signs. Forget the polls, forget the speeches, forget the pundits, just read the signs.

One look at the signs at a campaign rally says it all. Who will win. Who will lose.

When building a brand, words matter. And the words that matter most for a politician are the words on campaign posters and website home pages.

The candidate who has the best and most consistent words will build the strongest brand and most likely will win the election.

Politicians are certainly aware of the influence of rally signs, especially in steering media coverage when they are televised. When the President gives a speech, there will always be a sign on the podium or on the wall behind him with his key talking point. That way, even if reporters sleep through the speech or the public mutes the television, the message can be delivered.

Signs can even drown out the actual message. Sometimes with unintentional and disastrous consequences. Remember President George W. Bush’s famed 2003 end-of-combat speech delivered on an aircraft carrier? On May 1, 2003, Bush flew on a Navy jet to the carrier Lincoln, where he announced "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

In retrospect, the speech was misguided in previewing what was to come. But the speech alone would not been as nearly as damaging without the sign behind him. Hanging behind him was a sign that said: “Mission Accomplished.”

Actually, it was a salute to the crew on the ship and not planted by Bush and his team. But that doesn’t matter. A sign is a sign and when it is behind you, you own it.

McCain is the Republican Party’s chosen candidate. He won a relatively easy battle for the nomination, not because of the strength of his message but because of the weakness of the competition. Without strong foes, a brand with no message can succeed. Bud Light may be a watered-down line extension, but without strong competition, the brand is the leader. Not good branding, just weak competition.

So far, John McCain has survived without a message, but going into the general election he won’t go far without one. If he wants to avoid being labeled as “Bush Third Term,” he’s got to start printing some good signs right away. Not an easy task, but without the right sign language, he is doomed.

What would I do for John McCain? First of all, for a message to work it has to resonate and reflect what voters already believe about a candidate. Nobody thought Hillary Clinton was “experienced,” so when she used that idea as a slogan, it fell flat.

A candidate can’t just put a word on a poster and own them. Just like a brand can’t be built by making a self-serving claim in an advertisement.

Just saying you are “experienced” doesn’t allow you to own the word in the mind. Firs, you have to establish credibility and authenticity with the idea.

Being President requires an understanding of a broad range of issues.

Becoming President requires simplicity and focus. A singular idea and a consistent message.

That’s why Bush made a great campaigner and a lousy president.

If I were running McCain’s campaign, I would focus on the word “Maverick.” He is known as a straight talker and willing to work with the opposing party. This is his best attribute. What will hurt him the most is the lack of a consistent message. Changing signs frequently is a bad strategy.

The Obama campaign demonstrates the value of having the right sign language. Barack Obama faced an uphill battle in establishing his brand. First of all, his first and last name are strange. And even worse, Obama rhymes with Osama the country’s number 1 enemy. Add to that he is black, young and new to the national stage. The wacky Reverend Wright hasn’t help him either.

When you compare Obama to Clinton, on paper she is the clear winner. She is the wife of a former and very popular and charismatic President. She is relatively new to holding a political office herself. (Being an insider with an outsider’s edge is a good thing in a campaign.) Most importantly, the Clinton machine gave her a huge head start in raising money.

Sure, she has flaws, but compared to other candidates, she was thought to be unbeatable. Early speculation was that the Republican primary would be a bloodbath and the Democratic primary would be more a Clinton coronation than a contest. How wrong they were.

Where did Clinton go wrong? It all comes down to the signs. She never had consistent sign language. I have never seen so many different and ever changing campaign slogans in my life. I complain about Coca-Cola changing taglines every year, but Clinton seemed to change her signs every day. Except for keeping the printing industry happy, her signs did little to build her brand.

In fact, her constantly changing message reminded people of one of the Clinton brand’s greatest weaknesses. A common criticism of the Clinton presidency was its constant change of strategy with every shift of the wind based on poll tracking data.

All that said, the race has been a tight one. But one I believe was definitively ended on Tuesday night. Not because of the primary results which gave one win to Obama and one to Clinton. But because of the images of each candidate’s “victory” speech. The sign language spoke loud and clear that Obama will win the nomination and Clinton will lose it.

