Strategy & Brand

“In ordinary times, most men and women do not have radical questions about their identity.” Sam Keen

“In every society, however, there are extraordinary men and women who, for a variety of reasons, stand outside the social consensus, shatter the norms, and challenge the status quo.” Sam Keen

BlackDog was founded for such a time as this. As we celebrate our 5th anniversary we recognize that the heroes’ path is far less lonely then it used to be. Reformers and pathfinders are challenging debunked definitions of success. Renegades and visionaries are juggling, rather than ignoring, the paradoxes, tensions, and contradictions that confound the sustainable way forward. Humanists and rebels are throwing off shallow pursuits and questioning the failed ideologies, values, and purposes that guided the past to where we are today. Revolutionaries are decoding the cost, merit, and value of business as a good citizen.

In the new world order –we are all paying attention to the very real fact that when business supports people* it profits. And when it doesn’t, sooner or later, it won’t.

BlackDog was launched with one purpose- to align organizations around identities and purposes that matter. In 5 extraordinary years that ideology has only deepened.  We are on the side of those fearlessly navigating the naysayers course; doing what can’t be done in the “real world” of the ordinary or the timid.

*employees, customers, investors and community

Narrativity: [nar-uh-tiv-uh-tee]: 1.) the degree to which your brand spunk, funk, credibility, attitude, and vibe shines through your messaging. 2.) Your voice, your verbiage, your tone.

While preparing for a wine-touring camping trip to Watkins Glen, I began perusing the websites of the nearby Seneca Lake wineries and plotting my prioritized must-see, must-visit list for the alcohol-inspired excursion. I was frustrated to find that, with a mere handful of exceptions, every winery’s website looked and sounded the same, and they all lacked personality, pizzazz, and panache. Armed with an adventurous spirit, I finally gave up pre-planning my wine trail route, and decided to wing the whole experience. I visited several wineries I liked, several I very much didn’t, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d accidentally by chance driven right past my dream winery and missed my one chance at true varietal bliss.

If every brand looks and sounds the same, has same perspective, purpose, product, it doesn’t matter which winery you visit or which brand you choose. The one is as good as the other, and if you’ve had one you’ve had them all. If you’re distinct, worthy of note, and you hide behind  the same humdrum look, feel, sound, and practice as everyone else, no one will ever know you’re worthy of their time or attention. When everyone is just a different shade of beige, popped from the same drone mold, we’re all being robbed of an opportunity for preference and our worlds all have a little less color in them. Boring is thievery by complacency.

Narrativity is one of the ways bold brands with a story to tell differentiate their experience, brighten their color spectrum, and tell their too-good-for-boring tale. Your brand’s story is made up of your brand’s real-life, day to day, actions, decisions, products, events, partnerships, sponsors. It’s who you are, how you work, what you do, and why you do it.  Narrativity is the voice, tone, and verbiage you use to tell that vivid, appealing, authentic story. Narrativity is like a person’s distinct vocabulary and speech pattern. It’s the words and phrases you own, and it’s what makes you sound like you, instead of just like everybody else.

Here are a few examples of vibrant, saucy brands that have high degree of Narrativity:

Urban Daddy: A racy, random, irreverent city guide for liquor drinking, women loving, wannabe jet owning, good humored James Bond types the world over. After reading an article or three from Urban Daddy, you and your grandmother could both pick their work out of a line up blind-folded (if it was being read aloud).

Harley-Davidson: Harley doesn’t sell motorcycles, they sell freedom, self-expression, great escapes, and the open road. Harley’s “grab life by the bars”, “leave well enough behind”, “out to free the world” attitude is captured in and on everything from their advertisements to their annual reports.

Kraken Rum: This edge-of-the-world nautical brand is steeped in legend and only distilled for the fearless, seafaring, adventuring, unshaven at spirit. Once you’ve heard a Kraken ad, you can’t help but read the Kraken bottle and the Kraken story using their narrator’s speech pattern- it’s that alluring and distinctive. Kraken’s tone is so consistently conveyed with such a distinctive verve that their narrator’s voice and their content’s verbiage isn’t ever separate from the story, it’s part of their story.

For a sneak peek at Kraken’s vivid storytelling in action, check out their tale of the man-eating, ship-wreaking, sea-monster The Kraken, via their website.

