The Language Of Brand Names

-Steve Rivkin

Names not just "are," they "do." As a part of language, names identify a business or brand, but also subtly suggest certain types of action.

To explain, we must wade into the pond of language. Scholars have pointed out that every utterance has three functions:

# The locutionary function involves what the expression denotes.

# The illocutionary entails how it functions as a speech act, which philosophers of language define as an utterance considered as an action.

# Perlocutionary functions include all the effects an utterance has on the receiver.

Brand names, like other words, use all three functions. The reigning authority on the illocutionary function, John R. Searle, has identified five basic types of speech acts in his text Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Here are four of these speech acts as they perform bits of business in brand names.

Representatives commit the speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition: They swear, report, assert or conclude. Toys “R” Us. A pet day care and boarding establishment called Pets Preferred. The name of action is built into two Canadian discount airline brands, Canjet and Jetsgo.

Directives attempt to get the reader to do something: They command, exhort, urge. Guess jeans. A dance studio called Jump to It; a chain of paint shops, Color Your World. The insect repellent Off! A Microsoft imaging software product called Picture It!

Commissives commit to some future course of action: They promise, threaten, offer, vow. A deodorant will Ban; a shampoo will Amplify. Software promises to Excite. Or one undertakes to Hide-A-Bed.

Expressives express a psychological state: They think, apologize, welcome, congratulate. Glad trash bags. Or a brand of diapers, Happy to be Nappy.

In strictly literal terms, a brand name wants the customer to buy a product or service. But in terms of speech acts, a lot more is going on.

Social Media Not The Answer For Weak Brands

-Al Ries

If you were a first-time visitor from Mars and you happened to drop into a marketing meeting somewhere in the United States, you might assume that marketing people do nothing but talk about "TGIF."

That's Twitter, Google, the internet and Facebook.

There's no question these four revolutionary developments have forever changed the marketing function. Word-of-mouth has now become word of finger.

A key difference: Word-of-mouth leaves an invisible trail in the ether. Word-of-finger leaves an electronic trail on the internet.

In the past, nobody paid much attention to word of mouth, even though by some estimates it accounted for a majority of brand impressions. Today, however, the visibility of word of finger has mesmerized the marketing world.

But will the skillful use of TGIF make you a good marketing manager? I think not. TGIF is only half the story.

Linens 'N Things didn't go bankrupt because it didn't make effective use of Twitter. It went bankrupt because it was a knockoff of Bed Bath & Beyond without a unique identity.
DHL didn't pull out of the U.S. market because it didn't buy enough AdWords from Google. It pulled out of the U.S. market because it violated a basic law of marketing, the law of duality. DHL was the No. 3 brand in a category dominated by UPS and FedEx.

Kmart didn't go bankrupt because it couldn't figure out how to use the internet to promote the brand. It went bankrupt because it was squeezed between Walmart at the low end of the mass merchandiser category and Target at the high end.

Coca-Cola didn't fail to build a leading energy-drink brand in three tries (KMX, Full Throttle and Tab) because it forgot to use Facebook to ignite the brands. It failed to build a leading energy-drink brand because it waited too long after the launch of Red Bull.

Marketing can be divided into two parts: 1) marketing strategy; 2) marketing tactics. What's more important? I don't think there's any question that strategy is by far the most important half of a marketing program. It's like warfare, also a mixture of strategy and tactics. The weapons of war are equivalent to the media used in a marketing campaign. How often has an army won a war with better soldiers, better guns, better tanks, better aircraft?

Seldom.

What wins wars are better strategies. In World War II, the Germans had the advantage of the better weapons, the better discipline, the most experience. Yet their leader, Adolph Hitler, was a rank amateur when it came to military strategy.

Operation Barbarosssa, the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, was launched on June 22, 1941. Over 4.5 million troops invaded the USSR along a 1,800-mile front, the largest military operation in human history, in terms of manpower and casualties.

By January 1942, it was obvious that the Soviet Union had repelled the invaders. Although the war dragged on for another three years, the Germans were never able to achieve the expected victory.

The Germans' strategic error was trying to fight on two fronts. On the West with the English and the Americans. On the East with the Russians.

Ironically, 129 years previously, Napoleon made exactly the same mistake. He invaded Russia with 690,000 men, the largest army assembled up to that point in European history.

It was the same old story. Trying to fight on two fronts (the English to the West and the Russians to the East) ultimately cost Napoleon his crown and his empire.

Then there's Japan which attacked the United States while still fighting a war in China.

You might think that no intelligent business person would make the same mistake. But they do all the time.

Take Lenovo, the Chinese company that bought IBM's personal-computer operations. Now they're trying to fight Hewlett-Packard and Dell at the high end of the PC market and Acer and Asustek at the low end. Not a good strategy.

Take Citigroup, one of our largest financial institutions with assets of $1,938.5 billion. Yet Citigroup managed to lose $27.7 billion last year and needed $45 billion in government bailout money to stay afloat.

What happened at Citigroup? Same old story. It started with Citibank, its consumer banking operation. Then it bought Travelers (insurance), Smith Barney (stock brokerage) and Salomon Brothers (investment banking.) In other words, Citigroup started as a bank in competition with the other major banks in America and then tried to fight on four fronts: banking, insurance, stock brokerage and investment banking. Not a good strategy.

Getting bigger is not a marketing strategy. Yet it's the only strategy many companies seem to be using today. Line extensions, mergers, acquisitions, multiple price points and other techniques are obviously designed to bulk up a company's sales. But how do these techniques affect the brand's position in consumers' minds? In general, they weaken it.

Citigroup got bigger and weaker because the brand was stretched in so many directions. As a result, the brand lost its meaning.

General Motors made the same mistake. Every one of its brands was stretched to encompass a wide range of vehicles. As a result, the brands lost their meanings and the corporation went bankrupt.

I repeat. Bigger is not a strategy. In the past four years, General Motors sold more than 35 million vehicles worldwide, more than any other automobile producer. Yet in the last four years, General Motors lost $82.1 billion.

If your brands don't stand for anything, you have to sell your products on "price." And it's very difficult to make money by selling your products cheaper than the competition.

In our work with many companies, we find similar thinking. Almost every company wants to get bigger in order to increase sales and profits. And they take steps in that direction by branching out into many different businesses and many different markets.

That's not a strategy. That's a road to mediocrity.

What does work in marketing? Dominating a category. Nothing is as effective in marketing as dominating a category.

Take Coca-Cola, which has dominated the cola market ever since the product was launched in 1886. (The No. 2 brand, Pepsi-Cola, was launched in 1903.)

For 106 years, Pepsi-Cola has been trying to overtake Coca-Cola without success. It's extremely difficult to overtake an established leader. That's why the most important objective of any brand is to establish a clear-cut leadership position in consumers' minds.

In China, according to the research firm, Euromonitor International, Pepsi-Cola has 23% of the soda market versus Coca-Cola's 22%. In other words, the two brands are neck and neck. That's an unstable situation. There are very, very few hydra-headed categories. That is, categories that have two dominant brands with virtually identical market shares. Sooner or later, one brand will get its nose in front and the battle will be over.

That's likely to happen in China. Sooner or later, either Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola will get out in front and the battle will be over. From that point on, consumers will perceive one cola brand to be the "leader" and the other cola brand to be an "also-ran."

That would be devastating for the loser. It would forever condemn the losing brand to a second-place position.

Look at the fast-food business. McDonald's is perceived as the leader with 13,918 outlets in the United States. Burger King is buried in second place with only 7,207 outlets.

Furthermore, McDonald's has taken its leadership position in the United States to build a large, profitable global corporation. Last year, for example, McDonald's had $23.5 billion in sales. $4.3 billion in net profits. And a net profit margin of 18.3%.

Burger King, on the other hand, had just $2.5 billion in sales. $200 million in net profits. Or a net profit margin of 7.9%.

Conventional wisdom says that McDonald's is more successful than Burger King because they have better products and better service.

Nonsense. McDonald's is more successful than Burger King because it is perceived by consumers to be the leader. And consumers always associate the leader with better products and better service.

What should Burger King do? Too many marketing gurus have only four answers to that question: Twitter, Google, the internet and Facebook.

Actually, Burger King has had a number of widely admired TGIF successes, including the Subservient Chicken and the Facebook Whopper sacrifice.

But why doesn't Burger King consider a change in strategy? Why doesn't Burger King use one of the most powerful of all marketing strategies for a No.2 brand: Be the opposite of the leader.

Year after year, Burger King has violated this powerful principle. Instead of being the opposite, they emulated the leader.

* McDonald's introduced Ronald McDonald. Burger King introduced the King.

* McDonald's introduced Chicken McNuggets. Burger King introduced Chicken Tenders.

* McDonald's put in playgrounds to attract kids. Burger King put in playgrounds to attract kids.

* McDonald's added a dollar menu. Burger King added a dollar menu.

In spite of all this emulation, Burger King keeps falling behind McDonald's. Ten years ago, the average McDonald's in America did $1,514,400 in sales versus $1,117,200 for the average Burger King. In other words, McDonald's had a lead of 36%.

Last year, McDonald's lead was 68%. $2,158,900 versus $1,288,600 for Burger King.

Why not be the opposite of McDonald's? Look at In-N-Out Burger, a West Coast hamburger chain.

McDonald's has 81 food items on its menus. In-N-Out Burger has just four: hamburger, cheeseburger, double-double and French fries.

You might think the average McDonald's would greatly outsell the average In-N-Out Burger unit, but it doesn't. Last year the average In-N-Out Burger unit did $2,252,300 in sales.