Clinton stood in front of a crowd that held just a few signs. Many were barely readable. Many had various messages and inconsistent colors. In addition, Bill Clinton was brought out to stand stoically at Hillary’s side as if he knew it was over. One readable sign said: “Smart Choice.”

Another one of my favorite of her name slogans was "Let's make history." Now if Clinton were running against McCain that might make an ounce of sense. But against Obama, it is just a waste of paper. Obama winning would be much more likely to make history than Hillary winning. After all she is part of a political dynasty with a former President to back her up.

In North Carolina, Obama was brilliant. He stood tall in front of a sea of supporters all holding the same sign, with the same message, in the same colors. “CHANGE we can believe in.” Powerful stuff. Of course, his speech was incredible, but what clinched it was the sign.

An Achy Breaky Branding Blunder

She was named Destiny Hope Cyrus because her parents knew she would do great things. And that is exactly what the girl now better known as Miley Cyrus and/or Hannah Montana has done.

Miley has become an international pre-teen sensation and mega-brand for the Disney Company. She is only 15 years old but Miley is predicted to be a billionaire by her 18th birthday. Not too bad, all your typical teenager brings home is average grades and acne.

Miley Cyrus’ Empire includes:
- Hit Disney channel TV show: Hannah Montana
- 2 multiplatinum albums
- Sold-out concert tour and concert film
- Upcoming movie (due 2009)
- Book deal with Disney (reportedly seven figures)
- Merchandise including lunch boxes, bed sheets and MP3 players

Miley Cyrus is a teenager and a billion dollar franchise. That is a tough combination to manage from a business, branding and personal perspective. You have three forces at odds with one another.

Disney

Disney is in it for the short term. Disney’s goal is to milk the Miley brand as fast and as furious as it can. Why? Because of the short shelf life of a pop-princess. A pre-teen act has 3 to 5 years maximum before the kids grow up or their fans move on.

Disney can treat Miley like an ordinary brand. Ordinary brands in ordinary categories can develop, grow and mature over decades. (Like Red Bull introduced in 1987. )But in 20 years, Miley will probably be lucky enough to get a call back on a third-rate reality cable television show.

Miley Cyrus will grow out of her role as Hannah Montana brand before you know it. She has maybe 3 good years left. Nothing can stop time or puberty.

Ideally Disney would keep Miley in a bubble. With a short shelf life, nobody wants any major slip-ups.

Today Miley is incredibly important to Disney. But five years from now, they will have created another star to replace her.

Miley’s parents

While they are happy to make money now, Miley’s parents, who also manage her career, are also wisely keeping an eye on the future. Her Dad (Billy Ray Cyrus) knows all too well the realities of being a one-hit wonder.

Team Cyrus has to be very worried about how Miley can sustain her fame past 18 years old. It is not easy. There are very few Justin Timberlakes and Britney Spears who go from Mickey Mouse Club to mainstream stardom. Most fade into oblivion.

I imagine it was team Cyrus who wanted to do the Vanity Fair shoot. Vanity Fair is an upscale, sophisticated, cultural, adult magazine. It is the magazine that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes gave their first baby photo to. And the one Bono was a celebrity editor of last summer.

The thinking goes like this: Appearing in Vanity Fair would give Miley her own credibility and authenticity with an influential adult audience apart from Disney. The photographer, Annie Leibovitz, is one of the most respected artistic photographers of our time and her images would lend an edgy, sophisticated look to young Miley. Clearly Disney would be against this; they want Miley to always be Hannah Montana and stick to Seventeen magazine at the raciest.

Miley Cyrus

Let’s not forget, Miley is a teenager. And as any parent will tell you, teenagers are not the most predictable or reliable of creatures. But for Miley and Disney things have gone perfectly.

The clean-cut, church-going, modestly-dressed Miley has been a dream come true for Disney and parents alike. But you could have said that about Britney Spears 10 years ago. So it goes to show you, you just never know. And sometimes delayed rebellion is far worse than one can imagine.

