Brand Girl™

If you’re like most people, you’re probably grateful that September 11^th is behind us, for another 360 days. For another year, we can leave behind the corresponding barrage of corporate tributes reminding us of the tragedy—as if we would or could ever forget.

Taking a corporate stance on public issues and events will always be a difficult line for marketers to straddle. Audiences are fickle. Whether you’re being too intrusive, insensitive or outright exploitative, they will be quick to call you out. It can boil down to a case of “you’re damn if you do, and damned if you don’t.” However, when it comes to social issues, if you do choose to do—do it well.

Take two cases in point:

State Farm’s tribute to the heroes of 9/11 is a fine example of a good do. The moving collaboration with Spike Lee touches all the right spots: It features a cover of Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind” performed by school children of the New York City boroughs, woven seamlessly with New York images that are moving without being sentimental. The tribute showcases all things New York: real NY kids, real NY places, an anthemic, tough, and catchy NY-themed song by NY artists, and a respected NY film director. The imagery works because the kids are doing everyday New York things—disembarking from a massive, mustard-yellow school bus; pushing through subway turnstiles; riding the Staten Island Ferry, navigating traffic by bicycle; walking over the Brooklyn Bridge, both majestic and gritty, with the white, protective construction shrouds hanging off its harp-like skeleton; visiting Yankee Stadium and the Bronx; and last but not least, visiting firehouses to thank the heroes who worked there and died for their service and the brave men who still work there and save lives. Making the “Empire State of Mind (Part II)” song from the tribute available for purchased through iTunes with proceeds benefiting the National Fallen Fireman Foundation was another unexpected, good choice.

If the amount of buzz the film has gotten on Facebook and Twitter is any indication, State Farm’s whole campaign seems to have earned high marks from the public. The Illinois-based insurance company produced a tribute that not only inspired warm and fuzzy thoughts about a city and nation rebuilding after loss, but also about the State Farm brand and the company’s understanding of social responsibility. Part of the reason the branding is effective is that this humble and tasteful tribute feels earnest rather than self-congratulatory or canned. And except for the millisecond flash of the company logo at the very end of the segment, literally nothing indicates that State Farm sponsored the segment.

On the flip side, we have a tribute spot by Verizon, a New York-based company that should be subjected to a tongue lashing by Serena Williams (after she’s been called out for a fault or for letting a victory yelp slip out prematurely, of course).

Verizon’s tribute, a compilation of beauty shots of The Statue of Liberty and frolicking children, edited to Josh Groban’s and Charlotte Church’s “The Prayer,” inspired only one thing: tears. Of course it does. The vocals of Josh Groban and Charlotte Church (or Celine Dion, or Andrea Bocelli, for that matter) would make anyone gush like a baby on any given day. That’s the problem. Those tears? Generic tears. Not tears for 9/11. Not for New York. Not for our nation. Not for our fallen heroes. There’s nothing remotely New York about the song, and in combination with equally Hallmark-y sentimental imagery of the Statue of Liberty and nothing else, the segment comes across as heavy-handed and calculated, designed to reduce anyone to a blubbering mess for no particular reason. It feels like some guy in corporate was spending more time thinking about a New York “tribute” that would play well in Peoria than a genuine tribute that would play well in New York.

The whole thing is as short as the State Farm tribute, but the Verizon piece feels longer because it’s the opposite in tone and approach: It feels like an ad intended to make you cry and purchase your brand loyalty through sentiment. It’s shot in black-and-white, though it’s unclear what effect this is supposed to create—grit? elegance? seriousness? The images chosen feel similarly lazy and predictable. Shots of the Statue of Liberty from all angles, interspersed with shots that look like those stock images that come with the picture frames you buy at Target or Kohl’s (a baby’s hand, a parent’s hand, an infant’s wide eyes, kids of all colors smiling, making faces, and peering expectantly up at the regal Lady Liberty).

Consequently, after you’re done blowing your nose, the Verizon spot also leaves you with a big thought bubble over your head that reads: “why?” Did a board member with some free time, access to stock footage, and a fully loaded Mac volunteer to do it? Did a stock video house have a footage sale? Hmm.

The kicker: If memory serves me correctly, Verizon used “The Prayer” in its first 9/11 tribute back in 2002…So: not just tearjerker schmaltz but recycled tearjerker schmaltz to boot.