In business, there's never any one way to do anything. Take Walmart, the most successful retail chain on the planet. The average Walmart unit in the United States stocks some 150,000 items and does $72 million in annual sales.

The average Costco unit stocks some 4,000 items.

The full line or the narrow line? Which is the better strategy? They're both equally valid. What doesn't work is trying to stay somewhere in the mushy middle.

Nor does a narrow line necessarily mean lower sales. The average Costco unit last year did $129 million in annual sales, almost 80% more than the average Walmart.

Too many companies emulate the leader and try to be better, when they should avoid the leader and try to be different.

It takes a storm to determine which boats are seaworthy and which boats are not. It takes a recession to determine which brands are strong and which brands are not.

Chevrolet, Ford, Chrysler, A.I.G., Citigroup, American Airlines, United, Delta, U.S. Airways, Sears and dozens of other brands are weak. And the skillful use of Twitter, Google, the internet and Facebook won't make a weak brand strong.

First things first. And the first thing to do is to get your strategy right.

Brands And The Brain: The 4 Second Factor

-Martin Lindstorm

Suddenly, you see it everywhere – in airports, hotels, restaurants, and of course, in most public bathrooms. It’s on sale in corner kiosks, wedged conspicuously between the gum and People magazine. And in a blink, it’s been seamlessly integrated into life as an essential everyday item. Just five years ago, the product never existed anywhere, and yet if you were to conduct a straw poll, most would confide that they simply couldn’t live without it.

I’m not talking about the iPod or the Blackberry, or even your favourite pair of Crocs – I’m talking about antibacterial hand gel – the kind you can squirt whenever you feel the need to cleanse. From what I see around me, a lot of people seem to be feeling pretty dirty these days.

It’s a phenomenon prompted by bird flu and swine flu. Ironically, neither virus can be prevented by sanitary wipes or cleansing gels, since both are spread through minute droplets sneezed or coughed out by someone who’s infected. But the thought of contagious diseases that have the capacity to kill has driven us into a sanitation spin.

A while back I conducted an experiment on NBC’s ‘Today’ show. It involved scanning a woman named Kelly’s brain as she walked down the supermarket aisle. The objective was to study her thought patterns as she made a selection from the thousands of products on offer. Supermarket executives closely monitored the large screens displaying Kelly’s brain activity as she engaged in her choices. They were thrilled with her selection of brands, and applauded her decision-making processes.

Kelly first picked a baby shampoo, explaining after that her child’s pediatrician recommended the brand. Interestingly, this very choice generated the most brain activity during the shopping spree, supporting research that says that when an authoritative figure recommends a brand, our brains focus more intently. This probably goes some way towards explaining why testimonials remain effective. Furthermore, the executives were intrigued by the fact that the ‘discount’ signs consistently registered on the scans, despite Kelly denying being affected by them.

There was one thing that the executives, the film crew, the producer, and even the viewers failed to notice. Every time Kelly picked a product off the shelf, the brain measured a 4-second reaction. And it’s this reaction time that can force a manufacturer to change everything about their marketing strategy, including their packaging and marketing campaign.

Let’s take a moment to think about this. Every time Kelly selected an item from the shelves, she held it in her hands momentarily and examined it. There’s nothing surprising about this. What was surprising is that once she’d made her decision to buy that very product, she’d return it to the shelf, and pick another just like it, stashed three rows behind. This whole action took less than four seconds.

Did she consider the first item dirty? Perhaps. Research reveals that a similar experiment conducted five years ago, minus the brain scans, revealed their ‘Kelly’ couldn’t have cared less. What she initially picked off the shelf went directly into her trolley. But now, this fear of contamination has totally entered the shopper’s psyche.

The brain scans showed that as Kelly took the product off the shelf and at the same moment decided to buy it, a strong activation in the amygdale area of her brain took place. The amygdale is responsible for generating fear and danger, as well as psychological discomfort. The fear was registered with every first contact Kelly had during the entire shopping expedition, from the Dove soap to the Gillette foam, as well as the Elizabeth Arden beauty products. The fearful response grew even more dramatically when the product of her choosing was the last item on the shelf. So much so, that she opted for another brand rather than go with the last-standing item.

This, you may say, is the response of just one woman, and as such, cannot be held as an ultimate truth. I suspect however, that her reaction is far from unusual.

After her shopping trip, I asked Kelly why she finally bought the shampoo and gel, while on the other hand she returned the shaver and mascara to the shelf. She replied, “Because I somehow didn't feel for the brand”. Had I decided to build my future strategy based on the outcome of good, old, conventional qualitative research techniques, I would never know how to solve the problem of Kelly’s brand rejection. However, the deciding 4-seconds measured by the scan revealed that cleanliness had catapulted up the ladder of priorities... now by far surprising any other factor – even though she was a big fan of both the brands she ended up rejecting.

Environmental issues, media fragmentation, and the need for increased consumer interaction with the brand have become the most pressing topics in the branding world. As the globe focuses on these very important issues, another trend seems to have slipped in the side door – the need for sanitisation. Despite the insidious nature of this need for clean, the affect on our behaviour is so subtle that even consumers are not aware of its power to control our behaviour. It’s embedded itself into our culture, our behaviour and our decision making to such an extent, that to a large degree it controls where we choose to spend our money.

Whatever you may think of it, those brands who are clever enough to identify and run with it, will be the ones who will be reaping untold rewards. In a consumer population who has come to expect their food to be well sealed and vacuum packed, their expectations have now extended to every category they purchase being sanitised for their protection.

But there’s another message underlying this fact. Far too often we look in the wrong direction for answers, forgetting that we are fundamentally emotional creatures, 85% driven by our subconscious mind. Yet today 100% of all our research seems to rely on studied, conscious research techniques. A little food for thought, I guess. So long as it’s sanitised before we do the thinking!

The Anti-laws of Luxury Marketing #17

-Derrick Daye

17. Cultivate closeness to the arts

In traditional marketing, the brand seeks to appeal and to create an affective relationship. For that it often uses music, music that is as popular as possible, or at least appreciated by its target audience. The brand follows people’s tastes. The luxury brand is a promoter of taste, like art. As we explored in earlier posts, it maintains close links with art. But luxury is not a follower: it is creative, it is bold. That is why it is best for luxury to remain close to the unpopular arts – or rather the non-popular arts – those that are emerging and have yet to appeal to the majority, if they ever will. Louis Vuitton has long been sponsoring concerts of contemporary music, for example bringing the pianist Maurizio Pollini to the Abbaye de Royaumont to perform music by the little-known composer Luigi Nono, rather than by a great such as Mozart or Chopin. Similarly, following the pioneering work done by Cartier, the Fondations d’Art Contemporain are now flourishing in all the great luxury groups. In this way they are making themselves patrons of emerging trends, where they are forming symbiotic relationships that serve their purposes – making luxury-brand objects that are themselves works of contemporary art.

That is why it is so important to develop this curiosity about the here and now among those working in the luxury business and to encourage them to visit art galleries, biennales, and exhibitions of modern art.

Advertising Volume and Advertising Effectiveness

-Al Ries

Next to the Internet, radio is my favorite medium. It’s one-to-one and personal in a way that no other traditional medium can duplicate.

My favorite radio personality is Neal Boortz, a nationally syndicated talk-show host who broadcasts out of Atlanta on 171 stations. I listen to Boortz every morning during the commute to my office in Roswell.

Yet at the top of the hour, I turn off my radio and don’t turn it back on until 8 minutes after the hour. Why? Because that’s radio’s black hole. Eight solid minutes of commercials, traffic, weather, news and more commercials.

The second black hole occurs at the bottom of the hour, but it’s not quite as bad. I turn off my radio for only 6 minutes.

For every ad that radio stations used to run, it now seems like they run two. Radio, in my opinion, has become Radiado, an extra ‘ad’ inserted at every possible point in the programming.

There’s a relationship between advertising volume and advertising effectiveness. The greater the volume the less effective any individual advertisement is likely to be.
A number of magazine readership studies have shown, for example, that an advertisement in a thin issue of a publication is more likely to be noticed and read than the same advertisement in a thick issue of the same publication.

In the long run, the health of the advertising industry is related to effectiveness. As the increasing clutter reduces the effectiveness of advertising, clients are turning to other ways to promote their products and services. So today we have advertising on blimps, ATMs, gas pumps, eggs, commodes, even beach sand. And there’s a developing market in stadium naming rights and product placements in television, movies and videogames.

The New York Mets and Citigroup have signed a 20-year deal to call the team’s new stadium CitiField. According to press reports, the deal is worth at least $20 million a year, a record for stadium rights.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey signed a contract with Geico to place billboards and other advertisements on the George Washington Bridge. Less than a week after the contract was announced, the Port Authority backed out of the deal citing the hostility the plan had received. ‘We misjudged the negative reaction to this,’ said a Port Authority spokesperson.

If the New York community can get upset about a few signs on a bridge, why doesn’t the advertising industry get upset about the increasing clutter on traditional media? Especially since the arrival of new technologies that let consumers take charge of their own ‘clutter reduction’ tactics.

If I were running a radio station today, I’d worry more about Sirius XM Satellite Radio than I would about my direct competitors. So far, the merged satellite systems have signed up 18.5 million subscribers. (For $16.95 a month, you can say farewell forever to Radiado. Maybe not forever, since advertising is starting to creep into the satellite radio medium.)

If I were running a television station today, I’d worry more about TiVo (and other digital video recorders) than I would about my direct competitors. At the end of 2005, according to Forrester Research, 12.2 percent of households had DVRs. That number is expected to skyrocket.

