It is easy to point at where the Big Three automakers went wrong in terms of disconnect with customers, and the collectively many flaws in their respective brands. We can include disrespect for workers (both domestic and foreign), environmental damage, lax ecology & conservation practices, too much reliance on dwindling resources—and other direct customer needs such as size, performance, quality, and economy.

Apart from a fading romance that many people have with the good old days of clean, wide open highways, big engines, hot rods, innovative style, large luxury and gas-guzzling power—a growing population in the US are starting to realize that the fun is over. These kinds of cars are now irrelevant, times have changed, and the liabilities of such vehicles far outweigh any lingering enjoyment we may have had from them in the past. Younger people are already there, and the numbers are growing who say owning a car is simply not worth the trouble (insurance, gas, accidents, parking, tickets, taxes, and so on). Japan's young folks are falling out of love with cars—or demotorizing completely. The level of young Americans demotorizing is sure to follow suit.

What is not so easy is realizing that no matter how much money we give Detroit automakers, no bailout will fix the thoroughly disconnected relationship Ford, GM, and Chrysler have to the new world customers—in a new Age of Mobility, without personal attachment to a personal vehicle, let alone attachment to the brands that failed to deliver solutions relevant for the current economic and mobility realities.

Even though automobile brands trump price in the hearts of consumers(1)—and is one of the few product categories to make such a claim in today's commoditized brand environment—new innovators who want to deliver modern and relevant automobiles could spell the end of Detroit's and even Japan's auto business, barring a radically different trajectory. Check out the amazing new creative mobility solutions in Eight alternatives to Detroit’s ‘Big Three’.

The problem with automakers beyond the direct disconnect with consumers? A huge lack in creativity at a time when there is also a loss of trust in the brand connection; the convergence of a very unsavory mix of brand flavors.

(1) "Save America's Dying Brands", Kevin J. Clancy, Marketing Management, Sept./ Oct. 2001, Vol. 10, Issue 3.

1952 GM Firebird I Turbine Concept Car

 1950s Amphicar: a dismal failure, but an innovative creation that captured consumer's dreams.

Forward ’09: Brandology is about the science of branding. Its anthropology. Its very DNA.

The days of the billion-dollar ad budgets are gone. We’re in a world now where people use brands to construct their personal, professional and social identities – where the meaning of a brand is based on the connections between people that transcend charts and graphs. It’s all about cultural relevance and emotions, not hype.

We’re not talking about a revolution. We’re echoing the call for systematic evolution- where the key to delivering value and the future growth of every brand depend on accessing a network of resources to create unique experiences with consumers…one at a time.

Forward ’09: Brandology is more than a conference. It’s a powerful community where networking and collaboration provide a launching pad for lasting relationships.

The American Marketing Association (AMA) Oregon is seeking motivated speakers who are ready to move beyond the podium and directly engage with attendees, providing actionable perspectives, strategies, tools and techniques on how to keep brands relevant (and consumers passionate) in an ever-changing media universe.

Think you can move the crowd? Download applications materials at http://tinyurl.com/5hvsxe and tell us how.

Jessica Legg, Account Manager at Pinnacle Marketing Group in Oregon is helping organize and plan this event.

Now if someone can just help me remember what I was going to say, and help me get my jaw back up...

Our friends, our families, our health, our lives, plus the pursuit of happiness and justification for being on this planet.

So, everyone, all I want to say is I appreciate having you all here on this webjam, this wonderfully social  experience, this very quite nice community. And of course, I want to wish you all a very

Merry Christmas and a

Happy New Year!

J = Julio Ferro/ Hey!
R = Russell Volckmann

J: Pepsi has a new product branding created by Arnell-Group. I've posted my opinion at Hey! and Russell's comments gave a different approach to the problem (the new brand ID is surprisingly bland).

Compared to the more "stable" Coca-Cola brand ID, Pepsi seems to react like a teenager brand: changing without any apparently strategic drive. This seems to impact on their brand integrity regarding its changing symbol: it changes over and over on every line extension.

I've been thinking in the meanwhile if this rebranding is because the cola wars is not between Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi anymore. RedBull has just launched its own soda. RedBull Cola has the original and natural ingredients and look at its branding. Taking into account the "energetic" attribute, the battle would be between Pepsi and RedBull Cola.

Back to the original topic, while Coca-Cola went back to simplicity, Pepsi did more or less the same. What happened with differentiation? What happened with the brand history? What about shelf impact?

Russell?