Coffee Fool: Coffee Fool comes with a warning: their coffee is so fresh and delicious, everything else will taste bland and stale in comparison. What the warning doesn’t mention is that everything’ll look and sound bland in comparison as well. While other coffee roasters talk in coffee-speak about notes and tones and soils and geographies, these guys have a style all their own…. An example: the description for their only-brewed-on-Fridays flavor, Vanillamykahlua, proclaims it: “Tastes just like it sounds, with a little Hawaiian rumble in the jungle.” And the description for their knock-your-socks off bacon-flavored brew: “If everything tastes better with bacon, then why not coffee too? Our bacon flavor is not just roasted – it’s spit roasted. It’s so aromatic, you’ll be instant friends with your work colleagues and … any neighborhood dogs.”

It has been surprising to realize just how many business leaders are struggling with the same question: “What’s the point?” The question, asked any number of ways, is usually followed by a long  list of reasons and arguments for convincing the working masses to show up every day to do what “should” be done, that is, produce something that someone else wants to buy.

Organizations must exist to contribute positively to the human experience…that is benefit one’s quality of life, culture, and community. Quite simply work should empower people in their quest and pursuit of happiness as they labor, contribute, and create. Anything less and the business will flounder. The uninspired, overtaxed working community will struggle to maintain momentum and sustain passion in transactional cultures. Focus will wane, mission creep will set in, morale, productivity, and value will slide.

The current economic crisis is a reflection of our human crisis. We unequivocally must bring our humanity to work. Our work should reinforce our sense of purpose, our value, and feed our very human need to build and create. It’s that simple. It’s that complicated. Work is not an add on.

The quality of our work changes when we see it as a vocation and a service. Watch the quick clip of Rainn Wilson describing his role as Dwight Schrute as a “service” on Big Think.

http://bit.ly/quNKwm

How will I know when it’s time to brand or re-brand? What are the signs?

If we agree that a brand is simply the central organizing principle that engages teams internally and customers externally then it makes sense to “evolve” your brand when your business is ready to evolve. When a significant change in course is required to remain competitive or kick up the game.

• You’ve evolved to the point of mission creep. No one knows what we really do around her. An evolved brand strategy clarifies the meaningful strategic course and the purpose.

• When you need to close the gap between what you do and what customers think that you do.

• When you decide to differentiate by more than price and function (the easiest differentiators to copy).

• When you have a story worth talking about, worth listening to, and worth supporting.

• To develop the company culture and attract likeminded, zealous, inspired talent that shares your values and purpose.

• To increase the value and effectiveness of your marketing strategies.

• To build trust with your customers.

• When a new competitor with a value-loaded proposition is storming your market, reducing your once “owned” differentiation to a cost-of-entry benefit, usurping your brand position, and muting your relevance.

• Your organization is ready to enter new markets with a disruptive and powerful proprietary advantage that changes the strategic game.

• Your products perform better in independent testing against your two biggest competitors. Yet, they smoke you in sales. How can you have lagging sells with a winning product?

• You have acquired competitors. The infighting is impeding the market penetration.

• You are hoping to secure venture capital for your big ambitions. But the feedback indicated that you had a confusing message and a vague image.

• Once upon a time brands weren’t necessary in your industry. Your reputation was your strategic advantage for years. Things have changed. New players pushing a sharp brand are gobbling up the best and brightest and nabbing the deals to be had.

• Your industry has changed, the people involved have evolved, and the business has morphed. You need a cohesive brand to align the new direction, the evolution, reflect the relevance and introduce your Big !dea.

• Your brand has been gauging your carbon footprint up and down the value chain: adopting minimal packaging standards, innovating efficient delivery, and advertising models. You are now recognized as a forerunner in the sustainability economy. This opens whole new worlds to you…if you let people know what you stand for.

• Your brand is recognized as a great employer; your superior work culture has been honored with national awards. You want to build your employee engagement, programs, and success into your brand story in the hopes of recognizing your working community of contributors and attracting top talent.

• When it’s time to quit spinning a tagline and your wheels.When you are ready to strut your thought leading, game changing, taking care of people and business, big-bold, strategic innovations.

It’s time to evolve your brand when you are ready to turn it up and on.

What exactly is a brand touchpoint?

A brand touchpoint is anything, absolutely anything, that you do in the course of conducting business that gives a customer a reason to think more or less of you.

