Kristi Barrow

Recently I attended an Amcham (American Chamber of Commerce) Lecture over lunch, featuring Nick Foley, Managing Director and Mike Staniford, Executive Creative Director of Landor from the Sydney office of Landor Associates.

After spending 2 years with a company where “brand” was almost considered a dirty word, I always love listening to passionate brand marketers discussing their art.  Nick and Mike discussed some of the challenges facing brands in this age and how they needed to be relevant, differentiated and simple if they are going to cut through the 8,000 brand messages we receive every day.

Emotional vs Rational Marketing

In this current economic climate, the Landor guys believe that trust will be one of the most important brand values for successful brands.  I tend to agree.  In uncertain times, people return to the things they know and feel secure with.

Trust is an emotional response, and Nick said most Brands these days are competing on rational differentiators.  We are likely to see a return to emotional branding in the future, because if done well, companies can create a much stronger bond with their customer than would ever be possible if they just pushed out product feature messages.

Hovis – returns to wholesome values

Hovis, a UK bread brand (that I am unfamiliar with) has gone through many brand identity iterations, and has now returned to a homely, secure and trusting identity.  Watch their fantastic commercial below.  It’s also worth checking out the comments on Youtube.

Preem – getting the toilets right

Another one of the interesting case studies on emotional branding was Preem, a petrol station / convenience store chain in Sweden.  Preem was facing unfavourable market conditions and was struggling to differentiate themselves and create a connection with their customers.

They realised that competing on completely rational product features was not going to win, so they decided to focus on the female segment, differentiate themselves as friendly and caring, and target them with something very close to every woman’s heart – the bathrooms.

Service Station (gas station to you non-Aussies) toilets, bathrooms, loos or dunnies, (however you refer to them), do not have the best reputation in Australia.  I am sure this was the case in Sweden to.  Hands up anyone who HASN’T had to rush into the servo, beg the attendant for the key, and then run as fast as your legs could safely take you with a large plank of wood attached to a tiny rusty key, only to find that the toilet is dirty, smelly, full of spider webs, and there is not a  skeric of toilet paper to be seen.

I can’t wait to go to Sweden so I can try the bathrooms at Preem – is that a rational response, definitely not but what an emotional connection!

Read the Landor thinking article, Sex and the c-store, or getting the toilets right for more information on Preem.

Takeaways

The two key brand issues I took away from this presentation were:

• Engagement.  This has become somewhat of a cliche as everyone is talking about engagement. The problem is there seems to be very few companies that do this well.  TripAdvisor is at the top of my list as their whole business is based on consumer engagement.
  But do you think it is easier for them since they are not selling directly to their customers?
  In fact, they really are consumers and contributors. The travel companies are their paying customers.
  What other companies really engage with their customers?
• Trust.  Trust is going to make or break companies in the future.
  Do you think it’s possible for companies to succeed without trust?
  How do companies build trust with their customers?