Radio was my first love, both from a consumer and a business point of view. As a matter of fact, our agency was the first advertising agency ever hired by the Radio Advertising Bureau.

‘Radio is red-hot’ was the theme of our first campaign. In spite of radio’s lack of visuals, the campaign tried to make the point that radio is a primary medium because the objective of a marketing program should be to ‘own a word in the mind.’

Own a word. Not a visual.

Are visuals helpful? Sure, but the objective of the visual should be to associate the brand with a word. Volvo drives an automobile into a wall in order to drive the word ‘safety’ into the consumer’s mind.

Radio isn’t exactly red-hot today, but it has held its own among major media. In 1978 (when we first went to work for the Radio Advertising Bureau) radio accounted for 6.7 percent of total media expenditures. Today it's 6.9 percent, a gain of 3 percent.

Newspapers, on the other hand, are down 42 percent. Magazines are down 20 percent.

Radio is a powerful medium with great selectivity at relatively low costs, but Radiado threatens the very existence of the medium. Too much is too much.

One could make the point that radio has nothing to worry about. That advertising in general has not been increasing and in one sense this is true. For the last 60 years, U.S. advertising spending has averaged about 2 percent of the gross domestic product. (In 2005, it was 2.18 percent, the smallest percentage since 1994.)

That misses the point. The last 60 years have witnessed an explosion in the average family’s income. Yesterday’s luxuries have become today’s necessities. Today the average family has the money to buy air conditioners, microwave ovens, dishwashers and cellphones. Today, the average family has the money to spend on restaurant meals, multiple cars, jewelry, watches and other luxury items.

With an expanding income comes a declining percentage of a family’s income spent on food, housing and other essentials. Expenditures for food, for example, have been consistently falling. From 15.1 percent of the average family’s income in 1990 to about 13 percent today.

With rising incomes, the percentage of a country’s gross domestic product spent on essentials should be falling. Nobody should be saying, what most families need in America is more to eat. Or more advertising to consume.

The biggest health problem in America today is obesity. The biggest advertising problem in America today is obesity, too.

9 Digital Trends For 2010

-Derrick Daye

1: Facebook replaces personal email

Question: Google has it, Hoover has it (in the UK anyway), TiVo had it, lost it and has somewhat got it back. Xerox had it, but nobody really cares anymore. So what is it?

It's when a brand name becomes the verb associated with its use. So rather than searching, you Google, or TiVo when digital recording a television show. Arguably an even more powerful synonym is when a brand becomes a noun, such as Polaroid, for instant developed photographs, although that didn't end so well.

The newest one would seem to Facebook, although it has too meanings.

'I Facebooked you' could mean that you the person has added you as a Facebook friend or they sent you a private message though Facebook. The latter would seem to be of more interest as no-one has really owned this type of communication before. No brand ever became synonymous with email. To Hotmail or Gmail someone just never happened.

So the interesting and overlooked disruption of Facebook is its displacement of personal email as a communication tool. Completely permission based, no SPAM (yet), and no address book required - your friends are already on Facebook.
2: Open source software starts making proper money, thanks to the cloud

There's something starting to happen within the open source software world. Projects that were typically for the purview of programmers, or at least technophiles, are now available to the masses.

An example is Beanstalk a fully hosted, version controlled code repository that uses the Subversion open source project. The big deal is that to set up and maintain a Subversion repository can be a pain - plus you need a server if you want to give access to anyone. Beanstalk has created a subscription based service that, for a small fee, removes the hassle. Services like this can only really exist with cloud computing infrastructure - so companies such as Beanstalk don't have the huge upfront capital outlay for servers, they only pay for what their customers use. With the right skills any open source project can be commercialized in this manner.

3: Mobile Commerce - the promise that has never delivered, yet.

As annoyingly tantalizing yet esoteric as the word 'convergence' has been over the last 10 years, mobile commerce has promised much but never delivered. Mobile phones have delivered real benefits to societies world wide and in developing nations are used commonplace as devices for the transfer of money.

However, until only very recently in the nations that invented and first adopted mobile technologies, has use of your most precious device been extended to payment for goods and services. With the advanced browsers of iPhone and the Android platforms one could pay for goods through full e-commerce sites, but who really wants to fiddle around with a phone in one hand and a credit card in another?

The game changer is the iPhone / iTunes platform. In-app purchases on the iPhone can tempt users to buy small items, upgrades, updates, etc, while iTunes holds their precious credit card information. All, of course, is done in seamless fashion, enough to promote impulse purchases. Would seem like an easy task for this to be extended to other platforms with PayPal or Google Checkout. But we have been here before haven't we?

4: Fewer registrations - one sign-in fits all

I use a great application on the Mac platform that securely holds my login details for upwards of 50 different sites. It means that I don't have to use the same password for each site and that I don't have to search around for post-it notes (my 1998 method) to log into the site I joined a week ago.

However, I'm starting to resent having to register for anything ever again. I don't see why, to leave a particularly pithy comment on a blog or news site, I have to register all over again. I'm sure I'm not the only one and that's why services like Facebook Connect and OpenID are particularly useful and will continue to be adopted at great speed through 2010. Who knows where these might go? Perhaps next year I'll be able to pay for something using my Facebook login.

5: Disruption vs. Continuity - Alternatives to the "Big Idea"

As the significance of social networks continues to grow, businesses are investing more in community building as a marketing driver. According to the recent Tribalization of Business study released by Deloitte, 94% of businesses will continue or increase their investment in online communities and social media and, for the majority of these companies, their marketing function will drive this investment. At the same time, as evidenced by Google's recent release of "free floating" social tools, such as Google Waves and Sidewiki, there is an increasing shift towards online identity and social activity being an integrated part of the network as a whole, rather than concentrated within discrete platforms such as Facebook.

With the increasing emphasis on marketing and advertising through social networks and the increasing pervasiveness of social tools, marketing objectives come into conflict with advertising techniques. While advertising has often sought to distinguish itself and stop the consumer in their tracks with a disruptive "big idea," the emphasis is shifting toward persuasion through fitting organically into the consumer's social sphere. It will always be the objective of marketing to provide creativity and novelty, but the way in will increasingly be one of persistence and continuity.

6: Self-Sufficiency - The Continuing Evolution of Web-Driven,Open Source DIY Culture

Much has been said about the power and potential of collective intelligence. From solving complex problems through crowd-sourcing, to reconfiguring industries to be leaner and more innovative by harnessing the expertise of a network of independent suppliers, many of the breakthrough solutions of tomorrow appear to lie in more effectively pooling the resources and intelligence of our increasingly networked world.

On the other side of the equation, the power of pooled intelligence and networked resources have empowered individuals to take on more and more complex undertakings themselves. From drawing on the collective intelligence of blogs and university open courseware to educate themselves, to services like ponoko, spoonflower and cafe press that facilitate small-scale production, to offline resource pooling like pop-up retail and collective office spaces, individuals are discovering that it has never been easier to try doing it themselves.

While we find new ways to thrive in a still struggling economy, expect to see lasting changes coming from empowering individuals to work together to become more ever more self-sufficient.

7: Info-Art

Where we once had pop-psychologists and pop-philosophers, we now appear to have pop-statisticians and pop-economists. The growing wealth of data and the access to rich and diverse data sources that are significant byproducts of information networks have made the art of data analysis a defining skill of our times.

By the same token, the skill of elegantly visualizing that data has become a defining art of our time. The art of the infographic is becoming increasingly pervasive as people look more and more to the growing amount of data at our disposal for insight, and more refined as the interactions of that data becomes more complex.

With an ever increasing need for real-time analysis of a growing torrent of raw data, expect to see greater innovation spurred by more elegant ways of capturing and visualizing information by a growing number of
info-artists.

8: Crowd Sourcing

Across many industries and organizations, crowd sourcing will become a growing tool as part of elance outsourcing strategies. Organizations will mobilize the passionate special interest groups to not only carry a message but, even more importantly perhaps, to lead and take part in activities on their behalf.

Predictions for 2010 are not as rosy as we all hoped and budgets for just about everything continue to be cut, encouraging 'creative' thinking regarding getting things done and done well.

From political canvassing to software development, from people journalism to environmental activism, we will see huge growth in crowd sourcing models provoked and led, largely, by digital social media strategies.

9: More Flash, Not Less

Outside of the obvious brand sites, micro-sites and media sites (video, games, etc.) Flash has often been looked down upon if not completely discounted by techies and search engine optimizers alike. It seemed to face an uncertain future as a viable tool for serious websites and applications such as eCommerce tools and corporate websites. As it is, Adobe's rich media tool has enjoyed the grit and determination of its advocates and external development community. Several tricks, authoring tools and server side scripting workarounds have meant that Flash built websites no longer serve up a single, impenetrable page. They offer deep, searchable, indexable sites that will allow acute, detailed traffic and behavioral analytics and search engine optimization.

As websites continue to increase in their importance as a company's storefront, the demand for rich, brand-extending experiences will also increase. Further proliferation of (lightning speed) broadband will reduce download issues while the adoption of Flash on mobile devices will dramatically increase and fuel reach and the desire/need for highly usable, brand transporting, conversion oriented experiences

The Anti-laws of Luxury Marketing #16

-Derrick Daye

16. Keep celebrities out of your advertising

In traditional marketing, stars of stage and screen are very often used in advertising: there is nothing like a David Beckham for selling sunglasses or shaving cream. Nestlé has also got in on the act, with premium brand Nespresso calling on the services of George Clooney, and Nescafé recruiting the famous English soccer player Ian Wright. Nestlé, the world’s number one in food marketing, knows what it’s doing.

