Here is the text of my article published in MARKETING earlier this month (in case you missed it in the print version).
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I’ve been fascinated by Starbucks’ recent experiment in unbranded, “local” stores. One minute I think it’s a brilliant idea and a return to the company’s “third place” promise. The next minute I think the day they consider their brand a liability is the day they’re done. So I’ll be watching this one with a lot of interest. That said, one of the interesting sub-plots included in all the press coverage concerned how Starbucks went about observing their competition. Essentially, local coffee shops complained about not-so-covert Starbucks employees idling in their cafes with folders marked conspicuously with the word “Observation.” Another purveyor noted that he had to ask large groups of Starbucks employees to leave his store when their sheer numbers overwhelmed the space. Of course, these local coffee shops know Starbucks as a competitor, and who wouldn’t be at least a little uncomfortable with your rival spending so much time in your space? But here’s where you can’t fault Starbucks: competitive auditing is a basic component of strategic hygiene. As marketing professionals, we have to know what’s happening in the competitive landscape. Purposeful differentiation is not possible without that knowledge.
But what’s the line between gathering competitive intelligence and industrial espionage? How can you keep tabs on your competitors in a responsible manner?
A decade ago, I was tasked with photographing construction signage as part of a project for a general contractor. I was rightfully chased from a competitor’s site because I was trespassing. My activities were thrilling, but not legal. So I’m not going to address bribery, hacking, B&E, and other crimes clearly on the no-no list. Instead, here are three “nevers” I think should guide the ethics of gathering competitive intelligence:
Never Create an Excessive Expense for Your Competitors
An ethical audit never costs a competitor critical time, money or talent. That is, an audit should not cause economic harm, either in the expenditure of resources or the loss of opportunity. Of course, the term “excessive” is open to interpretation, but the guiding principle is important. For example, I think it’s okay to request corporate overview literature, but definitely not okay to request a proposal or other customized document. The former is existing collateral that likely exists in large quantities and will cost a few minutes and some postage to secure. The latter is essentially hijacking a human resource under the pretenses of an opportunity that does not exist. Another example: it’s okay to visit a competing restaurant chain so long as you order enough food to be consistent with a typical customer, and your presence doesn’t preclude ordinary customers from their patronage.
Never Allow an Insider to Compromise Their Ethics
You have a friend who happens to work for an organization you’re tasked with auditing. It would seem reasonable to have them secure materials and just skip the request for information forms on the Web site. Whether or not their willing to do this, you’ve now allowed them to compromise their ethical responsibilities. The person or mail house sending you corporate collateral doesn’t know what you’re really doing, and that’s a good kind of ignorance. A friend or acquaintance does know your agenda, so their compliance definitely violates their obligations as an employee. Worse, if they hand over materials it could, technically, even be considered theft. That also means you’d be in possession of stolen materials. Yikes. Steer clear of involving insiders.
Never Misrepresent Who You Are Unless You Absolutely Have No Other Option
One of the advantages of an increasingly networked and transparent world is the ready availability of all sorts of Web-based information. And modern retail environments are “brand destinations.” So peeping on the competition requires a lot less sneaking around than it did just a few years ago. An online sleuth and keen observer can secure most competitive intelligence. In B2B scenarios, some information can be harder to come by than in consumer categories. Even there, however, all-out deception to gather marketing materials is typically unnecessary and certainly to be avoided if at all possible. You’re a marketer, not a spy.
What do you think? Send your thoughts and guiding principles on the subject to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and I’ll post them to a follow-up blog. Or, perhaps I’ll just claim them as my own.
The recent deaths of the pop star, a star athlete, and the architect of the Vietnam War have inspired some interesting reactions. While the public has mourned the loss of Michael Jackson, Steve McNair and Robert McNamara, there’s also been a lot of grappling with their overall legacy. That’s because each man hardly turned out to be an easy read. Jackson’s chart-topping talent was only rivaled by his well-documented strangeness. McNair—a cool-under-fire quarterback who was also extraordinarily generous, devoted to his community, and gracious with fans—apparently wandered from his marriage and died at the hands of his 20-year-old mistress. And McNamara’s good works fighting poverty as president of the World Bank were definitely eclipsed by his role as Secretary of Defense and unanimous scapegoat of the left, right and center during the Vietnam War. I’m not making judgments about these men. Instead, I’m a witness to the public’s difficulty in arriving at its net perception of them following the reality of their deaths.
