Ries' Pieces

NEW BOOK: Visual Hammer

    Forty years ago, Advertising Age published a series of articles by my father, Al Ries, and Jack Trout titled "The Positioning Era Cometh."

    Nine years later, McGraw-Hill published their book "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind." In the years that followed, "positioning" became one of the most talked-about concepts in the marketing community. In its 75th anniversary edition, Advertising Age selected positioning as one of its 75 “top ad moments.”

    But as revolutionary as positioning was, it had a weakness. Invariably, positioning strategy was expressed verbally. You looked for a verbal hole in the mind and then you filled that hole with your brand name.

    The best way into the mind is not with words. It’s with visuals. They can play a more important role in marketing than words because visuals hold emotional power that words alone do not. Emotion is the glue that sticks memories and brands into the mind.

    Consider what the pink ribbon has done for Nancy Brinker. In 1982, Ms. Brinker started a foundation to fight breast cancer in memory of her sister, Susan G. Komen. Since then, the foundation has raised nearly $2 billion. Today, Susan G. Komen for the Cure is the world’s-largest non-profit source of money to combat breast cancer. 

    The American Cancer Society was founded in 1913, yet most people have no idea what visual symbol the society uses. 

    Here’s the difference: The Cancer Society has a trademark that is almost impossible to verbalize while Susan G. Komen has a visual hammer that is easy to verbalize.

    Then there’s Aflac, the company that brought us the duck. In 2000, the first year the duck was advertised, sales went up 29%. The second year, 28%. The third year, 18%.

    Before the duck, Aflac had a name recognition of 12%. Today, it’s 94%. (The duck is the hammer and the “quack” is the verbal nail. It’s the integration of the two that makes the brand so memorable.) 

    The advertising industry is hung up on trademarks and logotypes, but in reality they account for only a small percentage of visual hammers. Anything associated with a brand can become a hammer. Color, packaging, demonstrations, founders, celebrities. Even the product itself.

    In 2010, Coca-Cola spent $267 million advertising its brand in the U.S. What was Coke's slogan? Most people don’t remember. What they do remember is the “contour” bottle. 

    The contour bottle is not just a bottle—it’s a visual hammer that hammers in the idea that Coke is the original, the authentic cola, the real thing. Even though Coca-Cola sells very little cola in contour bottles, the visual is strongly identified with the brand. And they reinforce the visual hammer by using the bottle image on its cans, cups, billboards, trucks and even business cards. 

    If Coke’s contour bottle says "the authentic cola," what does Pepsi's "smiley-face" trademark, introduced in 2008 to much fanfare, say? Pepsi's new smiley-face trademark says "Pepsi." In essence, it's a rebus, a visual symbol that’s a substitute for a brand name.

    In fact, almost all trademarks are rebuses. After years of constant use, they can be recognized as symbols that stand for brand names. But trademarks don’t have to be meaningless.

    Nike, for example, has the Swoosh, a powerful visual hammer. The Swoosh doesn’t just say "Nike." The Swoosh says "leadership." Nike was first in its category, giving it permission to create a visual hammer out of a rather mundane checkmark that has been streamlined. Today, everybody knows what a Swoosh looks like, but how many people can rattle off a description of Reebok’s trademark?

    If you’re not first in a category, you need a hammer, not a trademark.

    Not every brand gets it right. Take Red Bull. Despite $5.1 billion in annual sales, Red Bull doesn’t own a visual hammer. It had the opportunity, but its visual is too complicated for a small energy-drink can. "Two bulls and a sun" make a weak hammer. Furthermore, its blue cans undermine the Red Bull name.

    In spite of these examples, why do many marketing people work exclusively with words, when the real power is with visuals? Don’t get me wrong—words are important, too. The objective of a marketing program is to "own a word in the mind” and visuals shouldn’t come before some well-thought positioning planning. But to consider words independent of how they might relate to a visual would be a mistake.

    The interplay between words and images is like a nail and a hammer. If the objective is to nail two pieces of wood together, why fool around with a hammer? Why not just focus all of your efforts on putting the pieces of wood together with a nail?

    That's the problem of marketing. Your most useful tool is a visual hammer, but the nail comes first. Unless you pick the right nail, all the creative hammers in the world are not going to help very much.

    For decades, marketers have sat in meetings developing positioning statements for their brands. But sorry Dad, today that’s not enough. Today, marketers also need a visual hammer to build their brands. A visual hammer that connects emotionally, authentically and credibly with consumers.