However, using celebrities to promote luxury products is extremely dangerous. A luxury brand is courted by the stars, in the same way as those stars are courted by journalists and paparazzi. As we mentioned earlier about a luxury brand’s typical relationship with its customers, it must respect them, but it also has to dominate them. Even the most famous ones. Calling on the services of a star is tantamount to saying that the brand needs some of this star’s status just to survive, and admitting that it has none of its own.

For the luxury brand, this is a gross error of strategy, for it turns the relationship on its head. Only brand domination, standing above everything like a god, is acceptable, not simply behaving like any ordinary mortal. If celebrities are used to promote the luxury product, the status of the latter is reduced to that of a mere accessory. Louis Vuitton advertising with Mikhail Gorbachev, former USSR President avoids this:

• first, the celebrity is not a fashion symbol but a man who changed the world;
• second, his Louis Vuitton is not the hero, but only the witness of an exceptional moment (a strategic negotiation).

Brands & the Ladder of Life

-Al ries

One of the typical questions marketing people ask themselves is, What’s the lifetime value of a customer?

Presumably a company benefits by keeping its customers satisfied over an extended period of time. Nice idea in theory, but this kind of thinking often leads a company down the wrong path.

Take Saturn, for example. Here was a brand built on the ultimate in customer satisfaction. Comfortable showrooms, no high-pressure sales people, no haggling over prices. ‘A different kind of company. A different kind of car.’

The first Saturn model, the S series, was wildly successful. For a number of years, the average Saturn dealer sold more cars than the average dealer of any other brand. (In 1996, for example, the average Saturn dealer sold 776 cars versus 684 for Honda and 606 for Toyota. The average Chevrolet/Geo dealer that year sold only 237 cars.)

But what would happen when a Saturn customer got older and made more money? The S series, after all, was a relatively inexpensive compact car. No problem, decided Saturn management, We’ll take care of our customers by introducing the L series, a larger, more expensive car. ‘The next big thing from Saturn.’

Not a good move. Sales of the S series fell because the model was ‘long in the tooth.’ Sales of the L series suffered because prospective customers thought ‘it was a little too expensive for a Saturn.’
(Years ago I had the same argument with Peugeot management in Paris over the introduction of their 404 model in the U.S. The 403 was selling well, so why bring in a new, more expensive car? They did anyway, and sold both models in the same showrooms. As predicted, total sales declined.)

Today, Saturn is the latest entry in the big book of failed brands.

Saturn was a great car for young, single people just getting started in life. But when you grew up, got promoted and made more money did you want to buy a more expensive Saturn?

Most young people, including my daughter, wanted a BMW. When you move up the ladder of life, you want your brand to reflect your new status.

What happened when you got married and had kids? Did you want to pile the family into an SUV, the Saturn Vue.?

Most young people preferred a Volvo, the car that says you care about your family’s safety.

Then in the normal course of events, you got divorced. What happened next? The wife kept the kids and the Volvo and you purchased a Ferrari.

What should Saturn have done? Our advice would have been to keeps its focus on ‘entry-level’ vehicles. Instead of complementing the S series with the L series, they should have replaced the S series with an up-dated model. And done so frequently.

The grass might be greener on the other side of the highway, but you can usually build a more powerful brand if you constantly fertilize the plot that you already own. Let your customers go. Let them move up the ladder of life.

What happens in cars also happens in clothing, cosmetics, beer, liquor, watches and many other consumer categories. You know you are getting ahead in life when you can leave your old brands behind.

In some cases, it would pay a company to actively discourage customers to grow old with its brand. One of Levi Strauss’ problems is that older people wear the brand. No kid wants to wear what their parents wear.

We would have restricted Levi’s jeans to waist sizes no larger than 32 inches. Let those big old butts walk around wearing Wrangler’s.

When The Name You Want Is Taken

-Steve Rivkin

You've just found out the name you want for your brand is owned by somebody else. So, the temptation is to say, "Let's move on."

Not so fast. Names are property, and can be bought and sold (or leased) like real estate.

Coors licensed the name of its upscale beer Irish Red from a long-defunct brewery. Yves St. Laurent bought the name of its Opium fragrance for only $200 from two elderly perfumers.

The 1999 relaunch of National Airlines came about after the new owners paid $175,000 to buy the name at a bankruptcy sale from defunct Pan Am. (Pan Am had acquired the carrier in 1980.)

Not that long ago, we helped a Fortune 100 company acquire the rights to an automation software name from its Japanese owner. One week of phone calls and faxes produced a letter of agreement.

When the name you covet is owned by somebody else, go after it. Use an intermediary to open a channel of communications. Have a valuation in mind. Make sure the assignment of rights is perfectly clear. (For which countries, for what period of time are you acquiring the name?)

Complex Language Weakening Brands

-Al Ries

"Call the law enforcement officers. We're being robbed."

Not a likely scenario. What the average person is much more apt to say is: "Call the cops. We're being robbed."

Unfortunately, marketing people are not average persons. Marketing people are much more likely to elevate their languages until, in some cases, they lose their meanings.

A few years back a senior marketing person at United Parcel Service asked me what I thought of the company's trademark.

I like it, I said, but what UPS really needs is a motivating idea or rallying cry, something like: UPS delivers more parcels to more people in more places than any other company in the world.

UPS, he said, is not in the parcel delivery business.

Huh. That came as a big surprise to me. We're a customer and I always thought that UPS was in the parcel delivery business.

No. UPS is in the logistics business.

He wasn't joking. At the time UPS was in the process of repainting some 88,000 vehicles with its new theme: Synchronizing the World of Commerce.

A serious impediment to communications is this constant upgrading of the language. No aspect of life is left untouched by the upgrade police. Not only does a term have to be politically correct, it has to be as long and as complicated as possible.
Maintenance men are now physical plant managers.

Janitors are now custodial engineers.

Garbage collectors are now sanitary engineers.

A business strategy is now a business model.

Accounting firms are now professional service firms.

The purchasing department is now the procurement department.

The personnel department is now the human relations department. (At Electronic Data Systems, the HR department has become the Leadership and Change Management department.)

Fireworks are now pyrotechnics.

A jail is now a correctional facility. Anyone setting off the pyrotechnics illegally will be sent to a correctional facility.

It would be amusing if the problem hasn't become a serious impediment to marketing. Many firms, for example, call themselves financial services companies. What's a financial services company?

If you want to buy banking services, you go to a bank like Bank of America.

If you want to buy insurance, you go to an insurance company like State Farm.

If you want to buy stocks, bonds or mutual funds, you go to a brokerage firm like Merrill Lynch.

Let's go to a financial services company to get our finances serviced, is not the way people talk. People talk in terms of specifics, not generalities.

As a matter of fact, it's easier to go from the specific to the general than vice versa. People know that a drug store sells a lot more things than just drugs. Toiletries, candy, soft drinks, stationery, photo supplies, etc. Should a drug store (pardon me, pharmacy) describe itself as a personal services store? I think not.

Boston Chicken was a huge hit when they first opened its doors. It was the first fast food restaurant chain to focus on rotisserie chicken for the take-home dinner market. But then it added turkey, meatloaf, ham and other items to the menu and changed its name to Boston Market.

Everybody knows what a chicken dinner is, but what's a market dinner No wonder, the company went bankrupt.

The same principle holds true among marketing companies. You probably know of many famous advertising agencies and many famous PR agencies, but how many famous marketing communications agencies do you know of? Name one.

When in doubt, use the narrowest possible term to describe your category. Let the mind do the upgrading, not your marketing.

The Anti-laws of Luxury Marketing #15

-Derrick Daye

15. Do not sell.

This isn’t arrogance, not at all. The luxury strategy is the very opposite of the volume strategy.

If you pursue the strategy of systematically raising all your prices, as illustrated by Krug, you have to be prepared to lose sales and to lose customers. Most brands don’t dare risk it, or else go running after customers; when you get to that point you’re no longer talking luxury but mass consumption – which of course can be extremely profitable as everyone knows.

Krug did lose some accounts, some importers, it is true. If not supported by the Rémy Cointreau management in the steps it took, Krug’s change in strategy would have been stopped as soon as the first big client walked away. In luxury, not trying too hard to sell is a fundamental principle in relations with customers. You tell the customer the story of the product, the facts, but you do not pressure them into making a purchase there and then.

We said a few words earlier about the campaign BMW had conducted on the internet in the US; a number of the most prominent film directors each made a short-length film around BMW, having been given completely free rein – not a commercial, but free expression. These films were made available on the internet and they very quickly did the rounds in the United States. Commenting on this decision, the marketing director at BMW USA said: ‘When it comes to luxury, the best way of reaching the very well-off is to let them come to you.’

Top Ten Integrated Marketing Trends for 2010

-Derrick Daye

1. Less will get done: until we learn to do more with less.

While the year 2009 was marked as the 'great recession', we won't feel its full effects until 2010. Both marketers and their marketing services agency partners are dealing with reduced resources in terms of head-count and budgets. We won't likely see enough breakthroughs in the marketplace, simply because marketers and agencies alike have to remain focused on 'getting the work out the door'. The only way to 'do more with less' is to align resources toward a single and powerful integrated marketing solution. Individual marketing tactics will simply become marginalized and highly tactical with 'less'.

