The Pollywog Blog

Back in the olden days, when I was getting my Masters of Advertising at Northwestern University, I had a professor named Don E. Schultz. He was the guy who literally wrote the book on advertising strategy. A tall, balding, round-shouldered man (he reminded me of the harmonica player in the Country Bear Jamboree), Dr. Schultz was known for demanding rigor from his students–in analytical thinking, creative innovation and, especially, the art of creative brief writing.

We were writing briefs for ad campaigns, which would theoretically be executed in print ads, TV spots, radio, etc. But even though the campaign might produce a full-page newspaper ad or a :60 spot, the creative brief–particularly the brand promise–absolutely, positively had to be concise and laser-focused.

One customer benefit.

But– but– but– Sometimes the assignments were for products that had a multitude of benefits. It saves time! It’s convenient! It tastes good! It’s healthy! It’s 100% natural!

We quickly learned, though, that we had to choose.

“One benefit!” Schultz would bellow in his Oklahoma drawl. “Not TWO benefits! Not THREE benefits! ONE benefit!!” Schultz understood that it didn’t matter if an advertiser had ten seconds on the radio or two pages in a magazine spread to sell someone on their products.

Because it’s not about the advertiser and how much they want to say. It’s about what people can comprehend in the split second of attention they may privilege you with.

What mattered then, as now, is that people need simplicity. And an advertising message can’t hope to be simple if it tries to convey more than one benefit.

Fast forward from grad school to Pollywog.

Brand creation requires the same level of rigor. But unlike an advertising campaign, which you can change if it’s not working, a brand needs to last a lifetime. It’s critical to get it right from the beginning.

At Pollywog, we take clients through a Power Positioning session to gather the information we need to proceed into name generation. Sometimes it starts as an info dump. Clients want to include every possible facet of a product in order to make it more attractive to their customer. And that’s when we have to prioritize, whittle away, consolidate, soul-search and then eliminate even more.

While the Power Positioning brief will contain helpful background information, as well as an articulation of a brand differentiator, ultimately the brand promise that remains is one sentence.

ONE sentence.

If you can’t fit your brand promise into one sentence, you’re probably trying to say too much. Saddling a new offering with a brand that’s overly broad, complex or ambiguous will doom it to failure, or at best, a lifetime of anemia.

So here’s a test. Write your brand promise in the form of a customer benefit, then send it as a tweet. You’ll start with 140 characters, but leave room to spare so that it can be retweeted. (See How To Determine Your Personal ReTweet Character Count)

Here’s Pollywog’s. Be looking for it on Twitter:

Your Pollywog-created brand will be a business-building asset from launch through the long term.

Now show us yours.

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The branding world is abuzz today with reactions to AOL’s advanced look at a rebranding campaign, the cornerstone of which is a revamped logo.

AOL said in a press release:

AOL today previewed its new brand identity for its future as an independent company committed to creating the world’s most simple and stimulating content and online experiences.

The new AOL brand identity is a simple, confident logotype, revealed by ever-changing images. It’s one consistent logo with countless ways to reveal. The new brand identity will be fully unveiled on December 10, when AOL common stock begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

“Our new identity is uniquely dynamic. Our business is focused on creating world-class experiences for consumers and AOL is centered on creative and talented people – employees, partners, and advertisers. We have a clear strategy that we are passionate about and we plan on standing behind the AOL brand as we take the company into the next decade,” said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AOL.

So I gather the company’s positioning (repositioning?) is that it offers “the world’s most simple and stimulating content and online experiences.”

Herein lies AOL’s problem.  Its positioning is neither clear nor focused nor different from hundreds of other information/entertainment services on the Web.

AOL’s brand image is as indelible as any brand’s can be. It rose to prominence as “the Beginner’s Internet.” AOL was a safe and easy way for novices to get used to using the Web.

Those days are over. Like Polaroid, whose name now stands for an obsolete technology, the AOL brand stands for a need that people no longer feel.  Never mind the Time Warner merger debacle. AOL’s halcyon days were certain to come to an end as the universe of users became adept at roaming the Web without AOL’s training wheels.

It’s clear that AOL understands the power of their brand’s heritage, because they retained the idea of “simple” in their brand messaging. But now the company is clinging to the very brand attribute that’s dragging them down. “Simple” is now a best practice in Web IA and design, and most marquee information/entertainment sites are designed so even a novice user can find his way around.