There’s a lesson here for all of us, including businesses. All organizations have reputations. Those reputations are representative of our past and present achievements, and indications of future contributions. What would be our net perception of Nike’s extraordinary ability to empower athletes if it weren’t complicated by the company’s past exploitation of third-world workers? Would non-profit hospitals be more successful in fundraising if their reputations weren’t dragged down by allegations of excessive pay to executives? As a Qwest customer, how great would I feel about the company’s bold defiance of the NSA’s domestic spying program if it weren’t for the former CEO’s indictment on 42 counts of insider trading, not to mention some shaky customer service?
These questions aren’t for answering. They can’t be answered. Instead, they create questions for ourselves: What do we truly want to be known for? What’s getting in the way? What are the words within your organization’s Venn diagram? Are they the words you want? If they aren’t, what will it take to change them?
I have a niece who’s now finishing her senior year of high school. Now that it’s May, she’s fervently in the market for a prom dress. And she has the same concern all young women prepping for the prom share: will my dress be so unique—so distinctly me—that I’ll be the only one wearing that dress at the dance? I mentioned this recently while speaking at a marketing conference in Chicago, and asked the women in the audience to remember what the primary driver was in purchasing their own prom dress. A decade or more removed from the event, they all immediately recalled a fundamental desire for their dress to be a one-of-a-kind presence.
Why am I telling you this? Because prom goers have a lot to teach us about positioning. Is your company or product going to the prom wearing the same dress everyone else is wearing? That is, is your brand—including its core message and overall look and feel—very similar to the competition? This is easy enough to find out. Across most industries, a simple competitive audit often reveals too many same-old, me-too messages and shared color palettes. A teenager knows the inherent value in being differentiated on a crowded dance floor. Does your brand?
Below is a blog entry I wrote back in February 2008…but never posted on this site (it was my second month working at PBDH and well maybe, I was feeling a bit intimidated by all the great writers here). Regardless of the reason, I just kept this one in the archives. It was regarding Hyundai and my changing perception of the brand, thanks to their “Rethink Everything” campaign.
Well it turns out that I wasn’t the only one who noticed. The Hyundai Think About It web site was one of the interactive sites selected to make the September/October 2008 issue of Communication Arts Interactive Annual 14.
John Park, writer for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners of San Francisco comments about the project:
“Looking back, though, one ‘small’ thing about this project stands out: The request for a fully integrated campaign that would change the way consumers think about Hyundais, in two months…ThinkAboutIt.com was built around an entire company and its philosophy.”
It was a nice surprise to see that as a consumer, my response to their web site and campaign as a whole was exactly what they were trying to achieve for Hyundai. As a designer, I’m thrilled to see firsthand the intangible value and importance of the service that we can provide. Kudos to everyone involved on this campaign…
iHyundai. Changing Brand Perception.
(written in February 2008)
It’s possible. When I started doing double-takes watching the commercials, that’s when I took notice of my changing perception of a brand I had known for a long time–Hyundai. The car I used to drive as a college student, which I had nicknamed the “can” because of how cheap and weightless it felt compared to the Toyota my sister was driving at the time. Over the years, I did notice an increase in popularity among Hyundai owners. But it didn’t matter to me. My perception of the brand was set. So when Hyundai started coming out with their “Rethink Everything” campaign, guess what… It started working. It wasn’t just the tagline though. The whole package of the commercial was smart and innovative (for obvious reasons, I’m only referring to the national commercials and not the local advertising). It was challenging me to not just assume that Honda and Toyota were the only non-luxury car manufacturers that cared about quality and smart design. (In fact, it made me realize how annoying and uninspiring other car commercials have been.)
My guess is that Hyundai looked to an industry outside their own for inspiration. Good thinking. Something that we should all strive to do more of. I should point out that I’m only speaking from a brand perspective because I haven’t driven a Hyundai since my college years. (That might change now.) But to have changed my perception of a brand from being cheap and uncool to being a brand that cares about quality and smart design, that’s what every branding, marketing and PR firm dreams about.
Pay attention next time you see a Hyundai commercial and browse through the company website (check out ThinkAboutIt.com). It really will make you Rethink the brand.