2. Marketers will mistakenly 'whack' a medium of the marketing mix.

With reduced marketing budgets, 'something has to give'. Unfortunately, marketers are making wholesale cuts to specific marketing/media channels in the process. We've seen the most dramatic cuts occur in print media: newspapers and magazines. I caution marketers to consider whether the remaining media in the market mix can compensate for the cuts. For example, does the internet behave like print? Is the consumer experience the same in both media? Are the message formats the same? The answer is a clear NO. Reduced resources should not come at the expense of an integrated, multi-channel mix.

3. Marketers rush to employ 'social networking' strategies.

Marketers are in a mad rush to enter the social networking space with 'tweets', 'widgets', 'apps' and 'fan pages'. However, social networking is not a marketing tactic; nor is it a surrogate for the brand's social experience. It is not a line item on a marketing plan, a specific channel, or a form of content. Rather, it is an outcome. And, no single channel has a lock on the 'social' nature of content. Most any medium can serve as the 'originating' medium in a journey that can take a great piece of content across channels and into vast networks of hearts and minds.
4. More data and even less 'understanding'.

More studies are emerging from more places: set-top boxes, foundations, academics, marketers and the media themselves. And, the data all clearly point to a very different world: one that is highly fluid, highly interactive and quick to change structure and form. What's the problem with this picture? Data sets are less projective when the media world changes so quickly. Granted, while we may have a better understanding of what happened last week, last month or yesterday; we cannot take this understanding too far into the future. I'd say we're entering a 'Wild West' era of integrated channel planning.

5. Lines between media will continue to blur.

In the coming year, more primetime television content will show up in more places than ever before. Fans will have multiple access points into shows that used to be an 'appointment view' controlled by network programming executives. Between live view, live+3 day views from a DVR, video on demand, Hulu, network owned websites, and shared distribution deals (ala DirecTV and NBC for Friday Night Lights) it is no longer clear as to where one screen medium ends and another begins. Maybe we're starting to realize: it's all a screen!

6. Push vs Pull will become less relevant.

In 2010, the classification of marketing experiences into 'push' vs. 'pull' will become less relevant. Why? Because the best content (both programming and commercial content) will increasingly become 'push' and
'pull' at the same time. Ask yourself: is American Idol a 'push' medium because it's broadcast during primetime on Fox? Or, is it a 'pull' medium given the plethora of votes, downloads, and chats which result from the broadcast? The answer: yes! And, the phenomenon works both ways. Given the vast reach of our social networks, a viral experience that is pulled along by a small group of fans will quickly amass reach
without too much effort on the part of the original sender.

7. Great content will travel at the 'speed of share' -- 'average' experiences will evaporate.

In 2010, we will begin to wrestle with our sense of time. Messages can travel at 'the speed of share'. With the click of a mouse, or a mobile phone, consumers can advance a great story/ad/video/picture/newsbite to
vast, 'networked' communities of hearts and minds. The 'Speed of Share' renders the speed of traditional content distribution obsolete. It's like comparing real-time to slow motion! However, content will only
travel at the 'Speed of Share' if it is worth sharing in the first place. There will be less tolerance for mediocre content, and consumers will have even more means of disposing of, and/or avoiding it.

8. The Adult 18-49 demo will become even less relevant as a target cohort.

The diversity of the 18-49 demographic certainly isn't new, and on the surface shouldn't be cited as a notable trend for 2010. But, when you stop to think about how different the media world is for an 18 year-old, relative to a 49 year-old, you might just be ready to step away from a target cohort that doesn't hold up. And every year, the divide between 'internet-raised' and 'television-raised' consumers becomes more profound. Just read 'Media Generations' by Martin Block PhD, Don Schultz PhD, and BIGresearch, and you'll quickly understand that today's 18-49 demographic cohort contains four different media generations.

9. Symbiosis will create interesting and at times strange partnerships.

Many forecasters are predicting wholesale collapses in media channels. I prefer to hold a different point of view: I believe the media and marketing landscape will be affected more by the laws of symbiosis than the laws of natural selection. Consider the relationship between YouTube and television. What appeared on the surface as a 'competing interest' continues to evolve into a symbiotic relationship. Just ask Tina Fey, or Susan Boyle and they will speak of the power of one medium to reinforce and amplify another. I predict we will continue to see emerging relationships among what appear on the surface as competing media channels.

10. The year 2010 will become the year of the 'good idea'.

Our recent past suggests that we, as an industry, have become hyper-focused on the dynamics of channels to such an extreme that we may very well have taken our eye off the ball. At the end of the day, channels serve only as pipelines for content. And, as discussed throughout, only great content can be both 'pushed' and 'pulled' along at the new ' speed of share'. Without a good idea, the content will simply evaporate. It's that simple! So despite fewer resources, more diversity, and less certainty, I am advocating for good ideas to fuel integrated marketing outcomes in 2010.

Marketing Is Not Communications

-Al Ries

A 5-page foldout magazine advertisement opened up with the following 39 attributes spread out over two pages: Renegade, fearless, unexpected, bold, true, spontaneous, curious, intriguing, unwavering, rare, brash, provocative, intuitive, genuine, daring, uncommon, irreverent, brazen, absolute, unusual, visionary, idyllic, proud, maverick, wild, undaunted, resolute, poetic, dynamic, soulful, unconventional, strong, romantic, authentic, brave, unorthodox, deft, radical, dreamer.

What brand could possibly combine all these wonderful attributes? Turn the page and get the answer: The 315-hp FX45. And who makes the renegade, fearless, unexpected, bold, true, etc. etc. FX45?

There in small type at the bottom of the next page is the answer. Infiniti, accelerating the future.

What’s wrong with this advertisement and thousands more just like it? It assumes that the primary function of advertising is to communicate. ‘Tell more, sell more’ was the old advertising adage.

The idea that advertising is a form of communications is deeply embedded in the corporate psyche. Many Advertising Departments are now calling themselves the Marketing Communications Department or ‘Marcom’ for short. Too bad. The name encourages advertising people to go in exactly the wrong direction.
Advertising is not communications; advertising is positioning. The best advertising communicates precious little about the product or service. What the best advertising does, however, is to establish and reinforce a position in the prospect’s mind.

What’s an Infiniti? I don’t know, do you? What I do know is that an Infiniti is not a renegade, fearless, unexpected, etc. etc. etc. automobile.

You don’t have to communicate much of anything to build a powerful brand. Take Rolex watches. What do you know about Rolex except that it’s an expensive Swiss watch? The ‘best’ expensive Swiss watch.

Do you know where Rolexes are made? How they are made? What makes them different from less-expensive Swiss watches? As a matter of fact, do you know anything about Rolex except that it’s the best expensive Swiss watch?

Probably not. Nor do you need to know anything more than that. That’s the Rolex position. The best expensive Swiss watch.

A mind is much too small a container to hold all the marketing messages that companies are trying to stuff into it. Trying to communicate more information than is necessary is self-defeating. It can actually reduce the effectiveness of a marketing program. Furthermore, it can also reduce the mystique of the brand.

The primary function of a marketing organization is to position the brand. That’s the goal that should always be kept in mind.

It can be shocking to learn how little information the average prospect holds in his or her mind. Take Peter Drucker, for example. What do you know about Peter Drucker?

To most management people, Peter Drucker is a management guru. The ‘best’ management guru. But what do you know about his principles. What does he have to say about managing a business?

‘Aaaah . . . he’s a guru,’ the average manager might say. And what else does that person need to know to hold Peter Drucker in an exalted position in the mind? Nothing.

Actually, knowing too much about a person’s beliefs hurts the positioning process. Politicians have learned that principle well. If a politician took a position on every issue in an election, he or she would be bound to offend everybody in the process. And possibly lose everybody’s vote.

‘Better ingredients, better pizza,’ says Papa John’s. As a result of this brilliant positioning, Papa John’s has become the third largest pizza chain in America and one of the fastest growing.

Do you know what the better ingredients are? Do you know that Papa John’s uses fresh crushed tomatoes, real mozzarella cheese and distilled water in the preparation of its pizzas? Most people don’t. Does it matter? Probably not. Better ingredients, better pizza is enough to position Papa John’s a step above Pizza Hut and Domino’s.

Look at your marketing materials. Are you trying to communicate or are you trying to position? There is a difference.

Look at the automobile communications problem, not from the point of view of the communicator, but from the point of view of the communicatee.

There are hundreds of car models. Is the prospect going to associate one of those car models (the 315-hp Infiniti FX45) with 39 different attributes. Obviously not.

As a matter of fact, can you even position a car model? For the most part, the answer is no. There are just too many to conveniently fit into the mind.

The best you can do is to position a car brand. And only a handful of car brands have done so. Volvo owns the ‘safety’ position. BMW owns ‘driving.’ And Mercedes-Benz owns ‘prestige.’ And Infiniti owns? Well, what do they own? Or what do they want to own? Or what can they own?

These are the questions that every marketing department should be asking itself.

The Anti-laws of Luxury Marketing #14

-Derrick Daye

14. Keep raising the average price of the product range

In traditional marketing, you launch a product at a skimming price, then when competition comes onto the scene, you drop the price. In luxury it is precisely the opposite. A luxury brand must always be seen to be restoring the gap, restratifying, and as such it is acting as a visible agent of meritocracy.

A brand that cannot grow in volume and profitability other than by launching accessible products shows that it is no longer part of the luxury market. For instance, the fact that Mercedes has launched its super top-of-the-range under a different brand name (Maybach -- pictured above) reveals its presumed change of strategy: Mercedes from now on will be the maker of regular and premium automobiles, and the luxury range now goes under the Maybach brand, no longer Mercedes.
This means that while it may be necessary to have a few introductory products for the benefit of new clientele, having a luxury brand signifies a permanent shift in vision. Its growth does not rely on running after less well-heeled clientele but on taking advantage of the global economic growth that is creating thousands of new rich and very rich people throughout the world. These people are looking for a way to reward themselves (through products) and for a symbol (being the brand) of their accession to the ‘Club’, having made sure that it is a closed ‘Club’ – they wouldn’t want to mix too much with the wrong kind of people, after all! That is why the average price needs to keep going up – while of course at the same time increasing the value element of the product or service.