This post is an except of a longer article that was published in Advertising Age on March 12, 2012 entitled: Repositioning 'Positioning': Connect with Consumers with a Visual Hammer; Not Verbal Nails. Laura Ries Uncovers the 'Weakness' in her father Al's famed theory on Postioning. Read the Ad Age article here.

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The Secret of Steve Jobs

    Steve Jobs was a rebel who didn’t go about life or work in the normal way. He dropped out of college, was a fruitarian for a time and was often called an arrogant, obnoxious, weirdo.

    Being a rebel, however, wasn’t the secret of Steve Jobs. In our youth-obsessed culture, rebels are a dime a dozen.

    Steve Jobs was a technology genius. From an early age, he was fascinated by electronics. He tinkered at his father’s workbench and joined his high-school electronics club. Jobs was so gifted that Atari's chief technology engineer gave him a job as a game designer even though he had no formal technical training.

    But being a technology nerd wasn’t Job’s secret either. Silicon Valley is filled with brilliant technology nerds.

    Steve Jobs was a design genius.  He was obsessed with creating tools that were not just good but beautiful. And his aesthetic sense didn’t just apply to the outside of things; even the inside of things had to be beautiful. On the Apple II, for example, Jobs insisted that the circuits be redone to make the lines straighter.

    But being a design genius wasn’t the secret of Steve Jobs either. Check out your local Ikea; it is filled with wonderful designs.

    The world has many great rebels, great technology geeks and great designers. What made Steve Jobs so unique was his supremely-gifted marketing ability.

    Here are some examples of the marketing decisions made by Steve Jobs. Decisions that put Apple on the path to becoming  the world’s most valuable company.

 

The power of a simple brand name.

    In the 1970s and 1980s, there were hundreds of brands of personal computers on the market. Many of these brands were line extensions of existing brands: AT&T, Burroughs, Dictaphone, Digital, ITT, Memorex, Motorola, NCR, Radio Shack, Smith Corona, Siemens, Xerox and many others.

     Many of these brands were new brands with strange names: Osborne, Commodore, Micro Pro and dozens of others.

    The difference between Apple and the other brands wasn’t in the hardware. It was in the name. Apple was a simple name consumers could instantly associate with the home market. The name also allowed a simple "apple" visual which hammered the name into prospects' minds. (How would you visualize Micro Pro?)

    Furthermore, Jobs resisted the path that many entrepreneurs take. That is, giving the brand his own name. Would Jobs Corporation have become the world's most-valuable company? Or even worse, how about Jobs & Wozniak Corporation?

 

The power of a second brand.

    During a 1979 visit to Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, Jobs saw a prototype of a computer with a graphical user interface. Rather than typing commands, users rolled a mouse and clicked on menus. This technology fit with Jobs' philosophy of making computers that were dead simple to use. He immediately started working on replicating the technology.

    On January 24, 1984, Apple released the Macintosh. Previously, the product line included such names as Apple I, Apple II and Apple IIe. But this new computer got its own name and thereby created its own new category. Most companies would have called it the Apple III, but not Steve Jobs.

 

The power of an enemy.

    Sometimes the best way to position a brand is by figuring out who your enemy is and then being the opposite. Apple's obvious enemy was IBM which had about 50 percent of the PC market.

    That is exactly what Jobs did with the famous 1984 Super Bowl commercial announcing the launch of the Macintosh. What made the commercial so powerful was that almost everybody instantly recognized Big Brother, who represented "conformity," as a stand-in for IBM. He repeated the same strategy later with the Mac vs. PC guy ads.

 

The power of being first.

    In his career at Apple, Steve Jobs did this over and over again. Launching a new product that was the first brand in a new category.

    Pixar's Toy Story. The first feature-length animated movie done entirely on computers.

    Apple's iPod – the first hard-drive music player.

    Apple's iPhone – the first touchscreen smartphone.

    Apple's iPad – the first tablet computer.

 

The power of a diverging category.

    Initially we were skeptical of the iPhone. Jobs had described his new brand as a combination iPod, cellphone,  email-and-internet device, all rolled into one. A red flag went up in our head since convergence devices are typically flawed.

    The Nokia Communicator had been on the market for a number of years, it was a combination personal digital assistant and cellphone and it was a total loser. But in reality, the iPhone was not a convergence device. Jobs may not have explained it correctly initially, but no matter. The iPhone exploited the divergence phenomenon by becoming the first “touchscreen” phone.