• Does your grocery store schlep food and goods? Or do you bring health and nutrition to the hungry masses?

• Does it take 24-48 hours for your clinic to refill a lost prescription for an inhaler lost at camp?

• If you blindfolded customers would they know that they were in your bank? Do your processes and customer experiences communicate a bank-centric interest? Are your branches like every other competitor’s branch?

• Does your hospitalized patient feel more like a number in a transactional exchange than a human in need of wellness, control, information, and care?

• Do the signs posted all over actually guide anyone to where they need to go? Who does the language that you use speak to? Who do the systems and processes benefit? Do the incentives you offer reinforce your value and genuinely address the customer’s real need?

“Acceptance of prevailing standards often means we have no standards of our own.” Jean Toomer

Will anyone search out your sponsors’ products and services simply because you permitted their logo to grace your stage, your ad space, your playbill?

Sometimes advertising, sponsorship, and strategic partnership slumming happens because the bills have to be paid, sometimes it’s due to time constraints, and sometimes it happens because some decision maker somewhere didn’t know how to say no to a neighbor, cousin, or golf buddy. Most of the time though, it happens because there just aren’t explicit standards in place to guide right-fit selections and guard against poorly chosen partnerships.

One of my favorite stories on sponsorship and brand standards is the glorious, rebellious, and legally questionable tale of The International Times paper and it’s infamous IT Girl. It all started in 1966 with a unique problem…

Jim Haynes was a young theater director, living in London, faced with a complicated problem. The high cost of his production expenses meant that his entire theater could go under if even a single production failed to woo and wow critics and theater-goers. Jim knew his theater would never be free to experiment until it could afford to fail… So, Jim devised a plan that would make failure financially feasible.

One of Jim’s highest production expenses was advertising. Enter, Stage Left, Jim’s solution: The International Times. The International Times newspaper, later known as IT, was created to provide free advertising and event listings for experimental theater and productions sympathetic to the underground movement .

The only issue IT’s founders, Jim Haynes and editor Tom McGrath, agreed upon was their passionate sentiment on censorship.  Censorship, along with funding constraints, was impairing theater’s ability to experiment. Censorship was also preventing the pre-internet underground community from banding together to support the causes, events, and organizations they cared about.

IT’s second issue made a bold statement by featuring the previously unpublished anti-Semitic speeches of Ezra Pound. The radically offensive speeches were accompanied by an editorial proclaiming the paper’s unequivocal support of free speech and creative expression. The editorial explained that, while IT’s staff didn’t agree with Pound’s views, IT would publish art because it existed, not because their editorial staff agreed with it or because it met a restrictive pre-set definition of “good”. In an interview with Tom McGrath, he explained that the Pound speeches were the paper’s first bold, unwavering, unapologetic stand against censorship. Publishing something that they themselves didn’t even agree with was their way of proving their genuine commitment to free speech, and the paper immediately began to take off.

When art and theater events were banned and canceled by officials due to censorship, IT began helping re-organize events and worked to keep attendees updated on event relocation details. When an art exhibit was banned in Lund, Sweden because the nude model in the exhibit’s advertisements depicted pubic hair and a hash pipe, IT used the paper to re-organize the event. Instead of a small one-time event in Lund, IT managed to host the event at galleries across Europe.

While Jim started out selling the paper by hand, outside of small experimental theaters after late night performances, the explosive expansion of IT’s readership began to necessitate an actual distribution strategy. So, Jim and Tom found locally-owned shops who were committed to the underground community: record shops, bookstores, head shops, tattoo parlors…  and then they made a sign: a sign featuring Theda Bara as the IT Girl. The IT Girl sign quickly became a symbol for something far bigger than theater and newspapers. Something that resonated deeply and passionately with the paper’s readership. The IT Girl was a blazing symbol of a business’ staunch support of the newly united underground community.  If you had an IT Girl in your window, you deserved the underground community’s business. Supporting shops that proudly featured the IT Girl became a way for people to actively and consciously contribute to the continued existence of the brands that supported their values.

IT had standards, standards that centered around their purpose, their values, and their brand identity. Standards that helped unite the underground community, facilitated support for locally owned businesses, and helped shift the hierarchy from who had the business to who deserved the business.

Sponsorship and advertising standards have the power to create value and relevance when they’re consciously designed, clearly understood, and unapologetically enforced.

