Ries' Pieces

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.

The Good, the Bad and the Smelly

The past two days I have been up early to appear on Fox Business' "Money for Breakfast" to count down my top 5 line extension winners and losers of 2007 or "The Good, the Bad and the Smelly" as I refer to them. I'll start today with the losers and follow-up later this week with the winners.

What is a line extension?

A line extension is taking a brand name in one category and using the same brand name in another category. Scott used to be just a toilet paper. The number-one brand in fact. Today Scott is into everything:

• Scott toilet tissue
• Scott napkins: Scotkins
• Scott paper towels: ScotTowels
• Scott facial tissue: Scotties

Line extension killed the brand. No longer is Scott the number-one brand of toilet tissue. Today Charmin is the number-one brand. While well-known, Scott is a meaningless brand in the mind because its name is on everything.

Put Scott on a shopping list and what do you buy? I put Coke on the list; I buy Coca-Cola. I put Charmin on the list; I buy toilet tissue. I put Scott on the list and what do I buy and where do I use it?

Are different flavors a line extension?

Line extensions are sometime confused with flavors and varieties. Vanilla Coke is a flavor and Diet Coke is a line extension. There are lots of varieties of Tostitos chips. But Tostitos salsa is a line-extension.

Why do companies line-extended in the first place?

It’s the cheapest way to introduce a new product. You don’t have to spend millions of dollars on advertising establishing your brand’s credibility because everybody already knows your brand name. That’s why 90% of new supermarket brands are line extensions.

Unfortunately most new brands fail. It is especially confusing when you have the same brand name in two different categories. And long term, line extension it can damage the core brand by undermining its meaning in the mind.

But if they didn’t line extend how would companies ever grow?

Instead of always thinking how to line extend, companies should think more about launching second brands. Many line extensions represent a missed opportunity. Toyota could have sold many expensive Toyotas, but they would have missed an opportunity to launch the Lexus brand which today dominates the expensive car category. Lexus is much more valuable than the sales that might have been generated by an expensive Toyota model.

The 5 Worst Line Extensions of 2007

1. Play-Doh Cologne.

Hasbro says the fragrance is "meant for highly-creative people, who seek a whimsical scent reminiscent of their childhood."

Play-Doh does have a unique and different smell, but I doubt too many adults want to smell like Play-Doh. Kids play with the stuff despite the bad smell, not because of it.

What is next Eau de Huggies?

2. Hooters energy drink.

Hooters is known for boobs and chicken. The brand has no credibility in energy.

Just because everybody is doing it is not a good excuse to launch a line extension. Today there are hundreds of energy drinks. In order to succeed, you need be first in the mind and have a good name. Hooters has neither.

3. Jeff Gordon fine wine.

Don’t the wine makers attend any NASCAR races? I have been to several since moving down to Atlanta. And while I have seen a lot of beer consumed, I have never seen a glass of fine wine consumed. Wine and NASCAR go together like water and motor oil.

4. Disney wedding gowns.

As a wedding destination Disney has had some success. Disney World is a great place to visit, and many weddings are part family reunion these days so in some ways a Disney wedding makes sense. I have been to a wedding at Disney, but having Mickey Mouse and Goofy characters dancing with the guests is not my cup of tea.

I just went to a Cinderella party for a three year old. And while little girls loved to dress up as Cinderella, I don’t think 25-year-old really girls do. Not too many brides want to look like a cartoon character on their wedding day. Looking like Princess Diana is one thing, a Disney Princess is quite another. A G-rated wedding night is not a fairy tail ending.

5. Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump Rugs, Trump Water, Trump Cologne, etc. etc.

Trump is the most line-extended brand in America today. The Trump extensions are novelty items. They might sell a few in the short term, but long term Trump Vodka/Rugs/Water will never be a big deal.

Of course, all Trump extensions are licensed. So Trump doesn’t stand to lose any money on these deals, he just gets a cut if they sell. Which, in the case of most of these won’t amount to much.

Need a boost this holiday season?

Despite my attempts to deny it, the holidays are upon us. Christmas is 19 days away. The sad truth is that the true meaning of Christmas has given way to extreme consumerism. Santa may just as well be saying “buy, buy, buy” instead of “ho, ho, ho.”

But my cynicism of Christmas has softened with the arrival of my children. Seeing their little eyes light up with the wonder of Santa and the excitement of seeing far away relatives has allowed me to view the holidays with the purity that only young children experience.

Children don’t feel the stresses of the holidays with all the shopping, debt, bloat and overwhelming chores, they simply enjoy the goodness of it all. And the one thing that is most important about any holiday is that it brings people together. Families, friends and co-workers make the time to get together and to celebrate.

Getting together usually involves eating. And eating usually involves sitting. And sitting usually involves, if you are too old for a highchair and too little to reach the table, a booster seat.

Children between the ages of 2 and 5 are a difficult breed. They are stuck in the mushy middle between being a baby and being a kid. They want to do everything themselves. They repeatedly say no, even if they mean yes. They constantly imitate parents and older siblings. They simply long to be just like everybody else. And while they might refuse to give up on their diapers, binkies or bottles they desperately want cellphones, car keys, and chairs just like you and me.

Most successful entrepreneurs are pissed off people that get motivated. They become pissed when they recognize the inherent flaw of a conventional solution and are motivated enough to do something about it. A combination that has brought many great brands to the masses.

