November 19, 2008 in Brand Strategy by sbaradell@ideagrove.com
ADVICE: Reason and Emotion Are Not Antagonists

“Reason and emotion are not antagonists.”

– Nathaniel Branden

Try as we might, it’s impossible for us to separate reason from emotion. There’s no such thing as following your heart instead of your head (or thinking with “the little head instead of the big one,” for that matter.) Virtually all of our decisions — business decisions, political preferences, life choices — are made based on a combination of reason and emotion, and that mixture is far too messy to ever isolate the point where one ends and the other begins.

Branding works because it plays on your emotions and your reason. It doesn’t give you a list of product benefits and hope you’ll rationally choose this product over a competitor. It goes after your whole mind — and frankly, you are powerless against its force, if it’s done well. You are powerless because, as Spock-like as you may think you are, you can never separate your brain from your feelings.

The Frame Is More Important Than the Picture

Facts don’t speak for themselves. They need framing to be understood — and that’s where the real battle for public opinion and brand preference takes place.

For example, “estate tax” and “death tax” are two terms describing the same thing. However, if you survey Americans, the majority favor the estate tax and oppose the death tax. But framing goes beyond simple wordplay. When done well, it aims directly at our greatest hopes and deepest fears — and ties these to our decisions, including purchase decisions.

The author George Lakoff says that, in the world of U.S. politics, Americans tend not to vote on issues; instead, they view the country metaphorically, as a family, and vote on the type of family they identify with — a family dominated by a strict father (the Republican party) or a nurturing mother (the Democrats). The emotional impact of these frames is enormous, and determines what facts resonate with the public.

Girly-Man Democrats and Erratic Republicans

For example, Republicans have been effective in emasculating their Democratic opponents by using images of the slightly built Michael Dukakis in a tank, or John Kerry windsurfing — images that reinforce the “softness” of the Democrats in the public’s mind. Similarly, the Obama campaign was effective in portraying John McCain as “erratic” — not the kind of strict father Americans could trust to lead them.

Until I read Lakoff’s work on frames, I wondered, as many political analysts have, why the public tends to line up with Democrats on issues ranging from abortion rights to a progressive tax system — but has generally voted for Republicans in national elections for the past 30 years. I was particularly interested since my own parents were die-hard Republicans despite supporting the Democratic position on the majority of issues.

The answer is that they supported the Republican frame.

Frames in Branding

You can’t brand your organization successfully without creating and leveraging frames — for your customers, for your investors, for your employees. There’s an old story about someone asking a janitor at NASA what he did for a living. His reply: “I’m helping to put a man on the moon!”

The facts are that he’s mopping the floors, scrubbing the bathrooms, and making minimum wage. But framed as part of a larger, inspirational mission, this emotional context is far more important than the facts.


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November 14, 2008 in Advertising, Brand Strategy by sbaradell@ideagrove.com
A Brand for a Company Is Like a Reputation for a Person — Except When It’s Not

“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person.”

– Jeff Bezos

Branding is all about personification — giving human traits to things that aren’t human.

If you think about it, Nike, or Disney, or the company where you work are no more than a stack of papers filed by a lawyer somewhere. They are legal entities created specifically so that their activities are considered separate from those of the people who formed them (for liability, tax and other reasons.)

But a stack of legal papers can’t make decisions, or have a personality, or do anything but sit there. And we’ve established that the corporation is distinct from the people who created it or who run it; they can leave the company at any time. The only thing that really holds a corporation together is its shareholders — and they’re here today and gone tomorrow as well.

So really, there’s no there there — is there?

Well, yes and no.

Brands Create Continuity

You see, whenever a shareholder sells his or her stock in a company, the buyer has certain expectations of continuity. And the people the shareholders entrust to run the company are expected to maintain (and increase) the company’s value by meeting these expectations — not only in terms of sheer dollars and cents, but by having a predictable business model that shareholders can count on for the long term.

And that’s where branding comes in. Branding communicates the continuity of a company’s business model — to shareholders, to customers, to employees. It says, “This is the kind of person we are — if we were actually a person.”