For more on Sponsorship check out BlackDog’s blog: Banners, Logos, and Neon Lights, oh my!
____________________________

Resources

http://www.jim-haynes.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_underground

http://www.internationaltimes.it/index.php?year=1966&volume=IT-Volume-1&issue=2&item=IT_1966-10-31_B-IT-Volume-1_Iss-2_001

http://www.internationaltimes.it/index.php?year=1966&volume=IT-Volume-1&issue=2&item=IT_1966-10-31_B-IT-Volume-1_Iss-2_002

http://blackdogstrategy.com/blog/2010/09/09/sponsorship/

Only 7% of the US beer market is comprised of craft beer devotees.
Yet, this savvy market is hopping at an ambitious rate of 11% annually as the commercial beer market shrinks 2% year after year. We want to know more about craft beer imbibers to build a kick ass craft beer brand for 3 guys with high ideals and a lot of guts.

If you drink craft brew this survey is for you… tell us your story. Be honest and keep it real.

Breakaway brand successes occur when brands with something to say begin speaking to audiences outside their close-knit school of thought.

Far too often, brands spend their all their communications efforts on preaching to the choir. Over, and over, and over again.

Remember our Outside Perspective blog? The disruptive technologies that radically move markets forward typically come from outside industries specifically because they have an outside perspective. The music industry didn’t imagine the ipod, airlines didn’t conjure up “go-to-meetings”, and TiVo wasn’t the brain child of the cable company.

When brands with valuable insights, unique perspectives, and innovative solutions only speak to other like-minded industry experts (who live within the same close-knit school of thought) or only speak to a group of devoutly loyal existing converts, their messages and their influence are limited and constricted. Speaking to the overlapping issues and the different audiences that are empowered to impact change and advance your cause moves your brand out of a category and into relevance…

Let’s take University Brands as our example. Through BlackDog’s activist foundation, Serious Play for Serious Girls, we frequently encounter academic researchers who report that their research is their contribution to their field and to the world at large. These researchers often find themselves frustrated that their research fails to reach the layman audiences who are positioned and empowered to affect the issues said research is helping address: social policy, corporate initiatives, education practices, environmental regulations, the list goes on. Unfortunately, researchers often find that professional networking and having to act as their own public relations advocates diverts too much time and energy away from actually conducting their research- which is the part of their work worth talking about in the first place…

One solution to this dilemma would be to provide researchers with networking and pr advocates who could help their work move beyond the peer community of fellow researchers and into the hands of professionals and activists positioned to impact change.  In addition to the outstanding societal benefits, these advocacy positions can help strengthen the university’s brand recognition, improve the brand image, improve the University’s working culture, increase the amount of outside funding available to researchers at the institution, and help the university to maintain ongoing relevance.

Another outstanding solution would be University Publications- trade journals, industry-oriented magazines, and community-centric industry-oriented blogs. Communications Arts isn’t published by Columbia or the Rhode Island School of Design, Vogue isn’t curated by Parsons, and Wired isn’t produced by MIT.  Examples of universities whose publications are actually speaking to their industries and contributing to the broader conversation are rare exceptions rather than the norm: Rotman, Harvard Business Review, The Journal of Pediatric Psychology…

What operational issues are reining your message in and holding your organization back? Here’s a quick self-audit check list to help identify if the broader audiences you’re positioned to speak to:

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

What relevant issues is your brand positioned to speak to?

Which audiences would benefit from or appreciate the issues you’re positioned to speak to?

If you could speak to anyone, which audiences would you choose to speak to?

Why would these audiences care about your brand? What about you is relevant to them?

Who else is targeting the attention of these audiences? How will this interfere with your ability to reach them?

What would you have to do differently to reach these audiences?

What are the biggest obstacles holding your message back?

What creative solutions could help reduce or completely eliminate these obstacles?

Why are condom and tampon brands so far behind the eco-friendly times?

A cultural shift has happened and it’s made us all increasingly aware of our social and environmental impact. The 2009 Global Edelman goodpurpose* study found that “83% (of consumers are) willing to change consumption habits if it can help make the world a better place to live.”

In 2009, 71% of consumers thought brands wasted too much money on marketing and advertising and reported that they’d like to see brands spending more money on good causes instead- a 10% increase from 2008.