A pissed off entrepreneur had brought to market a brand that I would like to spotlight today. The story of Amir Levin and Kaboost shows how a new brand benefited from doing the opposite, having the right name and being first in a new category.

Amir Levin is only 33 years old and doesn’t even have any kids of his own, but he could spot an opportunity when he saw one. While at a family gathering, Amir was frustrated by seeing his little cousins refusing to sit in booster chairs. They didn’t want to be different and would prefer to suffer by sitting on their knees than be in a baby chair. Instead of thinking, tough luck kids, he did something about it and Kaboost was born.

Booster seats all follow a simple formula, design something to put on the chair to boost the child. When I was little they used phone books, but since then thousands of booster chair ideas have been brought to market. But no one ever thought about turning the whole idea on its head. Until Amir.

Doing the opposite it a powerful strategy for many reasons. It creates a new category, differentiates you from competition and gives you PR potential. When you do the opposite it is instantly newsworthy.

So what did Amir do? Instead of just boosting the child like every other chair, Amir boosted the chair. Brilliant! Now kids can really sit just like everybody else. And they don’t feel like they are in the baby seat anymore.

Many a good idea has died right there. A better idea does not ensure success. Without a proper branding strategy good ideas wither, die or are stolen. Bad names, horrible packaging, lousy publicity, dysfunctional distribution can all bring a new brand down. And new brands are much more vulnerable to branding mistakes than established brands. So entrepreneurs have to pay special attention to adhering to the laws of branding.

Here are some of the basics principles Kaboost followed:

1. The strategy: Do the opposite.

Kaboost is not a better booster seat. Kaboost is the opposite of a conventional booster seat. Conventional boosters only boost the child. Kaboost boosts the chair and the child. The benefit is that the child can sit at the table just like everybody else. A big deal for little ones.

2. The name: Kaboost.

The name is where many new brands make their biggest branding mistake. Giving your brand a generic, descriptive name might help explain who you are in the short term but it lays a weak foundation in the mind for the long term. Generic names leave you much more vulnerable to established companies stealing your idea and preempting your position in the mind with their might.

For an entrepreneur with limited funds the most ideal brand name is one that is suggestive of the category. This way you get to have some of your cake and eat it too. You hint at what you are but have a unique brand name.

Kaboost is a name that does just that. A generic name could have killed it. And a far out name would have met with more resistance and been more difficult to establish in the mind.

3. The verbalization of the message: Your child can sit like you.

New brands don’t take off without word of mouth. And word of mouth is depended upon your message being easily verbalized, remembered and passed along. Again many new brands fall down on this point. They might have a great idea and the right brand name but they cannot put into words why they are so great. Or they give too many reasons for why they are so great, also a pitfall.

To succeed a brand needs one simple idea verbalized in a memorable way. Dyson, the first vacuum cleaner that doesn’t lose suction, is a brilliant verbalization and created a powerful new brand in the mind.

TiVo has been tripped up by not having a good verbalization of its brand. TiVo has never clearly verbalized its position. And while they have avid fans (myself included,) they have not made the huge inroads in market share many expected. I believe the lack of a verbalization is one reason why. TiVo also made a huge mistake running too much advertising too soon. Of course, blowing investment capital upfront on advertising was the downfall of many dot.com brand busts as well.

4. The package as a marketing tool.

Don’t overlook the ability of the package to build your brand in the mind. The package should be treated with great importance in the brand building process. The package is the front line of your marketing campaign, it is your last chance to seal the deal. PR gets them to notice your brand and the box gets them to buy your brand.

That said the box design should be simple and focused. The name and position should be prominently displayed. Dyson was one of the first brands to really use the box as a marketing tool. Typically vacuums came in generic brown boxes. Dyson used every side to sell the story of the brand.

The Kaboost box is fantastic, you can see that plainly.

5. The PR.

Kaboost is a newsworthy brand. In order to be newsworthy you have to be different. Being the first chair booster is much more effective for getting PR than introducing a better booster. And PR is the way you build brands. There are also several different PR angles to the Kaboost story. Amir has been on The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch to discuss how young entrepreneurs turn ideas into companies. Kaboost has been featured in the New York Times as a new and noteworthy product. One news outlet called booster seats so passé, now that Kaboost has arrived.

For anyone who is now sold on the product, Kaboost is now available at Babies R Us

Thanks to Kaboost, my little one will be sitting at our table this holiday season just like me, his Dad and his big brother. Kaboost has granted my terrible two at least one minor victory in his war of independence. And any day there is a battle Mom can avoid is a good day for all of us on the home front.

Being different visually

The ability of a brand to stand out in the marketplace will enhance its chance of standing out in the mind. We live in an over-communicated world where each of us is bombarded with hundreds of branding, advertising and editorial messages daily. If your brand looks like every other brand, it isn’t likely to be noticed.

Looking the same as everybody else might be a good strategy if you are a 13 year-old-girl in middle school, but not if you are a brand looking to succeed in the marketplace.

A visual difference is important for three reasons:
1: Gets your brand noticed in a crowded marketplace.
2: Establishes your unique position.
3: Reminds customers of your brand every time they see your visual difference.

A unique visual difference is usually created by taking the standard look in a category and flipping it on its head.

Take beer, for example. Most beer is consumed in pint glasses, bottles or cans. All manly delivery vehicles. Not Stella Artois. Stella is served in a chalice glass, a delicate glass with a stem.