    But it wasn’t just the touchscreen that would be the iPhone's greatest achievement. It was the way the iPhone handled the many hundreds of thousands of apps created for the new device.  What email did for BlackBerry, Apps did for iPhone. Apps made the iPhone more than a cellphone, more than a music player, more than an email device, more than a web device. iPhone was a totally new touchscreen App device.

 

The power of the verbal.

    When you are the first brand in a new category, consumers need extra help in understanding what you are selling. Steve Jobs had an amazing ability to simplify not just his products but his product messages as well.

    With two words, “Think Different,” Jobs communicated the essential difference between the Macintosh and every other PC.

    With five words, “1,000 songs in your pocket,” Jobs communicated the essential difference between the iPod and the other MP3 players that could only hold 30 songs.

 

The power of the visual.

    Words can communicate a message, but visuals can reach consumers emotionally in a way that words cannot. Jobs understood the power of visuals like no other CEO on the planet and effectively used simple visuals to build his brands.

    The rainbow apple for Apple.

    The white ear buds for iPod.

    The even better white apple for Apple Inc.

    Job's presentations were also powerful visually. First was his consistency of dress. From 1998 to 2011 (the era of his return to Apple), he always wore a black turtleneck and jeans for his presentations. Even more impressive were the slides he used during his famed presentations. No text-filled PowerPoints for Steve. Nothing but a huge screen with just a single image and a few words on each slide.

    A picture is worth a thousand words.

 

The power of multiple brands.

    Apple didn't get to be the most valuable company in the world by expanding one brand into multiple businesses.  Apple launched multiple brands.

    In the beginning, Apple Inc. made the Apple computer. But no longer. The Apple computer died along with the home-computer category.

    Today, Apple is a company name, not a brand name. And a good one at that. Apple Inc. owns the brands: Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad.

 

    No CEOs make decisions and follow the principles of branding the way Steve Jobs did. He has left us an amazing legacy.

    Future leaders should study Steve Jobs and his accomplishments so that they too can build brands the way Jobs did. If you build brands like Jobs, you can build the next most valuable company in the world.

 

High Five to FiveFingers

 

              There is nothing I get more excited about than seeing a new category and a new brand hit the market. There’s the thrill of discovery the first time you hear about one or read about one. The challenge of finding the store that has one. The glory of getting your hands on one. The pride in showing yours off. And the jealousy and bewilderment on the faces of those who don’t have one.

 

            I’m not alone. In every category, there are always enthusiasts or early adopters who jump on new trends and make them future brand successes.

 

            Creating excitement is one of the keys to brand success. Easy to say, hard to do, you might be thinking. Wrong. There are some surefire keys to generating enthusiasm.

 

            1. Be specific and narrow.

 

            Don’t promise everything; promise one thing. Your product or service might be great at lots of things, but “lots of things” isn’t an idea that gets into the minds of consumers and isn’t an idea to get excited about. Focus on one key idea. Preferably one that is the opposite of the competition.

 

            For years, running shoes have added springs, cushions, treads, electronics and all sorts of things. MBTs and Sketchers even have extra thick heals.

 

            Vibram did the opposite. They don’t wrap your feet in an array of features; they free your feet. More of a sock than a sneakers, wearing Vibram FiveFingers is more like being barefoot. With 26 bones, 33 joints, 20 muscles, and hundreds of sensory receptors, tendons and ligaments the typical human foot is an anatomical marvel of evolution. Like the rest of the body, the feet need to be stimulated and exercised to keep them healthy.  Vibram FiveFingers’ barefoot technology stimulates and exercises your feet.

  

 FiveFingers = Barefooting.

Stimulating your feet to make you stronger and improve your balance.

 

            2. Create a visual difference.

 

            If your brand doesn’t have a visual difference it is going to be very difficult to create excitement. Shock and surprise is what generates excitement. You need to stop consumers in their tracks to say “What is that?!”

 

            Sometimes a visual difference is a natural part of the product; at other times you need to exaggerate or create a difference.

 

            Monster introduced an energy drink in a 16-oz can. That shocking visual difference generated interest and excitement. It also made Monster the #2 brand behind leader Red Bull whose 8.3 oz can created its own visual difference by being the first small can. Most recently 5-Hour Energy entered the market with the energy shot in the exciting 2-oz bottle.

 

            With Vibram FiveFingers, the difference is shocking and easy to see.

             It’s the toes!

 

            Vibram could have easily hidden the toe pockets, but they didn’t. Instead, the design enhanced them. Every time you wear a pair of FiveFingers you are sure to get several people asking “what is that on your feet?”