Thankfully, there was one good part to this otherwise bland and uninspired effort. The end, which came in the form of a dedication: “In tribute to those we lost.  In gratitude to those who served.” Nonetheless, I, along with a majority of folks, was disappointed with Verizon’s “lack of mind” and would have preferred if they had sat this one out.

Am I being too harsh? Watch the two videos back to back…. Harsh? I don’t think so.

I woke up this morning with a strong thought, possibly an usual one for a communications advocate: I was grateful that social media tools were in their infancy a decade ago.

Yes, you can go ahead and slap me. Today’s instant communication platforms might have helped save some of the lives lost during the horrific events of September 11, 2001. And yet still, I’m secretly, somewhat sheepishly relieved to be haunted mostly by the memories of what I witnessed with my own eyes. I’m thankful for what I was spared—tragic, or worse, inane or offensive tweets, texts interrupted mid-message, YouTube videos, manipulated YouTube video mash-ups, endless chatter about tragedy and pain and fear and death, all in real time as the events were still unfolding.

Despite being on the West coast this morning, some 3,000 miles from my beloved home, I can reflect in my own silence as I listen to the chiming of the bells, the pauses of silence, and the reading of the names of all those that died that day. Ringing as loudly and as clearly in my mind, as if I were still sitting in my TriBeCa loft, watching and listening to the ceremony itself pour in from Ground Zero.

So, along with a million other hearts, my heart still aches.
And along with a million others, I will continue to ‘heart’ NY more than ever.

Note: Milton Glaser modified his classic 1975 “I ‘heart’ NY” logo design after the attack in 2001.

A colleague forwarded me this Business Insider article, “Why I Will Never, Ever Hire a ‘Social Media Expert,’” because he thought I would like it. He was right. I liked it, on Facebook, along with 9,000+ others. I also happen to agree with many of the points raised by its author, Peter Shankman. One being that you can’t make a great sandwich if you only know how to pull the bread out of the fridge. Translation: You can’t build a great brand campaign, if you only know how to tweet.

Shankman equates the social media craze to the DotCom saga, Redux:

We’re making the same mistakes that we made during the DotCom era, where everyone thought that just adding the term .com to your corporate logo made you instantly credible. It didn’t. If that’s all you did, you emphasized even more strongly how pathetic your company was. You weren’t “building a new paradigm while shifting alternate ways of focusing customers on the clicks and mortar of an organizational exchange.” No—you were simply an idiot who’d be out of business in six months.

Having owned a brand development studio during the DotCom years, I concur with Shankman. When the Internet first came on the corporate scene, most of my clients were racing to get online. In their defense, there was tremendous pressure to be in and on it––and to do it first. Before anyone really knew what “it” was. In that panicked environment, I found that I could easily charge more for the bells and whistles of programming, where the m.o. of the day was “the splashier, the better.” It was more of a struggle, however, to get clients to pony up for content development (i.e., What’s the message your programming bells and whistles are supporting?). “Creatives” right out of school who could dazzle you with seemingly magical Flash and html skills were coming out of the woodwork. Everyone under 25, it seemed, was a Web master. But these fresh young things held no real understanding of the larger brand picture or of client objectives and how to meet them. Web disaster was more like it.

Today, I see a similar trend. Many design schools are churning out the savvy “social media techie,” but again, this new wave of “experts” have no real handle on traditional marketing. As a result, for all their specialized tech skills, these folks only offer fragmented viral work. Companies are jumping to get Twitter accounts activated and Facebook fan pages up, more often than not with half-baked ideas. Almost every single ad spot on air right now is tagged with a Facebook URL or a Facebook logo. In fact, the only thing that I’m remembering now at the end of all the commercials is “Facebook,” not the brands or products being promoted. The only genius in that equation is Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg has the whole corporate world advertising for his company, and he doesn’t have to spend a dime. The upshot: Clients are once again putting the cart before the horse. And if you think I’m overstating the point, go check out some open online job listings. How is it that companies are offering jobs for “social gurus” at $100K and entry for marketing mavens at $30K?