Britney jumped from Mickey Mouse club to "baby one more time" to this Rolling Stones cover when she was 17. And we have all seen the photos of her today.

Was the Vanity Fair shoot a good idea?

No. From the very start this strategy was flawed.

A few months ago Miley turned 15 years old. She is at the height of her success. Vanity Fair is the wrong magazine, Annie Leibovitz is the wrong photographer and the back-bearing shot was the wrong photograph.

But that was the point of the picture and it shouldn’t be such a shock. An adult magazine wants adult photos. The shot of Miley is a beautiful, artistic, edgy, mature photo commonly found in the book. Vanity Fair does not publish publicity shots, it is known for pushing boundaries. When you play with fire, you can’t complain when you get burned.

The time to move to Vanity Fair is when Miley turns 21. Then you have a story to tell of her move into adulthood. Managing the transition is not easy. Start too young and it is child porn. Start too old and it is creepy.

Will this hurt her brand?

It certainly didn’t help. But it is unlikely to do any long-term damage to the Miley Cyrus brand because:

1: There is nobody else out there for teens to adore. The lack of competition is the best thing she’s got going for her. Hillary Duff is in her 20’s. The Cheetah Girls are in their 20’s. And her biggest competition Jamie Lynn Spears (Nickelodeon star and Britney’s sister) got pregnant last year at just 16 years old.

2: The photo of Miley was shocking but not pornographic. It caused so much attention not because of its raciness, but because it was the opposite of her brand image.

Like I said, being the opposite and looking grown-up was probably the intent of Team Cyrus, but the photo obviously went too far. Although other girls have gone farther, quicker, parents thought that Miley would be different and wouldn’t try to grow up so fast like most other pop-stars.

3: She was not on the cover. Not being on the magazine's cover and being mostly covered is Miley's saving grace. This will allow the controversy to blow off relatively quickly as long as she doesn’t hitting the clubs with Paris Hilton or doing cocaine with Amy Winehouse. And her parents don't book her the cover of Maxim magazine.

Miley immediately issued a statement saying she is “embarrassed” by the photos; so she is likely to get sympathy. Her managers and parents on the other hand will get hell.

While it is good for Miley she is not on the cover. It is bad for Vanity Fair. All this free publicity and they are unlikely to reap any rewards or much of a spike in newsstand sales.

The Future?

While it lasts, Miley needs to enjoy the Hannah Montana ride. Her future is uncertain. If she is like the Olsen Twins, she won’t make it into adult stardom. If she is like Lindsay Lohan, she will make it and then throw it all away by doing drugs. If she is like Madonna, she will be as famous 25 years into her career as she was when she started. The secret to Madonna’s success is that she starts a trend, she fades from view and then she returns reincarnated. Hard to do, but when it works, it is pure magic.

Now playing: Blockbuster Bombs Big

Once upon a time Blockbuster Video was the quintessential success story. A company and a brand that was admired, feared and emulated. With its great name and focused strategy Blockbuster quickly swept the nation via growth and acquisitions to become American’s place to rent movies.

This fairly tale doesn’t end well. Today, Blockbuster is in shambles. Bad decisions, bad strategies and bad management have left the giant gasping for air. Where did it all go wrong? Let’s take a look and find out.

In the beginning things were great.

Great branding and rapid expansion made Blockbuster the world’s largest video rental chain with more than 7,800 stores in more than 20 countries (about 60% of which are in the US). Each year Blockbuster rents more than 1 billion movies and games. Impressive to say the least.

The brains behind Blockbuster was David Cook. In 1985, he created the brand known as Blockbuster by combining a flashy look, a great name and a computerized rental system. Entrepreneur Wayne Huizenga was the money behind Blockbuster.

In 1987, Huizenga took over Blockbuster and injected $18 million into the company. He set out to become the first national brand in the emerging video rental category and the category leader in the mind. In just three years, Blockbuster went from 130 stores to 1,500 stores. In addition, Blockbuster went global. With the purchase of Cityvision, Blockbuster became the largest video renter in the UK in 1992.