 

            3.  Make it pass along friendly.

 

            One of the biggest mistakes companies make is not giving a product a strong brand name that consumers can use to pass along the message to others. Both the name and brand message need to be in language that consumers will actually use.

 

            Seattle’s Best Coffee. Too generic, not distinctive, hard to pass along.

            MBT. Meaningless initials, hard to remember, hard to pass along.

            Eucerin. Impossible to pronounce, impossible to spell, hard to pass along.

 

            Eucerin has survived and thrived in spite of its impossibly horrible, unpronounceable name only because of its strong in its position as the dry-skin treatment dermatologist recommend. (Apparently the dermatologist figured out how to pronounce it.) The rest of us are unlikely to ever learn it. I buy Eucerin, but never tell anyone, because I have no idea how to say it.

 

            It’s best to have a name and a message that are both pass-along friendly. A unique, memorable name combined with an easy-to-understand and easy-to-explain message.

           

            FiveFingers is a super name. Much better than TenToes which is too generic. The idea of using fingers for toes is what makes the name stick in the mind. They look like gloves for your feet. That idea hooks the visual difference into the name. Of course, that difference also leads itself into the explanation of why FiveFingers?

 

            “I love my FiveFingers because being barefoot is better for my feet. It makes them stronger and healthier and improves my balance.” A nice pass-along name and message.

 

          

                A few problems with the FiveFingers brand.

 

            First, the typeface they use is very difficult to read. Never sacrifice legibility for visual gymnastics. Graphic designers may love to create artistic looks, but the bottom line is that consumers need to read the words.

 

            Second is the double branding and third branding when you throw in the model names. I bought the Vibram FiveFingers Bikila for example.  Way too many names going on.

 

            The box has a large Vibram logo. That extra word just drags down and dilutes the idea. It is best to focus on one name. Vibram is unnecessary. Sure Vibram is the company that makes them. But FiveFingers is the brand. If Vibram is there at all it should be tiny and more oriented towards the trade. Consumers buy FiveFingers. The trade orders them from Vibram. Of course, the company is most likely in love with its Vibram name and heritage. Consumers could care less, they should have put the FiveFingers brand name on the shoes. Sadly the company doesn’t own the fivefingers.com website either, they use vibramfivefingers.com.

McDonald's Goes Above & Beyond

     It seems that no brand is safe these days. From Toyota, the world’s largest car maker. To Tylenol, the country’s largest over-the-counter drug. To McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast-food chain.

      Each of these three brands has suffered massive recalls with the potential for massive brand damage.

      That said, even if its response to a disaster is less than perfect, a leading brand has an amazing ability to survive. Consumers believe the leader is better and runs a better company than its competition. As a result, consumers are willing to give the leader the benefit of the doubt. Consumers will almost always give a leader a second (or even a third) chance to make things right.

      One catastrophe won’t normally bring down a leading brand. The only thing that will bring down a leading brand is continuous and escalating catastrophes. Something we haven’t yet seen. (Remember, way before the current Gulf spill, BP wasn’t the leading oil company and also had a poor reputation for safety.)

      Even though a leading brand has more damage-control leeway doesn’t mean a leader should sit on its laurels when disaster strikes. A leading brand can reinforce its dominance by responding above and beyond what is expected.

      That is exactly what McDonald’s is doing.

      Last Friday, McDonald’s moved at lightning speed and initiated a voluntary recall of its popular Shrek glasses that contained trace amounts of a toxic metal in the paint. The tainted glasses were first discovered by a band of Moms with heavy-metal home-tests and then reported to California Congresswoman Jackie Speier and to the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC.)

      While the spread of the tainted-glassware story certainly posed a problem for McDonald’s, the glassware itself wasn’t all that dangerous. Chief spokesperson for the Consumer Product Safety Commission told Fortune magazine that “the product was not toxic and does not pose an acute risk to children,” adding that “the risk to consumers was very low.”

      Many companies would have used this evidence to counter-attack critics. Many companies would have also shifted the blame to a supplier. (McDonald’s didn’t make the glasses and the supplier was a U.S. company. McDonald’s didn’t buy the glasses from a shady Chinese factory.)

      McDonald’s did neither. In its response, McDonald’s went above and beyond. It quickly recalled all the glasses. And it is paying consumers a premium for returning them. McDonald’s will pay a whopping $3 in cash per glass. (They had been selling the glasses for $1.99 with a food purchase and $2.49 without food.)

      For a company to pay above the purchase price for a recall is almost unheard of. But in McDonald’s case, the extra money is being well spent.