In an effort to protect the official sponsors of the Olympic Games from competition by non-sponsored brands, Beijing is taking the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sponsorship-protection practices to new extremes. According to this WSJ.com article, it’s consistent with IOC rules to hide prominent logos belonging to a sponsor’s major competitor. But enforcers in Beijing have gone so far as to apply tape across virtually any logo in any place, whether it belongs to a sponsor competitor or not. Wandering through the Olympic grounds you’ll see pieces of white tape on elevator button plates, fire alarms and even toilets. There’s even an official tape replacement squad to ensure that any piece of tape gone astray is quickly replaced. Which points to the fact that these pieces of tape do tend to “go astray”.
There may be no better way to draw attention to an inconspicuous graphic than to cover it with an out-of-place bit of masking tape. Would a similar campaign actually be an effective guerilla-marketing tactic to promote your brand?
Lately I’ve been taking note of companies that really make an effort to create a positive environment and experience for their customers, and sadly, those that don’t. Granted, many factors come together to create a positive experience for a consumer—from finding a convenient parking space to being greeted by a friendly staff person. But why is the actual environment—the aesthetics, the architecture, the signage, the paint color—so often overlooked by marketers and business owners?
Many retailers, restaurants and other service-related companies really hit a homerun in this department. A few of may favorite brand experiences include shopping at the flagship REI store in Seattle or slurging for groceries at Whole Foods. My favorite weekend getaway is a visit to The Inn at Langley. These experiences are memorable, unique, healthy and inviting.
So, it could be argued that grocery stores and retailers and even a few banks, really have come a long way in creating a positive brand experience. But what about the healthcare industry? Why does going to the doctor, dentist or physical therapist have to be such a mediocre experience? Even if you have the best physician in town and you’ve had a great check-up, you may walk out of the doctor’s office feeling sub-par. Was it the drab walls or the beat-up carpet?
Marketers, brand managers and business owners: don’t think your job stops at producing the latest brochure or advertisement. Don’t overlook the value of a fresh coat of paint on the walls. Many healthcare organizations have started investing more in marketing efforts, but why stop at a great ad campaign when you can also create an experience that your patients (and staff) may actually enjoy? The power of a great brand experience may be equivalent to the power of word-of-mouth advertising. Or, perhaps they’re one in the same.
A simple rule for developing breakthrough ideas
On May 14 I spoke at the University of Washington on the use of process within strategy and design projects. During this presentation, hosted by design faculty member Annabelle Gould, I articulated what I see as the major tension within process: repeatable versus unexpected. That is, a process should be the result of a proven methodology that can be applied over and over again—you don’t want to have to make it up as you go each time you start a new project. At the same time, you don’t want the same process to start churning out the same results. Generating the same results is great for homogenizing milk, but not in creative endeavors. For us, new ideas are entirely the point. So we want an expected approach to yield unexpected ideas. That’s the tension.
For creative professionals, a great process is a repeatable approach for putting yourself in position to connect with the unexpected. Note that I think it’s about putting yourself in position to connect with the unexpected, not that the process itself will spit out new ideas. That’s what your brain is for.
When it comes to using process to get to great ideas, I apply what I call the New/Different Rule. Creating new, unexpected ideas is the result of either:
1) Putting yourself in position to receive new information that helps you think about something in a different way.
Or . . .
2) Creating a different way of brainstorming so you come up with something new.
The first is usually about research. While the term research can sometimes sound a bit overstarched and monolithic, research can be a fantastic means of debunking assumptions. And that’s all about getting access to new information that will help you think about something in a different way. When we started working with the Seattle Symphony, one of the assumptions we were working with was that celebrity guest artists were important to have on the cover of sales materials because their celebrity images sold tickets. However, the research we did with subscribers and other ticket buyers revealed that the truth was citizens identified their patronage with the orchestra—not the guest artists. They were passionate and definitive about this. This new information fueled our creative explorations in a totally different direction.
The second is about architecting better brainstorms. During my talk at UW, I revealed a dirty industry secret: most brainstorms don’t work. I’ve been doing this for 10 years, and I’ve participated in plenty of brainstorms that didn’t generate anything more than some interesting tangents and maybe some toilet humor. Coming up with breakthrough ideas requires a more thoughtful approach to the brainstorms themselves. Putting “brainstorm” on the calendar and then hoping for the best isn’t enough. Last summer when we were concepting for Boeing’s communications at the 2007 Paris Air Show, we structured our brainstorm around a different question: what are the bad ideas? I know this sounds counterproductive, but it worked. Sure, we came up with some stinkers, but we also came up with some concepts that eventually inspired the idea. And we never would have arrived there without approaching the brainstorm in a different way.