China Embracing English Names

-Steve Rivkin

Go global, young man.

That was the advice from Harvard’s Theodore Levitt when his seminal article, "The Globalization of Markets," was published in 1983. Since then, globalization has become a dominant theme of international business strategy.

It really is a neat idea: You drive a global brand with one big differentiated idea, everywhere from Akron to Auckland. Your brand gets recognized on the shelf by travelers and natives alike. A single name lowers production and manufacturing costs.

That’s normally what we mean by a “global name.” But in China, the younger generation is giving globalization a provocative new spin. As China talks of opening itself to the world, its young people are presenting themselves to the world by selecting new names in English.

The Associated Press reports that some college students have named themselves for Western brands, calling themselves Kodak, Chanel, Levi or Marlboro. A young lady originally named Wang Wei, a hotel marketer, tried on “Linda” and “Vivienne” for a better fit, then found her unique solution in the aisle of a supermarket. She is now Vanilla Wang. “In China,” says Vanilla, “it really helps to have a name people remember.”

Young Chinese find inspiration in a popular book by Wang Xeujun about choosing English names. The author observes, “More Chinese are leaving China, more Chinese are coming into contact with foreigners in China. And English is the world’s language. So a beautiful or unique English name gives you access to all the countries of the world.”

One Chinese-born, American-based translator reminds us that English is taught as a second language in China and Taiwan, and teachers also encourage students to pick English names. (Many will change their English names many times before settling on one.)

Zhao Tianqi is an artist working in wood-block prints. She is now Colour Zhao (with the added dash of the British spelling). Wang Lei is a video editor who translated his birth name and now works in Beijing as Thunder Wang. Among his contemporaries are Harlem Zhao and Echo Wang.

The Chinese place much greater emphasis on the meaning of names than most English speakers do, according to analysts. Many foreign words are assimilated into Chinese with great care. America is “meiguo” (beautiful country). Elvis is “maowang” (king cat).

Neuroscience and Brand Connections

-Derrick Daye

As neuroscience opens the brain to marketers' scrutiny, the electrical flashes that arise in response to stimuli make it increasingly apparent that what drives purchase decision making is actually a primal mechanism of the mind -attachment. This signal of a potent emotional attachment is the foundation for brand success. It's a form of primal brand magic, built on a near-mythical brand story that unconsciously transports one from the mundane to the imaginational, transforming our inner world and inspiring us to buy.

A brand experience has the potential to actually transform our brain chemistry. The experience of a product/service and its messaging, can be transformational in a sensory way and emotionally. More importantly, at the end of a satisfying product experience, our feelings have been transformed into a strong emotional attachment (magical/mystical bond) that endures until proven otherwise.

Fostering magical brand connections is particularly important in this "new normal" era of consumer frugality because an emotional connection creates consumers loyalty. But how can CMOs begin the quest for the
magic brand grail. These three keys will unlock the doors to begin the journey.

1. Understand the "right brain" of your category.
"Brand Marketers always have a deep understanding of their category's "left brain" - the numbers and functional benefits. The "right brain" attributes often are unexplored. What visual, sensorial and emotional benefits can your brand deliver and own - that work together with your product's attributes - to create an unbreakable bond that turns your consumers into brand enthusiasts? This can start with highly projective techniques like portrait building, present and future brand scenarios, and story creation with all of the internal teams that have a stake in the brand: marketing, design, R&D, senior management and your various agencies.

2. Understand the sensorial and emotional palette of your audience.

A lot of research is still left brain, Q&A focused. To unveil the magic in your brand, using highly right brained projective techniques – like image sorts, drawing and writing - can get at the more elusive sensorial and emotional attributes that are important to YOUR consumer and relevant, meaningful and inspiring in YOUR category. A great example is the method brand, which disrupted the established home cleaning market with a "detox your home" message and a visual position that brought that message to life using simple, clean, highly sensorial shapes and colors that intrigue, inspire and motivate one to buy.

3. Create a Visual Position.

Brand positions are often created in words, though people experience brands primarily visually. BUT...a brand's packaging, advertising and overall presence in the world starts with visual symbolism, not words. And unlike our pets at home, who have heightened senses of smell and hearing, humans are primarily sight driven. 70% of our sense receptors are in our eyes and 80% of what we learn about the world comes to us visually...yet most brands do not have a visual position that brings the written positioning and story to life.

Visual positioning defines the symbolic territory a brand can occupy to create distinction and often includes: overall personality, color and texture palettes, movement (upward like Gillette Mach3 or explosive and outward like Gillette Fusion), energy and other qualities that will unleash your brand's magic.

When To Launch A Second Brand

-Al Ries

Whenever a fashion or technological change occurs, an existing brand, no matter how dominant, faces a choice.

Should the brand be ‘stretched’ to encompass the new fashion or technology or should the company launch a second brand? If the change is significant enough, the better answer is almost always ‘launch a second brand.’

* The rise of casual clothing in the workplace led Levi Strauss to introduce Dockers which has become a billion dollar worldwide brand.

* The success of Mercedes-Benz and BMW led Toyota to introduce Lexus which has become the largest-selling luxury vehicle in the U.S.

* The success of Makita, a Japanese professional-tool brand, led Black & Decker to introduce DeWalt which has become the dominant brand in the category.

* The success of Costco led Wal-Mart to introduce Sam’s Club which is now neck and neck with the category leader.

When it comes to launching successful second brands, you rapidly run out of case histories. By far the majority of marketers prefer to expand their core brand to cover the new category. With mediocre success. Some examples:
* IBM’s failure to extend its mainframe dominance to the personal computer field.

* Xerox’s failure to extend its copier dominance to the computer field.

* Polaroid’s failure to move its brand out of instant photography.

* Kodak’s failure to duplicate its film photography success in the digital field.

Companies that shy away from second brands usually end up paying a high price for their insularity. Take Visa U.S.A. and MasterCard International. So far, it has cost the two credit card companies $3 billion with possibly more financial bad news to come.

A number of years ago, the two credit-card giants decided to get into the debit-card business. It would be hard to find two categories that are more competitive. Credit cards are the enemy of debit cards. And visa versa.

So what do Visa and MasterCard do? They put the same names on both cards. Visa on credit cards and Visa on debit cards. And the same for Master Card. To compound the problem, both card companies force their retailers to ‘honor all cards.’ In other words, if a retailer accepts a Visa credit card, the retailer must also accept a Visa debit card.

Then they put the debit card charges through the same signature-based system as the credit card charges, forcing the retailer to pay five to ten times as much in fees as they would if the customer has used one of the alternate debit card networks such as Star, Pulse or NYCE, which use a personal identification number, or PIN-based system.

In the biggest antitrust settlement in history, Visa U.S.A. agreed to pay $2 billion and MasterCard International $1 billion to a group of retailers led by Wal-Mart. Their contention: ‘Honor all cards’ was an illegal tie-in scheme.

Why not launch a second ‘debit’ brand to complement the Visa or MasterCard ‘credit’ brands? It’s the chicken-and-egg problem, explained one Visa executive. Visa would have had to start a new brand from scratch, one not yet issued by any bank or honored by any merchant. ‘But why would you possibly have done that?’

We can think of three billion reasons. But more important than the short-term financial losses at Visa and MasterCard are the long-term implications of their ‘honor all cards’ strategy. By integrating its debit with its credit card system, Visa (as well as MasterCard) is locked into a slower, less secure and more expensive way of processing debit-card charges.

Actually MasterCard did try a second brand strategy, launching a PIN product called Maestro (not exactly a worldclass name). But Maestro was losing out to the Visa signature-debit card, so MasterCard reversed course and came up with their own signature debit card. Too bad. If they had had a little more faith in their strategy, today MasterCard would have been a billion dollar richer with a big lead in PIN-based debit cards over its Visa competition.

Like many marketing problems, the debit-card situation is complicated. How do you design a product that has benefits for all the players in the game? Consumers, retailers, banks and the card network itself? It’s not easy.

Here is where the power of conceptual thinking comes in. Categories tend to diverge, not converge. You may not know how, when or where that divergence will take place, but you can be sure that ultimately it will. Two different categories, credit cards and debit cards, will become more and more different and there’s nothing one company can do about it. Trying to keep them together under the same brand name is an exercise in futility.

Never fight a trend. As time goes on, there’s always room for new brands. If you don’t launch a second brand, you can be sure that some of your competitors will.

The Anti-laws of Luxury Marketing #13

-Derrick Daye

13. Raise your prices as time goes on in order to increase demand

In the standard market model, when the price falls, demand rises. With luxury, the relationship is reversed. In the 1950s, Krug was one of the smallest champagne houses. Its champagne had an excellent reputation, was adored by the great artists and performers of the day, and particularly appreciated in Great Britain. In the late 1950s Moët & Chandon, on finding that Krug was being rationed (the product’s objective rarity made that a necessity), launched its new product that was destined to upset the status quo radically. Dom Pérignon was introduced at a price three times higher than that of Krug. In order to speed up the symbolic acceptance of Dom Pérignon, a quantity of it was dispatched to the Queen of England, and in 1961, in the very first film of the James Bond series, Agent 007 drank nothing but Dom Pérignon.