A Stella Artois glass looks more like a wine or an iced-tea glass than a beer glass. Of course, there are many technical and historic reasons for the glass. The chalice, along with a special Stella pouring ritual, allows the beer to flow, breathe and develop a proper head. According to its website: “Not only does the beer taste great, it also looks wonderful.”

Stella could have said: “Not only does the beer taste great, but it also looks different. And being different is what has built our brand in the mind.”

People see a Stella chalice and say “Wow! What is that you’re drinking?” The glass is not for everybody, of course. Building a powerful brand requires sacrifice. By giving up thebeer-guzzling frat boys and their bars, Stella Artois has been able to focus on the upscale market and force its glass into distribution.

At first, bars didn’t want to deal with the Stella glasses which are delicate, hard to wash and don’t stack like pint glasses. But Stella stuck to its guns and its chalices. And its dedication has paid off. (Nobody said executing a good strategy is easy.)

Many brands were built with a striking visual difference:
- Lime in the top of a Corona bottle.
- Curves of a Coke bottle.
- Grille on a Mercedes.
- Grille on a BMW.
- Wristband of a Rolex.
- Thinness of a Razr.
- Small can of a Red Bull.

Many times a unique visual difference can be created with a color:
- Green jacket at the Master’s golf championship.
- Red hat of a cardinal.
- White ear buds of an iPod.
- Orange handle of a Fiskars scissors.
- Purple Nexium pill.
- Brown UPS truck.
- Red bull’s eye of a Target store.
- Gold jacket at Century 21.

Why has the Toyota Prius outsold the Honda Civic hybrid more than 3-to-1? Because the Prius looks different than any car on the road. (You can’t tell a regular Civic from a hybrid unless you bend down and search for the small wording on the back bumper.)

One automobile expert explained the success of the Prius over the Civic hybrid with the comment: “Consumers don’t want a hybrid. They just want a car that looks like a hybrid.”

Consumers buy hybrids, of course, because they want to do something positive about the environment. But they also want to make sure everybody else on the road knows they are doing something about the environment. The biggest mistake car makers make with hybrid technology is converting existing models into hybrids. They should be thinking new models and new names, if not totally new brands.

A visual difference also helps to establish a strong number-two brand. After Red Bull got going, hundreds of companies including Coca-Cola flooded the market with me-too energy-drink brands. All the me-too brands copied Red Bull and its small 8.3-oz. can. (Small is a good visual symbol for an energy drink because it connotes the stuff is strong. But Red Bull owns the “small can” visual.)

The way to build a strong number-two brand is to be different. That’s exactly what Monster did. It was first to introduce a 16-oz. can and a 16-oz. name.

Today, Monster is the number-two brand in the energy-drink category. After Monster’s success, everybody rushed to market with their own large cans, but it didn’t matter. The spoils go to the first brands in the mind and those brands are Red Bull and Monster.

Being different doesn’t work every time. The laws of marketing are not 100% guaranteed. There are always exceptions.

One exception is the Pontiac Aztek, a car that was certainly different but about as successful as the Edsel. There has to be a strategy behind a difference. Suburban Moms driving SUVs don’t want to be different. Their 13-year-old daughters would die from embarrassment.

On the other hand, young urban car customers love to be different, so the odd-shaped Scion, a youth-focused brand, is doing great.

Being different may seem risky and your distribution channels may scream, but it can be well worthwhile. Being different may kill you in middle school but not in the mind which is where powerful brands are built.

Halloween Tricks and Treats

Happy Halloween!

In honor of Halloween, I thought I would follow up last week’s post on great restaurant branding with some of the scariest restaurant branding ideas I’ve recently come across.

1. The worst restaurant name.

Humuhumunukunukuapua’s, located at the Grand Wailea Resort in Maui, Hawaii.

This terribly long and totally unpronounceable name is the worst I’ve ever seen. The restaurant has a nice view, good food and benefites from being in a popular hotel, but what a missed branding opportunity. Never underestimate the power of a good name.

My husband and I referred to it as the huma-huma restaurant. I was too embarrassed to call for reservations or tell anyone where we ate because I had no idea how to pronounce it. Not a good idea for generating word of mouth.

The name means Hawaiian Triggerfish. Triggerfish would have been a whole lot better.

2. The worst line-extension restaurant.

It is a mistake is thinking that a popular brand in one category will translate into another.

Tommy Bahama, the hot men’s resort ware brand has gone bananas. I saw a Tommy Bahama restaurant in Maui. And see advertisements from Tommy Bahama Rum almost daily in the New York Times.

What are they thinking? Obviously they must be drinking too much of the rum. Just because a brand is successful doesn’t give you carte blanc to take it anywhere.

It is one thing for a famous restaurant to sell t-shirts, it is quite another for a famous shirt maker to sell cheeseburgers.

3. The worst menu addition.

When you build a powerful brand by focusing on a core attribute it is best to stick to that attribute. It is unwise to introduce menu items that are the opposite of your position.

Subway owns fresh and healthy sandwiches in the mind. Jared’s weight loss and the new fresh fit menu reinforce that position in the mind.

So what do they do next? They recently introduced personal deep-dish pizzas! How unhealthy could you get? No much in my opinion. Let’s hope Jared doesn’t go on a pizza diet.

