Leadership Is All About Change

I don't know where I have heard that before, but I have, somewhere. And it struck me as very true when I saw the CEO of LifePlus present the new brand identity. He presented it to 3000+ people who were very familiar with the previous identity. The leadership team of the company were very tense. We all knew it would be ok as soundings had been taken at various points in the process, but it was still nerve racking. In this particular case the CEO has a calm authority that won the day. At the end of his introductory presentation the conference audience was clapping. By the end of the day, they were starting to love it. But it was one of those moments that in the wrong hands and done in the wrong way could result in a very different outcome, like the introduction of the new GAP logo recently, though I am not sure why GAP needed to change their logo. There didn't seem to be as compelling a case for change as LifePlus have.

Life Plus launch

Taking a lunch break from the LifePlus conference I am a guest at. They are re-launching brand identity. I wrote the introductory speech to the reveal of the identity. It is the first time I have had written a speak for a CEO that gets presented to 3000+ people, and I learnt a fair amount. I thought it was short, it needed to be shorter. I thought it hung together pretty well, it needed to hang together better (ie even simpler logic). I thought it was simple, it needed to be simpler. All in all, it went pretty well, but I am a critical. If I have time, I may go back to my draft and re-write it, just for the practice.

I rather like the immediacy of 'real time' blog posts. I can capture feelings quickly and not dawdle on posting. It is less of a chore. But it means I can't get photos up quickly as they are in my camera and I have no lead to download.

Also, I am on a hotel mac, and I have a time limit. And it is rapidly approaching.

Judging the Jay Chiat Awards

Top man and top strategist, Russ Meyer, the CSO of Landor, invited me to be a judge on the 'Innovative Design' category of the AAAA Jay Chiat Awards for strategic excellence.

It was fun, though it would have been more fun if the judges had been able to convene in person rather than on conference calls.

It was interesting comparing this judging experience to the IPA and Effies. Overall, these awards were focused on the creation of good strategy and the resulting creative, whereas the IPA Effectiveness Awards, are, not surprisingly, focused more on effectiveness.

You might have thought, intuitively, that the Jay Chiat awards would have more variance of opinion because the focus was on creative strategy which on the surface is more subjective than judging the hard data of effectiveness, but it wasn't the case. Although there were far fewer papers to judge and far fewer judges to agree there was a lot of agreement on what was a good strategy and why.

In contrast, judging the Effectiveness Awards, provoked more variance in discussion, especially around the subject of effectiveness which one intuitively would think would be more cut and dry. The discussion was often good, but often vague and off point. With so many entries having econometrics in them it put people in an uncomfortable place. Unsurprisingly, a good few judges were not  prepared to say "I don't know how to judge this paper" (which would have been a good thing to do but would have made people appear rather dim in front of their peers - they are prestigious awards) and we found ourselves having to look to the specialist econometricians a little too often.

The day spent judging the IPA awards was, overall, fantastic. The sheer rigour of the IPA award submissions were fantastic. Huge amounts of work had gone into at least 40 of the 60 odd papers. In the end the best papers did go forward; it wasn't as though we were totally incompetent as judges, but it did leave me more sceptical about effectiveness whilst the AAAA judging did leave me feeling better about the power of the creative end of the strategic process.

I think this subject may deserve a little go around another time.

Writing Books

This reminds me that it can't be too hard to write a book. I don't know why. But it suddenly feels like it can't be too hard to write something coffee table like, with nice illustrations or photographs, get it designed and get a few copies printed up. I must be able to find something to write about planning and strategy for instance.

Giles has done it. Here is his book. It looks real pro.   

An Old Fridge in Minnesota

A few weeks ago I was in Minnesota, staying at the Wildwood Lodge, Oakdale and came across this. I didn't know initially what it was. Some kind of oven? Another guest noticed me looking at it quizzically and told me it was a 100 year old fridge. It worked by putting ice in the TOP of the fridge and food in the FRONT and onto circular metal shelves. The cold air from the ice would go down and cool the food.  Very smart indeed. Though it does poses the question, where did the ice come from?

Pitch Magazine (2)

I managed to get the article, mentioned here, fowarded to me. And here it is, in its entirety.

Chocolate Weetabix: A brand extension too far?


3 September 2010
By David Benady

Some of the UK’s biggest grocery brands are launching line extensions that seem to contradict the values of their parent brands. As the economic downturn hits sales and shoppers turn to own labels, brand marketers are under pressure to meet tough sales targets. But launching opportunist off-shoots risks undermining the long-term equity of their brands.

Weetabix, Britain’s top-selling breakfast cereal, contains just 4.4% sugar and is much-loved by parents concerned about shovelling sugar into their children’s mouths at breakfast time. Now the £113m brand with excellent kiddie health credentials is launching Chocolate Weetabix.