How was Krug to respond to that in order to regain its position at the top of the champagne hierarchy?

-Should it do nothing, believing that the superiority of its product would speak for itself – the truth being in the glass?
-Or, should it imitate Dom Pérignon, and at the same time improve it (a Lexus-type strategy)? This seemed an impossible approach for a house that had been in existence for 160 years, managed by the same family for five generations, and conscious of its mission.
The brilliant stroke – or perhaps one should call it Krug’s strategic daring – lay not in producing an exceptional vintage, a very top-of-the-range champagne that would justify the price put on it, but to hoist its prices substantially across the range, starting from the lowest; within 10 years it went up from $19 to $100 a bottle. At the same time, in a move to create a product of great rarity from one small corner of the vineyard, Clos du Mesnil was born. This champagne takes 10 years to come to fruition, taking into account the time it takes to prepare the land, bring in the harvest and allow for a period of ageing; nowadays, a bottle of Clos du Mesnil fetches a cool $700+.

Krug’s revival is an excellent illustration of the following anti-law of marketing: when it comes to luxury, price is a mere technical detail. As soon as price becomes an issue again in the classic price–demand relationship, we’re no longer dealing with luxury, even if the product bears the name of a luxury brand. Examples abound in every sector: it is by raising prices – and, of course, by reinvesting these additional profits in quality and in advertising – that a brand can stay in the world of luxury.

To live in luxury you have to be above others, not be ‘reasonable’, in both senses of the word. A reasonable price is a price that appeals to reason, and therefore to comparison. Now, recalling our anti-law no. 1, luxury is ‘superlative’, not ‘comparative’. To be reasonable is also to reduce the object to its tangible dimension and to deny the intangible.

By increasing prices you lose the bad customers, but now you suddenly become dazzlingly attractive to people who would previously not have given you a second glance.

The final point of this policy of systematically raising prices is that it gives the whole company a sense of responsibility. Price is a decisive factor in bringing about a change in mentality; indeed, we see quite profound internal changes in mentality, as every person in the company in their own way is constantly trying to find new ways of creating more value for the customer. It’s all a matter of living up to the price.

Innovation: Pathway To Brand Success

-Brad VanAuken

I am a huge advocate of innovation. Some of the most successful brands the world has witnessed are the result of innovation. Think Apple iPod or Toyota Prius or eBay or Amazon.com or even my hometown grocery chain, Wegmans. They have all experienced uncommon success based on innovation.
First, let’s define innovation. Innovation is the application of novelty to create value.

What leads to innovation? Here is my short list (based upon several experts’ extensive research in this area):

• A penchant for experimentation and action over analysis
o Wegmans has succeeded over the years by constantly testing new concepts in a few stores and then, if they are successful, integrating them throughout their other stores.
o Organizations need to play to win rather than play not to fail.
• The realization that in many industries, approximately 70% of innovations are developed by users, not the firm bringing the product to market (from research done by Professor Eric von Hippel at MIT)
o Harley-Davidson executives go on HOG Rallies with their customers taking notes and asking questions about accessories, bike modifications and other user-added features. They then debrief and act on what they discovered upon returning to their headquarters. • The importance of connectivity. An enterprise has a much higher success rate if it is interconnected with the widest variety of potential idea sources, suppliers, business partners, customers, universities, governmental agencies, etc.
o In their book, Co-Opetition, Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff convincingly make the point that enterprises that view other organizations and entities as potential partners rather than potential competitors are more successful in the marketplace.
• Build on your strengths, don’t waste your efforts on hiding or compensating for your weaknesses. Identify your assets and amplify them.
o Numerous municipalities have ignored their inclement weather (either during the winter or the summer) and built on their unique strengths to attract businesses, residents and tourists
• Envision the positive outcome that you seek.
o World class athletes make use of creative visualization. In their minds, they relentlessly visualize their ultimate success.
• Be optimistic and constantly work until your optimism is justified.
o Henry Ford’s first two automobile companies failed.
o In baseball, a batter doesn’t improve by waiting for the perfect pitch. He improves by hitting -- again and again and again.

Innovation is fun. It is energizing. It makes you want to work harder. It can make the world a better place in which to live. And it can lead to exceptional business results and brand success. I wish you an innovative future.

How To Attack The Leading Brand

-Al Ries

You know the kid’s game. Rock (fist) breaks scissors. Scissors (two fingers) cuts paper. Paper (flat hand) covers rock.

So what’s the best strategy in a game of rock/scissors/paper? The answer is obvious. It all depends on what strategy the other kid uses.

So, too, in marketing. Your best strategy often depends on what strategy your competition is using. This is especially true if you are trying to compete with a No. 1 brand, perhaps the most difficult job in marketing.

Take Pepsi-Cola. How does the brand compete with No. 1 Coca-Cola?

Be the opposite. Coca-Cola is widely perceived to the real thing, the authentic brand, the long-time market leader. So how does Pepsi-Cola become the opposite of the real thing?

‘The imitation cola’ is not going to cut it. Pepsi had to look a little deeper into the situation. Coca-Cola is also perceived to be a brand that has been around for a long time. (Actually 123 years). It’s the cola your parents drank.

So Pepsi-Cola became the cola for the younger crowd. ‘The Pepsi Generation.’

Over the years, The Pepsi Generation is the only advertising strategy that has substantially moved the needle. And aside from a technological breakthrough, the only strategy that is ever likely to move the needle.

Be the opposite is a marketing strategy that can work for any brand in any product category. How did Loew’s, for example, manage to make substantial progress against market leader Home Depot? Home Depot is the leading home improvement warehouse chain. But Home Depot is also a messy place originally designed that way in part to attract men.

So Lowe’s made a special effort to be neat and clean with wide aisles and brighter lighting. A place that was particularly attractive to women and in the process became the fastest-growing home improvement chain.

Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer with extremely low prices and a slightly downscale clientele. So Target went slightly upscale with a focus on good design. The theme: ‘Cheap chic.’ Trapped in the mushy middle was Kmart, a company that went bankrupt.

Notice what Kmart tried to do. First they went after Wal-Mart by cutting prices, but that didn’t work. Then they went after Target by doing a deal with Martha Stewart and other designers. Nether strategy was likely to work because the strategies were based on a ‘better than’ approach rather than a ‘be the opposite’ approach.

Dell Computer became the world’s largest seller of personal computers by choosing a distribution channel (direct by phone) that was the opposite of the computer retail stores channel used by its competitors.

Montblanc marketed ‘fat’ pens when its major competitor (Cross) was focused on selling ‘thin’ pens.

Callaway became the leading golf club company by marketing ‘over-size’ clubs when its major competitors were selling regular-size golf clubs. Prince became the leading tennis racquet company by marketing ‘over-size’ racquets when its major competitors were selling regular-size tennis racquets.

And so it goes.

Years ago, we tried to get Burger King to become the opposite of McDonald’s with absolutely no success.

What’s a McDonald’s? It’s a place for the younger crowd, especially kids between the ages of two and six who are attracted to Ronald McDonald, the happy meals and the swings and slides.

‘Grow up to the flame-broiled taste of Burger King’ was the theme we suggested. The idea was to position Burger King as the place for grown-up kids who had outgrown the happy meals and the swings and slides.

As it happened, Burger King followed the Kmart strategy of trying to outdo the competition rather than being the opposite of the competition. Bigger playgrounds and better kids meals were just some of the ‘better than’ strategies employed by Burger King.

Needless to say, the ‘better than’ strategies were mostly failures and a parade of CEOs have come and gone as Burger King tries to find a winning strategy to compete with the Golden Arches.

The numbers tell the story. The average McDonald’s unit in the U.S. did $1,527,300 in sales last year. The average Burger King unit did $1,030,700. (McDonald’s has an overwhelming 48 percent lead.)

If your brand is not the leading brand in your category and if your brand is not the opposite of the leader, then your brand is headed for trouble.

Think Kmart. Think Burger King. Think of the opposite strategy.

5 Retail Marketing Trends for 2010

-Kate Newlin

1) Inconspicuous Consumption

Consumers respond to the social moment by taking consumption into the closet. As when we talk about going to Fred's (in-store restaurant), not Barney's. Or, ask to have new purchases shipped, rather than be seen carrying a branded shopping bag. Or, decide to have shoes repaired and last year's jacket altered. Spending as a covert activity. No bragging rights.

2) The Dyslexic Dilemma

It's a "b." No. It's a "d." Consumers stall in their tracks, trying to figure out what to do, right now. Are we heading out of the woods, or perhaps a bit deeper into it. The moment to watch: What happens when unemployment hits 10 percent at the exact moment the Dow tops 10,000. That deer-in-the-headlights look on the consumers' face: Now or not yet? What is the real barometer of economic health? Dare I buy a peach?

3) Private Labeling

The number one brands thrive, innovating, advertising and product improving. But, the number 2s and 3s stop striving, unable to compete with performance advances or on price. Into the vacuum steps Private Label. No longer just "okay, available and cheap," these grocery aisle invaders are well-branded, feature rich and are oh-so-profitable for the stores. Say goodbye to familiar but moribund household names; say hello to snazzy new entrants that shave quarters off the check-out total without sacrifice. (Store brands in play at Walmart pictured above)

4) Trading Down without Trading Off

Consumers make psychological assessments of where to spend and where to save their personal currency. Are we willing to buy last year's iPod on close-out, rather than the latest and greatest? Where can we make a financial trade down without a steep payment in street cred?