The beginning of the end.

Success can sometimes lead to arrogance. And arrogance in this case meant believing you can sell anything, putting your name on everything and being oblivious to the future. Several bad moves sealed Blockbuster's fate.

Bad move #1: Don’t line-extend into businesses you have no business being in.
Blockbuster Music

Feeling quite full of itself Blockbuster launched Blockbuster Music in 1992 by purchasing of the Sound Warehouse and Music Plus chains.

First of all, Blockbuster means movies not music. Second of all, Blockbuster means rentals not sales. Third of all, talk about getting into the wrong business at the wrong time. Retail music chains are a thing of the past. iTunes, Amazon and Wal-Mart are putting them all out of business.

Bad move #2: Be wary of huge corporations taking over your brand.
Viacom takes over Blockbuster and renames the division Blockbuster Entertainment Group.

Big companies have a lot of advantages including lots of money and distribution might. But unfortunately they usually have no marketing sense. Viacom looked at Blockbuster as an opportunity to expand the business into other “entertainment” areas. Bad move.

Corporate ownership isn’t always bad, but when it undermines your marketing strategy and your brand’s authenticity, it can be deadly. For example, Quaker Oats almost killed Snapple. But PepsiCo has done very well with Gatorade.

Bad move #3: Expanding into everything is a killer.
Blockbuster promotes itself as a “Neighborhood Entertainment Center”

Blockbuster greatly expanded the offerings in its stores to make itself a so-called entertainment center. They started selling videotapes (instead of renting them), selling books, CDs, gift items and music.

Consumers don’t use words like “entertainment center.” They rent movies and buy music and watch movies. Blockbuster had a strong and formidable brand in the movie-rental business. Blockbuster’s expansion into other types of entertainment undermines that. They should be saying “Don’t read or listen to music alone, watch a movie with your honey or family tonight.” And they should also be saying “it’s silly to buy a movie you only watch once.”

An attempt to regain its footing

Just when you might have thought all was lost at Blockbuster, the company did make one heroic comeback attempt. In 1997, Blockbuster refocused on movies and returned to its rental roots.

In one of the most brilliant business moves ever, they negotiated with the movie studios and forced them into a revenue-sharing agreement that replaced the standard practice of buying rental copies for as much as $120 each. This move allowed Blockbuster to stock all the latest movies in depth. It also lowered their costs, giving Blockbuster a huge competitive advantage.

Bad move #4: Giving up the future to be greedy in the present.
The DVD takes over and Blockbuster misses the boat.

One thing is for certain, the future will be different than the past, especially when it comes to electronics. In music, there was vinyl, then 8-tracks, then tapes, then CDs and now MP3s. In video, there was Betamax, then VHS and now DVD. Tomorrow it will probably be BluRay and in another ten years something else. Nothing lasts forever.

Blockbuster had a lock on the VHS rental market. With its revenue-sharing agreement, the movie studios received 40% of rental revenues. The formula was such a big success that everybody was happy. A rental window ensured a period of time where a movie was only available for rent before it was available for purchase. And the purchase price was high enough to promote Blockbuster’s highly profitable rental system.

But 1998 was the dawn of the DVD age. And a new technology meant a new agreement between Blockbuster and the studios. The facts are hard to find, but from press reports you can surmise that Blockbuster got greedy and wanted to keep more revenue for itself. Reportedly saying things like “The studios can’t live without a video rental business – we (Blockbuster) are your profit.”

Since rentals represented a $10 billion business for the studios, it was an important market, but today the VHS business is practically $0. Without a new agreement and system for DVDs, the future would be tough for Blockbuster. Too bad they didn’t know back then what they know now.

Warner & Sony which had sunk millions into DVDs didn’t want them to be the new laserdisc but the next VHS. So without a deal with Blockbuster, they moved to plan B. They basically knocked out the rental window and priced DVDs low enough so that they could be sold in competition with rentals. With Blockbuster’s outrageous late fee system, paying $20 to buy a movie could be a lot cheaper than renting it and bringing it back a few days late.