4. The worst company naming strategy.

Luckily this one is just a ghost story. Using current marketing thinking at most companies today, you can see how Darden, founder of The Red Lobster chain, could have named their other restaurants:

Italian Lobster, Steak & Lobster, Bahama Lobster, Lobster Grill and Healthy Lobster.

Instead Darden went with Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Capital Grille and Seasons 52 to give each its own brand identity. Good move.

Think the fake names were funny? Well think again, it is a strategy countless companies continue to use. Because most companies prefer to launch line extensions than new brands.

It is exactly what Toys R Us did. They launched Kids R Us and Babies R Us. A strategy that has left the company in trouble. Even though the Babies R Us concept has taken off, it has succeeded in spite of its lousy line extension name because it was first in a new category. And its success has come at the price of Kids R Us being shut down and Toys R Us losing its toy leadership position to Wal-Mart.

5. The worst steal.

Everybody has watched with envy the success Starbucks has had in coffee. Starbucks has single handedly elevated the lowly .50 cup of joe to a $3 experience and obsession.

Instead of launching their own brands early on before Starbucks was firmly established, they waited and now everybody is jumping on the upscale coffee bandwagon.

McDonald’s is serving “premium” coffee along with lattes and espressos. Wendy’s is launching a Javaccino’s menu in an effort to become a beverage destination. On the Javaccino’s menu: Rainforest select sustainable coffee, iced pomegranate green tea and confused turtle Frosty-chinos.

6. The worst Halloween candy idea.

Snickers Marathon energy bars. Sounds like a great idea, take the best-selling candy bar and make it into an energy bar. Because really, what is an energy bar anyway, but lousy tasting candy bar.

The Snickers brand is known for great taste so they will rule the energy bar market. Right?

Wrong. These treats are unlikely to trick any kids or adults. There is nothing wrong with the bars, but there is everything wrong with the brand. Or should I say brands. Snickers Marathon bars come in many different varieties including: energy, nutrition, multi-grain, low-carb and protein. Just to totally confuse you.

Snickers is a candy bar, they would have been better off telling people to just enjoy a Snickers. One bar only has 273 calories and almost 5 grams of protein, not much difference from the Marathon bar. Selling energy bars undermines the candy. It tells people the candy is bad, when in fact they are not much different.

* Snickers: 273 calories, 14 g fat, 33 g carb, 5 g protein.
* Snickers Marathon: 210 calories, 8 g fat, 26 g carb, 14 g protein.

Snickers satisfies because it tastes great. Snickers Marathon is a poor tasting substitute. Remember you taste in your mind not your mouth. A Snickers energy bar is never going to taste good up there. Want energy? Grab a PowerBar.

Halloween warning:

On Halloween, kids play dress-up, act silly and scare people by catching them off-guard.

None of these are strategies you should use for marketing. Dressing up as something you aren’t, acting silly and scaring people are all bad branding ideas.

So Marketers, leave Halloween to the kids and keep your brand true, authentic and focused. No tricks allowed.

Building a new restaurant brand.

Seasons 52: A case study.

A new restaurant brand has hit the market, Seasons 52, and it looks likely to become the next big thing in white table cloth dining. The first Seasons 52 opened in February 2003 in Orlando, Florida. Last year, two Seasons 52 restaurants opened here in Metro Atlanta.

The Seasons 52 brand is red-hot. Thousands of restaurant brands are launched each year. Most fail. Not usually because of lousy food, but because of lousy branding.

Why is Seasons 52 likely to be a winner? And how can you use the lessons learned for your brand? Read on for my six reasons why.

1. The narrow position.

Most brands want to attract as many potential customers as possible, so they position themselves as broadly as possible. This is the biggest mistake you can make in branding.

Brands are built by having a narrow focus. With restaurants, one signature dish can often build a brand. The dish doesn’t have to be the only thing on the menu, but many times it wouldn’t hurt. Think Chipolte and burritos.

What is Seasons 52’s narrow position? A lighter, healthier approach to dining.

2. The opposite.

Most high-end restaurants serve rich, high-calorie food usually in large portions. Many French people are horrified by how much food is served in a typical U.S. French restaurant.

If you’re watching your waistline, like most Americans are or should be, eating out is tough. You can be a special request nag with all sorts of demands for no sauce, only steam cooking, no potatoes and half your dinner in a doggy bag. But that is no fun and usually leaves you with a tatesless dinner.

Or you can treat dining at one of these restaurants as your cheat day. But that limits how often you visit and how healthy they feel after visiting. One meal can undo a weeks worth of good intensions.

Seasons 52 did the opposite. A high-end restaurant serving fresh, healthy food in reasonable portions.

3. The name.

Having a name that locks your position in the mind is very effective in building a brand. Subway and Submarine sandwiches. Blockbuster and video rentals. Olive Garden and Italian food.

Using a word out of context to reinforce your position can be powerful. It links your brand name with your position in the mind. It helps people remember who you are and what you stand for. And it helps with word-of-mouth by making your concept easier to describe.

The Seasons 52 link is not obvious at first but once you hear it you will not forget it.

Seasons 52 offers the freshest foods of the season by changing its menu four times a year. The name also plays off the Four Seasons restaurant, a New York landmark in high-end dining.

It would be even better if they changed the menu every week or 52 times a year. This would best reflect and reinforce the name and give people a reason to keep coming back week after week without getting bored.

4. The difference.

It is not enough to just say you are “healthy,” You need to do something to dramatize your position.