R: Well, to paraphrase myself (if that is possible) from our previous discussion on the topic.... The new Pepsi graphical identity marks are strange and defy accepted rationale for branding: to be brief, the marks are inconsistent with the Pepsi history, and worse, inconsistent across product lines. The message in the graphical ID is therefore inconsistent, wavering, and lacks the necessary integrity that distinguishes the brand mark. Look at the Pepsi logo across the line of products in the photo below. The variation in the logo includes variances in color, variances in swish size between the product line. PLUS the prominent "0" (I assume, "zero", for zero calories) on Pepsi Light & Max is a distraction from the brand mark. The variances are the very antithesis of a strong brand mark, and can cause confusion. Is it a company logo or a product logo? Both? There is so everything wrong with this Pepsi logo picture, I am almost surprised it is legal.

What happened to brand history indeed. From all appearances, this says "forget the last new generation", forget any associated brand loyalty, forget any visual integrity.

The new Pepsi product façade also resembles the advent of a plethora of new sports drinks and vitamin waters flooding the market. Do they want to fake people into believing this is something sporty or healthy? The minimalist lowercase thin wordmark certainly implies this. Redbull and other similar energy drinks may be one reason for taking Pepsi on the new wrong turn down anti-brand highway. However, it is not enough to be simply different in brand—the change also needs to be an improvement. Before breaking away from the pack, make sure others can follow.

Thanks to new technologies, especially Internet and those that allow mobility, the habits of people change. We face new cultural patterns.

In this regard, communication is evolving and is facing new paradigms. People again have a decisive role—independent of the regions where they live and of the companies with which, in one way or another, they are interrelated.

The response from businesses and regions is here and now. However, we have to understand that it is not only a question of covering expectations, but also a matter of ways the communication is perceived.

With each act, and what that act communicates, the key to meaningful engagement lies in a constant/ sustained capacity and legitimacy—whether an individual, company or geopolitical region—such as a country, state, city, etc.

This cultural exchange between entities means that the institutional communication faces new challenges, primarily because the individual as such, regains his/her prominence. We all need to talk about motivations, multi-dimensionality, new demands. Challenges.

Institutions that properly understand the need to meet these challenges realize they must implement a way to make the institutional communication play a new role. Companies and regions must serve individuals that are part of different tribes, and simultaneously begin to converge and align themselves to those tribes, based on tribal value agendas.

The situation is complex and creates new responsibilities, especially to each person. Institutional communication in perceptions should help to legitimize businesses and regions with each of its target audiences, talking from "you to you."

That is, neither more nor less.

Changes

With the passing of time, people are going to develop new habits. The sum of these new habits at some time will create new cultural behaviours. The truth is that if we go back in time and remember how our lives were about 25 years ago, we can recognize how things have changed.

The mobile phone is 25 years old, Internet 15 years old and ADSL less than ten. The development, combination and convergence of these technologies are one of the keys to understanding our world today.

Today there is overabundance of data, wherever and online. The world has become one in which, the one who manages the knowledge and possess the ability to decode correctly, keeps winning.

Historically, we have lived in a constant process of evolution. The acceleration in recent years makes the world disruptive. Meanwhile, the impact of disruption makes more valuable to anticipate than continue to shape our future by predictions.

The world is no longer black and white, and has become an infinite range of grays.

Going into the field of communications, being they personal, corporate or regional communications, the big change that we can see is that, if the individual correctly decodes the data and converts them into relevant information, he/she is starting to become part of the decisions; the empowerment of individuals.

We are not only seeking for economic success as an end in itself (as in the '90s). Now our deepest desire is to be able to differentiate ourselves, to be in the constant quest for self-expression.

Businesses should leave behind—in many cases, their desire for competition and begin to develop new avenues of collaboration. If you want to get on the bandwagon of disruption, you must innovate and if you think you can do it alone, soon you’ll face insurmountable constraints.

Geopolitical regions are showing the biggest problem. Historically people did relate to the places where they lived based on shared values of belonging. Today people are sharing values—both belonging and self-expression—and do not necessarily live in the same place, or speak the same language, nor eat the same, or defend the same flag. A region that fails to communicate with their inhabitants will be only a container of different supra-regional tribes.

Times change and we change. The money is not everything. Ideas and ideals again matter. Despite the "virtuality" of the world in which we live, there is a great window of opportunity that we must seize in order to win as individuals. The way in which we communicate, and the contents of our communications, will be essential to exploit this new opportunity.

Challenges

If ideas and ideals are what count, the great challenge will be to give importance to what is invisible to our eyes.

We motivate ourselves by sharing experiences, by belonging to a tribe whose reason for existence is the similarity of value agendas of its members. From the world of scarce resources where we were educated, we begin to move towards a new one based on social networks.