The chocolate-laced version will appear in a new TV ad campaign breaking this week through agency WCRS. The blogosphere is awash with positive commentary about the product which boasts that its sugar content - 15.9% - is less than half that of other chocolate cereals such as Coco-Pops (35% sugar). But the brand extension contains three and a half times as much sugar as its parent brand. Nutritionalists warn that once children taste the delights of chocolate at breakfast, it is hard to ever return them to a healthy cereal.

The Chocolate version risks damaging the association between Weetabix and a healthy breakfast for kids. It may well be successful in the short-term. But the values of the main brand could be undermined in the long-run. For some, the Chocolate Weetabix launch is a logical response to parents’ health concerns and carries the health credentials of Weetabix into a new arena - enabling consumers of chocolate cereals to find a much lower sugar alternative. Weetabix marketing director Sally Abbott was unavailable and no-one else at the company was prepared to comment.

Meanwhile, in the personal care category, Unilever has extended its female-orientated Dove brand into the male grooming market with the launch of Dove Men+Care. Here, a brand built through a critique of women’s consumption psychology and the “Real Beauty” campaign seems to be dropping those values as it seeks to target men. Unilever claims the launch has been a phenomenal success, with 1.5 million products sold in the UK so far this year and the brand is on course to hit 5 million in its launch year. With each unit selling at about £2.50 each, that could be some £12.5m. On this estimate, sales at retail would just cover the cost of the £12m launch marketing budget.

According to Christian Barnett, planning director at branding agency Coley Porter Bell, Dove Men+Care builds on the basic values of the brand. “Dove stands for inner beauty, real beauty in all sorts of people. Why shouldn’t that extend to men? It just feels right,” he says. However, he is less convinced about Chocolate Weetabix. “Sometimes you can see brand extensions undercutting a brand. Weetabix is a healthy, simple, fortifying breakfast. The addition of chocolate doesn’t build that equity, it detracts from it. The only way to really make it work would be to think again what the overall brand stands for. If Weetabix is about “healthy fortification” the introduction of chocolate starts to push the overall Weetabix brand to a more “fortification can be fun” place. So the extension redefines the parent brand. It is like the kids re-defining the parents.”

Other seemingly self-contradicting product extensions out this autumn include Twix Fino, where the biscuit base that has helped Mars-owned Twix become a UK powerbrand is replaced by a lighter wafer filling. This version has long been available in Europe, where wafers are commonly eaten with afternoon coffee. But in the UK, this seriously redefines the product’s identity away from a stomach-filler towards a lighter snack.

Twix will be competing with Kit Kat, whose owner Nestlé is itself the arch extender of brands into unexpected areas - it rocked the confectionery market when it relaunched Kit Kat with a Chunky version as it attempted to encroach into the territory of the Mars Bar. Nestlé marketers at the company’s York-based confectionery division have applied the brand extension approach to Milkybar, the quintessential kids’ white chocolate bar. This is being reinvented as an adult treat with a Raisin & Biscuit version. The brand is moving deep into the territory of rival brands and appears to be category vaulting, re-inventing itself as part biscuit, part short-bread. A spokesman says the company is simply broadening the appeal of the brand. “Milkybar is proof that you can take long-standing brand and advertising heritage and bring it up to date. We haven’t changed the recipe, we’ve added a product for adult tastes, we’ve held on to the Milkybar kid, the line, the song, but made them fun and relevant and interactive for an adult audience.”

The whole sweets and treats category is awash with cross-over products seeking to cash in on the brand values of competitors. Kraft-owned Cadbury has teamed up with Burton’s Foods to launch biscuit versions of Turkish Delight, Crunchie and Caramel. Sales are reported to be booming, with some £7.6m of the biscuits sold since their launch in March. One wonders how long this boom in countline branded biscuits will continue, what will be the effects on the mother brands and whether the sector is driven by people trialling the products out of interest.

Some observers are sceptical about the drive to launch sub-brands. As one says: “Brand managers and marketers are typically only in their jobs for 18 months and in that time might have about eight reporting cycles, where they need to show growing sales. It doesn’t matter what the long-term impact on the brand is of launching an extension, even if it dilutes the equity and confuses the positioning of the main brand, they have got to make a difference.”

Such marketers have been dubbed “galloping midgets,” who are more interested in personal advancement than in the health of their brands in the long-run. Then again, as Keynes said, in the long-run, we are all dead.

Striking the right balance when launching a brand extension is crucial, but all too often extensions have to be reined in after swamping the master brand with conflicting brand values. Unilever has spent the past ten years pruning back its portfolio to a handful of power brands. Now the portfolio is growing again with continual brand extensions. Meanwhile, Procter & Gamble has been reducing the number of brand extensions around its Pringles Crisps brand, phasing out Minis and Select.