Seasons 52 has a unique element that sets it apart from every other white-table-cloth restaurant. Every item on the menu is less than 475 calories.

Wow! That is a bold move. And also brilliant because it clearly states the brand’s position. No stars on the menu for the diet food. Everything on the menu deserves a star because it is healthy and low in calories.

Seasons 52 backs up its health claim by talking about how they grill or roast everything over an open flame. Making it low in fat and high in flavor.

5. The PR.

New brands need news value. PR is necessary to builds brands because it drives word-of-mouth. “Healthy” is the buzz word of the day. Magazines, television shows and websites are looking for healthy food stories.

Most restaurants just talk about their delicious food and great atmospheres. There is nothing new or news-worthy about being delicious. Delicious is also very subjective.

Less than 475 calories for everything on the menu is specific and news-worthy. No one can argue about that. And it is definitely new and different.

6. The steal.

Not all successful brands are built on a totally new idea. Many just borrow what has worked in one category and use it in another.

PowerBar was an energy bar. So Red Bull launched an energy drink.

Healthy is certainly not a new idea in food. Subway built one of the leading fast-food restaurant chains by focusing on health. Fresh and healthy. The low-fat sandwiches and Jared’s weight-loss from eating at Subway brilliantly reinforced this position.

Seasons 52 is doing at the high end what Subway did at the low end.

The most successful branders are not always the ones who conjure up the new ideas but the ones who can recognize a good idea and use it to build a brand.

Seasons 52 has the position, the difference, the PR potential all working in its favor to build a potentially powerful global brand. Darden, the owners of Red Lobster and Olive Garden, have done it again with their latest brand, Seasons 52.

Closing day in Atlanta

Finally the silly slogan for my hometown of Atlanta “Every day is an opening day” has been benched.

Since October 2005 when it was launched, I have been critical of the slogan. Not only is it a generic, meaningless idea, but a better idea is already out there in the hearts of minds of consumers. An idea that is powerful, credible and motivating. Ignoring this idea, which has the potential to become one of the greatest city slogans of all-time, is a marketing crime.

Summarizing the attributes of a city/state/country brand with one word or phrase is extremely difficult. Unlike a toothpaste, soft drink or an automobile, places have an incredible amount of diversity.

Volvo is safe. Coke is the real thing. Crest fights cavities. But what is Atlanta? A southern metropolitan city with a variety of leading industries? Not exactly catchy.

For sure, Atlanta is not where every day is an opening day. One day every spring, the Braves have an opening day. One day every fall, the Falcons have an opening day. And in 2005, the world’s biggest aquarium opened in Atlanta. Aside from that, the “every day” slogan has no connection to our city.

Furthermore, it’s a slogan that could be said of any city with a sports team or a new attraction that recently opened. The mission of a slogan is not just to define your brand, but more importantly to differentiate it from other brands.

One way to test the differentiation factor is to reverse the slogan and pin it on the brand’s major competitor. Does it make sense? Could it define another brand? If not, then the slogan is just plain puffery that is likely to be ignored.

• Scope is the good-tasting mouthwash because Listerine is the bad-tasting mouthwash.

• Target is the place for cheap chic because Wal-Mart is cheap but not fashionable.

• Pepsi is the choice of a new generation because your parents drank Coca-Cola.

Most place slogans would be ridiculous in reverse:

• “Incredible India.” India is incredible because Pakistan is not credible?

• Guatemala: “Soul of the Earth.” Guatemala has a soul because Mexico is soulless?

• Atlanta: “Everyday is an opening day.” Atlanta is open every day because Miami is closed?

Just yesterday New York City unveiled the city’s first global advertising campaign. The theme: “This is New York City.”

What? I’m not kidding the city will spend $30 million on advertising to tell the world “This is New York City.” As opposed to “This is not Boston, unless the Red Socks Win” a long running campaign of its neighboring city to the north.

“This is New York City” is not powerful, memorable or unique. It doesn’t say anything about the city that distinguishes it from any other city. You could easily substitute any city name in the world into the campaign. Paris, London, Rome, San Francisco or even Atlanta.

New York City is the most exciting city in the world. You are at the center of it all when you visit there. Wall Street, Broadway, Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, Times Square. It is home of the financial, media, theatrical and fashion centers of the world.

New York needs a verbalization that reinforces that idea in the mind. The reason to visit New York is because it is the Big Apple. The biggest most exciting city in the world.

One of the best city slogans in recent years is the Las Vegas campaign “What happens here stays here.” Brilliant! In reverse, “What happens at home doesn’t stay at home” is equally as true. Las Vegas has an annual budget of $86 million and it is money well spent.

The idea Atlanta should use would be difficult to sell because it has been around for a long time. It isn’t new, original or creative. After paying an advertising agency millions of dollars, city leaders would likely laugh if the agency came back with an old slogan it wanted to refurbish.

Advertising agencies are focused on creativity, the new and different. Creativity might be good for winning a Gold Lion at Cannes, but it is not necessarily the best way to build a brand.

How should Atlanta be positioned? Let’s look at some of the facts.

• According to the Federal Aviation Administration, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport is the nation’s busiest.

• According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Atlanta had 72,861 private housing starts in 2005, the highest of any metropolitan area in the U.S.

• No American metro area attracts more young professionals. According to Impress Consulting, Atlanta leads the nation in luring high-educated 25 to 34-year-olds.

