Maclaren – a masterclass in brand communications?

British baby buggy manufacturer Maclaren are recalling some 1 million of their umbrella strollers from the US market following reports of children having fingertips amputated by the closure mechanism. Hopefully this will be a lesson on handling brand communications properly, to preserve the brand values of a long-established organization – but I have an uneasy feeling it may be a masterclass in how NOT to handle them.

In the US, Maclaren have been quick to respond – the recall, issuing a safety kit, information on the website, a hotline for worried consumers, and a joint press release with the US Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC).

In the UK, the story so far is somewhat different. Indeed there seem to have been no similar injuries reported so far and we understand there are no plans to recall the product in the UK.  But the response from the company has been more tight-lipped in their home market. When the story was featured on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme, Maclaren declined to put up a spokesperson.

Okay, it’s early days, but it is here that brand damage is often most critical. They advice in this area is well known and I cannot believe that Maclaren’s corporate communications team are not fully aware of the proper ’spill drill’.  Any delay and hint of a  ‘no comment’ response is the public’s first perception of the organization’s attitude – and as we know, you don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression. Brief the team, have your spokesperson ready, be proactive in supplying information and let your brand ambassadors do their work.

Any product or service that impacts upon children is particularly sensitive. Maclaren has a good brand reputation for its products – my own kids were pushed around much of Europe in them. But the values we expect such a company to encompass and communicate must include consideration and empathy for children and parents. Importantly, we live in a global communications arena: we can’t adopt different standards in different market even though we have to adapt culturally. Cynics may suggest that one approach is applied in the US because of the actions of the CPSC and an intrinsically more litigious culture, while another strategy used in the UK because we don’t.

Damage to sales figures is painful – damage to brands can be terminal.

 

Sorry my brand won’t be in today… it’s down with a virus

A client of mine has a horror of any social Internet activity and was rocked to his core when his new ad turned up on Youtube and went viral. There was nothing bad or contentious and I would have been quite pleased, but his problem with this was the ‘lack of control’.

Of course that is an issue and one that scares many businesses off anything to do with social media. But let us be realistic, all we have no control over is what people say or think about our brands… and this was always the case! The only control a company can exert is the way the company and the brand actually performs in the market place.

As I have stated many times brands are not ‘owned’ by the companies, they are owned by the public. If the company manages them well, with good stewardship they should have little to fear. I would be seriously worried if my brand was not strong enough to cope with a little gentle fun poking on a social Internet site.

Trimodal theory and brand interaction

I have long been interested in the the way we understand brands on two levels – the pragmatic or declarative knowledge level (accessible via high input cortical processing) and the emotional knowledge level (low input processing). These levels really deal with the epistemology and ontology of brands, but when we look at how we interact with brands in the real world, we see a trimodal model: we interact with brands on both pragmatic and emotional levels, but also on physical or physiological levels.

For example, when I am shopping for a product I am making conscious decisions about my brand choice based upon my declarative knowledge about the brand, underlying this is my emotional attachment or reaction to the brand, but I am also involved in a physical process, perhaps responding to the appearance or tactile experience of the product, or maybe interacting with the retail environment. Perhaps a classic example of this trimodal model in action is choosing a car – we have emotional, almost sub-conscious understanding of brand values, we analyse pragmatic knowledge about brand and product, then we engage in physical interaction which maybe supports or amends our ontological understanding.

Even working with intangible brands and services, such as financial services, there is a level of physiological level of interaction perhaps through a website or telephone sales, or face to face interactions with a representative or brand steward.

I will avoid the cliche of the Venn diagram this obviously suggests, however the interactions between these three dimensions are critical and fascinating – any brand manager or brand steward should consider each dimensions carefully, and be aware of their relative importance to the brand.

The psychology of brand choices in tough economic times

What brand choices have you made to cope with a recession, and how many are based upon economic logic – or to make you feel empowered and in control? For example, do we feel we are making more prudent choice by going shopping at a budget supermarket, than by buying the ‘value’ or generic brands at our usual supermarket. The cost may be little different, but we feel we are making a more important action and this sustains our psychological well-being.  I guess there are parallels with ‘green’ brands that we choose because they support our self image of caring for the planet, rather than really logically consider our choices.

In times of falling prices there would be a logic to suggest that in buying durables, we go for quality brands that will last longer. But will emotion drive us to budget brands that support or personal prudence image? Does it feel right to buy a Mercedes in a recession even if we can buy one for little more than the price of a Ford?

Neuroeconomics and brand decisions

Neuroeconomics looks at the cognitive processes involved in economic decision making and often makes use of such imaging techniques as fMRI and PET scans of the brain. It is yet another tool to understanding behaviour, particularly the irrational behaviour that often drives market decisions. As such, many have suggested that it could be a useful tool in understanding brand interactions and selection decisions.

Any tools which add to our understanding are useful… but this raises a couple of issues as to whether it is asking the right questions. For known brands, we have two kinds of processing involved – high involvement processing  (HIP), dealing with the declarative knowledge we have about a brand and low involvement processing (LIP) which has to do with our emotional connection with the brand values and our meta-knowledge of what the brand stands for. Both of these may be happening simultaneously. How do we separate the data… indeed should we? And which questions are being answered?

As in economics we may often make irrational brand decisions, then persuade ourselves in hindsight of their rationality.

Brand narratives, archetypes and stereotypes

I’ve long been a believer in the power of narratives to help in understanding brands and their values far better than a string of adjectives. One powerful tool is the simple conjunction, ‘and’. Take any brand and begin; ‘He got on his Harley and…’ or ‘She put on her Levis and…’ Then construct a descriptive narrative. Immediately you can begin to understand the underlying brand narratives of maybe the lawyer who rides a Harley because he wants to be thought of as a bit of a rebel and a little dangerous.

