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| Yeah, because a smiley person in white yoga pants tells me a LOT about your product! |
difficult when your only impressions of the brands are the woman spinning happily in flowy skirts talking about how happy of a period they're having. A large part of marketing is your product. First and foremost if you don't have a quality product, you probably won't have a very successful campaign to market your product. Branding can make or break a product or service. Branding can be safe or risky. Branding can turn people away or bring them in out of curiosity. Some branding does both, depending who you ask. Branding is first and foremost your first impression. It establishes a reputation, creates or breaks trust, and gives your customers an idea of what to expect from your product or service.
There have been many examples branding strategies that fall nothing short of pure genius. One of my favorite marketing campaigns that helped rebrand a company is Office Max's Elf Yourself Campaign. Who hasn't done it? You crop in your friends faces and watch them dance to hip hop Christmas music in silly elf costumes and hats. The Elf Yourself campaign was an instant hit and now, six years later, hasn't lost it's steam. It is still a holiday favorite and helps bring a positive image to Office Max as a company. To me, the campaign says Office Max is fun and current. They promote friendship and involvement (you can elf not just yourself, but ALL your friends! Even the President!). It not only reaches consumers, but it gets them involved with the company. Since its introduction, more than a half a billion people have "elfed" themselves. The company took the campaign one step further in 2006, reaching out to the mobile generation with a new Elf Yourself app for the Apple marketplace. Office Max made themselves relevant by association. Hundreds of thousands of people with no interest in an office supply store suddenly had a reason to prefer Office Max over the competition were the need to arise. The campaign not only reaches people, but gets them to interact. We can see an Office Max billboard a hundred times and it not form as much of an impression as one video of Barack Obama as a hip hop elf. Expected to succeed for a seventh season during the 2013 Holidays the "Elf Yourself" campaign will probably never be surpassed (at least not with any level of originality) within the realm of office supply marketing.
While Office Max set their reputation in motion, once they introduced their new branding campaign it was out of their hands. Tim Leberecht talks about how to lose control in branding and how it can be a great thing. Office max introduced the ability to Elf Yourself, and the public ran away with it. The application has gone from an initial email campaign to something shared by thousands through social media at alarmingly viral rates. We are hyperconnected and as a whole have turned a simple campaign into a phenomenon, something no business could have done by themselves.
On the other side of branding is the type of branding that ruins your reputation, loses customers, and leaves a long lasting negative impression of your company. Quizno's is a company that has ruined their positive branding through a series of failed marketing campaigns. First, there was a series of commercials featuring a talking toaster oven that spilled out highly inappropriate sexual innuendos about sandwiches in an attempt at pushing their brand. Phrases referring to a sandwich as "tasty torpedo" and instructing the employees to "put it in me" were not received well by the general public (though they're good for a laugh, see for yourself here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LQpRQh2KSQ). Stuck between a rock and a hard place Quiznos had one chance to redeem themselves and once again failed. They introduced a series of commercials featuring some kind of rodent with a human mouth and crooked eyes (and don't forget the top hat!) singing about Quiznos with lackluster lyrics in an obnoxiously nasally voice. Of course, that did not go over well either. In 2010 Quizno's was the most rapidly declining fast food chain losing more than 600 restaurants and experiencing a 14 percent drop in sales. That steep decline is due in part to their horrible advertising campaigns that ruined their brand.The ads apparently annoyed people more than they made them hungry for some Quizno's.
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| Starbucks open support of Gay Rights has catapulted them to the top on a list of progressive companies within the LGBT community. |
While other businesses stare with their mouths agape in horror at the potential damage Starbucks could be doing to their business, others look on with admiration. Of course, bringing personal views to the forefront of your brand can have negative consequences. Starbucks has seen their fair share of boycotts and movements against them, yet they continue to grow. Starbucks stocks continue to climb. While they lost a few customers who took offense to their stand on certain issues, they gained a large following of customers who respect them for their transparency and for not giving in to social pressures to stay neutral. There's something respectable about standing up for what you believe in and Starbucks growing numbers is proof of that.
What are some of your favorite ad campaigns? What about your favorite brands? Has the way a brand represented their company ever turned you away from their products on principle alone?
Resources:
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34027/The-Top-10-Most-Remarkable-Marketing-Campaigns-EVER-Slideshow.aspx
http://www.fastcompany.com/997393/best-advertising-slogans-all-time-according-digg-users
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/31739/7-Components-That-Comprise-a-Comprehensive-Brand-Strategy.aspx
http://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/branding
http://www.mediabistro.com/appnewser/officemax-launches-elfyourself-app_b29610
http://www.businessinsider.com/worst-ads-2011-2?op=1
http://www.business2community.com/marketing/marketing-holiday-campaigns-elf-yourself-still-reigns-0322134
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/05/28/can-starbucks-stock-keep-growing.aspx
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