So there you have it. The New/Different Rule. Put yourself in position to receive new information that helps you think about something in a different way. Or create a different way of brainstorming so you come up with something new. I’d love to hear how it works for you!
As graphic designers we might presume to know our clients’ business in and out — we might even be presumptuous enough to think we know our clients’ business more than they do. However, we do not go to their workplace everyday, we do not experience the ins and outs of their business, we do not participate in the small intricacies that make their business flourish. So, in fact, we will never know as much as our clients’ know about their own company and workplace.
But, because we must know all we can about their company to do our job effectively, we must become diggers — or design archeologists. It is our responsibility to know how to showcase our client’s company in the public marketplace. By researching their competitors, interviewing those who play an integral part in the success of their company, and simply listening to them — we can come to play an important role in their success and become their valuable collaborator. Together we can uncover a world of treasures that might be surprises or gems — chunks of knowledge or details that we or the client may have never imagined or anticipated.
This search for treasures can result in a smarter, better designed product for the client and can help stretch what we or they may have ever perceived possible. Surprises are good and spark enthusiasm and great work. By doing our research we can preserve the integrity of the client’s style, work ethic and build on the foundation they have already established on their own.
Getting to know our clients and understanding why they make the decisions they make, and where they want to go can only give our solutions a stronger point of view and a sharper presence in the outside world.
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance — it is the illusion of knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstin (historian)
I am somewhat of a magazine hound and I’m always on the lookout for new and interesting publications. A recent find is Monocle from Tyler Brûlé, the man behind Wallpaper* back in the nineties. Monocle has a lot in common with its predecessor and the attention to detail is what you would expect: great typography, tight layouts, stunning photography—even the various paper stocks are worth noting. What makes it better than Wallpaper* is that the articles themselves feel a bit more substantive. In a recent review of the magazine Business Week asks: Can rarefied information be sold like a luxury product? That appears to be exactly what Monocle is trying to do.
But I think what most attracts me to Monocle is a seamless (and beautiful) transition from print to Web. So few magazine Web sites live up to their print counterparts and magazine brands are quite often diluted and dumbed-down online. Not so with Monocle. That same attention to detail found inside the pages of the magazine are right there on the pages of the Web site. And it’s not just a copy and paste effort. Stories are extended with broadcast-quality video, slideshows offer rich, high resolution photography, and there’s even a companion podcast available. It’s obvious that the whole effort was intended to be multi-platform from the beginning.
For an excellent in-depth look a the entire process of designing and developing Monocle’s Web site check out the designer Dan Hill’s blog post. He covers it all in great detail. One of my favorite quotes form the article:
“We wanted to really give a sense that the website would have the same quality threshold as the print magazine in terms of production. Building a 2.0-style service, or a ‘platform for journalism’, was not at all relevant at this point.”
That’s a refreshing approach. www.monocle.com
I regularly teach a workshop at the School of Visual Concepts (SVC) on writing creative briefs. I always set up the workshop with what I believe is the fundamental tension within creative briefs: being comprehensive versus being concise. And while a big challenge in writing a creative brief is cramming a whole bunch of important information into a one-page document that should also be inspiring and…well, brief, this tension goes way beyond just creative briefs. This tension is at play in all communications, especially brand design.
This is the set-up I use: If you were mugged at the ATM, you might end up at the police precinct to give a report and offer your description of the villain. While it’s unlikely for (just) a mugging, a sketch artist might be brought in and the two of you might go back and forth with the charcoal pencil and sketch pad, endlessly adjusting details such as ear size, eyebrow height, lip shape, and on and on. If it was a slow news night, that sketch might even be shared with the public. And then what do you think would happen? Probably nothing. That’s because police sketches don’t work very well. Over the years, researchers from MIT, the University of Central Lancashire in England, and others have conducted studies that show police sketches work less than 10% of the time. Have a look at these police sketches and the actual criminal faces that informed them.
There’s not a ton of resemblance. And, just to take the Unabomber and Son of Sam as two very high profile cases, neither sketch aided in their capture at all despite press coverage that dwarfed the media buys of most brands.
Conversely, take a look at these political cartoons of George W. Bush and North Korea’s Kim Jong Il.