So Disney is family-oriented, fun, magical. Nike is outdoorsy, rugged, adventurous. And so on and so on. To the extent a company’s products, advertising and other projections of itself support these traits, the brand has continuity — which over time, can become a company’s most valuable asset.

In this sense, it is like your reputation or mine.

Corporations as Wannabe Humans

But there’s a point at which branding is not the same as reputation. At a certain point, we must face the fact that while people actually are human, corporations are merely wannabes. This has all sorts of implications for PR — and specifically, for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs.

I help companies with their brands for a living. I think one reason I’m good at it is that I don’t blow sunshine up people’s behinds. So here’s the deal:

Corporations are not human. And that’s a good thing, because if they were human, they would be sociopaths. This isn’t a cheap shot. A sociopath is a person who is interested only in their personal needs and desires. By definition, corporations are designed expressly to serve the interests of their shareholders — and only those interests.

ROI of CSR

Yes, CSR programs can do good. The thing to keep in mind is, these programs only exist to the extent shareholders can be convinced that the spending will ultimately boost the bottom line — like any other marketing expenditure. It’s the equivalent of doing something good so someone will see you doing it.

People are smart enough to know when someone is doing good for the right reasons — and they value these efforts far more than they value the efforts of those who do it for appearances’ sake (like corporate brands).

So what does this mean in terms of dollars? Let’s say you’re a large corporation that spends $50 million annually on CSR. Now, let’s say the public only values your spending about half as much as they do that of a grassroots organization whose motives are considered pure. Well, that means you’re spending $50 million to buy $25 million worth of good will.

Maybe you’re Exxon, and considering your reputation, this still sounds like a pretty good deal to you. Or maybe there are other places to better spend your money.

All of which is to say that a brand for a company is like a reputation for a person — except when it’s not. To keep your bearings, and hold on to your soul, in today’s corporate world, it’s important to know the difference.


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April 14, 2008 in Brand Strategy by sbaradell@ideagrove.com
What’s in a Name? Sometimes, It’s the Difference Between Success and Failure

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the stock photography business, there are two types of stock: “rights-managed” and “royalty-free.”

I bet — even if you don’t know the difference between the two — you already have a preference based on their respective names. Am I right?

Read more at Black Star Rising.

 
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March 30, 2008 in Brand Strategy, Celebrity, PR and Pop Culture by sbaradell@ideagrove.com
Three Reasons Never To Eat at Taco Bell

1. Escherichia coli risk
2 and 3. See below.

 
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March 28, 2008 in Brand Strategy by sbaradell@ideagrove.com
“Insider Rating,” Public Policy Debate and the Power of Words


Turns of phrase can be meaningful in public policy discussions. In fact, they can make all the difference in public sentiment on an issue.

So, instead of “pro-abortion rights” and “anti-abortion rights,” we have “pro-life” and “pro-choice.”

And instead of “estate tax,” opponents began using the term “death tax.” Why? Because most people don’t have multi-million-dollar estates — but all of us will die.

In this election season, the phrase that has kept ringing in my ear is from a Barack Obama speech: “We are the change we’ve been waiting for.” What a powerful message for voters in what has been described as a “change” election.

Such turns of phrase are designed to persuade, but they also can help people to understand public policy issues better. For example, Scott Burns [pictured] — the wonderful personal finance writer and co-founder of the Web startup AssetBuilder — has coined a beauty.

In his syndicated column this Sunday, he and co-author Laurence Kotlikoff offer a term to describe the conflict of interest inherent in the work of credit rating agencies like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s.

The term: Insider rating.

What’s beautiful about it is that it takes a rating system that is arcane to most people and makes a case for what’s wrong with it in two words that even casual investors can understand — because they immediately relate it to “insider trading.” When you hear the term “insider rating,” it immediately sounds like a problem that needs to be fixed.

Which is exactly what Burns and Kotlikoff argue. In fact, they believe a new federal agency may be necessary to ensure securities ratings are fairly administered.

You can read the full column here.

As you might expect, the column has stirred debate. A pundit at Housing Wire has bashed the plan, while the readers at Daily Kos are supportive of the idea.

But stirring debate — sharing words — is how change begins.

[Full disclosure: AssetBuilder is an Idea Grove client.]

 
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