      Paying above the price of the glasses does two things. First, it gets more of the unsafe products out of the marketplace. In a typical recall, only 10 to 30 percent of consumers respond. I imagine McDonald’s numbers will be much greater.

      Two, it shows that McDonald’s doesn’t just care about the recall, it also cares about its customers. It is compensating them for the recall and making sure it gets as many glasses out of the hands of children as possible.

      While Toyota and Tylenol underestimated their problems and delayed responding to them, McDonald’s has done just the opposite.

      McDonald’s went above and beyond. They overestimated and overcompensated. I’m lovin’ it.

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!

 

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.

5 Best Line Extensions of 2007

What is a line extension?

Taking a brand name in one category and using the same brand name in another category. Example: Tostitos are tortilla chips and now they make Tostitos salsa.

Top 5 Line Extensions of 2007

5. American Idol Camp

An extension of the hottest reality show on television. Now kids 10-15 can live their dream and learn about the music business from the pros.

4. Virgin America Airlines

An extension of Richard Branson’s successful Virgin Atlantic Airlines. Virgin America has a unique and focused position (low-fare, long-haul airline servicing the coasts) with a coolness factor of 10 and Sir Richard to boot.

3. Newman’s Own Wine

Paul Newman started with Newman’s Own salad dressing in 1982. And today Newman’s Own sells a wide variety of products that are focused on being better for you and better for others with 100% of the companies profits being donated to charities.

2. Curves Cereal

An extension of Curves the hottest brand in fitness and largest chain of gyms in the US. Many women include cereal in their diet plan. In a category with many small brands Curves on the box makes the position crystal clear.

1. PetSmart’s PetsHotel

The way to win is by being first. PetsHotel is not the first doggie hotel, but it is the first national brand. Budweiser was the first national brand of beer.

PetSmart has the brand savvy, operational expertise and real estate connections to make PetSmart a big success. If there is one thing we love more than our kids, it is our pets, and in some cases even more.

Why do some line extensions work and others fail?

Line extensions can work when a brand moves into a complementary category that has weak competition.

Virgin Cola didn’t work because Virgin is an airline and has no credibility in cola. And Coke and Pepsi are such dominant brands there is little room for anybody else even if Richard Branson will jump off a mountain naked to promote it. Same for Virgin vodka, Virgin wedding dresses and most of the crazy Virgin line extensions.

Many people assume we are against all line extensions. Not true. Most are foolish, faulty or forgetful. But some succeed and are savvy business moves. Sometimes a brand is so powerful it is OK to dilute it with expansion especially when the competition is weak.

Just remember, the real power in branding and business is in launching new brands.

Dancing her brand back into the mind

Can Heather Mills dance? Who cares? She entered the fourth season of ABC’s hit reality show Dancing with the Stars, not to show off her dance steps but to rebuild her brand.

Mills was made famous by marrying former Beatle Paul McCartney in 2002 and having his child in 2003. But the marriage hit the skids in 2006 and ever since Mills has taken a pounding by the British press.

The Sun newspaper has written that Mills was everything from a porn star and a hooker to a shoplifter and a gold digger. The Heather Mills brand had a hard time recovering from the PR damage caused by the ugly divorce. Unlike the U.S. public, U.K. people are less forgiving and less likely to give celebrities a second chance. Prince Charles, for example, has fought long and hard for his second chance.

Here in the U.S. and in most other places around the world, while the public loves to bring down a superstar, they also equally as love to see them rise to the top again. Some recent examples: Martha Stewart, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Mel Gibson.

Heather Mills is a young, beautiful, courageous young woman and mother. Having survived a turbulent early life with a mother who left home and a father who went to prison, Mills has made a difference in the world. In the early 1990s, she modeled to raise funds for refugees of the Yugoslavian war. And more recently Mills has become a crusader for amputees after losing her own leg in a 1993 accident in which she was struck by a car.

But irregardless of this, Heather Mills is a person and a brand in trouble. The question is how does she get her brand back on track?

The answer is by following two basic steps.

The first step is to settle the big question of the divorce. This is the open, oozing wound of the Mills brand. An ugly divorce is bad enough, but in her case the ex-husband is honorary royalty who had a much-loved spouse who died and is worth a fortune.

With no prenuptial agreement between the two, much mudslinging has gone on in the media about what will happen to Paul’s millions. How much does Heather deserve and how much will she get? The more damaged her brand the less she will get. So lawyers on both sides went at it, in the courts and in the media.