Things are no longer simple, compared to the linearity of cause and effect; we are faced with new types of interactions, overabundance of information, disruption and change. We are more and better communicated. It is true. However, the multiplicity of events leads to a multidimensional situation. It is not complicated, is complex.

Technological advances coupled with our desire for self-expression have also allowed, on the one hand to a substantial improvement in our standard of living, and on the other, to a deepest personal care. In short, we live and will live better and longer, we will be more active and older or more experienced. That is how we are moving from a generation of ambitious young people towards an aging and demanding society, even worse, plaintiff of contradictory things:

• We want to pay less tax and have better infrastructure
• We want a good pension plan and companies more sympathetic and with reasonable profits
• We want better products, cheaper and which were produced by following strict codes of good corporate behaviours

We are facing changes that make us live in a permanent state of contradiction. Our values were built upon our recent almost comfortable history, but our future will be built with a high dose of uncertainty. The new contradictory challenges for communication in any arena: Relations between social network, uniqueness and participation; Relations between complexity, simplicity and relevance; Relations between change, intensity and promptness.

The Roles

Communication is going back to its origins. It begins to sustain in an intimate and sincere dialogue. The mass media must be understood and developed in different ways. The masses are now sets of individuals who wait to talk in a "you to you" way.

Both for firms and for geopolitical regions, mass media communication must address and relate to different groups of interest. The dilemma of this new century won’t be to understand the technological convergence, but the new ways of convergence of individuals.

Relationships with a company will remain if we share value agendas, whether we are in a position of customers, shareholders, employees or suppliers. At the end of the day, we can play all those roles simultaneously.

For the geopolitical regions, achieving aligned value agendas will be based on building trusted relationships. The values associated with belonging are those relationships that carry more weight, but are also the relationships that are losing relevance faster.

Communication must evolve toward more symbolic aspects. And communication is not limited to the question of achieving affinity with individuals, but also to gain relevance in relation to business.

To put it in terms we all understand:

• Revenues for the world's first 15 largest companies are greater than the GDP generate by 80% of countries

• Of a total of 208 countries, more than 160 countries generate less revenue than each of these companies
• The amount of revenue of these 15 companies is higher than the GDP of Spain

• While the countries are governed democratically (at least a good portion of them), companies are not governed democratically. This translates into high speed for decision making and action, however, also forces companies to be more transparent and socially responsible
• Considering owners and founders of companies, Bill Gates's fortune is higher than the GDP of 75% of the countries, and Amancio Ortega’s one (Inditex) of more than 60% of countries

The traditional focus of the geopolitical communication has been developed by governments to (a) respond to financial demands in the short term, or (b) to convert the region into a tourist destination, or (c) to help communities foster development.

Aligning values is not an easy topic for geopolitical regions. The inhabitants must overcome the short-term vision that press governments and above all, recognize that one particular region is what it is, and that cannot be changed from one day to another. As for the people, specifically those who govern, their role should be more the one of a statesman than the one of a traditional politician.

Responsibilities

In this new situation, the responsibility for communication falls on those who have more power, the people. Communications are born and die with people themselves, are the people who send the message are the people who are decoding, and also are the people who respond to the stimulus.

Corporate Communications is twofold:

• The one that relates to what corporations offer
• The one that relates to corporate responsibilities

Corporate communications is related to what the institution does and not what it says—and this must be seen as an ethical principle. Those institutions that (a) incorporate transparency and ethical behaviours, (b) incorporate respect for its stakeholders, and (c) are committed to generating sustainable value—economically, socially and environmentally—are the institutions that really make a difference in terms of their corporate social responsibility.

This type of communication is as true for businesses as to the geopolitical regions, in the way they must share and align value agendas. The method of communication is based on ethics, transparency, honesty and dialogue.

At the end of the day, the value given to an institution depends on the confidence we have in the institution; and institutional confidence is promoted with an element that is ineffable, but also has limited legitimacy.

People, businesses and geopolitical regions will reach a differential in their communication if it allows them to legitimize, in each and at all times, with each of their respective audience objectives.

Specifically, regional communications should be supportive, knowing that the communications must overcome historical problems  that are structural in nature, exercisable from the authority, creating unity of purpose, and creating the pride of belonging.

Conclusions

As we view the status of permanent change in which we all live, communication must be effective, and enable and enhance our capabilities as individuals. If so, these will be achieved simultaneously: uniqueness and participation, simplicity and relevance, intensity and promptly.