To make this effective you need to contextualise it in terms of a personal archetype. In Alastair Compton’s classic book ‘The Craft of Copywriting’, he advised going beyond the dry ‘B/C1 Male, 25-35 etc’ to say, ‘Imagine someone you know who fits the profile… then write as though you were talking to them’.  I would say do the same in brand narratives. ‘George took out his Nokia mobile and…’

Okay, now we are starting to build a brand narrative. It may be necessary to further contextualise the narrative in terms of time and place. If there is a complex audience you may need a number of narratives: ‘Ten year old Tracy went into McDonald’s and…’, ‘Phil the salesman stopped at McDonalds and…’

Narratives are useful tools to use alongside all the quantitative brand data to understand underlying values of the brand and the audiences and their more subtle interactions.

Brand damage – is it reversible?

Of course brands suffer damage from time to time, often it is terminal, sometimes recoverable and occasionally reversible. But always it underlines the fragility of brand reputation.

I suggest there are four main types of brand damage, the first two are usually terminal, while the latter two can be recovered from in time:

1. Critical Success Factor Damage – there are certain things a brand MUST get right to survive in its sector. Failure in these areas is usually catastrophic for the brand. For example, car tyres are expected to be safe – this is fundamental. But when Firestone tyres were linked to crashes with the Ford cars in the US, the brand suffered near fatal damage, despite many question marks over Ford’s culpability and a rigorous recall programme.
2. Core Value Damage –  brand values, and especially the core values a brand represents are among its major strengths and differentiators (and in many cases can embody Critical Success Factors (CSF) as discussed above. But while these are recognised as key strengths, if they fail the whole brand reputation may be damaged irreparably. Look for example at Anderson Consulting: core values of such an organisation include probity and corporate responsibility.  When these were seen to fail in the light of the Enron scandal, the brand could no longer survive.
3. Communications Damage – ‘foot in mouth syndrome’. While organisations spend vast proportions of their communications budgets on promoting their brand and its values, it only takes one ill advised comment to hole the brand below the waterline. The classic example, now part of brand folklore was the speech given by Gerald Ratner, former CEO of jewellery chain, Ratners, to the Institute of Directors in 1991: ‘We also do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say, “How can you sell this for such a low price?” I say, because it’s total crap.’  Result, £500 million wiped off the company’s value and turnover plummeting.
4. Damage by Association – Sectors suffer damage, countries too have their reputations damaged and associated brands find themselves also suffering. We are seeing this at the moment with banks and financial institutions the world over. Despite some extremely high quality output China and many far eastern companies are tagged with reputations for poor quality and controls. Damage by association is difficult to deal with, as many of the brands are already doing everything right but overcoming perceptual prejudices takes exceptional brand management to overcome.

Taking care of the brand assets

I am often at pains to underline that most of what we confuse as ‘the brand’ are actually to do with brand communications, they are the signifiers, and it is what the brand is and does that really matters. Ownership of the brand is with the public at large. But one area that those charged with brand stewardship can and should take charge of is that of the brand assets. Brand assets are as valuable, sometimes more valuable, than those buildings and machines that appear on the balance sheet.

I break brand assets down into four main categories, broad and by no means exhaustive:

Tangible

• Premises, location, iconic buildings, historic offices
• Flagship products
• Everyday products
• Vehicles etc.

Intangible

• Intrinsic history, brand narratives
• Reputation
• Social actions
• National reputation
• Brand Loyalty

Created

• Marcoms assets – The Michelin Man, the Dulux dog, Ronald McDonald etc; iconic advertising
• Brand identitiy, logos, colour schemes, corporate signatures
• Intellectual properties

Human

• High profile people in the organisation – past and current
• Owners/founders – King Gillette, Richard Branson, Victor Kyham etc.
• Marcoms personalities
• Staff
• Customers

All of these assets require care and careful stewardship. You would not allow your premises to become dilapidated, nor machinery to seize or fail through lack of maintenance – yet those are replaceable unlike many brand assets.

Brand archetypes and positioning

Michael Cowen contacted me to talk about brand archetypes and positioning, and his website, www.contextbranding.co.za is really worth a look. He identifies 10 brand archetypes which can be mapped creating a unique brand profile. A strategy can then be created to position the brand by aligning three critical areas: executive vision and business strategy, customer perceptions, and management and staff perceptions.   A very useful approach – my only worry is that it is static where the world is dynamic. These 10 archetypes are constantly changing their values and weightings, and while the brand consultant may understand this, often the client company misses the point.  I have often worked with clients who proudly hand over to me their brand positioning document, only to find it was created five years ago.  It is understandable; such profiles take a lot of resource, both in terms of time and money to produce.  Nobody wants to have have to repeat the exercise too regularly, but I would argue that is what is needed. Perhaps the trick is to identify some key indicators in the market and within the company that can be taken as live feeds and used to update the model automatically.  Each view is only a snapshot of the brand in time, but the data can be used to identify and capitalise on trends.

Can digital let us put more fun into branding?

In a fascinating article in Revolution, Sept 2008, Justin Billingsley, Orange’s UK brand director told Adam Woods that digital was going to ’steal considerable budget from above-the-line marketing’ – no surprises there. However what was interesting was his comment that it was going to be used to more ‘cool stuff’ (by which I understand he means exciting, innovative digital activities) but with a more relaxed view to ROI.

It’s a phenomenon I have also observed: a client who had perhaps a £4m TV budget, decides to take, say, 10% out to spend on digital can be more prepared to take a few more risks. The same psychology that underlies the Orange approach of ring-fencing a proportion of the budget for more experimental activities seems increasingly common. Of course the results will be measured, and will inform future strategies, but provided the actions are on-message for the brand they will allow more adventurous conceptual thinking… and a bit more fun in these depressing times.