• According to Nielsen Media Research, Atlanta is the fastest-growing TV market.

• According to the U.S. Census Bureau, metro Atlanta added 890,000 residents from April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2007, the largest numerical gain of the nation’s 361 metro areas.

• According to the travel discount site Hotwire.com, Atlanta has the best “travel-value index” of the 50 most-visited places in the U.S.

When we arrived in the city back in 1997, a friend called us and his first words were “Welcome to Hot-lanta.”

In addition to all the great things about the city, it sometimes runs over 100 high-and-sticky degrees in the summertime. And sometimes the traffic is terrible because of the rapid growth the city has experienced. But these negatives are worth having if it means no snow in the winter, lots of high paying jobs and an abundance of recreational activities.

One of the silliest rationales for not using the slogan “Hot-lanta” is that city leaders are afraid to remind people how hot it is. What? It would be like ignoring the rain in Seattle, the fog in San Francisco or the gridlock in New York. The best way to deal with a negative is to turn it into a positive.

• Listerine: The taste you hate twice a day.

• With a name like Smuckers, it has to be good.

• Avis is only #2 in rent-a-cars, so why go with us? We try harder.

“Hot-lanta,” is a slogan that deals with the negative and turns it into a positive. It is the hottest growing metro area in the country. Who doesn’t want to live in the hot place, eat at the hot restaurant or work at the hot company? Sure, not everybody likes hot. Some people prefer northern Wisconsin because it’s cold and almost completely devoid of people. (Local joke: Wisconsin has three seasons: July, August and winter.)

Building a brand requires sacrifice. You give up the isolation and the snowmobiling to live in Hot-lanta.

For me and millions of others Hot-lantans, it is worth it.

Does Sex Sell?

From Miller’s catfight to Carl's Jr.'s Hilton wash down to Hardee’s teacher dance to the Folsom Street Fair’s sadomasochistic last supper there is an escalating use of gratuitous sex in advertising.

We have all heard the saying: Sex Sells. But today’s advertisers are using it more often to sell things not even remotely sexual like hamburgers.

So why are more ads pushing the limits of taste and morality? The answer is simple, to get our attention.

There is way too much advertising today. To break through the clutter, advertising agencies use shocking, sexual and outrageous ads to attract attention, generate buzz and create controversy.

Nothing gets attention like controversy. And nothing creates controversy like sex.

But controversy generated by running ads that are over the top with tasteless and nearly pornographic images does not help a brand.

Forget the fact that many people are insulted and disgusted by the ads. Because the truth is, the target market of 18 to 24-year-old males usually loves the ads and even talks about and remembers the ads. The problem is most of time they don’t remember the product advertised. It is an overwhelming problem.

Loving the ads and buying the product are two totally different things. For advertising to be effective it has to reinforce a brand’s core value not just get attention.

Take the Hardee’s flat-bun ad.

(Note: In 1997 Hardee’s was bought by CKE Restaurants, the owner of Carl’s Jr. The two chains now share the same logo, the same menu and the same advertising campaign under different names. Hardee’s restaurants are located primarily on the east coast of the U.S. and Carl’s Jr. on the west coast.)

Their latest hamburger ad has a “hot for teacher” girl dancing and grabbing her rear end while the boys go wild and the club music blares. And who could forget the chain’s previous campaign which showed Paris Hilton soaping down a car in a sexy bathing suit while eating a hamburger? I’m not sure which was less believable: Paris washing her own car or Paris eating a 1,000-calorie fast-food hamburger.

The advertisements certainly succeeded in getting the attention of young men, but after seeing the ads it is not burgers they were likely hungry for. The images whet their appetites for something totally different.

Advertising needs not only to grab your attention but also to communicate a message. Too much sex or entertainment or even celebrities can get in the way of delivering the message.

Sometimes sex is an integral part of the product and its message. Products like perfume, condoms or erectile dysfunction drugs, for example. In these cases, sex certainly has a legitimate role to play in the advertising. In fact the latest Viagra ads could use a little more sex and a lot less men singing together a bad Elvis cover.

Controversy is good. Controversy generates PR. And PR builds brands. But the controversy should be in the product, not the advertising. Controversy in the advertising just wins advertising awards and helps to build the agency’s brand. It rarely helps the client’s brand.

Hardee’s actually has a very powerful, controversial brand and message. They launched the Thickburger, a premium, 100% beef burger. Hardee’s owns taste and gluttony in fast-food burgers.

The Monster Thickburger at 1,420 Kcal and 107 grams of fat makes no apologies. While McDonald’s is pushing salads and promoting health, Hardee’s is doing the opposite. Good brand strategy. Lousy diet strategy.

This type of controversy builds the brand and gives them a strong position with young males. Forget the wimpy burgers from the other places, eat our 100% man burger.

“Not a burger for tree huggers” said Hardee’s CEO while interviewed on a recent news program. The Monster Thickburger has gotten monster PR attention.

Sales have risen at Hardee’s but not because of Paris soaping herself up or any of the other racy ads. Sales have risen because the brand has done a good job with the Thickburger.

Just think if they used their ad dollars more effectively and reinforced the Thickburger position instead of just arousing young men.

Miller’s Cat Fight ad was one of the raciest, talked-about commercials ever. It received a lot of praise and attention from young men, who liked the babes but didn’t go for the beer.
What builds a brand is standing for an idea in the mind. A simple, unique perhaps even controversial idea. What makes a powerful ad is reinforcing that idea in the mind.