5) Investment Grade Purchases

Consumers opt for quality - the kind that costs a bit more upfront, but is ultimately worth repairing and refurbishing. As in remembering (perhaps for the first time) that what makes Gucci loafers worth it is not the buckle but the workmanship, leather and fit. Watch for articles in the fashion press to educate on what to look for and the importance of a couple of (new) important pieces to renovate last year's look.

The Upgraded Brand Extension Threat

-Al Ries

A recent trend in marketing is the downgrading of established brands by upgraded line extensions.

Take Budweiser Select. According to Anheuser-Busch, "When it comes to brewing beer, the prevailing assumption is that you can't have it both ways. You can either aim for the best possible flavor, forgetting about calories and carbs; OR you can keep the calorie count in check, and sacrifice taste along the way. Budweiser Select is the exception to these brewing rules."

So what does that make Anheuser-Busch's other low-calorie beer? "Bud Light Mediocre?"

Kroger, the country's largest supermarket chain, has opened new superstores in Dayton, Cincinnati and Atlanta, called "Kroger Fresh Fare."

So what does that make regular Kroger stores? "Kroger Stale Fare?"

Well, you might be thinking, nobody pays attention to words like "fresh fare" or "select" anymore. They are just part of our daily routine of pleasant promotional puffery.

It's true. The language of marketing has had the belief squeezed out of it. Years of hyperbole have wiped out the meaning of many of the words used in brand names and advertising.

There are, however, a number of examples of line extensions that could seriously damage the core brands. Take Vitaminwater10, Glacéau's latest extension of its Vitaminwater brand. What do you suppose most consumers think when they see Vitaminwater10, a name that implies the brand has only 10 calories?

"What? Regular Vitaminwater has calories?"

It's water, for goodness sake, and everyone knows that water has no calories. But sure enough, when a consumer looks at the label of a bottle of regular Vitaminwater, he or she finds it has 50 calories per serving. The fitness crowd isn't going to be happy about that, especially when they find out that all the calories come from sugar.

It gets worse. Glacéau also plays the "per serving" game, which can make any product look like a diet product. As it happens, the 10 calories in Vitaminwater10 is per-8-oz. serving, which means that a 20-oz. bottle contains 25 calories.

And a 20-oz. bottle of regular Vitaminwater contains 125 calories. That's going to really upset that fitness crowd.

What's next? Coke12 with only 12 calories per serving? Serving size: one ounce.

It's odd. Consumers seldom read the fine print on product labels unless companies give them a reason to. For years, Miller High Life ran a "Miller Time" campaign to attract the blue-collar crowd who apparently never bothered to read the "The Champagne of Beers" slogan on the High Life label.

Take Clearly Canadian, the first of the New Age non-carbonated beverage craze. Introduced in 1988, sales took off like those of the iPod.

1989: $5.0 million.
1990: $17.0 million.
1991: $61.2 million.
1992: $155.2 million.

With net profits of $14 million in 1992, Clearly Canadian looked like a clear-cut winner.

It never happened. The next year (1993), sales dropped to $90.9 million and the company's profits disappeared. Sales continued to fall every year until they reached rock bottom in 2006 at $7.5 million.

Where is Clearly Canadian today? In deep trouble. In the past eight years on sales of $124.7 million, Clearly Canadian managed to lose $54.7 million.

What happened to Clearly Canadian? Back in 1992, Tom Pirko, president of Bevmark consulting firm, accurately predicted the reason for the product's rise and fall: "Clearly is the first product that works on the basis of mimicry. People buy it as a mineral water and it's a soft drink. Will the consumer continue to believe in the mimicry?"

Not after the consumer read the label. An 11-oz. bottle of Clearly Canadian contained 100 calories. And the word got around. A hundred calories for a clear, non-carbonated beverage?

Whoops. Back to Diet Coke.

Speaking of which, perhaps you have noticed the slow erosion in the per-capita consumption of cola in the U.S.

2004: Down 0.2%
2005: Down 1.5%
2006: Down 2.1%
2007: Down 3.6%
2008: Down 4.1%

Why didn't the launch of Diet Coke stem the decline of the Coca-Cola brand? (If you like cola taste, but not the calories, you had an alternative.)

Two reasons: (1) Regular Coke is perceived as a brand with "too many calories." (2) Diet Coke is perceived as a brand that "doesn't taste as good" as regular Coke.

The introduction of the mid-calorie colas, C2 and Pepsi Edge, only added to the confusion. Consumers don't like sacrifice (calories or taste), nor do they like compromise.

And so consumers looked for alternatives. Hence the rise of Clearly Canadian, until it too fell into the calorie trap.

Nor did the 1994 launch of Clearly 2, a version of Clearly Canadian with only two calories, stem the decline of the brand. In my opinion, Clearly 2 probably accelerated the decline because it reinforced the idea that the base brand, Clearly Canadian, has too many calories.

Someday I expect cola to make a comeback, perhaps with stevia as a natural non-calorie sweetener. (Coca-Cola with Truvia and PepsiCo with PureVia are obviously exploring this possibility.)

Another interesting upgrade is Scope Outlast, Procter & Gamble's latest extension of its mouthwash brand. "Breath feels fresh up to 5X longer," says the label.

Great, but at Rite-Aid, Scope Outlast costs 45% more per ounce than regular Scope. So the consumer is stuck with an unpleasant choice: Buy the obsolete product and save money, or buy Scope Outlast and get ripped off. (Reminds me of the pain of flying. Sit in coach and suffer physically or sit in first class and suffer financially.)

Then, too, I wonder how many consumers are going to read the fine print under the slogan, "Breath feels fresh up to 5X longer?" ... "Vs. brushing alone."

What? Any normal consumer would assume "5X longer" means that Scope Outlast outlasts regular Scope up to five times longer.

So, Procter & Gamble, how much longer does my breath feel fresh after using regular Scope vs. brushing alone? 1X? 5X? 10X?

It's almost an article of faith among marketing people that the more varieties the better. That's why there are five varieties of Charmin. Ten varieties of Cheerios. Sixteen varieties of Wheat Thins. Thirty-one varieties of Tide.

Then there's Gatorade Tiger, with three flavors. Gatorade A.M. with two flavors. Gatorade Endurance Formula with three flavors. Gatorade Energy Bar with two flavors. Gatorade Nutrition Shake with three flavors. Gatorade Thirst Quencher with seven flavors. And Gatorade G2 with three flavors. Total: 23 flavors or varieties of Gatorade.

And why would Starbucks introduce its own brand of instant coffee? Even worse, promote a "taste challenge" inside Starbucks stores to see if consumers can tell a cup of brewed coffee from a cup of instant?

"We're convinced a majority of people won't be able to tell the difference," said CEO Howard Schultz. So how does it help Starbucks to switch consumers from Fourbucks to Onebuck?

Years ago, I was an agency account executive working on the launch of the first Peugeot automobile in the U.S. market, the Peugeot 403.

It's the same car Peter Falk drove in the Columbo television series. A dowdy-looking vehicle to be sure, but Road & Track magazine named the Peugeot 403 as one of the "seven best-made cars in the world."

The first year, the car sold quite well and the client was pleased. The next year, we got the word that Peugeot was going to introduce the 404, a better-looking car with a slightly larger engine. Great, I thought, replacing the 403 with the 404 could substantially increase sales.

But we're not going to that, replied the client. We're going to sell both models side-by-side in the showrooms.

I was appalled. And for months I argued with Peugeot's U.S. general manager. The old model, the 403, is going to look outdated next to the 404. And the 404 (which was 15% more expensive) is going to look too expensive next to the 403. I tried to offer options. You can either bring in the 404 and discontinue the 403 or stick with the 403 and don't bring in the 404.

Finally out of sheer frustration, the general manager said to me, "Please, Al, stop it. These decisions are made in Paris."

When the second model hit the showrooms, instead of doubling sales as the client expected, total sales actually declined.

Saturn is a repeat of Peugeot. Initially, the Saturn was available in one model only, the S-series. (You could have it in a two-door, a four-door or a hatchback version.) Four years after its introduction, Saturn hit its high-water mark, selling 286,003 vehicles in 1994.

By 1998, Saturn had a problem. Sales had declined to 231,786, a result that could have been expected since the S-series was getting a little long in the tooth.

Solution: The introduction of a larger, more expensive Saturn, the L-series. Headline of an April 5, 1999 article in Automotive News: "Saturn expects new model to double sales."

The article featured Cynthia Trudell, president of Saturn Corp: "With a new mid-size sedan and wagon, Trudell is betting that she can double Saturn's sales to about 500,000 units within a couple of years."

It never happened. Sales never again topped the 286,003 vehicles Saturn sold in the year 1994. And last year, with five models to sell (Astra, Aura, Sky, Outlook and Vue), Saturn sold just 188,004 vehicles.

Saturn's S-series and L-series were like the Peugeot 403 and 404. The older S-series cars looked "outdated" and the newer and larger L-series cars looked "too expensive."

Marketers should study history. The world's largest-selling vehicles were often a single model with only minor updates on an annual basis -- Ford's Model T, for example, with more than 15 million sold.

Then there's the Volkswagen Beetle, with over 21 million sold. There was no Basic Beetle, Super Beetle, Family Beetle, Turbocharged Beetle, Economy Beetle. There was just one model.

I bought a Beetle in 1965 for $1,645. One price, no options.

No automatic transmission. No power steering. No air conditioning. No radio. No undercoating. No cash back. No financing. No discounts. No driving instructions.

No sales pitch either. I gave the salesman a check and he gave me the key.

In architecture, less is more. In marketing, more is often less.