Take a look at the AOL home page. Is it any simpler than, say, Entertainment Weekly, People, or USAToday? I don’t think so. It might even be more complicated than some. Is the content more “stimulating?” Not that I can tell.

If AOL wants to save its brand, it needs to burn its ships like Cortez on the shores of the New World, forget about making “simple” part of its brand positioning–that’s table stakes now–and focus on offering something really different and believable.

“The world’s most stimulating content and online experiences” is neither.

AOL’s biggest problem is that, like GM, the company is still huge, but it’s no longer in the market position to act like a category leader. They need to think like an entrepreneur, who looks for ways to carve out a unique niche or, better yet, create a new category. If they ever found that opportunity, they should dump the AOL name and its associated baggage–burn their ships–so they can launch unfettered and go about conquering this new territory.

But I suspect they will limp along, like Polaroid, continuing to offer a me-too product and being just profitable enough to keep the lights on.

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Dear General Motors:

I read in The Wall Street Journal that you want to attract a younger audience to your Buick brand. As an American taxpayer, I own 62% of your corporation, so it pains me to say that this strategy is doomed.

The Buick brand is imprinted as a car that belongs to an older generation. For young people today, it’s a punchline. Downsizing the LaCrosse isn’t going to make it a young person’s car, nor is tweeting about it.

This is, unfortunately, more of the same kind of flawed thinking that got you where you are today. You’re simply tweaking your products and expecting advertising to compensate for genuine innovation.

Even with Enclave crossover sales skewing to a younger buyer, the average age of a Buick owner is 70. Face it: Like its core customer, the Buick brand is in the sunset of its life. Instead of fighting the headwind of negative perceptions rooted in intractable generational experiences, you ought to replace the Buick brand with a fresh new one–with models that are unlike anything we’ve ever seen come out of Detroit. Properly done, this new brand would repel the typical Buick owner because it’s not for them.

Given the thumpin’ you have taken in the marketplace, you need to stop thinking like an invincible market leader and start thinking like a hungry entrepreneur. And by that I mean, stop imagining that you can compete by making me-too products and start looking for radical differentiation and innovative niches where a new brand has little to no competition.

Toyota did it with Scion. BMW did it with Mini. You can do it too.

Please, please try harder. My tax dollars are at stake.

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GM has announced that it is selling its Saturn division to racing icon Roger Penske. The $1.3 billion Penske Automotive Group has a number of auto-related businesses, including exclusive distribution of the Smart Car in the U.S. and a collection of dealerships representing 40 different brands.

Introduced in 1988, Saturn was once Detroit’s wunderkind. Launched with an advertising campaign by the late, great Hal Riney, it was “A different kind of company. A different kind of car.” The positioning, a  common-sense car from with a no-hassle purchase process, resonated with American car buyers, and the Saturn brand took off like a comet.

But through the years GM eroded its brand by failing to innovate with new products–or, more precisely, innovating too little, too late–and muddling its brand messaging. As a result, the “common-sense car” became the “uninspired and dull” car.

Plus, Saturn’s original “no-hassle” message was easy to copy. And even if the experience at competing dealerships didn’t always live up to the promise, the commoditization of message was enough to whittle away at the distinctiveness of Saturn’s brand.

Eventually, Saturn’s brand image could be summed up by consumers as, “The same old GM company. The same old GM car.” Ouch.

This must have broken Hal Riney’s heart in his later years. As a brander, he did so many things right. But brand messaging can only take a brand so far.The product has to deliver on its brand promise.

So it will be interesting to see what product innovations Roger Penske pursues. Will he try to put Saturn back on its original track? Or will he make Saturn stand some for something else entirely?

Much depends on how tarnished the Saturn brand has become. Only market research can determine how much brand rehabilitation is possible. Will it be enough to untether the brand from GM, innovate with some provocative new models and return to its original positioning?

Or will the new Saturn need a total makeover, including a name change and completely new positioning?

I’ll be watching from the Pollywog observatory.

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The more I hear about Windows 7, the curiouser it gets. In this interview, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is unable to articulate a “major feature” that would entice people to buy it. He alludes to better performance, “cleanup” of the user interface, multi-touch technology, and better information management tools—summing it all up as, “Windows Vista, a lot better.”

Cripes.

So here we have Microsoft planning a “major release” in Windows 7, which is essentially a new and improved Vista. But because Vista was such a dud, Microsoft ran away from the Vista brand name and into the safe, nearly generic confines of “Windows 7.”