Does sex sell? You bet, it sells sex. It just doesn’t sell hamburgers.

Apple's Golden Goose

Jobs makes surprise cuts

Less than 3 months after the most hyped product introduction of our time, Steve Jobs shocked the world when he abruptly discontinued the 4-gig iPhone model and chopped $200 off the price of the 8-gig model.

“That’s what happens in technology” was Job’s initial response to the outrage expressed by owners and critics alike. That’s what happens when a product is in trouble is my response.

Apple loyalists, who in some cases camped outside stores for days to be the first to get their hands on the all-in-one iPhone, now look foolish for being so quick on the trigger. The gall of Apple to cut the price so quickly was seen as a thumbing of its nose at its most devoted followers. Not a wise move. Even Apple legend Steve Wozniak personally blasted Apple in a recent article.

Not surprisingly, a negative PR firestorm erupted and public outcry was heard from the blogosphere to the media to the water cooler and beyond.

Jobs gives lame $100 credits

In a lame attempt to neutralize the negativity, Jobs then announced he was giving iPhone buyers $100 Apple store credits. Wow! Attempting to placate the 8-gig $600 suckers with a $100 Apple store credit is just adding insult to injury.

No cash refund, only store credit? In my experience, this never works out in my favor. Store credits usually make me buy something I don’t really want or need for more than the dollar amount of the credit. If it had happened to me, it would piss me off even more than the price cut.

How many things can one possibly buy for $100 in an Apple store anyway? Not too many. The only real product would be the iPod Shuffle at $79. But come on, the reason people are supposedly buying an iPhone the first place is the desire to have only one device that does it all. Ergo, you don’t need a Shuffle.

All this is not good news for Apple’s iPhone. Yes, they have told us the have sold 1 million phones. But that is wholesale not retail. For all we know, 500,000 phones could be sitting on the shelves at Apple and AT&T stores. And by most accounts the phones are readily in stock, as AT&T ads point out on almost a daily basis.

Also, I have never heard of a product, even a high-tech product, having its price cut so fast. Usually companies cut prices only when a next-generation model comes out that is faster, lighter and has double the memory. That didn’t happen with the iPhone nor did stiff competition arise. The only thing stopping the iPhone seems to the iPhone itself and its homage to the false idol of convergence.

If the iPhone were truly living up to anything near its hype, then Jobs is the dumbest person alive. Lesson number one in business school: You don’t drop the price on winners.

iPod Touch gets ignored.

The really interesting angle to this saga is the recent introduction of the latest iPod, the iPod Touch. Its launch has been mostly overlooked and usurped by iPhone mania. After the over-the-top iPhone hype and its dramatic price cut, the media were just not interested in giving much ink to another Apple product.

Furthermore, without any exciting new functions that weren’t already included in the iPhone, the iPod Touch has little news value. It is basically just a smaller iPhone without the phone or email access. Big whoop.

This disregard of the iPod Touch is tragic. The iPhone took the wind out of the iPod Touch’s sails before it got the chance to set sail.

iPhone - Convergence = Touch

The iPod Touch is brilliant. The iPod Touch is revolutionary. The iPod touch is everything the iPhone is not.

It you take all the convergence stuff out of the iPhone and leave in all the cool features, you end up with an iPod Touch. Not a all-in-one, but a great music player.

The iPod Touch is a high-capacity media player with a touch screen that connects to the internet and Apple’s new mobile store to buy music and watch videos.

The reason the iPod Touch is so great and the iPhone so problematic is that the two main functions of iPhone, the phone and music player, are at odds with each other.

Both a phone and music device are considered essential tools that people can’t live without for even brief periods. Both use a lot of battery power. Both are used for long periods of time during the day.

The disaster of sucking the battery dry while out for the day is easy to imagine. Out of the office and your cellphone battery dies? Disaster. Two miles out on a 4-mile run and your music player dies? Disaster.

Jobs loves to create cool things. And Jobs is a great salesman. Initially the media, the market and consumers eat his stuff up. But eventually you come crashing back to reality.

iPhone is distracting Apple

The iPhone is a distraction not an opportunity for Apple. A novelty product built on the technology whims of Jobs and another in a long line of convergence chasers.

In theory, everyone would like to carry one device, have one card in our wallet, shop at one store for everything and drive a flying car to work. But the reality is that none of these is ever likely to come true. It is not the way the world works.

Size, price, memory, and battery life always end up bursting the convergence balloon. From flying cars to media center PCs to N’Gage, Newton and the iPhone.

What Apple should have done is to put its marketing and PR muscle behind the new iPod Touch.

The golden goose.

The iPod is the goose that lays the golden eggs at Apple. Overlooking it and not giving it its proper attention is foolish. The iPod resurrected Apple from the ashes. The iPod is the leader in the growing MP3-player market. The iPod is the dominant brand in the U.S. with over 60% of the MP3-player market. Taking your golden goose for granted is unwise in the competitive and fast paced world we live in. Just ask Dell.

Apple has some serious work to do globally where its iPod is less than dominate and more than vulnerable. In Europe the iPod has only a 20% market share which includes a 40% share in Britain.

Distractions are not what Apple needs. A focus is what they need. The way to build a monster brand is to attain global dominance. Which is what Nokia did in cellphones, Red Bull did in energy drinks and Google did in search.