The economic downturn has sent marketers scurrying to look for short-term hits from brand extensions which play on the values of the parent brand as they struggle to hit their numbers. But they should beware of destroying brand equity that has been steadily built up over decades.

Strangest brand extensions of all time

- Sex Pistols scent
- Snoop Dogg’s range of pet accessories
- Budweiser Barbecue Sauce
- Cheetos Lip Balm
- Burger King fragrance BK@Flame which “captures the essence of Whopper love in the form of a body spray.”

Pitch Magazine

I was interviewed recently for 'Pitch' an online marketing magazine (which ironically, I don't think I get a subscription to). It was about brand extensions. I don't know the whole thrust of the piece, but if I manage to get access to it, I can post it. Anyway, as there is little chance of me finding it, let alone saving it, here is my little section. I was talking about having no problem with Dove extending to a male audience, if it was done correctly, but having more issues with Weetabix, a staple British breakfast cereal, doing a chocolate version.

 - - - - - - - - - 

“Dove stands for inner and real beauty in all sorts of people. Why shouldn’t that extend to certain segments of a male target?” he (ie me) says."How Dove express that thought may need some thinking about, but the thought itself is valid and seems to build out the brand equity"


In contrast, he is far less convinced about Chocolate Weetabix. “Sometimes you can see brand extensions undercutting a brand. Weetabix is a healthy, simple, fortifying breakfast. The addition of chocolate doesn’t build that equity, it detracts from it.

The only way to really make it work would be to think again what the overall brand stands for. For example, if Weetabix was about 'healthy fortification' the introduction of chocolate starts to push the overall Weetabix brand to a more 'fortification can be fun' place. So the extension re-defines the parent brand."

"It's like the kids redefining the parents!"

John Cole - As It Seemed To Me

When we cleared my Dad's house, there were a few books that I wanted to read before passing on or tossing out. One of these was an early biography of Tony Blair, before he became Prime Minister, which I haven't posted about, and there is this one, 'As It Seemed To Me' by ex BBC political correspondent, John Cole, who was a regular fixture on TV during the eighties and early nineties. So much so that the satirical TV programme, Spitting Image, parodied him.

His memories are interesting, though quite dry. He clearly is a decent guy who doesn't want to offend and treads lightly when he is in disagreement with something, for example Thatcherite policies. There is a really interesting section in which he divides politicians of all persuasions into two groups. One for whom "events fortify their original political creeds or prejudices" and others for whom their dogmas are refined or modified by experience. He clearly prefers the latter category.

It is also interesting looking back at the huge difference between the 1970's and the Labour (and to a lesser degree Conservative) attempts to deal with double digit inflation, having to negotiate incomes policy with the unions on an ongoing basis and compare that with the issues under the Thatcher governments who applied a monetary solution to economic problems, causing immense hardship in certain areas, and didn't try to reach an accommodation with the unions but instead defeat them. The difference between the two periods is even bigger for me due to my associations with each era. Bushy sideburns, glam rock and flared trousers in the early 1970s. As I was young is it all a bit 'grainy' in my memory as well as on the re-runs of the TV quality from that time. By the time we get to the 1980s it is straight jeans, post punk, even New Romantic dress sense, big shoulder pads and a sense of sometimes absurd fun and pretension.

Trout Music

I have been listening to more classical music recently. But then again I have also been listening to more BBC 6Music also. I think it is a function of having a little office at home to sit and work in. The little office will be the subject of a separate post as for this one I'll talk about music.

In the little office I have put a radio (we have radios in every room in the house and they are usually tuned to speech radio) which is set to BBC Radio 3, 6Music or ClassicFM. I put it on low volume, turn the desk light on and start doing paperwork or work. It is quite therapeutic.

I have also been listening to music downstairs as well. I have all my father's records (and my grandmother's as well, come to that) and I am slowly working my way through them. The old vinyl ones are fun; they are SO thick compared to the vinyl records I bought as a teenager. My current favourite is The Trout Quintet by Schubert. I like the music, but I like the name even more!

I had a look online for some of it, and I found this 55 minute documentary of five classical superstars coming together in London in the 1960s to play it.

Poundworld

There is something enormously fun about being given a pound and being asked to go to Poundworld  and buy the best thing in the shop. Everything is a pound, or you can buy multiples of items for a pound (eg 3 cans of coke). There is a huge a selection of things to buy. It's like that silly game we play in media strategy - if you had a pound/dollar - how would you spend it. But it is for real.

We - Ollie, George and myself - were in the middle of buying presents and we took a detour to go in poundworld. We couldn't contain ourselves to just one pound and came away with six things - solar powered light, knee length socks, changing colour light, small gardening spade, gnome, and a pack of many many AAA batteries.

I have decided when we want a cheap family day out, that we give everyone a pound and go to Poundworld.