This is more than a naming issue. This is a product development problem combined with an unfocused competitive brand positioning.

Tellingly, Ballmer states in the interview that “no Windows release has to have people want(ing) to use it right away.”

There seems to be an assumption (which is likely true) that anyone using the Windows platform will upgrade to a newer release eventually. I suppose if you own 90% of the market share, with a customer base locked into your products by virtue of your technology platform, then you can release major products without a clear brand positioning and a corresponding benefit-driven brand name.

Still. Just seems to me that Microsoft could speed up adoption of Windows 7 if it had a focused brand positioning so that customers can quickly understand what the product offers.

And yes, actually want to use it right away.

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The reliably clear-thinking Laura Ries goes off on a tear in her blog today over the positioning and naming blunders of the company that makes her favorite athletic shoe. MBT shoes are a classic example of a marketing myopia. It’s a condition found in clients who are far too close to their own product–and by close, I mean not only too immersed in the product’s most minute details, but also truly madly deeply in love with it.

As a result, they’re unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices in messaging that lead to a focused positioning. Positioning is the art of sacrifice. Effective positioning requires a crystal clear, single-minded, simple idea. MBT’s “Physiological footwear” ain’t it. Ries suggests, “Makes every walk a workout.” Much clearer, dontcha think?

Regardless of the complexities inherent in any product or service, its message needs to be simple. Creating a brand name is the acid test of the clarity of product’s positioning. If a positioning is too broad and/or complex, you will never get to a strong brand name.

The company that makes “physiological footwear” named itself Masai Barefoot Technology, which is so long and cryptic that it was shortened to MBT, effectively stripping away all meaning from the name.

As Ries says, it’s a great product. But between the brand’s ineffective positioning and terrible name, the loss of potential brand impact is incalculable.

All because they were too close and too in love.

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We have long admired Jawbone headsets from Aliph, not only for their sleek design, but also for their spot-on brand name. Now Aliph is showing some additional positioning prowess with the introduction of the personality-driven Jawbone Limited Edition “Jawbone Loves Talk” series.

Featuring a smooth case that differentiates them from the standard mesh design of other models, the limited edition headsets are available in three colors–and three different embossed mood statements:

• Gold: Sweet Talk (flower)
• Black: Dirty Talk (Playboyesque silhouette)
• White: Trash Talk (Cartoon obscenity)

As far as we can tell, they’re technologically identical. And while headsets have always triggered emotional purchases based on color and design, this is the first we’ve seen with a emotional overlay appealing to personal whimsies or communication styles.

Aliph released this limited edition at this year’s Ted conference, and sadly, the headsets are not only scarce in quantity but almost impossible to find. You can’t just up and buy one. Of course, that merely heightens their appeal.

Want one. Really want one. Gold, please.

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Oh, this one hurts.

Just when I thought Kodak was set to rise from the ashes with its new disruptive printing technology, I find out what they named the product line.

EasyShare All-In-One printers.

Yes, EasyShare.

What’s that? Sounds familiar to you? Yes, me too, and not in a good way. EasyShare as a brand name has been around since 2001 to describe, according to Wikipedia,

… a consumer photography system of digital cameras, snapshot printers (ex. KODAK EASYSHARE Photo Printer 500), printer docks (ex. KODAK EASYSHARE G600 Printer Dock), accessories (ex. KODAK EASYSHARE Picture Viewer), camera docks (ex. KODAK EASYSHARE Camera Dock Series 3), software (ex. KODAK EASYSHARE Software v6.0), and online print services (KODAK EASYSHARE Gallery). There are five sub-product camera lines, “series”, that separate the cameras into different classes: EASYSHARE Point and Shoot (C series), EASYSHARE High Zoom (Z series), EASYSHARE Pocket (V series), EASYSHARE Performance (P series), and EASYSHARE-ONE (wi-fi capable).

What a mishmash. And now this great technology, which should have been splashily introduced as the next big, bright new wave in printers is going to be obscured by the foggy cloud of a confusing, weak brand. Whatever the EasyShare brand name means to consumers, “great color at super low cartridge costs” isn’t it.

Because of this ill-conceived brand extension strategy, Kodak will have to spend much more to communicate that this printer is really different. Will the product’s positioning sink in fast enough for it to get a foothold in the market? I hope so, but I have my doubts.

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