Clearly the time for Apple to launch massive iPod marketing programs in both the U.S. and the rest of the world is now, while the brand is riding high with ground-breaking technology and a heap of iPod killers lying in wait. But the distractions and confusion created by the iPhone are likely to slow the iPod’s momentum and keep it out of the fast lane where it rightly belongs.

Instead Apple is cooking the goose that has laid the golden eggs.

If we can't beat 'em, we'll join 'em and other bad ideas

Some branding strategies are just plain crazy. Two crazy strategies that are making the rounds in boardrooms across the county are:

If we can’t beat ’em, we’ll join ‘em.

And it’s close cousin

If they take mine, we’ll take theirs.

Are you kidding me, what are we on the playground in first grade again? You should not run a company like a six-year old. You need to stand tall, stay focused and remain true to your brand.

TMZ TV

TMZ.com is brilliant because it owns online celebrity gossip. Without a magazine to sell or a television show to promote, it has been able to focus on delivering breaking news fast. Managing editor Harvey Levin is a terrific spokesperson and appears frequently on all the major news channels.

TMZ was first with some of the most important celebrity stories of our time, like Mel Gibson’s arrest and rant. Since news reports from the frontlines of the Paris, Lindsey and Britney theaters seems to captive consumers around the globe business is booming.

Most of TMZ competition comes from line-extensions of television and magazine brands. People.com, ET.com, Extra.com, USWeekly.com, etc. They have moved into TMZ turf and have aggressively gone after its audience.

To stay on top, TMZ.com needs to reinforce and extend its breaking news advantage over the competition. TMZ puts up new posts almost continuously 24/7. They don’t need to hold back any exclusives for a magazine or television show; they go live immediately.

So what does TMZ do next? If they take mine, we’ll take theirs. TMZ is launching a television show.

What? Yup, you heard right. All those gossip magazines and celebrity television shows are launching websites and trying to steal our traffic, so we’ll go on TV and take their viewers away and see how they like it.

What a dumb move. It undermines the power of the brand, weakens the strength of its focus and dilutes the meaning of TMZ in the consumer’s mind.

Folgers Gourmet Coffee

Folgers, the leading coffee brand in the U.S., has seen its sales and market share fall dramatically over the years as everyone upgrades their coffee experience. Call it the Starbucks effect. Consumers have gotten used to being spoiled with $3 lattes and can’t seem to stomach that stodgy and bland Folgers brew from the can at home anymore.

So what does Folgers do? If we can’t beat ‘em, we’ll join ‘em.

If expensive coffee is what people want to buy by golly that is what we’ll give them. No use in fighting Starbucks and its $12-a-pound coffee, we’ll just launch our own.

That might have been a fine idea, if Folgers did it 15 years ago with a new brand name. (Shultz purchased Starbucks in 1987 and started expanding across the country immediately. It is not as if expensive coffee took off overnight.)

McDonald’s Premium Coffee

Blame it on Starbucks again. McDonald’s is feeling the heat from the upscale coffee shop so it tried to raise the bar on its own brew. But if you want premium coffee, you don’t want it from McDonald’s. Better to stick to the hamburgers and happy meals.

Diet Pepsi Max: Invigorating Cola

I have yet to figure out with this strange product with the long name is all about. I saw one at the gas station and had to check it out. I asked the guy behind the counter what it was and he looked even more baffled than me!

Forget the fact that the stuff didn’t taste very good. Actually many times taste is irrelevant. Red Bull is not terribly tasty and tests show Pepsi tastes better than Coke.

The real problem is that Diet Pepsi Max has no message. Invigorating cola is unlikely to be a tangible new category any time soon.

My best guess is that Pepsi is feeling the competition from energy drinks and launched Diet Pepsi Max to try and join the party. The ingredients list caffeine and ginseng. It’s about as good idea as adding vitamins to Diet Coke, (Diet Coke Plus.)

Wheaties Multivitamins

Apparently, the breakfast of champions isn’t enough for athletes anymore. They also need a Wheaties multivitamin.

Isn’t the advantage of Wheaties that it delivers your vitamins, minerals and fiber all in a nutritious cereal? What no need for breakfast anymore; just pop a pill instead? Not a good message for Wheaties to be sending.

The enemy of fortified cereals are vitamins. Cereals, especially Wheaties, needs to emphasized the importance of starting the day with a healthy breakfast full of vitamins, fiber, protein and carbohydrates. Popping vitamins an alternative to that.

Snapple Tea Bags.

OK, Snapple has a big success in bottled iced tea. And I’m sure they are pretty peeved that Lipton has come in with a very successful line of Green and White bottled teas. So Snapple’s response seems to be, well we’ll just launch tea bags and see how Lipton likes that.

If they take mine, we’ll take theirs. Not a very mature or wise branding strategy.

Hershey’s Organic Chocolate

Totally insane. Yes, organic and natural are the big buzz words in food today. But you can’t just stick them on any brand and think it will work. Organic Cheetos isn’t too bright either. What is next, organic SPAM?

If you can’t beat your competition, you can’t join them. Trying to force your brand into a position already owned by a competitor is not only foolish but undermines your existing brand by reinforcing the negatives of your position.

If competition moves into your category, deal with it. Success always brings competition. Don’t be territorial and try to move into your competition’s market, especially when it represents a declining market.