For geopolitical regions, their communication must evolve into a new arena that companies already know—ensuring their ability to generate a dialogue with their key audiences, becoming iconic, independent of the short-term vision, and recognizing what the region was, is, and aspires to be. By doing this, geopolitical regions will renew a sense of belonging, creating a new kind of tribe that again feels identified by the place. The basis of this communication will be in its responsibility to individuals and businesses.

In this new phase of humanity and corporate social responsibility—our new communication method should be understood and managed as CSR—"Communication Sincerely Reliable".

Superb Brand and Visual Identity by Salt Branding in San Francisco!

A very effective Ribbit graphical identity & name—the "ribbit" froggy sound, the implied image of a frog jumping from a lily pad (splash) in the wordmark (or it could be a tongue zipping out to catch an orange fly?). It is an organic experience we can relate to on an instinctive and intuitive way.

The "zen" of this name & visual identity is reminiscent of a classic Japanese haiku（俳句）poem:

Furu ike ya, Kawazu tobikomu, Mizu no otto

ふるいけや, かわずとびこむ, みずのおっと

Meaning:

An old pond, Frog jumps, The sound of water

Pure genius. And see how well this works as a co-brand:

Ribbit is “An Open Platform for Telephony Innovation”. But what this company does, or that they are B2B or B2C, is somewhat irrelevant. What is very relevant is the way Salt Branding took the ideas of “alive, jumping, green, and not-stuck-in-one-pond (like being stuck on one telephony platform)”. Salt translated that into a fresh name, whose very sound conjures up the refreshing experience one gets from freedom—the freedom that the company promises in their brand.  

 Congratulations to Salt Branding!

Your thoughts?

• A paradigm shift is underway (or has happened) in branding
• You no longer own your brand
• Consumers own the brand
• Tribes own the brand
• The organization is the brand
• People are the brand

And on...

Although we are seeing a shift in terms of brand awareness, I believe the successful brands still need to embrace solid traditional tenets. To an increasing extent, companies are beginning to shape their own brand by selectively listening to individuals and tribes of consumers who have a stake in those brands. But is that the same as consumer ownership of a brand?

Does Everyone Own The Brand?

Let's play devil's advocate for a moment, and say we tend to disagree that everyone "owns" the brand. What about psychopaths, the socially outcast, or people with just generally bad ideas you don't want to associate with your company's brand ? Do they own the brand and shape it too? Or do competitors own your brand in their fashion? If they do, then the company's brand is in for some real trouble. Instead, I believe the brand needs to become a model of best-in-class product, behavior, and communication.

Yes, we are seeing the successful companies truly engage their customers. We are seeing companies become more aware everyday that in order to be successful, they need to live up to their brand expectations—whether derived from internal values or external values, or some combination thereof. As Patrick Newbery (Method, San Francisco) pointed out, companies need to deliver value, listen to consumers & partners better, understand problems, and diligently work to fix things that are not working. In that sense, the company necessarily needs to OWN (or take the ownership of) those brand values. It's what I like to call integrity.

Brand integrity. For most companies, it may no longer be sustainable to continue the ivory tower approach. Call it "cleaning up your act" as Sara Batterby (WORD Messaging Strategy, San Francisco) declared. In fact Sara hit the nail on the head—the method, tone, and approach to communicating brand values, and engaging customers needs to become more communal, engaging, and participatory.

What Inspires Brand Engagement?

 However, the brand still needs to stand tall in front of it's audiences, stick to the core values that work, discard the values that do not work, and embrace  positive stakeholder (customers, partners) values that inspire engagement.

 After all, people will always look for something greater than themselves to believe in. And what better way to convince consumers there is a reason to believe, than the company brand walking the walk?

Your Thoughts?

What do you think?

"rtve", the Spanish national TV & radio company, has been rebranded by Summa (Conrad Llorens)... And this is good news!

• Because it was developed by a Spanish company
• Because Conrad is part of our community and we have to be happy for his success
• Because it's a great work... Period!

Again... Congratulations!

The entry above was written by Cristián Saracco ... 

http://www.volckmann.com

It's a start.

Russell

The Agency: Wants to deliver a successful brand experience that is adaptable, scalable, attentive, creative, elegant, professional, personable, represents solid company tenets in some meaningful and deliberate way--and can stand the test of time. A brand that speaks of integrity, assurance and quality.

The Client: Wants to build a brand, thinking all they need is a logo.

You've all been here before. You have a professional team ready to roll and do the painstaking groundwork to make sure no stone is left unturned for the sake of your client. You want to ensure the company's enduring success in part by establishing an iron-clad brand, and subsequent Visual Identity.