Luckily this wound has been stitched up with a January 21st divorce agreement between Heather and Paul. Reports say the agreement gives Heather $62 million in cash and property and incorporates a gag order.

The ongoing money battle was the most damaging to Heather and her brand. With this issue over and the gag order forbidding any further discussion of the matter, Mills now has the opportunity to move on and to begin the healing process for her brand.

So what should Heather do next? Well, the second step to repairing her brand is using PR to build support and credibility again. This is the key reason celebrities have the ability to make a comeback, an advantage most of us don’t have. When Peter Bacanovic, Martha Stewart’s broker got out of jail, he had no money, no job and no future. Martha, on the other hand, left jail went on Larry King Live, starting filming her television show and quickly rebuilt her brand.

The public and the media are fascinated by celebrities, so much so that any celebrity has the opportunity to rebuild his or her damaged brand as long as they give the press a reason to interview them again. Stewart had a new show, Clinton had a new cause, Gibson had a new movie.

Astutely, Heather got herself out of the U.K. When you are losing the battle, change the battlefield. The U.S. is a much friendlier place for her to resurrect her brand. Once she is big here she can take that success back to the U.K. Just look at Sarah Ferguson (the former Duchess of Pork, as described by the British media.) Fergie did the same thing by coming to the U.S., losing weight and becoming the face of Weight Watchers.

Tonight, Heather will join the new season of the best TV show for reviving lost-cause careers, Dancing with the Stars. It is both brilliant and funny at the same time. What is funny is that the show is actually based on a BBC show, Strictly Come Dancing.

What is brilliant is that Dancing with the Stars has become an international franchise in 29 countries around the world. Dance Your Brand Back into the Mind is what I like to call the show. What American Idol is to building new stars, Dancing with the Stars is to reviving fallen stars. The U.S. version of Dancing has had such stars as Jerry Springer, George Hamilton, Tatum O’Neil, Jerry Rice, Drew Lachey and Mario Lopez. (All former losers working their way back up the ladder of success.)

So far, Heather Mills is the biggest heavyweight the show has booked, which makes her appearance even more newsworthy. Of course, there is also the fact that she has an artificial leg only, just look at USA Today’s cover story today. It gives Heather something important to talk about while dancing across the stage on such a campy show. The real reason many will be turning in, as one television reporter correctly pointed out is “Everyone will be watching to see if her leg falls off while dancing. We want to see her fall down, smile and then get back up again.”

That is what we all want isn’t it? To see people, especially celebrities, be human, make mistakes then get back up again and succeed. It is the American dream. And I think Heather Mills is well on her way to make her dreams come true with a little help from Dancing with the Stars.

Ries brand extension

Sorry I have not posted anything on my blog in a few weeks. But I have been very busy bringing a new Ries into the world. My son Brendan was born three weeks ago and I have been busy changing diapers, feeding and burping the little guy. Not to mention running after his older brother. I think working at Ries & Ries is easier than working at home.

Anyway, I'll be back tomorrow with a great post on a hot new diet book by a fitness guru who has used the advice of Ries & Ries and is about to become a branding superstar.

Bravo to Yellow Tail

“Makers of Best-Selling Wine Begin First Adverting Campaign,” was the headline of York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott’s In Advertising weekly email Tuesday.

Brilliant. Exactly how successful branding is accomplished today.

Yellow Tail arrived in America in 2001. The first year Yellow Tail sold 200,000 cases. The second year they sold 2.2 million cases. This year they are on track to sell 7 million cases.

How much did Yellow Tail spend on advertising to achieve this tremendous growth? Not one dollar. Instead strong word of mouth fueled by PR was responsible for their success.

Yellow Tail is not only the best-selling Australian wine in America, it is also the No.1 imported wine beating out over 6,500 rivals.

Is now the right time to advertise the brand? You bet.

When you are a leader, you should use advertising as a defensive strategy against competition. You use advertising to reinforce your brand message and leadership position.

One of the biggest mistakes many brands make is not using advertising when it is really needed. Anita Roddick built The Body Shop into a powerful brand. In the 80’s the brand had enormous buzz, word-of-mouth and power. The Body Shop experienced explosive growth. Then things hit a wall.

A brand can’t live on word-of-mouth and PR forever. At some point the brand loses its talk value. That is the time you need to jump in with advertising. And advertising is something the Body Shop has never done. Anita was morally opposed to it. The Body Shop eventually fired Anita, but it was probably not soon enough.

So, hurray to Yellow Tail! (The Shiraz is my favorite, by the way.)

Another brand building success story to add to our presentations.