The hype won’t last forever. Consumers know the real thing when they see it. As we came to understand after the inevitable bust, the DotCom era only offered new ways to communicate and interact with customers. Social media channels and platforms, too, are only offering new outlets for interaction. None of which trumps the pillars of traditional brand building. The real power of social media, if utilized correctly with a fully baked brand plan, is that you can now connect with customers and target audiences with great accuracy—and in real time.

For example, let’s take a look at the early 2010 Domino’s Foursquare promotion that ran in the UK, which was mentioned a lot in the online responses to Shankman’s rant. (Reading through posted comments, by the way, is the equivalent of watching bad reality TV. You can expect a lot of ego, poor grammar, out-of-context verbal bashing.) As a rebuttal to Shankman, one commenter cited the Domino’s Pizza Foursquare promotion as an example of a successful “social media” campaign that used no “classic marketing techniques.” Quick recap of the campaign itself: The promotion basically rewarded folks with free pizza and/or side dishes for checking in on the social web app Foursquare when they went to Domino’s. It’s true that the CEO linked Domino’s 29% gain in profits to its success with Foursquare, along with other social media initiatives. But let’s also not forget the obvious: Rewarding loyal, frequent customers with free or discounted food was hardly new. One might even have called it a classic marketing technique—and given that fast food tends to thrive in a recessionary climate even when you charge for it, the giveaway promotion was blessed from inception. Domino’s recently revised recipes and menu offerings likely contributed to the success of the campaign and overall company performance as well. Ultimately, the campaign was a multi-faceted effort, supported by traditional media tactics and media buys. The winning formula to the Domino’s Foursquare promotion was a well-rounded effort that embodied “classic marketing techniques”: a good product paired with a message that appealed to its audience. The innovative part was that Domino’s utilized a location-based social app as its vehicle for the campaign.

The more relevant Domino’s “example,” to my mind, perhaps because it’s the sort of snafu we see more and more frequently, is the 2009 incident in the U.S.: The pizza chain was faced with a social media-inspired PR crisis when two employees created a less than appetizing video that went viral. The video was viewed over a million times. At first, Domino’s management decided to wait it out silently in hopes that the problem would go away. It didn’t. In fact, Domino’s lack of response further fueled the outrage. Domino’s learned two things quickly. First, nothing online dies on the vine. Second, the only way to control and solve a PR nightmare is to rely on traditional thinking and strategy: You gotta step in and put out the fire. (Duh.) With no social expert onboard, Domino’s management got a crash course in this new medium called social media. And trust me, the company took very deliberate, conscious “classic” steps when moving forward with all promotions after that—including the Foursquare tactic.

So, what’s the bottom line here? That marketing mavens should be paid more? That Shankman should be less hyperbolic? That Domino’s Pizza is today’s big cheese in corporate, social-media circles? How about this: Whether you’re ordering a sandwich, pizza, or a social-media program, going à la carte will likely end up costing you more in the end.

For unjustified reasons in my brand eyes, the management at the Gap, the lagging clothing retailer, recently conjured up a new logo and unceremoniously launched it to the world. “Unceremoniously” refers to the fact that there was no launch, no announcement, no PR campaign—just the silent shifting of the old logo guard to the new on the company website. Despite the lack of fanfare, the new logo was not only noticed, but was royally rejected by its virtual visitors. In an attempt to quickly diffuse some of the negativity and confusion circulating in the social media sphere, the Gap retreated and pulled a 180. It invited its “fans” to now give input on a new design, i.e., to ultimately drive its brand. According to AP, “Crowd sourcing the new logo, or allowing fans to help design a new one, was the company’s original solution to the issue of quelling consumer confusion. Marketers are increasingly letting fans help or fully make decisions, including PepsiCo Inc.’s Doritos brand having fans create and vote on Super Bowl commercials. But a logo change left up to the crowd is much more rare.”

This unusual move, even if short-lived, begs the question: What on earth is going on at Planet Gap? And where are its fearless brand leaders?

This is a tell-tell-tale about what is wrong with companies and advertising/marketing today. The internet and its social media applications are tools, not the Holy Grail of marketing. Allowing spectators to help design a new logo works for a controlled and one-time promotion like a charitable event or sweepstakes. But a marketing department that lets fans make decisions in matters that stick reeks of a company that doesn’t have a clue—WTF!—what it’s doing or where it ought to be going. How are you supposed to build or maintain a brand when you’re illustrating that you don’t know how to lead? Relinquishing power and creative control to win some more Facebook “Likes” does not make a good strategy. In fact, it’s no strategy at all.