Suddenly you find yourself in front of the client's team consisting of CEO, COO, VP Marketing, attorneys, and even engineers and administrative are sitting around the boardroom table looking at you with a blank expression on their faces, telling you, "that's nice" but "when do we get to see some logos?"

The client doesn't get it. And yet you have assumed you are doing everything right. After all, the account manager achieved the contract, right? Not so fast...

Design Before Strategy.

To paraphrase one CEO's recent comments, "I want design mock-ups almost immediately. I want action. I want to see a lot of logos. Show my company all kinds of options. Then bring in EVERYONE from the company organization (janitor, etc.) into the process. Let the entire group choose the creative that they like. Save some time and print out a hundred logos from the web. This would only take the branding & ID company two minutes." The client wants design before strategy... We'll just call this person "Action CEO".

First and foremost, the hundreds of visual examples in the world of company graphical identities will be likely 100% irrelevant to the specific client company brand needs. The client needs a unique brand--both in visual identity and in practice--that breaks away from the pack of the other thousand companies that are in a similar business. The client needs may even go deeper. In the short-term the client company may need to rethink the way they communicate and engage customers, vendors, and employees. That's an important enough step in beginning to create brand success, and the fruition of a strong visual identity to match. It's also doable within a reasonable timeline.

In the long-term, the company may even need to overhaul its product line, services, or core business offerings--in order to maintain or improve brand awareness and brand loyalty. That may be Phase II or even Phase III in a hopefully long relationship with this client. How do we communicate these values to the Action CEO? We engage his/her objections with key questions designed to clarify the client needs, and provide relevant data and marketing justification for brand decisions.

What do you think of this as it applies to engaging a client with your brand recommendations?

Second, 20 different stakeholders with potentially conflicting interests is a potential recipe for failure. By running the gamut of 20 people with different positions, interests, tastes, color preferences, likes, dislikes, plus various levels of business/market/brand connect or disconnect--will create a situation where 20 different decision-makers ultimately will never agree, or will agree to have the agency create a combination of the 20 things that everyone likes. The end visual result, according to the aggregation of all client stakeholders, would be a sort of round-square stitched-together thing that is a mish-mash of red, yellow, green, blue, purple, gray and shows a horse's body with a bunny's head--and using 40 different fonts in the wordmark. Or worse. Throw brand integrity out the window. Forget the marketing data and the competitive analysis. Forget any possibility of a solid brand architecture that can transcend and survive new product and packaging or company growth and expansion. In other words, a Frankenstein brand that will please no one, especially the agency which is on the verge of firing their client at this point. AND, let alone the idea of organically connecting the dots between client and audience.

In a client environment such as the Action CEO example, I try to assure the client that we deliberately want take the time to discover the unique company tenets & values, markets & competition, business climate & trends, experiences & aspirations---so we can create THE perfect brand that delivers enduring success for the company--as opposed to delivering random graphical imagery without any thought about the often very deep business reasons for a particular creative direction.

On the other hand, when we are talking about a brand launch or launch of a new business, there is often a tearing hurry within the organization. Everyone is looking at numbers, the impending targets for the years. The internal stakeholders want to see that logo, the packaging, the advert designs. There is little patience within the organizations. What makes it doubly complex is that we might not end up with CEOs who are from brand or marketing backgrounds.

According to Satya Upadhya, Asst. Vice President, Brand Communications at INX News, "A successful strategy in such a scenario is to have a well chalked out plan well in advance where you have done many consumer researches (trust me there is nothing more convincing for the board members than 'market research findings'!). And then make an identity presentation which has linkages to the business, how it will positively impact the topline and bottomline and keep the identity story relevant to the business realities."

Again, engage the client with relevant motivation for your recommendations, all the while engaging the client objections.

So there actually is hope for the "Action CEO" company if we do our homework deliberately and fairly quickly; And, if we handle client objections with a true engagement. After all, brand engagement what we do isn't it? What we are doing is selling the client on brand choices (our "tribe's brand" of brand), so that our clients can sell their company products and services with integrity in their own brand.

Your thoughts?

How will new products & new companies find new names in the future?

Further compounding the crisis is the inherent globalization in brand, due in part to the speed of the Internet, and needing to consider names that work well when localizing or globalizing a brand.

In working with both domestic and global companies, I am constantly involved in addressing naming challenges as a fundamental part of brand. But the job is not getting easier.

What solutions do you propose for a dwindling supply of finite names that can be used as part of a total brand strategy?

Naseem Javed is CEO of the ABC Namebank, and brings up some of the challenges facing companies trying to develop the name aspect of a brand in today's naming climate. Check out the video below.

Your thoughts?