Bad move #5: Getting stuck in the mushy middle
Today Blockbuster is stuck in the mushy middle between Wal-Mart and Netflix.

Turns out people love to buy cheap DVDs. I have a whole closet of DVDs, most of which I haven’t even watched yet and probably never will. I see the case and say, “Gee always wanted to see that movie!” I buy it and then never have the time or patience to watch it. Then there is my closet full of kids’ DVDs. Those are the ones that get watched so many times that the DVDs wear out and I have to buy replacement ones. (All I can say is thank you to Volvo for selling cars with DVD players. Anything to keep two little boys quiet in the car is worth the price.)

By 2003, the studios were taking in three times as much money from DVDs as they were from VHS videos. DVD was the new king and Wal-Mart was the new queen beating out Blockbuster to become the new, single, largest source of revenue for the studios. Making things even worse for Blockbuster is the fact that mass retailers of all types began selling newly-released DVDs below wholesale costs to draw in customers with the hope of selling higher profit TVs and other electronics.

Add to all this, the arrival of Netflix. Like Amazon, Netflix used the internet to offer access to a wealth of titles (100,000 plus) which it delivers and you return via the old-fashioned postal service. A slow process indeed, but with no late fees, no due dates, no postage fees, endless variety and a personal movie queue, it is a system that is a killer. With its most popular plan, Netflix charges a monthly fee which gets you three DVDs at a time with no monthly limit. Simple, clever and cool.

Blockbuster is in the mushy middle. With cheap DVDs selling like hot cakes at Wal-Mart and easy rentals mailing out like crazy at Netflix, Blockbuster has nothing left to sell but its locations. Locations that are costing them an arm and a leg in leases.

Bad move #5: Merging with a loser
Blockbuster trying to take over Circuit City is insane.

Two losers don’t make a winner. Just look at the mess a combination of Sears and Kmart has created. A merger with Circuit City would result in two brands in two different businesses with two sets of problems to deal with.

The last thing Blockbuster needs is more real estate. And the last thing Blockbuster needs is Circuit City, a miserable brand getting clobbered by Best Buy.

In this epic movie, I’m afraid there is no happy ending. If only Blockbuster could go back and rewrite history, maybe things would have been different. But life is not like a movie. Once the scene is shot, there are no retakes.

Hand me a napkin, what a naming mess.

Kentucky Fried Chicken is the world’s most-popular chicken restaurant chain. But while Colonel Sanders’ secret recipe for fried chicken may be finger lickin’ good, the brand strategy has been finger pointingly bad.

In the beginning, things were great. The Kentucky Fried Chicken brand was born in the 1950’s. Colonel Sanders himself created his secret “original recipe” for chicken which he cooked in a pressure fryer to deliver his chicken faster and fresher than the competition. And the Colonel himself travelled from town to town cooking chicken for restaurant owners and signing up franchisees. By 1960, Kentucky Fried Chicken had more than 600 franchised outlets in the United States, Canada and England.

Keys to early success:

1. Be first in a new category.

Pressure-cooked fried chicken with secret spices.

2. Dominate the category.

Kentucky Fried Chicken quickly expanded the business becoming a national then an international chain. The rapid expansion blocked the competition and allowed them to own “fried chicken” in the mind globally.

3. Create a brand personality: Colonel Sanders.

Sure you can succeed by just being first (like Pizza Hunt in pizza.) But you can become so much more powerful if you use a strong spokesperson to lock your brand into the mind. Dave Thomas and Wendy’s. Papa John and Papa John’s Pizza. Michael Dell and Dell Computer. Howard Schultz and Starbucks.
How well known is Colonel Sanders? Well in 1976, an independent survey ranked the Colonel as the second most-recognizable celebrity in the world. Not bad for an old guy from Kentucky selling pressure-fried chicken in a funny suit.

Every brand needs a story. Every brand needs a spokesperson. And Kentucky Fried Chicken has both a wonderful story and a spokesperson. And even though the Colonel had sadly passed on, it doesn’t matter. His image and legend lives on today. It’s just as relevant and integral in selling his namesake chicken as it ever was.