Even the household cleaning aisle at our local grocers has reacted to our growing concern with eco-impact and social-consciousness, so we were shocked to realize how few environmental impact indicators appear in the feminine hygiene aisle.

When it comes to tampons, pads, condoms, personal lubricant, and panty liners it’s the (extremely) rare exception when the packaging indicates whether or not it’s recyclable, identifies whether it’s made from recycled materials, or actually helps consumers to make brand decisions based on eco impact.

Of all the different brands of tampons, pads, and liners carried by our friendly neighborhood Wegman’s- only 1 brand indicated that their boxes were made from recycled materials (credit here goes to O.B.). We understand why the feminine hygiene industry may be confused- pad wrappers and tampon applicators comprise the vast majority of the trash that finds its way into wastebaskets in ladies rooms the developed world over. That does not, however, mean that packaging shouldn’t be made from recycled materials. If toilet paper can be hygienically crafted from post-consumer materials, why can’t boxes and applicators?

It’s 2011, it isn’t a secret that women menstruate, and eco-conscious women will probably be willing to put tampon boxes out with their recycling, but condom boxes present an entirely different recycling challenge. Do you really want your neighbors to know how frequently, or infrequently, you’re running through your supply? Do you really want them to know whether you’re using Magnums or Snugger Fits? The new plastic packaging on LifeStyles Thyns does happen to indicate that the package is recyclable, but are mindful lovers going to put their vibrant eye-catching blue condom box out with the recycling? Or will it be discreetly nestled in the trash?

The new LifeStyles Thyns’ packaging may be recyclable, but it isn’t made from recycled materials- we checked. So, do plastic condom boxes have a greater or lesser environmental impact than cardboard boxes? The presence of recycling symbol isn’t actually an indicator of a products’ environmental impact. An eco-aware, customer-centric, socially responsible condom manufacturer would be using recycled materials, would be finding ways to overcome our recycling hesitations, and would be driving their industry through thought leadership.

The condom, lube, and feminine hygiene industries have failed to keep their finger on the pulse of our cultural evolution.

Once a condom manufacturer creates eco-friendly packaging and a corresponding advertising campaign that promotes their green values, the competition will likely follow suit. Price and function are the easiest differentiators to duplicate but Constant Innovation and Commitment to Values are highly unique differentiators that can’t be faked, contrived, or easily replicated. Thought leadership ensures that you won’t just be the first on the market- you’ll the first brand that comes to mind.

*goodpurpose. “Despite Prolonged Global Recession, an Increasing number of people are spending on brands that have social purpose: According to the 2009 Global Edelman goodpurpose™ Study.” New York, 2009; 21 (October). http://www.goodpurposecommunity.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/2009GOODPURPOSEGLOBALRELEASE.pdf

There are so many companies with so many brands that it is hard to believe there is much “new” out there. Do you ever get over whelmed by finding ways or trying to be inventive and original?

Finding ways to help relevant, authentic brands tell a unique story is rarely overwhelming, in fact it is energizing and inspiring.  Organizations with energy, curiosity, courage and chutzpah that are willing to take on the challenges of driving their brand forward are a joy to work with.

That isn’t to say there aren’t obstacles. The most common, and most difficult, challenge is in establishing a brand’s positioning. It’s thorny ubiquity stems from two realities.

The first reality is that very few organizations truly understand differentiation. They are so ensconced in their day to day world, that they cannot lift their eyes up to see what makes them special. They typically don’t want to do the hard work of excavating that which makes them different… the essence of their brand.  And, even after doing the hard work, they often have a hard time embracing their differentiation, because the results are rarely what they anticipated and most often are significantly different from anyone elses in the market. Which they should be.

The second reality compounds the first. The vast majority of organizations, despite their vociferous claims of wanting to stand out, be different and unique, in the end just want to do the same old thing. They want to do and say what everyone else says and does. Unfortunately for them, imitation has never been a form of flattery; it’s always been boring and it’s really overdone. You cannot fake brand relevance, it’s not cheap or easy; it can’t be copied or bought.  It is hard earned and hard won.

It is in that hard work, the excavation and research, missteps and do-overs, thoughtful days and restless nights that the obstacles are overcome… and a brand emerges.  In the end the challenge isn’t a shortage of creativity; it is invigorating everyone to set their creativity, innovation, and ultimately their brand, free.