Marka Hansen, president of Gap North America, rationalizes the company’s decision making in her defensive Huffington Post entry. Using phrases like “contemporary and current” to stick up for the new design, she argues that the Gap needed a revised logo that was more reflective of current trends in the company’s recent buying decisions. Which sort of sounds like code for “We think a new logo will boost our sluggish sales.” Even if that were the case—and that’s debatable—unfortunately, the new logo looked more appropriate for the launch of a new tech company.

It certainly didn’t suit the next rendition of the Gap, which has been fashionably tied to a unique logo that’s worked for well over 20 years. The PMS blue square containing its moniker in classic serif letters and dropout type is a trademark recognized worldwide across the spectrum of consumer brands. Revising this logo is a square opportunity to embrace and build upon judiciously and thoughtfully, not to easily or quickly dismiss or to solve impulsively via a virtual public open mike.

The Gap blunder feels reminiscent of the Coca-Cola Company’s launch of “New Coke” in 1985. Like the Gap, in an overzealous attempt to create a quick buzz around a brand that was perceived internally as dormant, Coca-Cola put a spin on the “original” soft-drink recipe, one that was geared to making it taste more like Pepsi, of all things. As with the new Gap logo, the new recipe and product was a bust, and New Coke was pulled, too. The company hadn’t counted on the depth of the connection its audience had to the “original” Coke formula.

For those of you who think that New Coke was a fluke aberration specific to that brand’s formula and/or that Coke drinkers are just overly sensitive—or for those Pepsi loyalists out there—remember Pepsi Clear (AKA Crystal Pepsi)? That 1992 Pepsi product flop, which lasted a year, taught the PepsiCo folks the obvious: that removing two of the biggest ingredient draws from its flagship product—the color and the caffeine—was a bad idea. Duh.

The first lesson here: When a change is needed, the world of social media doesn’t allow for operating in a vacuum. Given the possible ramifications, as brand catalysts and marketing mavens, schooled both before and well beyond Social Media 101, we would never think to force feed anything on an audience without priming these consumers first. By test-marketing new prototypes to a fault, we did our homework and were respectful of dismantling or disrupting any emotional or visual brand bonds and loyalties. Marka Hansen suggests in her blog post that the Gap needed to “evolve.” Fine. But if so, and one tactic was a logo change, what Marka and her team failed to remember was that it’s also a marketer’s job to bring its audience along for the journey. Crowd-sourcing is a tool that should help with transitions and testing. It should not, however, trump or replace traditional pillars of brand building (or—ahem—branding professionals).

The truly staggering question though is why the Gap felt the need to concentrate its energy on a branding makeover it didn’t need. We’re in a down economy: People are shopping “down” these days, in all retail products. They’re looking more to the moderately priced “Gaps” of the fashion world to fill some voids in their closets in an economically sensible way. In this frugal environment, the Gap, an icon of brand leadership and fashionable thrift, should be able to strut, shine, and outfit us all—not to be scrutinized, second-guessed, or to say they’re sorry for being who and what they are. They needed to tap into what they do well, not hide it behind a new, ineffective logo.

All the “old” companies that have built a legacy, tried and true, have built their brands on having cojones—and a big set at that. The new young talent taking office seem to have zero confidence in their tactics, no understanding of the market they’re catering to, and no capacity to use simple common sense, a triumvirate of flaws that simply creates disaster—and bad logos.

Which brings me to Lesson #2. As my father, a Coca-Cola aficionado, would often remind me when I was frivolously campaigning for something new: Sweetheart, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The universe has an incredible sense of humor. And at one time or another, we have all experienced being the butt end of that kind of cosmic joke. Like when you rocked your hips in a victory dance after realizing you weren’t ticketed for your well-expired city parking meter, only to be rocked to the core moments later, when you discovered the car door was swiped. Or when you willed the rarely seen, single, and appropriately aged potential suitor, who took your digits at a recent LACMA event, to call you? And he does call. But during the conversation, he graciously asks if he should “Facebook” your twenty-something companion from that evening. What about the time your firm spent billions of dollars over a decade to create a brand image that carefully positioned itself within the energy sector as forward-thinking, environmentally-concerned, and driven—only to wake up to find itself directly linked to an oil spill. And not just any drip. No, your firm is now allegedly responsible for the “largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry,” the one that took four months to contain, and not before pumping billions of gallons of the crude stuff into U.S. waters, further devastating an already challenged eco-system. An eco-system that you sought to protect. Barrels of laughter.