The wave starts to crest.

The mistake most managers make is thinking the good times will last forever. They don’t. You ride a wonderful wave of brand success which eventually either crashes you into the rocks or slowly rolls you into the shore.

Kentucky Fried Chicken is still the biggest and most well-known chicken brand in the world. But it faces a serious problem. A problem management has incorrectly dealt with time and time again over the last 20 years.

The problem: fried food is unhealthy. And people are looking to eat healthier.

So what has Kentucky Fried Chicken been doing? You know what they have been doing, they have been trying to run away from “fried” the only idea they own in the mind, as well as copy every hot new chicken trend.

1. Running from Fried.

In 1991, Kentucky Fried Chicken changed its name and signage to KFC. As if using only initials removes fried from the name. It doesn’t. People may use the abbreviation to refer to the restaurant, but the abbreviation is just short hand for Kentucky Fried Chicken. The focus is still on fried albeit it with a weaker name. Initials are never more powerful than a strong brand name. Changing from a strong brand name to initials doesn’t make sense.

2. Chasing competition.

Boston Chicken was a big success, so KFC launched Colonel’s Rotisserie Gold and Tender Roast chicken.

White Castle was a big success, so KFC launched the Chicken Little sandwich.

McDonald’s was a big success with McNuggets, so KFC launched Kentucky Nuggets.

Were any of these successful line extensions for KFC? No. All have since been discontinued.

What is next?

Today, KFC is going back to basics and expanding all at the same time. And all slapped together in a new name.

First the good news. In 2007 company leaders realized their mistake and wisely went back to the original name and signage of Kentucky Fried Chicken. (Unfortunately most international locations remain KFC.)
Now the bad news. With “fried” still a worry, company leaders are adding “grilled” to the name. As if Kentucky Fried Chicken could become healthy like in some bad reality makeover show.

The new name expected to roll out nationally in 2009 is: Kentucky Fried & Grilled Chicken.

They will have the good, the bad and the ugly all together in one name and one giant mess.

What should they do?

The reality is that people are still eating fried foods and fried chicken. Not too many people are going for the carrot sticks over the fries. The future may belong to healthier alternatives. But the now belongs mostly to tasty higher fat and calorie eats.

I think there is a compromise right in front of Kentucky Fried & Grilled Chicken’s eyes. A way to keep the bad and include the good without resorting to a long and difficult name.

Why not just call it Kentucky Chicken? That name would work globally and solidify Kentucky Chicken as the dominate chicken brand for today and allow them to transition to healthier fare for the future.

Hand me a napkin, this is one mess that can easily be cleaned up.

Laura's Best Baby Brands

Babies bring joy to our lives and many new brands into our homes. I've had a lot of experience with baby brands in the last six years. As a Mom and a marketer it has been fun to evaluate them on both levels. I have watched the rise of lots of exciting new brands first hand. Here are my picks of the best brands.

You will notice that all the best new brands have several similar elements in common:

1. First in a new category.
2. Great name.
3. Tons of PR.

Boppy
$35.00 at Babies R Us

The most popular shower gift in America, Boppy is the must-have tool for all new Moms. The breast is best, say most Doctors, and Boppy makes it possible. I had one in every room I fed my baby. So I never had to reach too far when I heard a scream.

Designed with ergonomics in mind, Boppy provides support to reduce strain on your arms, shoulders and neck. It also can be used for propping a baby and allowing for tummy time. But its main focus is helping Mom’s feed their babies comfortably.

Dr. Brown’s
3 pack is $14.00 at Wal-Mart

For working Moms that breastfeed, a good pump and good bottles are a must. So I lugged my Medela “pump in style” breast pump all over the world from South Africa to India. But Medela doesn’t make my list because while it is a perfect pump it is a terrible brand. The name alone gives it little chance for success. I still can never remember it or how to say it.