The proportions hardly look human, and yet we instantly recognize these individuals. And if you think this is just about having a face that everyone sees over and over, think again. The same truth is at work with those caricature artists depicting everyday citizens at waterfront piers, amusement parks, county fairs and birthday parties around the world. This isn’t about celebrity. This is about the way the brain works.
The human brain recognizes faces and other images by exaggerated characteristics, not finely tuned details. I think this also holds true in communications. Which is why there’s a lesson here for those concerned with marketing and brand design. The most recognizable brands are about big, bold strokes, not lots of details. They are concise, not comprehensive. It’s why the innovator’s use of white space is better than the stalwart’s gazillions of bullet points. Remember this when you’re having difficulty focusing your brand on just one or two exaggerated characteristics.
The inclination to be comprehensive is human. And so is the human brain’s inclination to ignore all those details. So it’s a simple formula for your brand: be bold, be concise, and be remembered. If you’re a criminal, you should hope police sketch artists keep focusing on all those finely tuned details no one will recognize.
The cobbler’s kids have no shoes for the same reason a brand design firm takes so long to update its own brand. While we absolutely live and breathe to shape and steward our clients’ unique brands, it’d been almost 14 years since the launch of our previous brand identity and 4 years since our last major overhaul of pbdh.com. So last August we got a new client: us. We knew that was the only way to make it happen, even though we knew we’d probably end up being the worst client we’ve ever had.
We started where you’re supposed to start: brand positioning. Creative firms are notorious for being positioning-less, since most are willing to be whatever clients want them to be. Also, a lot of firms end up being havens for undiagnosed ADHD sufferers, so focusing on a long-term positioning strategy for the firm itself—without the wonder and sex appeal of an actual client—can be difficult to orchestrate. Even if one person cares fervently, other stakeholders are pre-occupied with client work (go figure).
We did manage to focus long enough to develop what we believed to be a great brand position. We called it Small and Mighty and we loved how it celebrated our unique place in the marketplace. As an independent firm with a 25-year history, we thought it pointed out how we’re smaller than the too bigs, bigger than the too smalls, and mighty in our strategic and creative expertise. But this was a classic blunder. The concept was too much about us and not enough about our relationship with clients. Of course, when developing strategy for our clients, we expertly counsel them about avoiding this mistake, so you’d think we’d know better. But being a client was harder than we thought and made us realize that, when it’s all about you and your business (which it is for our clients), this is hard stuff to sort out. We’re hoping this realization makes us an even better guide and advocate for our clients.
So we started over. We went back and thought more about what makes us different, and if any of those differences were anything our clients would really care about. Concurrently, we’d been tinkering with how we develop and present our work. Instead of showing three refined directions after mowing through most of the budget, we were shrugging off our sense of vulnerability and showing dozens and dozens of rough sketches early on and encouraging clients to explore them with us. We’d also been architecting a new deliverable, called Ideation Lab, which invited our clients directly into the brainstorming process. We were having tremendous success with our new approach, even though nothing was really broken with our old one. What was moving us forward was the realization that the standard model of agency-client relationships is too territorial. This is the standard set-up: client briefs agency and agrees to pay agency. Agency then retreats to some undefined territory where “the magic happens” and tells the client to sit tight—for several weeks—until agency returns with the magic. But our process was definitively moving away from that model. Instead, we were openly inviting our clients into all aspects of the brand development process. So we had a bold idea: maybe we are the most transparent brand design firm. We were getting great results and glowing feedback from current clients about our inclusive approach to brand design and the creative process. We road-tested it with prospective clients during pitch meetings, and we got great feedback from them as well. So that was it. In a word, transparency. We’re striving to be the most transparent brand design firm.
But that was not it. Not quite. Thanks to some expert guidance from someone outside the house that pushed us a bit further—perhaps proving that no one, not even experts who do this for a living, can develop positioning without a trusted, objective, external partner. We were urged to be more clear about who we’re best suited to serve, and to not focus so exclusively on our process. Positioning statements aren’t typically external-facing, but in the spirit of transparency, here’s the positioning statement we came up with:
Phinney Bischoff Design House is a leading brand design and ideation firm on the West Coast. We work with clients in highly competitive markets to help them develop breakthrough ideas through an inclusive, transparent creative process.
Finished. This idea is who we are, what we do, and how we do it. It’s our promise to the market. From this idea we’ve completely refreshed our voice and redesigned our look and feel—including a new logo, business papers, Web site, and more.
Now for the big question: what do you think of our new brand?