To say BP (British Petroleum) has an image problem is an understatement. The news is reporting that to help offset plummeting sales at the pumps and lessen mounting disapproval with the general population, several owners of BP-branded gas stations are calling for a “name change” or in lieu of that, a return to the comparatively untarnished Amoco name.

Here’s the back story, which is full of delicious ironies: BP bought Amoco in 1998 and began the conversion of Amoco stations to “BP”-branded ones in 2001. At the same time, the company launched a new branding campaign, a charge led by the tagline “Beyond Petroleum.” (I know. You can’t make this stuff up, can you?) The tagline stayed in use until the present day—it’s a good line, and the company likely got a lot of mileage out of it—but the PR department must be cringing about it now.

The paradoxes don’t end with the tagline, either. As part of the effort to promote its new eco-friendly mantra, pre-spill BP vested a considerable amount of resources toward eco-focused projects—not only its stylish, green and yellow sunflower logo, but also research and future technologies. One consumer-oriented tangible was the 2007 creation of BP’s Helios House, a LEED-certified gas station right here in Los Angeles, coincidentally located a few minutes away from where I sit. According to one member involved on the project, brand daddy Brian Collins, “green destinations” like Helios House were designed to “provoke discussion,” and ultimately, to be reproduced throughout the country. “On the one hand people want to reduce the amount of energy we spend, but are ambivalent when it comes to the freedom they enjoy with automobiles. So we decided to go to the heart of the paradox,” he says. The project has yet to gain momentum, possibly because the inherent ironies in “the heart of the paradox” were either too much for or perhaps lost on American gas consumers: The “green” Helios House structure makes use of recycled materials, wood, solar panels, plants, and any number of other conservation-oriented techniques (i.e., it’s a physical branding campaign that screams, “We’re helping the environment!”), but at the end of the day, it’s a gas station, still pumping and selling good old non-eco-friendly gasoline.

So: When do you stop refilling the brand tank? I tell clients that creating and managing a brand is like choosing to birth and raise a child. You nurture the child as best you can, and when it does something wrong (even if it’s hugely detrimental to society), you don’t banish them immediately into exile. After all, abandonment is considered a crime in most states. Hopefully, you’re a parent who’s inclined to counsel that child to do what’s right: a) Fess up to a situation (be honest), b) say your sorry (take the blame), and c) make restitution (clean up the spill). If you’re running a semi-healthy household, in exchange for doing what’s right, at some point, that child will most likely be forgiven (and get to stay in business).

All this to say, another BP name shift or BP making a U-turn on any of its brand map roads would be money wasted on addressing a short-term issue. The main task at hand is fixing the actual problem. As BP continues its campaign to clean up the residual damage of the spill itself—making it right—its brand will slowly right itself, too. In short, the company execs need to stop worrying about how BP looks or sounds, or whether people like them or believe their branding anymore, and spend more time walking the walk, even when the road ahead is hard and long. The New York Times ran a wonderful piece in last week’s Sunday Business section that addresses recent PR missteps, and one quote in particular sums up the BP conundrum best: “It’s the height of arrogance to assume that in the middle of a crisis the public yearns for chestnuts of wisdom from people they want to kill. The goal is not to get people not to hate them. It’s to get people to hate them less.”

In the meantime, however, just like the BP stock, sales will continue to ride a slippery slope. BP will remain a poster child for hypocrisy for quite some time, and folks in the know will snicker at the current ramp-up of ad dollars being spent to pump up the Arco brand, a BP-owned company. Some BP branded station owners with expiring contracts will jump ship, bypassing a renewal in some form of protest and choosing competitors instead. And many American gas consumers will do the same at the gas pump. Myself included. These days, I can’t help but pass Helios House by, and I feel drawn to patronize a neighboring Exxon Mobile to fill up the Bimmer. The same Exxon Mobile that was responsible for the “first” largest oil spill of all time––yet ironically, still lives.