While Medela did a lousy job of branding, the opposite is true of Dr. Brown’s. Dr. Brown’s initially focused on helping babies with colic. The bottle’s patented design helps with reduce air in-take a main cause of colic. Of course, what parent even wants to take a chance with colic. Like many parents, I used these just in case. And once you and your baby get attached to a bottle you seldom change.

Dr. Brown’s started as a narrowly focused specialty product but is now mainstream, not because the product expanded but because the consumer upgraded.

Dr. Brown’s is great example of using personalization in a name, like Papa John’s Pizza or Dell Computer. The name really gives credibility with this product, reinforcing the advantage of having the bottle designed by a doctor. (A kindly grey haired Dr. Brown comes to mind immediately.)

Bugaboo
$899 at BabyStyle

Best known for tulips Holland is also the home of great design. Bugaboo innovative strollers from the Netherlands are both functional as well as beautiful. Many times a hot brand will upgrade the whole category.

What Dyson did for vacuum cleaners, Bugaboo has done for strollers. While every other manufacturer was trying to make a stroller/car-seat combination, Bugaboo made a streamlined stroller with a look that appealed to parents not kids.

Seeing a Bugaboo for the first time certainly makes a lasting impression. When I first got mine, people would stop me all the time.

Robeez
$33.00 at Zappos

While most baby shoes are cute tiny versions of adult/kid shoes, Robeez are different. Robeez are designed especially for babies and toddlers. Barefoot is best for growing feet (according to most doctors and podiatrists) but babies’ feet also need protection and warmth. Robeez have thin soles, stay in place, are flexible and lightweight. As a result they are durable, breathable, skid-resistant and safe. Robeez is the doctor-recommended perfect first shoe. And with all the unbelievably cute designs, you hope your baby stays little just a little bit longer so you can buy more.

Bumbo
$40.00 at Babies R Us

A huge problem is that babies can’t sit up. Having to lie on your back or stomach all day is tough. New parents don’t realize how long it takes (at least 8 months) before a baby has the muscle strength to sit up. Bumbo offers a revolutionary seat that enables babies to sit upright all by themselves as soon as they can support their own head (around 6-8 weeks.) Bumbo is a brand are built by taking branding risks (not safety risks) and doing what nobody else has done or even thought of before.

Webkinz
$8-$15 at Amazon

Webkinz are not the same as your older sister’s Beanie Babies or your mother’s Cabbage Patch Dolls. Webkinz aren’t just a copy of the last toy craze they are something totally new and different.

The key to success is being first in a new category. Webkinz are the first stuffed animal that also lives in an exclusive virtual world. After ripping the code off the leg that allows online access for the pet on Webkinz.com kids basically throw the animal in the corner hardly to be played with again.

While many adults have checked out Second Life, millions of kids have stampeded to Webkinz World.

Crocs
$31.00 at Zappos

Looks aren’t everything. These funky-looking plastic shoes sure don’t look pretty, but wearing them is comfortable and contagious. When seeing a pair of Crocs for the first time, you think what are THOSE on your feet? The shock factor has greatly contributed to the Crocs craze. They are perfect shoes for kids since they are cheap, easy to wear and practical. Plus you can customize and decorate your Crocs to your heart’s content with Jibbitz (a nice second brand from Crocs). And at $2.50 a Jibbitz, that is money in the bank for Crocs.

Monkey Joe’s
Around $8 to play, Nationwide in the U.S.

In the 80’s every kid wanted to go to the fair to jump on the Moonwalk. In the 90’s every kid wanted to have an inflatable slide on their lawn for their birthday party. Now every kid wants to play every day at a Monkey Joe’s and have their birthday party there too.

Monkey Joe’s is the first chain (in the mind) of indoor inflatable playgrounds. Many companies have gotten into this emerging market, but Monkey Joe’s is the best because it has the best brand. Jump Zone? Way too generic. Too many companies that launch brands in new categories opt for a descriptive words when the best strategy is a new word (Bugaboo) or words used out of context (Monkey Joe’s).

As my kids move into school there are so many new brands to discover. We are all looking forward to the adverture of it.